What does “তোলাবাজি” mean in Bengali?

তোলাবাজি is extortion money: the cut a local strongman collects from shopkeepers, builders and hawkers. It is তোলা (“to lift, to collect”) plus -বাজি, a suffix that turns an activity into a shady trade. The word is standard newsroom vocabulary in both West Bengal and Bangladesh, which is why broadcasts never stop to explain it.

-বাজি is productive and almost always disapproving: ধাপ্পাবাজি (bluffing, con-work), গুন্ডাবাজি (thuggery), রাজনীতিবাজি (playing politics rather than doing it). Spot the suffix and you can usually guess the speaker’s attitude before you know the root. This clip pairs it with ওরফে (“alias”), another fixture of crime reporting.