সম্পাদকীয়

About four months ago when the current issue of the Journal was in its preparatory stage,our editorial board had to confront an irreversible damage for which it was not mentally prepared. From the onset of the Journal’s launch, Dinu Billah was our co-warrior, all-time worker and a source of inspiration and reliance. In the third week of August, like an ominous dark cloud,sad news made our members of the editorial board speechless. On a sunny unblemished Saturday morning in his home,the healthy active Dinu Billah suddenly fell ill by a stroke out of blue. Moments after arriving at the hospital, Dinu lost consciousness and went into a stage of no return. The sudden ceasing of Dinu’s closeness and uninterrupted companionship in our journey to keep the Journal running has left an irreversible aching void in me. The desire behind launching the bi-lingual Bangla Journal in 1999 was to highlight the secular non-communal lingua-cultural selves of Bangla speaking people beyond the boundaries of nation state and citizenship. Dinu Billah was the embodiment of that spirit.Dinu, a fearless associate of the freedom fighters during the Bangladesh Liberation war, was severely tortured and assaulted by the Pakistani army during his captivity. The torture left a permanent scar on his body and soul. He couldn’t get any relief from that trauma till his death. For the last one and a half year, Bangladesh has been witnessing an anti-Indian frenzy, oppression and violence against Hindus and other religious and ethnic minorities by the Islamists, who receive tacit encouragements from the state and administration. The goal of this mayhem is to destroy the identity of Bangalis and their lingua-cultural selves. Dinu couldn’t take this anymore. He was so disturbed and anguished by the sorry state of his beloved country that he started to pass his nights sleepless. I don’t really know whether his death has relieved him from witnessing the horrendous scene of barbaric mob lynching and videographing of setting afire the body of a Hindu youth Dipu Chandra Das! Was it his piqued sensitiveness that removed him from this Death Valley? Who knows, that seemed to be the case! The present issue of the Journal begins with tributary notes to Dinu by his wife Mahbuba Khanam and poet, essayist Tushar Gayen.

The existing turbulent socio-political and geo-political climate is an anathema to writers who needs a relative calm and detachment to immerse in their works. Besides, to attain any objective perspective becomes harder when deciphering the truth from a lie in the medium of communications no longer under the control of individual’s intellect.So, it’s understable why we couldn’t obtain our intended articles on the main theme ‘The lingua-cultural selves of Bangalis: the root of its tradition’, from a few select writers we had requested. The above mentioned factors were responsible for their inability. To compensate the dearth we thought that it would be worthwhile to reread an important relevant article on the subject by scholar, thinker Ahmed Sharif. Articles in this issue by Jayanta Kumar Mukherjee on communalism in the Indian classical music; by Hasnara Khatun on two 19th and 20th century newspapers published by the Bangali muslims and by Shirsanakar Basu on Queer linguistics to some degreeare related to our main theme. In addition Miratun Nahar writes on the contributions of two extraordinary women Sarala Devi and Rahila Khatun; Rinku Das on Rabindranath’s ideas about education; Sreedeep Bhattacharya on the poetry of Ranjit Das; Tushar Chakraborty on Bangla language and science; Hindol Nandy on Socialist thought and theatre movement and Shishir Bhattacharja on a comparative analysis of description of Hemanta (Autumn) by poets of different languages.

The current issue also includes an ongoing translation of the judgement in the case ofthe Chittagong Armoury Raid, poems by Shumi Sikander, Arunava Rhaha Roy and Baby Shaw; stories by Afsan Chowdhury, Auditi Falguni, Shibabrata Barman and Manidipa Sanyal, as well as translations of stories written by Zahir Raihan, Mrittika Chakma and Hamiruddin Middya.