Embracing Baishakh, embracing harmony
In keeping with the spirit of secularism, the nation today celebrates Pahela Baishakh, the first day of Bangla New Year.
In the capital, programmes begin with a musical soiree by the Chhayanaut cultural institute at the Ramna Batamul at 6:00am.
Then around 9:00am, the Mangal Shobhajatra, a mass procession seeking the wellbeing of all, organised by Dhaka University's Fine Arts faculty, kicks off.
Pahela Baishakh, one of the most colourful festivals held in the country, is when the Bangalees welcome the new year and bid farewell to the old.
It is also a festival that upholds the rich cultural values and rituals of the nation.
Separate Mangal Shobhajatras are now brought out at divisional, district and upazila headquarters, especially after it was recognised as an intangible heritage by UNESCO in 2016.
Meanwhile, business communities, especially in the rural areas, are ready to open their traditional "Haalkhata", accounts books for the new year. Traders usually offer sweets to their customers as part of the occasion.
For the last six decades, Chhayanaut has taken the lead in welcoming the Bangla new year through cultural programmes.
It could not hold the event in 1971 during the Liberation War. In 2020 and 2021, Pahela Baishakh was celebrated on a small scale and online due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
In 1967, Chhayanaut organised its Pahela Baishakh programmes in protest at the then Pakistan government's blatant suppression of Bangalee culture.
After independence, the festival became a symbol of the country's nationalist movement as well as an integral part of people's cultural heritage and identity.
Mangal Shobhajatra is a key element in Pahela Baishakh celebrations.
Some historians attribute the Bangla calendar to the 7th century king Shashanka, which was later modified by Mughal emperor Akbar for the purpose of tax collection.
During the Mughal rule, land taxes were collected from the Bangalees according to the Islamic Hijri calendar, which was a lunar one. Its new year did not coincide with the solar agricultural cycles.
Akbar asked the royal astronomer Fathullah Shirazi to create a new calendar by combining the lunar Islamic calendar and solar Hindu calendar already in use, and this was known as Fasholi shan (harvest calendar).
President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday issued separate messages greeting the people on Pahela Baishakh.
Hamid, in his message, wished all Bangalees in the country and abroad a happy Bangla New Year.
In her message, the PM called upon all, irrespective of religion and caste, to wake up with a renewed sense of joy, forgetting the sorrows and failures of the past year.
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