Mamata Banerjee and TMC came to power in Bengal with the clarion call of Maa, Mati, Manush. However, the political environment under TMC is snatching sons from their mothers, reducing the space of Bangla and giving it to Urdu, and insensitively shooting down the people. Two Dalit youths who were leading the protest in a local school to replace Urdu and reinstate Bangla medium teachers are now dead! While politicians, parties, police and intelligentsia are busy finding “communal” angle to the tragedy and go on blaming each other, the Bengali conscience has been attacked yet again! ‘Nandigram’ has been created yet again!
“We don’t need Urdu teacher; we have been requesting for a Bengali teacher for the last two years” – with this demand students of Darivit High School organised a protest in front of the school. The post was reserved for Scheduled Caste candidate. The post had been converted to General category. Abhijit Kundu, the headmaster, resides at Siliguri, which is around a kilometre from the school. Nevertheless, Nurul Huda, one of the assistant teachers, is acting as a headmaster with the help of local Trinamool Congress leaders.
Family members mourn the death of Rajesh Sarkar at their residence near Islampur in North Dinajpur
Nurul Huda prepared the roaster of the school, demanding a full-time teacher of Urdu. The area is Hindu dominated, and more than 90 per cent of students are Hindu. Nurul Huda has been trying to introduce Urdu for the last few years. He engaged a part-time Urdu teacher, Md Sadad.
Partha Chatterjee, Education Minister, Bengal claimed that Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) cadres were brought from ‘outside’ to create unrest and both of the students were close to ABVP. Minister claimed that Police didn’t fire in the school campus
As the total number of Muslim students is less and all of them are Bengali speaking, even Muslim students did not agree to opt for Urdu as a subject in the higher secondary class. Students reported that Md Sadad used to come once in a month to collect the salary.
Language Requirement Curbed
September 18, 2018; one Urdu teacher and a Sanskrit teacher came to join as Assistant Teacher in Darivit School. It was reported that the Urdu teacher is closely associated with local MLA and Minister Golam Robbani. In protest, students started agitation and barricaded the school premise. School administration informed BDO and Inspector-in-Charge of Islampur. Rabindranath Mondal, District Inspector of Schools (DI), came to solve the problem. In the presence of DI resolution had been prepared in school letter-head regarding the appointment of two new teachers. It was decided that the school would not take the new teacher at present. DI office promised to send two teachers as per the requirement of the school. The school came back to normalcy on September 19, classes held, students were back to classes.
Family members mourn the death of Tapash Barman at their residence near Islampur in West Bengal’s North Dinajpur district on September 21 2018
On September 20, the same two teachers came back to join with a big police force. Nurul Huda also organised local goons from nearby Gulopara area. With this development, students became furious and started a protest in front of the school. It has been reported that the goons assembled over there started molesting the girl students in protest. Locals like Rajesh Sarkar (19) and Tapas Barman (21) came in front to save their sisters.
Rajesh Sarkar
As narrated by local people Police started firing on the crowd. It was beyond the expectation of local villagers. Initially, they were confused, later they tried to shift the wounded to the nearby hospitals. They also faced obstruction at the time of carrying the patients to hospitals. Fundamentalist elements stopped the vehicle at Gulopara, tortured the family members and also beat the wounded Rajesh at that time. Rajesh died on the way to the hospital. Tapas died on the next day. Both Rajesh and Tapas are the members of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). Tapas Barman belongs to Scheduled Caste community (Sub-Caste Rajbangshi), he was a 3rd-year student of ITI course. Rajesh Sarkar was from Namashudra (SC) community; he was a first-year student of ITI course.
TMC at its Communal Best
Partha Chatterjee, Education Minister, Bengal claimed that Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) cadres were brought from ‘outside’ to create unrest and both of the students were close to ABVP. Minister claimed that Police didn’t fire in the school campus. RSS organised the crime, i.e. RSS men killed the ABVP activists. State RSS leadership immediately reacted and demanded an unconditional apology from the Minister. A large number of mass organisations organised a protest against the murder of the innocent Dalit students.
Tapas Burman
Why Partha Chatterjee and the CM Mamata Banerjee are scared about RSS? There was almost no recruitment of school teachers in the last few years. The West Bengal Primary Education Board declared TET result on November 23, 2013. That was found to be the largest scam of TMC Government. The Government had to withdraw the panel. All the school committee has been dissolved. There is only a steering committee headed by local TMC leaders. Most of the cases are like Arabul Islam, who threw a metal jug full of water as a lady teacher differed his opinion. The school governing is completely corrupt, communalised and politicised, Monibhata High School is within a few kilometres from Darivit. 11 new teachers are waiting to join the duties after getting the proper appointment of School Service Commission. Headteacher, Muhammad Ishar is also a member of Panditpota Panchayat Samity. Ishar, one of the powerful TMC leaders of the locality, had announced that every new teacher has to pay few lakh rupees before entering the school. It is a very common picture for Primary and Secondary schools in the state. Education Minister knows the situation and tries to divert the attention by blaming the RSS and BJP.
