Authors:

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Tanya Kole and Soham Adhikari.

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Abstract:

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This paper aims to study the role of linguistic differences in the formation of hyphenated identities in migrants, subsequently analyzing how this connects to their felt experiences of discrimination and alienation. With the proclamation of Bangladeshi independence in 1971 and the commencement of Operation Searchlight, innumerable people fled their homes, and many refugees from the erstwhile East Bengal crossed the border and settled in West Bengal, a state in Eastern India. Due to this sudden forced migration, and as a consequence of witnessing sociocultural and sociolingual shock in their destination country, these migrants underwent identity fragmentation and began existing as, and within, a hyphen. Living with another people implies the amalgamation of cultural and linguistic factors. This study aims to examine these factors through an exploration of the differences in the dialects of Bengali spoken by these migrants and their offspring, and that spoken by the natives of West Bengal. In addition, the impact of inter-state immigration into West Bengal is also studied, as residents intermingle in the metropolis of Kolkata and birth a creole from several languages, namely Hindi, English, and Bengali. As a natural consequence of the inter-mixing of different linguistic communities, a form of discrimination emerges, as a particular group otherizes the other(s). The paper also takes this into account and examines the ways in which each group reacts to the presence of the other. Linguistic terrorism in the form of ridiculing speakers of languages other than Bengali is rampant in the state, wherein the popular (native) desire is for every single resident to be fluent in Bengali: as a popular cliché goes, “If you wish to live in Bengal, you must know Bengali.” The state government has made it compulsory for all schools to offer Bengali to its students, and government offices mostly abide by the same rule. Even among Bengali speakers, those using any dialect other than the standard one are deemed inferior and routinely “corrected”. It is, thus, in such a place that children with fragmented identities grow up, with the environment at home asking them to represent one culture and that outside compelling them to act like another. At home, they have to talk and behave in a particular way, while outside they must assume another persona. Staying within this constant flux creates a feeling of hyphenation, as they continually try to orient themselves in however way the society wants them to. Their own sounds are lost, as the sounds of migration – the sounds of the migrants and those of the natives – fight to take center stage within the hyphen.

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This paper was presented at Sounds of Migration, an international annual conference at The Pennsylvania State University, 2021: click here.