The ruling All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) has found a specific word to attack the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s outsider status. The word ‘bargi’ as the TMC likes to call the BJP, is of special significance in Bengal’s history.
Daily Current Affairs Quiz 2021
The term is a reference to the several Maratha invasions of West Bengal between 1741 and 1751, which resulted in looting, plundering and massacres of what was then Mughal territory.
The happenings of this specific period have affected Bengal’s consciousness so much that they have an established presence in Bengali folklore and literature, and the term ‘bargis’ is used as a casual reference to troublesome outsider forces.
Simply speaking, the word bargi referred to cavalrymen in Maratha and Mughal armies. The word comes from the Persian “bargir”, literally meaning “burden taker”.
But in the Mughal and Maratha armies, the term signified “a soldier who rode a horse furnished by his employer.”
