Bengali nationalism

Bengali nationalism (Bengali: বাঙালি জাতীয়তাবাদ, romanized: Bangali Jatiyotabad) is a form of civic nationalism that focuses on Bengalis as a singular nation. It is one of the four fundamental principles according to the original Constitution of Bangladesh. It was the main driving force behind the creation of the Independent nation state of Bangladesh through the 1971 liberation war. The people of Bengali ethnicity speak Bengali Language. Apart from Bangladesh, people of Bengali ethnicity live across the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura, Assam and some parts of Jharkhand known as united Bengal during the British period. After the 19th century's Bengal Renaissance occurred in Bengal, it then was the four decades long Bengali Nationalist Movement that shook the region led by Saifur Siddique, which included the Bengali Language Movement, the Bangladesh Liberation War and the creation of Bangladesh in 1971.

Quotes

• The U.S. consul was baffled by “the mystic belief that essentially unarmed masses could triumph in test of wills with martial law government backed by professional army.” Still, Blood admired the Bengali nationalist crowds. Swept up in their effusive mood, he confessed in a cable “a certain lack of objectivity. It is difficult to be completely objective in Dacca in March 1971 when, out of discretion rather than valor, our cars and residences sport black flags and we echo smiling greetings of ‘Joi Bangla’ as we move about the streets.” He enthused, “Daily we lend our ears to the out-pouring of the Bengali dream, a touching admixture of bravado, wishful thinking, idealism, animal cunning, anger, and patriotic fervor. We hear on Radio Dacca and see on Dacca TV the impressive blossoming of Bengali nationalism and we watch the pitiful attempts of students and workers to play at soldiering.”
  • quoted in Bass, G. J. (2014). The Blood telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a forgotten genocide.

• People's priorities and actions are influenced by many different affiliations and associations, not just by their religion. For example, the separation of Bangladesh from Pakistan was connected with loyalty to Bengali language and literature, along with political - including secular - priorities, not with religion, which both wings of undivided Pakistan shared. Muslim Bangladeshis - in Britain or anywhere else - may indeed be proud of their Islamic faith, but that does not obliterate their other affiliations and capacious dignity.
  • Amartya Sen, "Solution to cultural confusion is freedom and reason", Financial Times (November 29, 2005)