Pahela Baishakh today

It's celebration of Bangalees' cultural ethos

Pahela Baishakh taxation systems must have gone through many a reform over the past 400 odd years. But nothing possibly was so phenomenal than the one reform taking place in the year 1585.

In those Akbar days, the very introduction of Tarikh-e-Elahi - a solar calendar in place of the lunar one brought much relief to the agrarian communities Pahela Baishakh of then Bengal as well as many other parts of the subcontinent - as it made the calculation of date and months more scientific and in good consistent with harvesting season thereby, also facilitating the Moghuls in better revenue collections.
Though introduced in 1585, the Tarikh-e-Elahi, also referred as Fasli San (crop year), was dated from Emperor Akbar's accession to the throne in 1556. The New Year subsequently became known as Bangabda or Bangla year in our part of the world.
Eventually it became customary to clear up all dues on the last day of Chaitra, the last month of solar Bengali calendar, and businessmen treating their customers with sweets. Arrangements of village fairs and other festivities became part of a rich cultural heritage. 
Some 432 years later the celebration day - Pahela Baishakh (1st day of Bangla New Year) - comes to us today at such a critical juncture of time Pahela Baishakh when a section of people are trying, in vain, to extract 'new meaning' of what has been all through a non-communal national cultural journey.