Appeasing Minorities? The Fine Print of Mamata’s Muharram Diktat

With more than 10 communal incidents reported in the past year, one wonders how Bengal has changed.

As a young student in high school in Kolkata, I would often be given the chance to ‘express’ myself in various forms during my half-yearly and annual exams. The best form of ‘expression’, as I recall, was the Bengali essays we were asked to write. Almost invariably, the question papers used to be great levellers – a mix of easy to relatively tough questions, in short and long form, from modern literature to ancient text, and more.

It was a great equaliser in one more aspect: religion. Almost every time with ‘Muharram’ as an essay topic, there would be a complementary one in ‘your favourite Bengali festival’; as many questions from ‘Bidrohi Kabi’ Qazi Nazrul Islam’s poems as there would be from the great Tagore’s. Both Hindu and Muslim students would attempt them without any biases.