By Soudhriti Bhabani, IANS
Kolkata : If you happen to pass through West Bengal’s border areas, don’t be surprised to hear a babble of voices trying to mug up the Bengali alphabet. A class is in progress and the students are Border Security Force (BSF) troopers.
The makeshift classes have been set up to help BSF personnel communicate with local villagers in Bengali. Complete with blackboards, tables and benches, they have sprung up in Nadia and Murshidabad districts.
Classes begin at 8 a.m. every day and continue for about seven hours. And the troopers, several of them from Bihar, Jharkhand, Punjab and the northeast, have proved to be eager learners.
Trading their long-range rifles, automatic machine guns and night-vision goggles for Bengali books, they seem at ease learning the alphabet by rote.
“We have been conducting local language training classes for the past two years. The response has been very good. Now they understand the language and find themselves at ease interacting with local villagers,” BSF Inspector General (South Bengal Frontier) Somesh Goyel told IANS.
“These language training classes are held across the frontier. This initiative has helped us a lot in developing a congenial relationship with local villagers,” he said.
Goyel vouches for such training as it helps to strengthen border network, especially at the local level, and in curbing incidents like fence-cutting, cross-border infiltration and illegal migration.
Five battalions of the BSF in Nadia and four battalions in Murshidabad have completed the language training classes and appeared for their tests Tuesday.
BSF troopers proficient in Bengali are imparting training to their colleagues. All the battalions have been divided into several teams comprising 15 and 12 personnel each for the language programme.
“Trans-border smuggling cannot be stopped without the support of local villagers,” BSF Director General A.K Mitra said here after attending the bi-annual border conference in Dhaka.
He cited the example of Bangladesh where Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) personnel enjoy the full support of local people, as there is no communication barrier between them.
India shares a 4,095-km-long border with Bangladesh, including the longest of 2,216 km with West Bengal, part of which is porous, riverine and unfenced and prone to frequent infiltration and skirmishes.
Sometimes the lack of communication between the BSF and villagers proves fatal. According to figures available with the BSF, 94 incidents of firing took place across the India-Bangladesh border this year, resulting in 47 deaths.