KOLKATA: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in a letter to Governor CV Ananda Bose expressed ‘shock’ at his ‘unilateral’ determination to commemorate the state’s basis day on Tuesday. Banerjee identified that the ache and trauma of partition was such, that folks within the state have by no means commemorated any day as basis day since India’s independence.
“I’m surprised and shocked to know that you’ve got determined to organise a programme on 20.06.2023 at Raj Bhavan, Kolkata, commemorating what you’ve got peculiarly chosen to explain because the ‘State Foundation of West Bengal’, Banerjee stated within the letter to Bose on Monday. She stated that in a telephonic dialogue earlier within the day, Bose had admitted {that a} ‘unilateral and non-consultative determination’ to declare a day because the state’s Foundation Day is just not warranted.
Banerjee additionally identified that West Bengal was ‘carved out of the undivided State of Bengal in 1947 by way of a most painful and traumatic course of. The course of concerned uprooting of tens of millions of individuals throughout the border and loss of life and displacement of innumerable households.’ “Since Independence, we in West Bengal have never rejoiced over, or commemorated, or celebrated, any day as the Foundation Day of West Bengal. Rather, we have seen the Partition as a result of unleashing of communal forces that could not be resisted at that point of time,” she stated.
Banerjee additionally wrote that folks have been born and introduced up right here and have by no means commemorated any State Foundation Day for the aforesaid causes. If an occasion is carried out at Raj Bhavan, it ‘could at greatest be a programme of a political get together, pushed by vendetta, however not of the folks or its Government,’ the chief minister stated.
“The state was not founded on any particular day, least of all on any 20th of June,” the letter learn. On June 20, 1947, two conferences of separate units of legislators within the Bengal Assembly have been held. One of those that needed West Bengal as a part of India, voted in favour of the decision by a majority. The different was of legislators of areas which ultimately grew to become East Pakistan. For the district of Sylhet which was a part of Assam, it was determined to conduct a referendum. Nearly 2.5 million folks have been displaced from either side and properties value crores of rupees burnt down in post-partition rioting.
The British Parliament handed the India Independence Act on July 15, 1947, with none readability on the borders of the 2 states being torn aside – Bengal and Punjab. On August 9 of that yr, a joint assertion was issued by outgoing Premier of Bengal HS Suharawardy And incoming Premiers of West Bengal and East Bengal, PC Ghosh and Khwaja Nazimuddin respectively, interesting for a peaceable and orderly transition and stating that boundaries of the Dominions aren’t but mounted.
The Cyril Radcliffe Boundary Commission award demarcating the borders was made public on August 17, two days after the formal announcement of independence. A ‘Peace Run’ by NCC cadets and a Sit and Draw occasion by college youngsters will even be held on the event.
