Rally in Plassey, West Bengal
There is a stone Obelisk that has been placed at Plassey by the British colonialists to mark the defeat of the forces of the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-Daulah by the army of Robert Clive of the East India Company. On the Obelisk is inscribed – Battle of Plassey — June 23, 1757. Near this spot, in preparation for the rally, the activists of the BBPPF had put up hoardings of anti-imperialist slogans. A bust of Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah had been erected at the spot for this program. The program began with the leaders of the BBPPF garlanding this bust. They then marched towards the maidan where the rally was being held, militantly shouting slogans against imperialism and hailing the unity of the people of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Speaker after speaker decried the fact that the only memorial to an epic battle which opened the way to British colonistion of whole of India was by the colonialist Lord Curzon. Where as the memorials of the fighters who gave their lives like Mir Madan, Mohanlal and Maharaja Nanda Kumar stand unmarked and unattended in the jute fields. The speakers at the rally highlighted the grave dangers to peace and well-being of the peoples of the subcontinent, from imperialism. They called for united struggle of the peoples of the three countries against imperialism and war and for settling of all disputes in trilateral and bilateral forums of the three countries, free from imperialist intervention. They called upon the governments of the three countries to ease visa and travel restrictions, recognising that partition had divided crores of families.
Comrade Prakash Rao dwelt on the significance of learning the lessons of history. He noted that 250 years after the Battle of Plassey, the Indian state had no monument either to honour those who fell battling the forces of East India Company, or to tell the story of that battle which lead to the conquest of Bengal by the British. He pointed out that many of us know the role played by Mir Jaffer, the traitorous commander of Nawab Siraj ud Daulah, in collaborating with Robert Clive. Today, the successors of the Mir Jaffers and other traitors are ruling in our country, as well as in Bangladesh and Pakistan. They sold us out to the British in 1757, then again in 1857 and they betrayed various other uprisings of our people in between and afterwards.
Comrade Prakash Rao drew attention to the fact that both before 1857 and especially after the Ghadar of 1857, the British ruling circles discussed, inside and outside parliament, about the need to create a class of Indians in whose interest it would be to defend colonial rule and plunder. They successfully created such a class. Later they created political parties like the Indian National Congress which would act like a safety valve, to ensure that the anti colonial struggle of the Indian people remained within safe bounds and did not threaten colonial and imperialist interests. Most importantly, the British ruling circles carried out a systematic genocide of Indian thought. The people of our subcontinent are still deprived of political power, comrade Prakash Rao pointed out. They are still subject to imperialist plunder. August 1947 resulted in the partition of the subcontinent and the continued enslavement of our peoples. The task before us is to organize the workers and peasants, women and youth to come to power and we have to learn the lessons of history in order to achieve this.
Taking forward the discussion, Comrade Debabrata Biswas, M.P., and General Secretary of the All India Forward Bloc, dwelt on the colonization of the mind and the rewriting of history carried out by the colonialists. He said that we Indians are taught that we have no philosophy, no culture, no history. This is the way in which the imperialists have colonized our minds and ensured their domination over our countries. With many examples, Comrade Biswas explained how the imperialists are carrying on the cultural enslavement of our people till today. He regretted that neither the Central Government, nor the governments of West Bengal, had even made an effort to create a memorial at Plassey that would be a tribute to our martyrs and would reflect the Indian people’s side of the struggle.
The rally concluded with a rousing speech by Manik Samajdaar, Convenor of the BBPPF. A moving cultural performance of patriotic songs by folk artistes brought the evening to a close.
The Bangladesh Chapter of the Bangladesh Bharat Pakistan Peoples Forum will hold its plenary meeting on July 25, 2007 in Dhaka. The meeting will discuss a proposal to organize a peoples rally from Dhaka to Lahore via India in November 2007. |
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