Bengali Language Movement (Barak Valley)

In April 1960, a proposal was raised at the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee to declare Assamese as the state's sole official language.

[2] On 10 October 1960, Bimala Prasad Chaliha, the then Chief Minister of Assam, presented a bill in the Legislative Assembly that sought to legalize Assamese as the sole official language of the state.

[3] Ranendra Mohan Das, the legislator from Karimganj (North) assembly constituency and an ethnic Bengali, protested against the bill on the grounds that it sought to impose the language of a third of the population over the other two-thirds.

[5] On 24 April, the Parishad left for a two-week padayatra in the Barak Valley, in the regions surrounding Silchar and Karimganj to raise awareness among the populace.

After the padayatra, Rathindranath Sen, the Parishad leader, declared that if Bengali was not accorded the status of official language by 13 April 1961[clarification needed], a complete work stoppage (called a hartal) would be observed on 19 May from dawn to dusk.

[7] On 18 May, the Assam police arrested three prominent leaders of the movement, namely Nalinikanta Das, Rathindranath Sen, and Bidhubhushan Chowdhury, the editor of weekly Yugashakti.

Within five minutes, at around 2:35 p.m., the paramilitary forces guarding the railway station started beating the protesters with rifle butts and batons without provocation.

It states, "Without prejudice to the provisions contained in Section 3, the Bengali language shall be used for administrative and other official purposes up to and including district level".

[12] Bhasha Shahid Divas is celebrated every year on 19 May to commemorate those 11 martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the sake of protecting Bengali language.

The Assam government had, on 30 November 2013, issued a circular asking the deputy commissioners of all the state's districts to ensure the use of Assamese as an official language, which generated a lot of protests in the three Barak Valley districts—Cachar, Karimganj, and Hailakandi.

This stone tomb contains the ashes of the brave individuals who chose death for their right to get formal education in their mother tongue in their free country.