Football has become more than a game, with the maidan turning into an arena where Partition memories and present exclusions collide in protest.
Identity has always been central to the football universe. Team allegiances have the power to unite nations, divide societies, and spark rivalries that fuel passion as much as they unleash violence. The Italian Marxist philosopher and politician Antonio Gramsci famously described the sport as an “open-air kingdom of human loyalty”.
This sentiment was vividly echoed in a massive banner put up in the colours of East Bengal Football Club at a recent Durand Cup match in Kolkata. It read: “Bharat swadhin korte shedin porechhilam phaansi / Maa er bhasha bolchhi boley aajke Bangladeshi?” (That day we wore the hangman’s noose for our country’s independence/ Today we are being labelled Bangladeshi for speaking in our mother tongue?). It highlighted not just the burning issue of migrant Bengali-speaking labourers being targeted as “Bangladeshi” in different parts of the country but also the deeply wounded sentiment of people whose forefathers bore the pains of Partition less than 80 years ago.
Sourced : The Hindu
@freemang2001gmail-com
