CPI(M) Condemns CM Himanta’s Reaction To ‘Amar Sonar Bangla’ Row, Terms It A Threat To Democracy

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) Karimganj (now Sribhumi) District Committee has strongly condemned Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s directive to file sedition charges against Congress members after a former Seva Dal leader, Bidhu Bhushan Das, sang “Amar Sonar Bangla” during a meeting at the party’s Sribhumi office, Indira Bhavan.

In a press statement issued on Thursday (October 30), CPI(M) district secretary Paritosh Dasgupta said the BJP and RSS have been “playing a dangerous and divisive game” by turning a “harmless incident” into an excuse for political propaganda. “The Chief Minister’s order to the police reflects a neo-fascist trend and is a threat to democracy and human rights in the state,” the statement read.

Defending the cultural and historical significance of the song, the CPI(M) reminded that “Amar Sonar Bangla” is one of Rabindranath Tagore’s patriotic compositions linked to India’s freedom movement and is taught and sung across India and abroad.

The party accused the BJP of attempting to weaponise Tagore’s work for “religious and nationalist polarisation” and said those politicising the song “have no connection to India’s independence movement; rather, their ideological predecessors had collaborated with British imperialism.”

The CPI(M) Karimganj unit has demanded that the Chief Minister immediately withdraw his “undemocratic directive” and stop using state power to suppress cultural and political diversity.