Bengali History Website Relaunched

May 2009 saw the launch of the redesigned website of the secular Bengali heritage organization, the Swadhinata Trust: www.swadhinata.org.uk. The Trust was set up in 2000 to raise youth awareness about Bengali history, culture and heritage by establishing resources for the British Bengali community, as well as for the general public, in the fields of education, research and the creative arts. The aim of the website is to attract new audiences from a young generation and, as Swadhinata trustee Abdul Shahid put it at the launch, to generate greater involvement in Bengali history by creating better links to similar web-pages and by updating the design of the website.

The event took place on 30 May at the Kobi Nazrul Centre, a Bengali arts centre in the London borough of Tower Hamlets, with a presentation and performance, and with a number of guest speakers. It opened with a welcoming speech from Bilkis Begum Mosoddik, Chair of the Trust. The speakers included Tower Hamlets councillor, A. M. Ohid Ahmed, the Cabinet Member for Regeneration, Localization and Community Partnerships; Shreela Ghosh from the Heritage Lottery Fund's London Committee; Mohammed Daud Ali, councillor and the Head of Chancery at the Bangladesh High Commission; and Carmel Littleton, head of the Tower Hamlets Service for Young People and Learning. All the speakers insisted on the importance of history and heritage and praised the work of the Trust with young people. Professor John Eade, a patron of the Trust, highlighted its role in handing traditions to the next generation. He reminded us that we should not take collective memory for granted.

A major achievement of the Trust, given significant coverage on the web-site, was the 2006 oral history project, 'Tales of Three Generations of Bengalis in Britain'. This was conducted by the Trust with support from the Heritage Lottery and CRONEM (the Centre for Research on Nationalism, Ethnicity and Multiculturalism) at the University of Surrey. Fifty-eight oral histories were collected, focusing on three specific themes: 'Roots and Memory' (dialogue between first and third generations on the history of Bangladesh and on the 1971 war of independence); 'Community Creativity' (dialogue between second and third generations on welfare and community involvement in the UK since the 1970s); and finally 'Popular Culture: between tradition and innovation' (across the three generations and mainly focusing on the links between traditional and more recent British Bengali musical heritage since the 1970s). The tapes and transcripts are held by the Trust and by the archive of the Bishopsgate Institute, and the transcripts are available online both at www.swadhinata.org.uk and at bishopsgate.org,uk. A book based on the interviews was published in 2006: Tales of Three Generations of Bengalis in Britain, compiled and edited by John Eade with Ansar Ahmed Ullah, Jamil Iqbal and Marissa Hey.

The Trust's interest in youth led to the production of a teaching pack and workshops drawing on the oral material. The pack emphasized two themes: 'Homeland: Bangladesh's contemporary history'; and 'Arrival: Tower Hamlets' Bengali community'. The young people taking part in the workshops, which were facilitated by Swadhinata's staff, learned about their community's heritage, and hopefully have passed this knowledge to other people. It is hoped, too, that the workshops also encouraged non-Bengalis to look at the lives of people who are of diverse background and experience, with different values and customs. Though the pack and the workshops were aimed at secondary school pupils, most of the responses came from primary schools.

At the end of the launch Yousuf Ali Khan, Tanmoy and Shejuti Drupadi entertained the audience with performances of Bengali music and dance.