‘Bhadralok’ (literally means ‘gentleman’ or ‘well-mannered person’) is a Bengali word for the new class of ‘gentlefolk,’ which is used in a good sense for Bengalis. The glory of United Bengal (that is, before partition) is known to all because the genius people, whether in political fields, religious arena, literature, games and sports, science and technology, cultural activities, etc were from Bengal. Unfortunately, after the partition in 1947, the people of Bengal, Punjab, and a few other states suffered. Refugees from East Pakistan, mainly Bengali Hindus, migrated to West Bengal to save their lives. The statistics reveal that an estimated 16. 7 million people were forced to leave within four years of partition.
During the Bangladesh liberation war, an estimated ten million people of East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh) fled the country and took refuge in India, particularly in West Bengal and in the North-east region, especially Tripura and Assam (wikipedia.org). Anyway, even after partition, West Bengal was an industrially developed State with high state per capita income. Now, in the state, industrial development is at a low ebb, and as a result, youths in search of employment have been migrating to other states. It is pertinent to mention that
“West Bengal, which was the second largest contributor to the domestic product of the nation in 1950-51, was declared a ‘backward state’ in 1972. The Central Minister Mohan Dharia announced in the Rajya Sabha that ‘the whole of West Bengal except for Calcutta/Kolkata, Howrah and 24 Parganas districts is now being treated as a backward area” (ijcrt.org/papers/IJCRT2012285).
According to the 2011 census, 16,56,952 youths migrated from West Bengal to other states (pib.gov.in/PressRelease). All these reveal the State is not passing through a good economic way.
Presently, the saddest part is that in every election in West Bengal, unbelievable violence took place. The most unfortunate is that killing, assaulting, injuring, hurting, and burning of houses of the common people took place during and after elections. From all these, it is evident that political leaders in power are not able to manage. Many of them are corrupted, as is evident from the Calcutta High Court verdicts. The corruption has erupted in the form of the ‘cut money concept.’ May be this is the root cause of violence. So, I will not comment on anything about the corrupted political leaders of the State, but my simple suggestion to the people of the State who are known as Bhadralok, please look into the neighbouring state of Odisha, where the BJD Government to the BJP Government came to power, but not a single murder took place. Bhadralok babus please don’t be trapped by the corrupted political leaders. Also, my request to the IAS, IPS, and other Indian service officers, please save all the State’s people without any partiality because I can’t appeal to the State service officers as the reason is obvious. I am an ordinary person and a senior citizen. During my service days, I travelled across India and abroad for academic activities, so any type of violence or killing hurt me.
Prof Shankar Chatterjee, Hyderabad
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