NAME BAGDOGRA AIRPORT AS ‘BISHWABEER (VISHWAVEER) CHILARAI AIRPORT’

Off late, numbers of opinions are in the air regarding renaming one of the militarily strategic airports of the nation i.e. Bagdogra, located in the plains near Siliguri of Darjeeling district in West Bengal. Not going by the various names as suggested by mainstream people of West Bengal and people with vested interests which hold no much water, I wish to pen down my suggestion which is purely based on the sacrifices and contributions made by the local Rajbanshi people while constructing Bagdogra  airport during World War-II. As I heard from my late father, our forefathers were too glad to give their fertile lands to the Govt. of British India, free of cost, for construction of a military air base for the Royal Indian Air Force during World War-II. As the area was full of jungles with lush green trees where tigers used to roar in the nights, the air base came to be known as Bagdogra which connotes roaring of tiger in local Rajbanshi-Kamta language (Bag denotes Tiger and Dogra denotes roaring). Once the airbase became operational, as a good gesture, the Royal Indian Air Force authorities gave a free ride to some of our forefathers in their initial flights taking off from the newly constructed air base.
           Thus, Bagdogra airport has a sentimental attachment with our local indigenous Rajbanshi people. If at all, renaming of this airport is felt necessary, it must have a link to a historical figure of the forefathers of Rajbanshi people. As many of us are aware of the pristine glories of historical background of Koch-Rajbanshi people who were in absolute majority in entire present day North Bengal, Purnea & Kishanganj districts of Bihar, Morang, Jhapa & Sunsari districts of Nepal, major portion of Assam, Western parts of Meghalaya, Northern Bangladesh and some of adjoining areas.  Who else, except, the pride of Rajbanshi people, the great military commander and strategist who was instrumental in unifying entire north-eastern kingdoms with mainland Indian soil during great military campaign (1562 A.D.-1572 A.D.) led by Bishwabeer (Vishwaveer) Chilarai, the trusted younger brother of Koch king Naranarayan and the commander of Koch army during sixteenth century.
           The sons of the soil in the plains of the Darjeeling district undoubtedly are our Rajbanshi people. We have a grand history and feel proud to be progenies of Chilarai, the great general who was compared with great generals like Napoleon, the great and Marathi Emperor ‘Chhatrapati  Shivaji’. It will be a great national service and welfare work for the people, if local indigenous Rajbanshi people are honoured by renaming Bagdogra airport as ‘Bishwabeer (Vishwaveer) Chilarai Airport’.

Jai Hind!

Comments

  1. Dhalia22 November 2015 at 11:43

    Dear friends, mok darun khushi lagache,vishwabeer chilarai nam airport hobe,bagdogra cancel kora hoke, from, hari roy,slg.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

SOCIAL ISSUES & SC/ST STATUS OF RAJBANSHI/ KOCH-RAJBANSHI GROUP OF PEOPLE

I. Geographical and Demographic Positions of Rajbanshi Group of People The ethnically one, Rajbanshi group, one of the most tolerant indigenous people of strategically located areas in whole of North Bengal(barring its hilly terrains); in a sizable portion of Assam; western part of Meghalaya; Purnia, Kishanganj districts and eastern part of Katihar district of Bihar; Jhapa, Morang and Sunsari districts of Nepal; Rangpur, East Dinajpur districts and some parts of north west Mymensingh, northern Rajshahi and Bogra districts of Bangladesh and lower parts of Bhutan where these indigenous people ordinarily reside from time immemorial. They are known as Koch-Rajbongshi in Assam, Rajbanshi Kshatriya, Palia, Surjapuria in North Bengal and Bihar; Rajbanshi/Koch Rajbanshi/Tajpuria in Nepal and Koch-Rajbongshi in Meghalaya and their adjoining areas. Rajbanshi Muslims are integral part of these communities because of the one language and one culture. They are victims of identity ...
Read more

RAJBANSHI-KAMTAPURI - AN OLD LANGUAGE AND NOT A MERE DIALECT

RAJBANSHI-KAMTAPURI - AN OLD LANGUAGE AND NOT A MERE DIALECT It hurts my feelings if someone says that Rajbanshi or Kamtapuri is mere a dialect a not a language. After painstaking work of almost ten years, I endeavoured to find out the truth about the language and penned it down in my book ‘Koch Rajbanshi Kamtapuri – The Truth Unveilled (Guwahati, 2007) . To clear the doubts about this language, I wish to reproduce some relevant portions of the book as follows: [ “…. It was not an easy task to ascertain the circumstances under which today’s North Bengal and its neighboring areas lost their pristine glory, which, otherwise was once a central hub for acculturation among various races in northeastern part of India. Their language that was once believed to be the lingua-franca of the entire Koch Empire is dying today due to non-recognition. It still holds good for the Rajbanshi people to take Bankim’s suggestion seriously and get onto the job of writing history lest Koch or Rajb...
Read more

Inclusion of Cooch Behar State with Dominion of India and Subsequent Merger with West Bengal: The Turbulent Political Phase

Excerpt from my book “Koch Rajbanshi and Kamtapuri – The Truth Unveiled”(Guwahati, 2007) … When the freedom struggle engulfed whole of India by turn of nineteenth century, Koch-Kamta people of North Bengal jumped into it. Many unknown freedom activists went to jails and many made their supreme sacrifices. On 18 th July 1947, Indian Independence Act was passed in British Parliament. India became a free nation on 15 th August 1947. As per Section 7(I) of the said British act, it was stated that British Crown lapsed their paramount hold over the Indian Princely states and these were free to either join any dominion of India and Pakistan or remain sovereign. Soon after India won her independence on the 15 th August, 1947, most of the erstwhile princely states numbering more than five hundred lined up for inclusion either with dominion of India or Pakistan. Except few princely states like Junagarh, Jammu & Kashmir, Hyderabad most of them had no choice but to agree to the instru...
Read more