“I cannot read Urdu but noticed a large poster in the language recently,” said former West Bengal Chief Secretary Ardhendu Sen.
“A little later, I noticed its meaning was written at the bottom of the poster in Hindi. It said ‘do not get scared, it is Jai Shri Ram written in Urdu’,” he said as the entire audience laughed with him. Mr. Sen, a 1976-batch IAS officer, is the first former bureaucrat from Bengal to attend a street protest hosted by a civil society platform, Joint Forum Against NRC, in the city’s central area on Tuesday.
He said the present protest has added “humour and wit to our life”. “The character of the movement has witnessed a sea change. The language has changed; so many posters, placards with so much of humour and fun. I never witnessed this before,” he said. Mr Sen’s brief speech was also filled with satire. “I thank Prime Minister Narendra Modi…,” he said at one point.
“He has done what [Mahatma] Gandhiji, Rabindranath [Tagore] and [Jawaharlal] Nehru could not achieve. Time magazine indicated earlier that Mr. Modi is a great divider, but while dividing the country he has brought it together as well. The way Hindus are standing hand-in-hand with Muslims, the way they came together in Shaheen Bagh and Park Circus…the way they unfurl the national flag, all together, singing one song, it is amazing,” said Mr. Sen.
“Mr. Modi made it possible and like Dilip Ghosh [Bengal BJP president], I would like to say, Narendra Modi amar rahe (long live Narendra Modi),” Mr. Sen quipped.
“More than 1.5 crore people are estimated to have taken to streets. I do not know if in Indian history so many ever stepped out of their houses to protest, other than during the Civil Disobedience movement,” said the former bureaucrat, who incidentally is a staunch critic of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. However, on Tuesday he targeted only the “divisive policies” of the Central government.
“Once by killing Gandhi an attempt was made, after Independence, to convert the country to a Hindu Rashtra. A similar attempt has been made now. [But] the people of this country came together to resist the attempt in the past, they are resisting it with equal integrity now,” Mr. Sen said.
Noted economist Amiya Bagchi spoke too. “We all were brought up in a Hindu culture but that was different from this culture of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Rabindranath always warned against such attempts, such culture to divide people on basis of language or religion. He used to say that people from all cultures and religions have come together in India and we need to remind ourselves of him at this hour,” Professor Bagchi said.
