BANGLADESH NEWS
I write in deep anguish, in deep resentment, and somewhat in despair
over the recent happenings. They were blatant, in your face insults to
our nationhood, to the core values of our struggle for independence. On
the surface these affronts were a reaction of a bigoted minority to the
historic upsurge of national ire against war criminals, and justice
demanded by our youths against the criminals that was voiced over three
weeks in Shahbagh Square. But deep down this is a resurgence and muscle
flexing by elements that have inherited the spirit and philosophy of the
forces that stood against us, and aided and collaborated with the power
that had launched a war against us in 1971.
In 1971 when the
Pakistan army was in a full-scale war against the civilians of
Bangladesh, a cadre of people from among us formed bodies to aid the
marauding army in its murderous tasks across the country. Their
motivation was religion, and not ethnicity, language or culture that
defined us a Bengali nation. In the name of religion this cadre
perpetrated heinous crimes against their own people, and they
rationalised their acts against humanity in that name.
As a
sub-divisional officer in a district of Dhaka during that period, I had
painfully witnessed how a leader of that cadre would obey the dictates
of a Pakistani army commander who was the local martial law
administrator. The leader was a lawyer by profession, but newly anointed
as chairman of the Sub-divisional Peace Committee. In that capacity he
would spy on all neighbourhoods and local officials, report to the army
commander about concocted anti-state activities, and help the army raid
local villages.
In a desperate act I was able to nab this man on
some criminal charges, but none stuck until after liberation. After
independence the man was arrested and I was asked to depose against him
(although by that time I was no longer in charge of the sub-division).
As I was leaving the court after deposition the man smiled at me from
the dock and said my deposition would not hold, and that he would be
soon free. I never knew if he was sentenced to jail, but I do know that
many like him moved about freely without ever having to pay for their
misdeeds.
The recent happenings make me feel that this is 1971 all
over again. We are faced with the same ideological divide that launched
us into our fight for independence. We are facing the acolytes of the
same belief that wanted to deny us our nationhood on the basis of our
language and ethnicity and fought against us from within. We are again
witnessing resurgence of a force that had never come to terms with our
right to exist as a country that put our culture, language, and
ethnicity ahead of anything else.
We are again thrown back to the
time when this force worked with our enemies to put an end to our
struggle for independence by liquidation of our people in the darkness
of night, all in the name of preserving a country that was built on a
flawed ideology. Again we have a line drawn in the sand by our
adversaries. And maybe it is a good thing that this is happening now.
Perhaps
this new drawing of the line in the sand would not have happened had
there been no Shahbagh Square uprising. Perhaps we would have allowed
this cancer to grow unnoticed and gone about merrily with our politics
as usual. But just as the whole Shahbagh Square movement took the nation
and our political parties by storm, the fallouts of this movement also
shook the nation no end.
While the biggest outcome of the movement
is the reaffirmation of our faith and firm adherence to the core ideals
of our Liberation War and a renewed rejection of those who opposed
those ideals, another major outcome is the demonstration of people's
will to reject politics that uses religion as a platform.
This
post- liberation generation has shown that they no longer carry the
baggage of the flawed ideology that once built a country based on
religious affinity ignoring ethnicity, language and culture. The upsurge
showed that in politics what figured most was honesty and integrity;
adherence to the values of our independence; respect for our ethnicity
and culture; and keeping religion separate from politics.
However,
a parallel by-product of this movement has also been aggravation of the
negative forces that have always been acting in the opposite direction.
For these forces the 1971 war never ended. For these forces the
ideology on which Bangladesh was founded is an anathema. The forces lay
dormant for a time, but they would rise when circumstances were in their
favour. In times of crisis they retreat, but regroup and reenergise
when the crisis moves away. When they come back they attack with greater
force and intensity.
It seems from the events of the past few
days that the evil forces are flexing their muscles once again to take
away the hard earned gains of our freedom. This is at a time when the
majority in Bangladesh have unequivocally sworn their adherence to
pursuing their dreams of a democratic society based on respect for all
religions and for all humanity. This is at a time when this majority has
unequivocally spurned religion based politics and its followers,
particularly those who had opposed our War of Independence and had
carried out murderous attacks.
The voices raised at Shahbagh
Square demanded justice for an aggrieved nation for crimes that were
committed against people during our War of Liberation. Unfortunately,
those who we have in the dock today are a handful from among hundreds or
perhaps thousands of such people who fought us on a false ideology.
Maybe we can get some justice by prosecuting those we have at hand.
But
what do we do about the ideologues and acolytes of this ideology who
are now threatening our identity as a nation, which we are trying to
build based on our core values of independence? The Shahbagh protesters
may constantly remind us of these values, but how do we contain the
counter values that the new-fundamentalists pose or threaten?
The
enemies of our freedom struggle were not all foisted on our soil from
outside. A good number came from within us, and they continue to live
among us. They take the garb of religion to fight us and delude our
innocent masses for their own political objectives. A ban on the
activities of a political party based on its affiliation to religion may
be a short term solution, but it will not be effective to alter their
mindset in the long run.
For this we need a more conscious and
deliberate approach to educate the whole society to take pride in our
identity first as a Bengali nation, and in our culture, language and
ethnicity. We need to constantly educate our next generation on this
identity first, and remind them that religion and politics are separate.
We need to educate them that we need religion in our personal lives and
not in state politics. And that is the true drawing of a line in the
sand.
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