Syama Prasad Mookerjee and West Bengal Day

20^th June is a very significant date for the residents of West Bengal. On that day in 1947 a resolution was passed in the then Bengal assembly that the western part of Bengal would remain a part of independent India.

Prior to this day, a meeting was held in early April at the temple town of Tarakeshwar by the Bangiya Hindu Mahasabha. The leader was the educationist-social worker turned politician Syama Prasad Mookerjee.

My grandfather Amulya Ratan Mukherji – a distant cousin of Syama Prasad and an active member of Bangiya Hindu Mahasabha – attended the meeting at the Shaiva-teertha and remembered the historic date till his last breath.

That particular conference helped to mobilize public awareness among the Hindu population in Bengal and finally led to the creation of the State of West Bengal. Without the great role of Syama Prasad Mookerjee, there would not have been any West Bengal on the India map today.

Initially Syama Prasad was against the partition of Bengal from the Union of India. Despite his best and tireless efforts, when Syama found that the partition of India was almost confirmed and that the entire State of Bengal would become a part of the new nation of Pakistan, he was at his eloquent and energetic best.

Full of logic and courage, analysis and authority, he declared that if Bengal would have to be divided then the Hindu-dominated parts of Bengal should also have their rightful due. Thankfully the majority of the political personalities involved concurred with him. Thus the State of Bengal was truncated into West Bengal and East Pakistan.

Without him there would not have been any West Bengal at all. Syama Prasad’s idea of West Bengal was not only for Hindus: it was open to all religions as well as to atheists and agnostics. It was not only for the Bengali-speaking population: it welcomed all communities and faiths who wished to make Bengal their home. This was the vital contribution of this exemplary visionary.

In the late 1930s Syama Prasad Mookerjee joined Hindu Mahasabha who were fighting for the Hindu majority of the population in the country. Later he formed his own political party Bharatiya Jan Sangh, the forerunner to the BJP. His personal secretary Atal Bihari Vajpayee always admitted that he learnt political etiquette, ideology and administration at the feet of his guru, Syama Prasad.

My Dadu always maintained, “Syama would never say ‘Jan Sangh’. His booming voice would always say with pride ‘Bharatiya Jan Sangh’. He was that kind of a patriot. For him the word BHARATIYA symbolized national unity. Great soul.”

 Cricket followers may be reminded that Syama Prasad was among the first to raise his voice against inter-community cricket championships in India, which was ultimately banned in 1946. It began in 1892. For him the inter-religious faith competition went against the basic concept of national ethos.

This year – thanks to the political progeny of Syama Prasad – on Saturday the 20^th of June the birthday of West Bengal will be officially acknowledged for the first time. It took us 79 years to celebrate our own birthday!