The ‘Bangla-speaking Bihari’, as proud of one heritage as of the other

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Roy lives at Ganguli Para in Purnea’s Bhatta Bazar, which has over 25,000 “Bangla-speaking” people. Roy says most families have been there since the 18th century when Bihar was part of the United Provinces with West Bengal and Orissa. “It is wrong to say Bangla-speaking people came here from West Bengal. Some families came from what is now Bangladesh,” Roy says.

“Once, Purnea culture was dominated by the elite, with music, literature and football,” he said, “but the partition of Bengal brought a breed of hardworking and sturdy people who got into business and somewhere diluted the Bengali culture of Purnea. We recall international footballers such as Abdul Latif, whose roots were in Purnea. The DSA Ground here is a landmark to the football tradition but has sadly given way to cricket for some years. When the Bangladesh football team came here, 90 per cent of the Hindus joined the rest to sing the newly composed national song Amar sonar Bangla. This is the beauty of Purnea, the land of legendary personalities such as Satinath Bhaduri and Kedarnath Bandyopadhyay.”

Hemant Kumar’s song ends and one by S D Burman and Lata Mangeshkar starts to play. Roy’s son Ankan is a music teacher in Bolpur, having passed out of the Santiniketan campus. Sushmita Roy, the retired banker’s wife, appears keen to join the discussion but holds herself back. Their neighbour Ajay Sanyal, 60, a writer, does join in.

Govind Das, a local freelance journalist with his roots in West Bengal, says Roy, Sen and some other Purnea citizens have started a drive to merge elements of Bangla and Hindi culture. They bring out an annual compilation of Bangla and Hindi literature. Though Roy is reluctant to discuss politics, he eventually talks of Ajit Sarkar, who was the Purnea MLA for 15 years until his murder in 1998. His son Amit Sarkar, they say, looks for “quick political gains” and left Purnea after losing his election in 2010.

Roy wants the Bihar government to fill up vacancies of Bangla teachers and make Bangla textbooks available on time. “Unless we know our culture, what can we give to posterity?” says Roy, saying the political dispensation should remember it has duties beyond the election results.

Sanyal says most Bangla-speaking people like Nitish but not the company he keeps. “Nitish has done a lot of work. He is a statesman but should have kept good company,” says Sanyal, without naming Lalu Prasad.

Asked about West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s recent appeal for votes to Nitish, Sanyal says: “Mamata is not our guardian. People here have brains.”

Another person in the group, who doesn’t wish to be named, puts in: “Such an appeal may backfire. Just the fact that we speak Bangla does not mean we follow Mamata.”