Exactly 20 years ago, Kolkata lost its birthday. It used to be celebrated on 24 August for many years, the day British merchant and administrator Job Charnock set foot in the cluster of villages on the banks of River Hooghly in 1690 that eventually grew into the first capital of the British Raj in India.
In May 2003, the Calcutta High Court ruled that the villages of Kolikata, Sutanuti, and Gobindopur existed much before Charnock showed up. How could his arrival mark the city’s date of birth? Since then, Kolkata has been birthday-less.
But now, as if to compensate for that loss, it seems that West Bengal, of which Kolkata is capital city, is on course to celebrate the state’s birthday not once but twice a year from 2024 onwards. Of course, the authorities are calling it a more grandiloquent “foundation day”. But thanks to the bitter rivalry between the Centre and the state, which has spilled over into the arena of when West Bengal came into being, the state is set to have a birthday bonanza.
Centre vs Mamata Banerjee
The first one was sprung upon West Bengal this year on 20 June. Sprung upon is right. Almost nobody in the state, not even Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, knew that West Bengal had acquired a foundation day. It was a bolt from the blue. Such a day had never been observed in West Bengal before, ever.
An exchange of hostilities followed between the Raj Bhavan and the chief minister’s office after Governor CV Ananda Bose announced that he was hosting an event to commemorate 20 June 1947 as West Bengal’s foundation day, as advised by the Ministry of Home Affairs. Some say the advisory came after the West Bengal BJP raised a demand for it last year.
Banerjee would have none of it. She wrote an impassioned letter to the governor, urging him to desist. “West Bengal was carved out of the undivided state of Bengal in 1947 through a most painful and traumatic process…uprooting millions of people across the border…The slicing out of West Bengal was seen as a historical necessity at that point of time but it was a tragic destiny for its people. The state was not founded on any particular day, least of all on any June 20.”
Her appeal fell on deaf ears. The Raj Bhavan marked the day with song, dance and high tea. The BJP was out on the streets of Kolkata to celebrate the role of its ideologue Syama Prasad Mookerjee. The party claims Mookerjee batted to ensure that Kolkata remained in West Bengal during Partition and did not go to East Pakistan.
So, in her true style, Banerjee has now called an all-party meeting on Monday to thrash out a second birthday for West Bengal. The favoured date at the moment is 15 April, the first day of the Bengali new year, celebrated by everyone in the state as Poila Boishakh.
Can she pull it off? Numerically, yes. In the state assembly, a bill for Paschim Banga Divas will glide through, given the majority of the Trinamool Congress (TMC). But the going is expected to be contentious.
The Left is calling it a waste of time and money on an irrelevant issue, which at best furthers the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) agenda of causing divisions among people. Some in the Congress suggest a “Sanhati Diwas” or Solidarity Day instead.
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Paschim Banga Divas
The BJP is using the controversy to attack Banerjee with its favoured charge of ‘minority appeasement’. They claim she is distorting the history of the birth of West Bengal in an attempt to erase the communal elements of Partition of India.
That there is another proposal for West Bengal to have its own anthem—a state song, as it were—has further irked the main opposition party in the state.
But the BJP knows it is probably on the weaker wicket against Banerjee, who has repeatedly managed to whip up the issue of Bengali pride and identity to battle Hindutva.
Even before the BJP appeared on the horizon of state politics, her emotive slogan, Ma Mati Manush, felled the Left. Once the BJP was knocking at the door, in 2019, it was ‘Bangla nijer meye ke chaye’ or ‘Bengal wants its own daughter’.
In 2021, Banerjee hurled the ‘bohiragoto brahmastra’ at the BJP – branding them outsiders who were trying to force their way into Bengal. The outcome is recent history. This time, too, by pushing for Paschim Banga Divas on Poila Boishakh, she will likely hit gold.
In this circumstance, as a loyal Kolkatan, would it be excessive to expect her to assign a birthday to Kolkata as well? If West Bengal can have two birthdays, surely the chief minister can name a date of birth for its capital city.
The author is a senior journalist based in Kolkata. She tweets @Monideepa62. Views are personal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)