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प्रश्न
Imagine you are a young boy of 10 years living in Kolkata in 1905. Describe the Anti-Partition Movement as you saw it.
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उत्तर
The streets of Calcutta are filled with a strange, powerful energy today, and even at ten years old, I can tell our city will never be the same.
It all started on October 16, 1905, the day the British officially divided our beloved Bengal. My father called it a day of national mourning. When I woke up, there was no smoke rising from our kitchen; my mother said no fire would be lit in any home today as a mark of protest. Instead of going to school, my elder brother took me down to the Hooghly River. The banks were packed with thousands of people, all silent and sombre, taking a holy dip in the water.
The most beautiful part happened right after. Led by the words of Rabindranath Tagore, everyone began tying red and yellow silk threads, Rakhis, around each other’s wrists. I tied one onto a boy I had never met before. My father explained that this was our way of showing Lord Curzon that no matter where the British drew a line on a map, they could never divide the hearts of the Bengali people.
As we marched through the streets, the air vibrated with a chant I had never heard before: “Vande Mataram!” Everyone was singing it, their voices echoing off the brick walls. Later in the afternoon, we gathered for a massive meeting where the elders took a solemn pledge of Swadeshi.
Now, everything is changing at home. Yesterday, my mother threw a pile of fine, foreign-made clothes into a giant bonfire on our street corner. We watched the British cloth turn to ash. My father bought me a new shirt made of rough, coarse Indian-made Khadi instead. It scratches my skin a little, but when I wear it, I feel immensely proud. We no longer buy British salt or sugar. Even my schoolteachers are whispering about leaving government schools to start our own national academies. I am just a boy, but looking at the flags flying and the crowds marching hand-in-hand, I know we are no longer afraid of the British sahibs.
