Untold Facts

Jungle Law’s Monarchy on in Bangladesh

It’s a façade of democracy but in reality a monarchy of Jungle Law in Bangladesh on since January 2009.

Presumed ‘terrorist’ have not only been continual death victims of the law enforcing agencies supported by the Home Minister in the so-called ‘cross fires’ day in and day out but also imagined terrorists are also being detained by police, put on remands and tortures for days and weeks and then sent to prison, the courts are so generous to put them in prison rejecting all pleas for bails! Not even the suckling four month old baby mother along with the baby was spared by the perpetrators of Jungle Law. Any sensible person must wonder how the ‘independent’ judiciary of the country has been failing in their otherwise highly morally demanding jobs!

Not out of tune with the Jungle Bangladesh had in the post independence days from 1972 to mid August 1975 when the ‘father’; made it the jungle, and now the worthy daughter, as well. There is a difference though. The father did not formally declared Bangladesh his paternal fiefdom, not also inherited monarchy because there was no scope to do so. But the daughter went further ahead for she is the daughter of the father and so inheritance was her rightful claim. The father abandoned democracy and instead instituted one party BAKSAL and absolute dictatorship in January 1975 that was unfortunately for her snapped in mid August successful coup of 1975 but fortunately for the people brought back multi-party democracy for the people in tune with their common aspirations.

It is not clear though that she is going the way for absolute dictatorship through the way to the BAKSAL or directly into the 21st century monarchy for Bangladesh. The inheritance line looks like settled through her younger sister Rehana as in transition next to her son Joy and then to his next progeny to continue in perpetuity. In case of any snapping in the line, other line is also being opened as it began through the Taposh case made up on the 21st October in Dhaka.

The first line of monarchy has already been provided with State funded fabulous security at home and also in the USA, England, Canada and Finland of all the inheritors. The State security cases of Taposh (nephew), Sheikh Selim (cousin), Hasnat Abdullah (cousin) etc. could thus be in the pipeline, the 21st October blast case could have been the prelude or excuse in the matter. The escape goats are already in police custody and in prison after summery refusal of bail prayers.

The ruler of the jungle, fortunately for the people, had unfortunate end. This time God only knows how He would relieve the people from the jungle ruler of the 21st century Bangladesh.

Author: Dr. M.T. Hussain

1972 Constitution: Hurdles for Reverting Back to in 2009

The Prime Minister (P.M.) Sheikh Hasina on the 4th November stated that her Government would revert back to the 1972 Constitution subject to being careful about the ‘touchy issue’ (SPORSHOKATOR BISHOY). She did not elaborate the touchy issue. But one lawyer of her own shade has given some elaboration of the issue indicating about religious matters, particularly relevant to Islam, that may be taken as correct. The other renowned lawyer and known to be the main person for framing the Constitution in 1972, Dr Kamal Hossain though stated that it would not be possible to go back to the 1972 Constitution but at the same breath he has stated that the 5th Amendment must be abandoned. That meant in essence the same thing or abandoning Islam’s existing place in the Constitution by virtue of the force of the 5th Amendment. The statement of the P.M. was nothing new but in fact was a reiteration of her intention to do just in the beginning of her second term of office in January 2009, if not before. Albeit, the Government can easily do so as they have over two third brute majority in the current Parliament. But the clue of her being careful about touchy matter raised some other more touchy questions that need be examined through.

The Initial Flaws
The initial flaws had several dimensions. One, the Proclamation of Independence in ‘Mujibnagar’ in mid April 1971 presumed certain facts that did not lawfully exist. The 76 or so members present there earlier elected by the people for the occasion lacked legal legitimacy for they were minority of the all elected members numbering 169, and further that they were elected under the LFO (Legal Framework Order) to frame the Constitution of Pakistan and not for Bangladesh. The declaration so made as well was not drafted by any body of the elected East Pakistan member but actually in Calcutta by some expert of Delhi bureaucracy that was only read by Mr. Yusuf Ali, an elected member. That was as such the clever Chanakyan conspiracy they’re working in high secrecy.

Though the document was given credence to the leader of East Pakistan Sheikh Mujib that in fact remained outside his knowledge, as he was in custody since the 25th March 1971 midnight, according to some, in the pleasant enjoyment of the costly British ‘Erinmore Tobacco’ smoking in his pipe in the Mianwali prison in Pakistan just as in Dhaka his family members had protection and well looked after by Karachi capitalist Haroon’s monthly allowance of Rupees 10,000. His concurrence of the declaration of independence remained thus far fetched. So was also was Dr. Kamal’s Karachi stay during the period enjoying his father in law’s home care, both were elected members of the Pakistan federal parliament.

Flaws in the Constitution Making
The basis of the Constitution presumed four basic principles- Bengali Nationalism, Democracy, Secularism and Socialism. The presumption further took that the war of independence had those four aspirations in view of the people. Were these presumptions beyond question? Were not these four issues imposed from certain corner of vested interests? Was the party Awami League then in power at all a party of the socialists? Were they secularists? Did they at all hold pure Bengali nationalism of all Bengalis? Were all the freedom fighters unanimous on the four principles during the independence war of 1971? Had there been any referendum of the people on those four basic principles? There is hardly any scope to get affirmative answers to these validly crucial questions. The answers are certain to be in the negative.

The 25th March 71 Army Crackdown and the Moral Question of Independence
There was a moral question of proclamation of independence just after the 25th March federal army - crack down on the civilian people. Some of the elected representatives might have taken the issue to go for the proclamation on their own. But in the absence and nothing of nod in the form of UDI (Unilateral Declaration of Independence) of the leader number one the matter remained de jure illegitimate all throughout until in early 1974 when the lawful authority of Pakistan recognized Bangladesh as an independent country de facto seceded from the Federal Pakistan in the aftermath of the 1971 war.

India’s Historic Chanakyan Role
India’s all out help and finally armed intervention in the 1971 war made things easier for independence to come to reality in about nine months. But the misfortune took over Bangladesh through the armed intervention. First, the war took the ultimate shape of India-Pakistan war of December 1971 in the end result that Pakistan Army Eastern Command Chief Lt. General Niazi surrendered to the Indian Eastern Theatre Command General Arora. Though the 16th December surrender document euphemistically stated the name of Bangladesh as well there but none, much less the Chief of the Bangladesh Army, was taken in to sign in the document; not even the Chief General Osmani had been allowed to be present there in the historic ceremony. Thus Bangladesh not only turned into virtually a protectorate of victorious India but also went under the direct administration of Delhi, having had set up here, in fact a puppet government controlled by Indian senior bureaucrats like D P Dhar, P N Haskar etc and also of the Indian Central Intelligence Agency R&AW’s senior persons like General Oban etc.

Misfortunes
It’s true that Indian army was withdrawn from Bangladesh territory in March 1972, some say on Mujib’s insistence but that was a sort of replacement right then with the 25-year treaty of total subservience of Bangladesh to Delhi (Articles 8, 9 and 10) that was in fact again a sort of continuum of Seven Point undertaking given to Delhi by the P.M. of the 1971 Exile Government Tajuddin Ahmad (Oli Ahad, Jatiya Rajniti 1945-75, Dhaka, 1975, p.450) before India came directly to intervene in the war. Persons interested in further truth of history would find that the 12 point treaty had not only exactly the 12 point of undertakings Mir Zafar Ali Khan of Bengal yielded to the East India Company’s Robert Clive in the mid eighteenth century but also that the three articles had essentially what in the Mirzar’s undertaking had in the promise number one, ‘The enemies of the English, be they Indians or others, are my enemies’ (Charles Stuart, History of Bengal, 1912, London, pp.547-48). He did swear in the name of God in the month of Ramadan just few days before the battle of Palassey of 23 June 1757.

Other misfortunes followed in the Education Commission led by Dr. Khuda, a lifelong Congressite, being lackey of Delhi just as shuttling between Delhi and Dhaka in the same way of Dr. Kamal did for the Constitution. There were others for deliberately making Supplementary and the Complementary the economic planning between the two countries nothing but only to be destined to be absorbed ultimately into the bigger economy of India having 4,200 porous and vulnerable border turned immediately after 16th December ‘most friendly’ for the smugglers belonging about 95% of the party men in power. To secure those anti-independent goals, the national army was looked down upon and set to be lost in oblivion by replacing them with the unconstitutional so called Jatiya Rakhsi Bahini that again was planned and so controlled from Delhi by their most powerful Intelligence Agency, the R&AW.

Mujib’s Vacillations
A person of below average caliber and Sohrawardy’s ‘Illiterate Graduate’ (M.T. Hussain, Patriot- Traitor Question: Bangladesh Syndrome, Dhaka, 2006, pp. 18-26) demagogue moved more by heart than by head, Mujib though at times took to some opportunism but vacillated on critical issues between Bangladesh and India. Before his release from the custody in West Pakistan he promised to Pakistan President Bhutto for a ‘Confederation’ (Stanley Wolpert, Zulfi Bhutto of Pakistan, 1993, OUP, Delhi, p. 175) relation with that country that could be taken in conformity with his previous idea and hope as was well known that the Pakistan Army President Yahya Khan declared in public the Sheikh as the ‘Future Prime Minister of Pakistan’. Passing time as went on, he forgot about the earlier illusion and also gradually turned unhappy with Delhi. The evidence was found in his 30th October 1974 meeting with US Secretary of Henry Kissinger in Dhaka. He urged Kissinger not to make things for Bangladesh tied to India. Further than that he mentioned the 1971 war in Bangladesh as ‘Civil War’ (The Weekly Holiday, Dhaka, 6 March 2009) and not as anything else many use at liberty. At the same breath he also accused India for occupation of Bangladesh in 1971 terming the army as the ‘Occupation Force’ (Ibid). Why?
One may find some clue of the mind of Mujib in some other facts. According to the 1987 September 25 copy of the London based monthly Impact International, Mujib offered to his chief lawyer Brohi for giving him scope in the Pakistan media to speak to the people of East Pakistan in the early stage of the December war to resist the ‘Indian armed aggression’.

Historical Continuity
The aspirations of the people of Bangladesh/ East Pakistan/ East Bengal have to be rightly viewed in continuum of historical perspective that the four principles did fail to appreciate. The appreciation came about after the 1975 change of August by the patriots, committed and well-equipped freedom fighters as they finally won on the 7th November. That victory was practically materialized in the 5th Amendment of the Constitution adopted duly in the Parliament freely elected by the people and without undue Indian interference.

Quality of Constitution
The media friendly lawyer has suggested that the 1972 Constitution was the best one for Bangladesh. He further suggested that the present government implying possibly its brute majority could be harsh or stiff enough to re introduce that constitution. At what cost?

Unpleasant
The operation of the Constitution for three years (1972-74) had not been at all pleasant one for the people of Bangladesh but of oppression of the rulers unleashed on the common people except possibly for the few loyal cadres and opportunists of the king’s party. The self-made king as well abandoned the same so far as its democratic provisions were concerned and introduced instead one party BAKSAL’s dictatorship in January 1975.

Unwritten yet Efficient
The British model of parliamentary democracy Bangladesh and other sub-continental countries follow does not have any written constitution but only conventions, norms and usages based on Christian values and some other important acts like the Magna Charta, etc. Even so, the British democracy is still known to be the best so far as the citizen’s welfare is concerned. The main reason is that through centuries of uninterrupted practice the citizens are used to democratic culture ingrained in psychology. The social welfare for each and every common citizen ensured through equitable distribution of wealth and properties that the well-managed economy with imperial control has also contributed to efficient functioning of the democratic order.

Misfit
The 1972 Constitution was hardly been popular so far as the secular and socialist goals were concerned. Socialism though was a bit popular in early 1970’s; it faced almost natural death by the end of last century. The secularism as a way of life is in the air but nowhere in practice in any society, not even in the advanced West. They are all committed to Christian values. Britain’s Crown is in no way secular but essentially Anglican Christian. The society is based on Christian norms, conventions and usages underpinning the statecraft and so runs as there is no written constitution. In the USA apparently there is separation of church and state, but the society is so much Christian that 95% people believe in spiritualism (Barack Obama, Audacity of Hope, 2006, p.198). In Muslim psyche the goal for secularism is rather an anathema.

Bengali Nationalism Unfulfilled
The other goal of Bengali nationalism of the 1970s has also remained unmet in the last four decades of Bangladesh’s existence for the 40% or now nearly 80 million of the Bengali people residing around Bangladesh’s geographical border are citizens of India, another sovereign country, and they are unwilling to severe from Delhi and join Bangladesh with its nearly 150 million citizens though Bangladesh would love to have them as fellow citizens severed from Delhi’s sovereign control.

Better One
The existing Bangladesh constitution particularly embodying the Fifth Amendment and in operation for the last three decades that kept up high the values based on the belief of the 90% Muslim people, nothing in prejudice of other religious people, is certainly the better one than the 1972 Constitution that one High Court judge suggested in somewhat relevance as a matter better be considered ‘Past and Closed’.

Author: M.T. Hussain

Julius Caesar- King Charles I - Czar Nicholas II to Sheikh Mujib

Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar
An octogenarian friend of mine in the morning of the 3rd November phoned to me and insisted that I must write something about Julius Caesar’s tragic end of life. I wondered for he referred to me about the drama of Shakespeare on the life of Julius Caser. I did not read the piece, and I don’t have a copy either as I was not a student of English Literature that the friend did. He kept on insisting and briefed the main point he wished me to make a write up. I took his point as that was more political I am now seriously interested in even at this fag end of my life. So I began to make search in the Internet. I got Julius Caesar, King Charles I of England and Czar Nicholas II, interestingly akin to the theme he was interested in and impressed on me to write something about.

Autocratic Kings Dethroned
They were all kings of their own times and countries- Julius Caesar of Pre- B.C. Rome, King Charles I of the 17th century England and Nicholas Czar II of early twentieth century Russia. They were rulers turned gradually to absolute dictator, resorted to oppression of the people and took away basic freedom of the citizens. There was as such internal resistance that ultimately turned into a sort of actively violent resistances that toppled the king rulers. Julius Caesar was killed in 44 B.C. by four angry Senators, just as the Czar Nicholas II, as well, by the revolutionaries at mid night of the 16th July, 1918 A.D.; King Charles I was put to summary trial by the post Charles ruler, the Protector Cromwell and then hanged him to death. Thus they restored freedom of the citizens from oppression of these kingly rulers. Rome got back the Republic abandoning oppressive monarchy of Julius Caesar, England got rid of the repressive king, reestablished freedom that under what they then on call Constitutional Monarchy, Russia established its own model of people’s rule that however broke down again after about seventy years for the latter Soviet rulers turned to curtail freedom of the people and so disintegrated for more freedom. In all these cases there was no valid legal question of putting the revolutionaries as ordinary simple ‘killers’ for any cognizable offence. Neither the Roman Senators, nor Cromwell and his followers nor the Leninist would condemn the Bangladeshi 75 August revolutionists as ordinary killers that the Sheikh Hasina’s Government has been widely propagating at home and abroad.

Killing of Czar’s Family and Disabled Child
Of the three examples, the killing of the Russian Czar was more brutal. The revolutionaries under instruction of the leader of the revolution Lenin brutally killed his family member. Even the domestic servants were killed, not even the life of a disabled child of the Czar was spared. They were all not only facts of history but also the revolutionaries had indemnity in law for all bloodletting. That is how legal protection is also there for the indemnity for successful revolution. No matter that the Soviets failed to keep freedom of the people, and so dismembered after about 70 years but the revolutionaries of the 1917 revolution were never called into question as ordinary killer in penal code. In England, Cromwell was put to posthumous trial for disturbing the continuity of the kingdom but the country did not revert back to absolute monarchy of Charles I but survived as Constitutional Monarchy that has since then been ensuring and protecting freedom of the people in the oldest democracy of the free world.

History Repeated
These are the three repeating examples of history as were many others that changed course of history from totalitarianism and oppression to freedom. In such cases the change agents have been adored, not condemned. Such changes for better and democracy provide, in addition, indemnity for the change makers for any liability of bloodletting on the one hand and on the other constitute subsequent source of law for continuity. That was what the 15th August 1975 change lawfully enjoyed indemnity for 21 years until June 1996. The victorious coup makers enjoyed full citizen’s freedom until snapped in shear vengeance of the Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina as soon as she grabbed for the first time the State power in Dhaka, and filed an ordinary ‘murder’ case for her father Sheikh Mujib’s lost life who fell on the 15th August 1975 from the Bangladesh State power in the successful army coup d’ ‘etat. The coup was no way different for the welcome change of State power from autocracy and dictatorship to democracy in three examples mentioned above.

Priority for Trial
On seeing the trial for ‘murder’ of the 15th August coup operators, any sensible person must ask for prior trial of the Sheikh for killing popular democracy and instead introducing not only one party dictatorship of the notorious BAKSAL but also for eating off his earlier promises given to the people time and again before riding on to power of the State based on such promises.

Mockery and Miscarriage of Justice
Sheikh Hasina made a mockery of justice through clear miscarriage of justice in the Kangaroo Session Court trial through making clear miscarriage of justice leading to likely judicial murder of the great patriots and some mid level officers of the Bangladesh Army (Retired). Though the case is now heard in the appeal at the Supreme Court, not only the defense lawyers there but also the judges are constantly being intimidated by the cadres of different shades of bullies of Hasina since the day one of the 5th October 2009.

Monarchy Game in late Twentieth Century
The three expels mentioned above are only to illustrate the precedence that my friend reminded me of the Julius Caesar. One must seriously ponder that the days had been of monarchy of heredity nature. The late twentieth century human history was not conditioned by hereditary monarchy but by open democracy. Even so the Sheikh foolishly and arrogantly tried to impose a sort of hereditary monarchy in Bangladesh that the people all along had struggled for popular democracy. He had as such dug his own grave by going against the sentiments, wishes and aspirations of the people. I am sure that the people would put the Sheikh and the subsequent cronies including his daughter to justice some time in future.

Appeal to Conscience Keepers
Seen in the overall context, the freedom loving people of Bangladesh and of the other world must raise their voice to be heard and refrain Hasina in her beastly vengeance for hanging the otherwise laudable heroes of the 15th August 1975 for showing despise for the dictator and love for those who ensured pluralism and multi-party democracy. That is what the three historic examples of the executions of Julius Caesar, King Charles I and Czar Nicholas II, as well, clearly kept examples before us to learn the right lesson. My gratitude is to the octogenarian friend for reminding and urging me to do the write up as it is here.

Author: Dr.M.T. Hussain

Madarasa Curriculum: Government on the Defensive?

Promise Made
On the 1st November a news item published in a Dhaka Bengali daily quoted the Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid in verbatim, ‘MADARASA SIKHHAR CURRICULUM EK CHUL O NOR CHOR KORA HOBE NA’- in English version that means, the Bangladesh Government would not change even a hair measure or even a single minute element of the Madarasa learning curriculum. The audience present in the grand meeting the previous day might have been impressed by the rhetoric the minister used, but others would have fingers crossed not only because, most power hungry politicians use such confusing, meaningless and high sounding rhetoric as time servers but also because once they leave office nobody would chase them for words given and not met more often than not before being lost in oblivion. So there is no risk for any such minister in making such rhetoric and giving any such assurance.

The 1204 A.D. Model
The Madarasa curriculum in Bangladesh is not a new learning materials but age old of nearly eight hundred years that started in 1204 A.D. by the first Muslim ruler Ikhtiaruddin and the first Madarasa he established at the location what is now we know as Rangpur town. There had been many ups and downs and the first Madrasa site is unfortunately not exactly traceable now but the continuity broken though has kept its onward march until this day. In historical truth that is how Muslims wherever they have gone into and settled either as selfless Sufis or as rulers, they established Madarasas for they were asked to do as FARD or compulsory learning of the Holy Quran based learning from the basic items to the highest level of Islamic learning and practices.

British Curriculum of 1835 A.D.
Unfortunately during the British rule, the Madarasa curriculum got divided, one claimed to have been keeping up the model of Medina as the renowned one the Delhi’s Rahimia model of eighteenth century, another taken up slightly differently by the Indian Deoband model of nineteenth century and the new one to suit the English company rulers needs as the Calcutta Alia Model established in 1781. The Calcutta model was finally bundled off and sent to Dhaka in the aftermath of the partition of the British India in 1947 and creation of Pakistan, Dhaka being the capital of the Eastern province of the Muslim Independent State of Pakistan. In independent India both the Rahimia model and the Calcutta model was soon dead after 1947. But the Deoband model alone has survived intact through support of the Muslim people independent of India’s secularization state policy imposed particularly on the Muslims of India. However, West Bengal has lately a model of reformed Madarasa to meet their present need in social matters different from the Deoband curriculum.

Previous Models
Until the end of the Pakistan period, the Calcutta model survived in East Pakistan separately alongside with the Deoband Model better known as the Qaomi Madarasa curriculum. Things took problematic turn as soon as East Pakistan became independent of Pakistan as Bangladesh. The Bangladesh Constitution adopted in late 1972 and the Education curriculum required conforming to the Constitution, particularly, for Bengali nationalism, secularism and socialism, the Madarasa curriculum considered to be irrelevant. Neither socialism nor secularism nor even Bengali nationalism was taken to be relevant to Islam and Islamic values. That is why the first Education Commission of 1972 left Madarasa curriculum outside their purview. They concentrated on the education system that the Englishman bureaucrat T.B. Macaulay had prescribed in 1835 A.D. and kept in operation since then despite independence in 1947 and 1971. However, the post 1975 government of Bangladesh founded a committee for doing something for education curriculum that though did not do anything for the Qaomi system, they did some changes in the Alia model (Former Calcutta Model). That is how the two systems survive as of this day.

Stiff Dissent
The 2009 education committee has made their latest reform proposal in further revising the Alia model and nothing doing for the much older Qaomi system except providing for registration with the government records. But the committee and government have been facing stiff opposition from many concerned in the matter. The Education Minister’s declaration mentioned above was made in the context of the opposition they have been consistently facing.

The Fifth Amendment
One must keep fingers crossed for quite a few other reasons, rhetoric and developments. The country is run since 1979 under the Constitution with the 5th Amendment intact that made it binding to pursue every work by the government in accordance with the basic principles, one being the Absolute Faith and Trust on the Almighty Allah, clearly implying the fundamentals of Islamic belief system. Could education curriculum be anyway outside this constitutional basic principle? No. In other words, educational curriculum must conform to the basic faiths of Islam, notwithstanding the fact of religious tolerance of other faiths that Islam permits for certain.

Conflict
Now that many in the government, the Law Minister and even the Prime Minister has said in open and reiterated that the government must go back to the 1972 Constitution abandoning the present one with the 5th Amendment. If that would be so, the government could not only change the Madarasa curriculum but also could not abandon it altogether. What would then the Education Minister say in response to this likely proposition in the Madarasa curriculum change for reverting back to the 1972 Constitution?

1972 Constitution
Seen in the above constitutional context of one or the other the assurance given by the Education Minister is not only utterly confusing but also contradicts the statements made by the Law Minister and the Prime minister so far as their commitment reiterated to going back to the 1972 Constitution was concerned. But the Minister as well as the Government looks like on the defensive against the ongoing popular dissent.

Author: Dr.M.T. Hussain

Thinking about the Day of Deliverance of the Nationalists

Unity
There is feeling and talk everywhere among the Muslim Nationalists of Bangladesh since they fell down into the dangerous ditch in January 2009 following the heavily engineered election of December 2008. The talking was usefully needed to find ways and means to come out of the vicious syndrome or to have another historic Day of Deliverance for the nation and the country and the people had one on the 15th August 1975. Have all the talking during the last ten months found any right solution? Is that the major opposition party has so far had any likely way out? Can they alone unite the mass for the change? Do they have any magic wand? The answer is both no and yes.
Can we not talk about a possible way out? I said both no and yes for the BNP- why let me go a bit in depth.

15th August 1975 and BNP
Shall I be harsh to state that minus the 15th August 1975, BNP must be nothing but a big zero? Because, minus the very brief but decisively historic incident or successful coup d’ ’etat of the 15th August 1975, there would have been no 7th November, much less the BNP’s birth three years latter. I may like to elaborate and explain my harsh words below.

1971 Fall Out
The 1971 war ended in official victory for Bangladesh. I say it was official, as we all knew in the way. The harsher truth was that the victory was snatched by Delhi. The documents for the snatch were, first, the surrender document of the 16th December undertaken by Pakistan Eastern Command Chief Lt General Niazi to Indian Eastern Theatre commander General Arora; second, the absentee leader during war Sheikh Mujib signed the treaty document called euphemistically as ‘Friendship’ but in reality of subservience (Articles 8, 9 and 10) to India for 25 years on the 19th March 1972. Then followed many policies in action of subservience to Delhi beginning from the Constitutional four principles (Bengali Nationalism, Democracy, Secularism and Socialism) to the Education Commission Report for secular curriculum meaning no religious learning for the 85% people of Islamic faith, national development planning made supplementary and complementary to India, foreign policy as appendage to Delhi and subject to Delhi’s concurrence and prior approval under strict surveillance of the Indian cunning bureaucrats and Intelligence bosses of the R&AW like D.P. Dhar, PN Hasker, General Oban etc. directly controlled from Delhi by the Indian PM Indira Gandhi.
In internal matters the party in power was not only grossly inefficient but also corrupt to the backbone that made the otherwise better off country to Bottomless Basket case. The corruptions were so rampant that the leader at one point stated in open that other countries have got gold mines but he had only CHORER KHONI or mines of thieves and thieves all around him. In fact, the party operatives treated the country as the land for their unhindered plunder of national properties and wealth. Apart from price spiral of essential goods day in and day out due mainly to open trade and rampant smuggling along the almost unguarded 4,200 KM border as token of ‘friendship’ between India and Bangladesh, a man made famine (Amartya Sen) took lives in 1974, government figure was 27,000 dead of hunger but the figure counted by private groups went well over several lakhs as against plundering of national properties by the party leaders and cadres.
People naturally had sufferings but hardly had any scope to protest in open, much less resist, against annihilation, brutal oppression and killing with impunity of thousands of dissenting voices by killer force, but known euphemistically as the Rakhsi Bahini, an unconstitutional Para-military force directly planned and controlled by the Indian central Intelligence R&AW lords.

Mockery of Democracy
Although the country initially had multi-party parliament, that was made a mockery by one-man rule. The facade of multi-party democracy was finally abandoned in January 1975 for one party dictatorial rule and the leader Mujib turned himself formally into an absolute and unenlightened dictator of the lone party BAKSAL. Thus the freedom loving people were bonded heavily and their lawful voices choked that they had no way out.

Day of Deliverance
The 15th August came as the Day of Deliverance for the freedom loving people who struggled for long for freedom, because, the BAKSAL dictatorship was toppled by the post coup Government of President Khondoker Moustaque Ahmad, a Muslim Nationalist Awami Leaguer in midst of popular jubilation for Najat (Deliverance) of the people.
Well, he had a brief stay but lifted the nation in many respect from debris of Mujib’s autocratic rule including permitting freedom of press and releasing many newspapers Mujib had proscribed to choke the voices of protest.
The pro-Indian elements however tried to come back. They had a brief control between the 2nd November to the 6th November1975 led by Brigadier Khaled Mosharraf, but failed on the 7th November through a mass uprising of the army foot soldiers joined with the popular support redisplayed again on this day as they did on the 15th August 1975.

7th November 1975
The 7th November was crucial in the sense that on this day the army and the people joined in popular uprising to put Major General Ziaur Rahman to virtual State power as the Army Chief. The consolidation of the power internally due to popular support internally and externally made things easier to float the BNP in 1978. Through passing the 5th Amendment of the Constitution in the duly elected Parliament in April 1979 the country got back the multi-party democracy in over a lapse period in between from 1975 of four years. Be all these realities of facts, how could any sensible person think of the BNP alone in isolation of the 15th August 1975 victorious coup d’ ‘etat make the Solidarity Day of the upcoming 7th November a success?
The unity needed in now in late 2009 thus has to take inspiration from the 15th August not only for that great event restored the open avenue for multi-party democracy but also for the long tradition of the distinct Muslim nationhood alive but disturbed by alien forces time and again in this land. That is how the achievable rock solid unity can take to task the Achilles Hill in front of the nation at this point of time. Otherwise, there is little hope to have success for the nationalists and Muslims notwithstanding the majority aspirations. BNP has to give a serious thought about the issue raised here before they can look for success of the 7th November Revolutionary and Solidarity Day this year in 2009 if they really mean business to overpower both internally and externally the Achilles Hill confronting dangerously the nation and the country at this very critical time for dignity and honorable survival.

Anwar Hoza’s Re-incarnation!
All nationalist elements and parties and so also patriotic Muslims must unite to join hands together for the impending danger of being totally suppressed and subjugated by a new element in Bangladesh of the Muslim family born type Anwar Hoxa of the mid twentieth century Muslim Albania romanticized by him in leading the Muslim 90% people to get lost of their dear faith after the Second World War, if not one of the Fidel Castro model of Cuba.

Autor: Dr.M.T. Hussain