Untold Facts

The Role in Essence of Jinnah and the Muslim League in the 1947 Partition of the British India

In hospital
On the 13th December I was admitted to the BIRDEM Hospital for urgent attention to my deteriorating diabetes level. This was the fourth time of my getting admitted there and second time this year since 10th June when I had a heart attack. I am so fortunate that I get VIP attention and the best treatment available there for being even more fortunate father of an eye specialist employed there now for about 12 years.

2 Recent books
This time I had two books for my pleasure reading, one Jaswant Singh’s famous and recent book Jinnah-India-Partition-Independemce and the other one, Will Secular India Survive, a collection of 14 scholarly articles by high profile academics, edited by Professor Mushirul Hassan of the Jamia Millia Islamia, India, one time Rahimia Madrassa of Shah Waliullah established in the mid eighteenth century and now in the post 1947 Independent India secularized University, somewhat like the pre-1947 Calcutta Islamia College turned into Maolana Azad College immediately after the 1947 Great Divide.
Somehow the two books with me in the hospital cabin drew some attention of the attending physicians, one in particular, a young lady doctor in specific charge of the cabin, I understood.

Young Physician
On a brief occasion just before my discharge on the 23rd December, she asked me first about my profession. I told her about my spending the life as a teacher now nearly 52 years and fully retired from actual class room teaching in a private university three years and a half ago mainly for my failing health. Possibly, her next question was about Jinnah’s division of India and establishment of Pakistan based on religion.

Responses
I responded in my own way. India was not divided in 1947 solely for religious reason, much less by Jinnah for Islam. What Jinnah had uncompromisingly stood was for securing basic rights and dignity of all including the minority Muslims on all India basis to live as free citizens once the British would leave as foreign rulers, and the majority representing the Caste Hindu Congress would not continue to suppress, oppress and exploit the minority Muslims in perpetuity. Jinnah almost until the last critical time of 1946 tried to keep India united and have independence from the British rule as one bigger India. But the Congress leaders like Patel and Nehru, in particular, by their shear arrogance against the genuine grievances of the minorities forced upon the partition as transitory measure with hidden agenda sooner than later to foil the new State of Pakistan, and reintegrate once again into the mother India or AKHAND BHARAT (See, Nehru’s letter, for example, of 23 May 1947 addressed to Tipperah’s/ Comillah’s Congress leader Ashrafuddin Chowdhury, Jaswnt’s Jinnah…, p.508).

Propaganda
The issue of Partition based on religious divide is rather a mischievous propaganda against Jinnah as he had all along been a broad minded person and according to famous Congress leader of the early twentieth century, Gokhale, the Ambassador of Hindu Muslim Unity. Jinnah had no religious bigotry. What he strived on for alleviating the appalling conditions of the minority Muslims all through from his early political career in the Congress Party and did not join the Muslim League, for example, he along with the Congress leader Gokhale he piloted the Muslim Wakf Bill in the Imperial Council to pass as the Muslim Wakaf Act in 1913. On joining the Muslim League he continued the pursuance for the Muslims, being then about 33% or one third of the all Indian population, for protection and safeguard of basic citizenship rights once the British would have left. For in the foreseeable democratic set up in post British India the majority would continually trample upon the minority Muslims who had continued to suffer all the disadvantages during the British rule from 1757 to 1947 along with the lower caste Hindus and other disadvantaged native people in millions. The Congress leaders cared little for the minority Muslims in the future set up. Even in the Muslim majority provinces like Bengal, Punjab, Sind and the Frontier, the autonomy set up proposed by the Cabinet Mission Plan in 1946 with right to opt out in ten years if they would so choose to do was torpedoed by the Congress, particularly by the party President Nehru through his 10th July 1946 press statement. Had he not had torpedoed the Plan in the way that even many other Congress leaders termed as shear folly, India would remain undivided one with safeguard of full autonomy as per the Cabinet Mission Plan for the Muslim majority provinces.
It was only after the torpedoing of the Cabinet Mission Plan by Nehru that the Muslims, Muslim League and Jinnah had no option but to stand more firmly solid for the division of India and for one independent Pakistan comprising the Muslim majority provinces in the western and in eastern India.

Bengal Legislators (1946)
So far as the partition of Bengal was concerned, it was not only the Muslim majority Legislators of 1946 election results but also the absolute majority (106+21=127) of both Muslim (106-35) and Hindu Legislators (58-21) of Bengal combined voted against the partition, but the Viceroy Mountbatten in queer logic forced upon the partition having had obviously the same motive as Nehru had and examples given above (M. Hassan, ed., The Partition Omnibus: ‘Divide and Quit’, p.237).

Partition Reconfirmed
The 1947 partition of Bengal was not negated but once again reconfirmed in 1971 following the victory in the war when despite enthusiasm from certain quarter like Awami League M.P. (1970) from Barisal, Chiitta Ranjan Sutar, in particular, failed to impress for further action upon the then Indian Prime Minster Indira Gandhi to integrate Bangladesh into the Indian fold that she fortunately declined to do right then saying, AVI MUMKEEN NEHI. For the time being the Indian P.M. Indira remained content with partial attainment well known in her verbatim, HAZAR SALO KA BADLA LE LIA. I did not tell the young doctor all these facts in elaboration made here as she was busy with other priorities but even so asked me few other questions.

Unity in Diversity
One such was that she wished to impress upon me that the Muslims had regional differences in many aspects of lives and so were different the Muslims of Pakistan and Bangladesh. Apparently there is little to disagree about, I said. But my point to her on this issue was that in matters of spirituality based on undiluted monotheism and belief in equality of human being, Islam binds all Muslims in the same cord that is hardly comparable with any other existing formal religions. Not only this. The apparent regional and geographical differences in general override all other religious people in matters of value system developed and sustained in spiritual origin that the holy Quran upholds in all purity that no other religion can claim for certain. Thus the Muslims alone as a religious group all over the world, despite apparent differences, have still been maintaining the foundation of life system with the highest level of value aspirations in private and personal lives on which the social superstructure and all other decorations are sustained. The superficial difference manifested though appreciable, the foundational unity is unique and indivisible, unity in apparent diversity.

Facts to Ponder
I gave her some recent facts, not century old ones, as I could right then recall from memory as to how the Muslims in India after 1947 have continually been in deprivation in all matters- in jobs, employment, housing, education, landholding etc. ( See also, M Hassan, Will Secular India Survive, NSSO, 1999-2000 facts and figures quoted in pp.245-6) and even more than the scheduled castes, Dalits, Harijans, tribals etc as they have reservations in those social and economic opportunities that the Muslims do not have since after 1947. Even the reservations in public bodies that existed during the British rule since early twentieth century beginning from the Morley-Minto Reforms of 1909 were done away with in post 1947 independent India. How Bangladeshi Muslims would fare in social opportunities in undivided Bengal with the capital obviously in Kolkata, then in that case Dhaka remaining possibly even now, at best, a small divisional town and in one united India? Minus the Partition of 1947, how would the Bengal Muslims and many others disadvantaged people fare in the all India context and if the Muslims would have misfortune anything other than the overwhelming Muslims of the Indian held Jammu and Kashmir?

Gaps
I knew that she is a young doctor specialized in Diebetes, even junior to our third son working there, and I know that such technical specialists of the post Bangladesh generation including my sons and daughter, all technical professionals, are not only quite ignorant about the past British period pitiable history of the Muslims in India and in Bengal in comparison with the high caste elite Hindus in contrast with the position of the pre eighteenth century Muslim period rule but also had little scope to know about the clear and unbiased history of the nation. As she had time constraint, she was to give time to other patients thus stopping the debate, I asked her to read through carefully those two books I had with me, written by contemporary Indian academics for understanding Jinnah’s struggle for Pakistan in some depth and also think in depth about the two words, theocratic and theocentric, for Muslims should ideally aspire for theocentric society of individual piety and not for theocratic state so far as Muslim state foundation and superstructures are concerned in the present world context.

Jinnah and Muslim League
It is true that the platform of the Muslim League provided Jinnah with at least three achievements, according to American historian and author, Stanley Wolpert- ‘alter the course of history’, ‘modify the map of the world’, ‘creating a nation state’ from nothing or ‘scratch’. It was Jinnah’s leadership that raised the Muslim League, though established on the 30th December in 1906 in Dhaka, to heights of achievement after running through a long period of bewilderment for clear goal that in 1940s Jinnah’s leadership provided rightly in fulfilling aspirations for Pakistan for the then deprived British Indian Muslims.

Author:
Dr. M.T. Hussain
Dhaka
27 December 2009

(This is a birthday presentation to our only daughter who turns fifty today and a consultant physician herself and now a constant nurse for me since I fell ill from heart attack on the 10th June 2009 and then on bed ridden).

Kashmir without a soul

It is unbelievable but Srinagar has changed beyond recognition in the past four years since I was there last. Right from the swanky new airport to the hotel, a distance of about 10 km, there is modern construction.

However, trees have been cut down mercilessly to accommodate fancy thoroughfares. Walls running along the road have been demolished and the rubble is there for all to see. As I covered the journey to my hotel, I missed the old Kashmiri houses from where women with long trinkets would peer out.

Shops are well stocked and full of customers. Too much money is flowing in and the guess is that it is from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and India in that order. The number of cars on the road is many times more than before. There are traffic jams and one has to keep the snarls in mind when one plans a trip. People move freely. I saw many women on the road without burka or headwear.

Militancy is by and large over. Some terrorists strike once in a while. They attacked the police at Lal Chowk recently. But I get the feeling that the media magnifies stray incidents. When attacks were a regular feature, there was curfew after sunset. Now the people are on the road even at 11 pm.

I did not see a single policeman on the road from the airport. Bunkers are mostly gone. I found one at Lal Chowk where some policemen stood with their fingers on the trigger. Papa One and Papa Two, the interrogation centres, have been closed. But detentions still take place. The biggest worry is the occasional disappearance of youth. Incidents like the rape of two women at Shopian are rare. But whenever they take place, they infuriate the people to the extent that they come out on the streets.

The mode of search, whether of a vehicle or a person, has changed. Policemen are more polite and less intrusive. Still a member of a very respected family told me how he and his wife were stopped on the road. A policeman wanted to search the woman but on his insistence a female officer did so.

The anti-India feeling is there beneath the surface. People are not afraid of saying so. However, pro-Pakistan sentiments have practically disappeared, more because of the Kashmiris’ perception of the mess in which the country is.

I found the Hurriyat leaders sober. One leader told me that they had vibes from Delhi that something positive would emerge. They are looking forward to talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. There is an effort to have a consensus among the different parties, including the Hurriyat, before the prime minister’s arrival. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah wants New Delhi to talk to all political parties but has also emphasised that India should have a dialogue with Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir problem.

It was an interesting talk which I heard when I was sitting with the Hurriyat leaders. A young Pakistani American told them that what had surprised him after the span of three years since his last visit was that Kashmir was ‘being assimilated by India quickly’. They were embarrassed but did not want to reply to him in my presence.

Born in Kashmir, this young man is a member of a think tank in Washington. He told them that free state elections, watched by a large number of Americans on televisions, had made a great impression. He said they were beginning to believe that the problem was ‘more or less over’.

Former chief minister Farooq Abdullah is more candid than his son, Omar, who is losing his popularity fast. Farooq says there are ‘paid lobbies’ in the state to keep the problem alive. He accuses security forces, politicians and bureaucrats of having ‘a vested interest in the Kashmir crisis’. He has a point when he says that New Delhi has failed to make headway in resolving the problem. Not many solutions are hawked about now.

There is a suggestion that both Kashmirs should be demilitarised, India withdrawing its forces from the valley and stationing them on its border and Pakistan doing likewise and pulling out its forces from Azad Kashmir. But this depends on India and Pakistan reaching a settlement, supported by the Kashmiris.

The problem of Jammu and Ladakh has become ticklish. They do not want to stay with the valley. Jammu wants to join India and Ladakh wants a union territory status. True, the Hurriyat has never tried to woo Jammu and has seldom cared for the Kashmiri Pandits languishing there. Still both Jammu and Ladakh can be brought around if they were to be given an autonomous status by the valley within the state.

I have no doubt that the Kashmir problem will be solved sooner or later. But too much has happened in the state in the past. This makes it difficult for the old Kashmir to come back to life. Familiar symbols are dying. Sufism has been replaced by assertive teachings. Kashmiri music is dying out because society has been forced to acquire a religious edge. Old crafts attract fewer artisans because there is a race to earn a quick buck. The wazwan, a string of Kashmiri dishes served at one sitting, is still there but new cooks are hard to get.

The reintegration of Muslims and Pandits appears difficult. An Islamic identity has taken shape, reportedly more in the countryside. Kashmiriyat, a secular ethos, is beyond repair. The animosity among the three regions Kashmir, Jammu and Ladakh, may dilute but will remain. It may still remain the state of Jammu and Kashmir. But its soul would be missing.

By Kuldip Nayar
The writer is a leading journalist based in Delhi.

Where’s the idea of India?

IT is happening too often. Parochialism is rearing its ugly head in Mumbai too frequently. The Shiv Sena is threatening to throw out ‘outsiders’ from Mumbai and the rest of Maharashtra.

Self-centred party chief Bal Thackeray has created a ruckus once again, this time dragging into controversy Sachin Tendulkar, the world’s best batsman, who said that he was proud to be a Maharashtrian but that he was Indian first. How should this remark irritate anybody?

I think it is time that Mumbai was made a Union Territory. Industrially and commercially, it is the hub of India’s financial activity. Delhi is a Union Territory because it is the centre of the country’s political activity. Why should Mumbai, which is India’s financial capital, have a different status?

People from various parts of the country have settled in Mumbai making large investments and contributing to business life their labour and entrepreneurship for decades. More money has come from others, not the Maharashtrians. Even population-wise, my impression is that the non-Maharashtrians are a bit up.

If nothing else, the contribution by ‘outsiders’ should shut up the Shiv Sena and its ilk, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, that they are a burden on Mumbai or that the jobs in the state should be given to Maharashtrians alone. This pernicious thesis, the son-of-the-soil articulation, was advanced by many states, including Maharashtra, before the Fazl Ali States Reorganisation Commission in 1955. It firmly rejected the various claims and held: “It is the Union of India that is the basis of our nationality.” In its report, the Commission said that “it (Bombay) has acquired its present commanding position by the joint endeavour of the different language groups”.

The proposal that Bombay should be constituted as a separate unit was first mooted by the Dar Commission when the constituent assembly was debating in 1949 the formation of linguistic states. The then ruling Congress party accepted the proposal for the reorganisation of states.

Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru took a fancy to the idea of keeping Bombay apart. He pushed it when Maharashtra and Gujarat were agitating against the commission’s recommendation to integrate them into one bilingual state. Nehru presented before the cabinet a proposal to have three units: Maharashtra, Gujarat and the city of Bombay. The then finance minister, C.D. Deshmukh, agreed to the formula in the cabinet. But he changed his stand following the furore in Maharashtra and submitted his resignation. Bombay was made part of Maharashtra.

Nevertheless, the linguistic states have not been of much help to the country. They are increasingly becoming ‘islands of chauvinism’. This was the danger to which Nehru drew attention after new boundaries were drawn on the basis of language. The BJP-run Madhya Pradesh is the latest one to announce that it does not want Bihari labour.

Unfortunately, the manner in which certain administrations have conducted their affairs has partly contributed to the growth of parochial sentiments. The rulers have an eye on elections, not realising that the idea of India gets defeated if people prioritise domicile considerations.

After the formation of states, it was understood that the regional language could be learnt after the recruitment. But now its knowledge has been made compulsory before a person is eligible for the job. This is making state services an exclusive preserve of the majority language group of the state.

The prosperity of some states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka has raised questions in UP, Bihar and Orissa, the economically backward areas, that they were not getting their due. Relations between the centre and the states have become strained on this count.

The country’s unity has been uppermost in the mind of policymakers. There have been a few movements here and there, raising the standard of autonomy. But the democratic system with a federal structure, established firmly after the introduction of the constitution in 1950, has taken the wind out of the separatists’ sail. Except for a few militants’ organisations in the northeast, the people’s heart is in the country’s unity.

In the late 1950s, the southern states felt that they were not getting their share. There were agitations and public rallies. Nehru was quick to convenethe National Integration Conference to discuss the various grievances. The conference appointed many committees to give their recommendations on how to bring about national integration.

Before they could submit the reports, China attacked India in 1962. All committees made just one comment: The Chinese invasion had united the entire country. Indeed, this was true because all dissenting voices died in no time.

The country had a jolt in the 1980s. The Akalis in Punjab revolted. The state was in the midst of militancy for about a decade. The Sikhs themselves turned against the militants who had made their life hell. Punjab is today a peaceful state.

The odd voice of linguistic chauvinism, the fallout of the reorganisation of the states in 1955, has been heard in some areas off and on. The real purpose has been to gain votes in the name of the ‘stepmotherly treatment’ meted out to a particular community. It must be admitted that slogans in the name of language or caste has helped.

The only state where parochialism has been constantly fostered by the Shiv Sena is Maharashtra. The group even won an election with the support of the BJP, on the slogan ‘throw out outsiders from Maharashtra’. Bihari labourers were beaten up, something which Raj Thackeray, nephew of Bal Thackeray, repeated after breaking away from the Shiv Sena.

No doubt, the basis of nationality is the Union of India. The states are but the limbs of the union. Yet the limbs must be healthy and strong. Some states have too many poor people concentrated in their territory. Yet what keeps India together is its diversity. By dividing the country into linguistic spheres or by injuring the rights of those who are in a minority, the parochial elements are posing a danger to the very idea of India. It is better that organisations like the Shiv Sena understand this.

Author:Kuldip Nayar
Friday, 20 Nov, 2009
(The writer is a senior journalist based in Delhi.)

Pointing Fingers at Bangladesh’s Smallness: What End?

Pointing fingers
Not that everybody in the nature is equal but in common unequal. As a geographical entity Bangladesh is smaller than many countries, but not smaller in population size but the 8th largest in the world. Even so, fingers are pointed out to Bangladesh as something helpless for the geographical location and size. It’s really a matter of wonder to me when the chorus is joined by not only some ‘intellectuals’ here but also by cabinet ministers of this government, in particular.

Product of historical forces
The geographical location, size and in some way vulnerable position of Bangladesh territory are products of historical forces of the last six decades or so. Whether the historical forces had been right or wrong in value judgment is a different matter. But they had been the realities of the times and actions of our forefathers.

East Bengal/Bangladesh
Bangladesh as the country is known after 1971 had been in more factual reality East Bengal of the British period (1757-1947). In social term the common people in the area had been worst sufferers during the British Rule. Incidentally the majority people happened to be Muslim in religious belief, but the elite landholders, property owners and social power holders in the main belonged to the non-Muslim class save a few exceptions. That was not the social elite class structure before the end of the eighteenth century or to be exact before the introduction of the so-called Permanent Settlement in 1793 A.D. by the British East India Company Governor General Cornwallis. Before 1757 .D., during the Muslim Rule of several centuries, the elite land owning came not only from non-Muslims but also from Muslims, as well. There was thus some balance in social justice and equity among all religious people. In addition to distributive justice, the Muslim sovereigns, no matter whether located in Delhi/Agra or elsewhere in greater Bengal such as in Dhaka, at Sonargaon, etc. stood for social justice and equity in terms of Islamic equality between man and man, despite feudalism, not in the way of in-built social inequality of caste segregation and injustice of the non Muslims of much older culture and civilization.

Fall out of the Company Rule
The British colonialists despite change of the mode of Company rule to the Crown’s control in 1858 following the revolt and first independence movement in 1857, the Permanent Settlement was kept unaltered that perpetuated the disadvantages of the overwhelming Muslim people so much so that not only their earlier elite land owning and property owning lots broken down to almost non-entity but also the distributive justice of the Muslim period to almost ashes. The age-old Muslim Wakaf system of distributive justice for education and equitable social welfare had been annulled almost along with the Permanent Settlement that was not restored though partially in the Wakaf Act of 1913 arduously tabled in the Imperial Legislative Council by M.A Jinnah in 1911.

The British and Lackeys
The British rulers having had aid of their local henchmen of the new propertied class turned to enemies of the overwhelming majority people of East Bengal who happened to be Muslims. In the beginning of the twentieth century the people of East Bengal and Assam had a ray of hope for emancipation from the oppression and exploitation in the partition of the region into two separate provinces, East Bengal & Assam and West Bengal. West Bengal had Calcutta its capital and East Bengal & Assam got Dacca as the capital of the new province. Unfortunately, the division that promised some benefit to East Bengal and development at par with Calcutta centered West Bengal was not liked by the elites who had already established themselves as the propertied and advanced elite during the past British rule then gone on for 150 years. They rose in protest and revolt to annul the partition and get abandoned the creation of the new province and the new capital Dacca by the British Government in London. The terrorist movement of the Bengali mode started then and then that among other terrorists happened to produce Surya Sen, Khudiram etc. from among the extremist ‘Hindu middle classes’ (Azad, India Wins Freedom, Delhi, 1988/1992, p.5) having had set the goal for epical Hindu Ram Raj in Bengal. The Bengal poet Tagore not still then have had received the Nobel Prize in Literature actively joined the movement for annulment of the partition of Bengal through his writing of special poems, joining in meetings, rallies, processions etc., if he had not direct link with the active terrorists. Their main slogan was that they stood to preserve their MOTHER BENGAL from VIVISECTION by the sword of the Jabans (Foreigner Muslims)!

The Congress
The Congress Party established in 1885 by a British bureaucrat Octavian Hume by then turned into elite Hindu organization went on to lend support to the anti vivisection movement of the Calcutta based Bengalis. The East Bengal people, the Muslims in particular being unorganized against the joint onslaught of the Congress and the Calcutta elites rose to unite for preservation of the new province of East Bengal and Assam and the age old Muslim city Dacca as the capital. Nawab Khawja Salimullah of Dacca, a great philanthropist, provided the leadership with all earnest and huge sacrifice. The founding of the All India Muslim League in Dacca in 1906 was the direct outcome of his effort in organizing the backward people of East Bengal and the Muslims, in particular.

The Crown Yielded
Unfortunately for the people of East Bengal and Assam the British Crown yielded to the pressures of the Congress Party, the Calcutta elites and their terrorist activities on the increase and so annulled the partition through a Royal Decree in December 1911, washed off their hands from the ‘settled fact’ of East Bengal province and restored status quo of the pre 1905 position; Dhaka was abandoned as the capital of the new province to its previous District/Division status. All development works connected to the new province were stopped and the people of East Bengal once again relapsed into frustration and backwardness. Calcutta rejoiced the ‘re-unification’ of Bengal having all their previous privileges and authority restored. The Calcutta elites of the Congress genre celebrated the abandonment of the new province as their great victory for MOTHER GOD BENGAL! The Muslim League as poorly organized as they were failed to uphold the new province.

The Muslim League did again
The East Bengal Muslims having the banner of the Muslim League in about three decades gained strength and power to assert themselves not alone though but with the Muslims of other parts of India under the same banner and under the sparkling leadership of M.A. Jinnah decisively and through popular mandate restored once again in 1947 the East Bengal province and the capital Dhaka not though as the province of the British empire but of the new Muslim independent State of Pakistan. Very amazingly this time the Calcutta elite had forgotten all about the unity of their MOTHER GOD BENGAL! Nehru, Patel etc of their leaders who mattered then in a deep despise in 1947 let East Bengal have the present geographical shape, ‘truncated and moth eaten’, go out of their Indian federation. Well, they wanted unity of Bengal and the Punjab only at the cost of continuing subjugation in minority status of the Muslims all over in the post British Indian subcontinent, not providing any scope for autonomy even in the Muslim majority provinces in the western region and in the eastern locality as Bengal had happened to be (Shila Sen, Muslim Politics in Bengal 1937-1947, Delhi, 1976, pp.244-245), and as had been proposed to be provided in the 1946 Cabinet Mission Plan but by design or default exploded by Nehru ( S. S. Husain, The Wastes of Time: Reflections on the Decline and Fall of East Pakistan, Dhaka, 1995, pp.108-09; Azad, Op. Cit., p 165). That obviously meant for East Bengal nothing of any provincial status much less independent and sovereign Bangladesh and Dacca the capital as they now enjoy the positions, honors and statuses.

Post 1971
In 1971, another episode was enacted. Despite their covert designs the province was not amalgamated into their domain; Dacca also retained the status of capital not only of the province but also of the independent State of Bangladesh. Thus the historical forces of the times played their parts in the making of the geographical smallness and vulnerability.
During the Pakistan period the smallness and vulnerability was not that threatening as India and Pakistan had been contending powers in the region. Pakistan still is the contending power for it has acquired nuclear power despite massive poverty of the common people. Bangladesh has the same sort of widespread poverty but lack in nuclear arsenal to have inner strength and confidence against the big neighbor that also encircles Bangladesh.

Many smaller
There are many smaller countries in the world with the kind of disability Bangladesh has. Are they all infested with the fear and inferiority complex as some elites here including some cabinet ministers have constantly been showing up of late?

Visionless lackeys
Bangladesh foreign relations and diplomacy if could be lifted out from the kind of over dependence on the big neighbor, there should be no dearth of friends to help in other parts of the globe. Bangladesh’s huge manpower though a liability in some sense, they could be strength and assets, as well, to fight in all fronts the likely adversaries provided they are trained, educated and motivated in the way needed. Failure to do these tasks ahead of the nation is the likely cause of inferiority, helplessness and vulnerability and not the territorial smallness and encirclement as such. The obsolete cliché of blame game of ‘anti Indian mentality’ reposed on the erstwhile Pakistan in Bangladesh that ended nearly four decades ago would not cu the ice unless and until the big neighbor continues to annihilate the people of Bangladesh in every possible fronts from almost A to Z. The ball is thus in India’s court. That is however said nothing to absolve the Government of their onus to take on and continue to pursue the dignified sovereign policy path for honorable existence of the country.

Author: M.T. Hussain

No India’s (JUJU) Fear of Sheikh Hasina!

Silly
On the 9th September, Sheikh Hasina, the leader of the House and the Prime Minister of Bangladesh while speaking in the Parliament and seen in the TV screen looked very exuberant and confident that she had no fear at all of India JUJU. Her logic and assertion appeared to have been based on that the people of Bangladesh fought for and sacrificed for independence in 1971. On the same evening in the Parliament there was a row and serious indiscipline continuing for fifteen minutes as the report we had in the media that the 1971 war owed all to the armed men and not to any politicians! The indiscipline cooled down only after the State Minister Tajul Islam, himself an army man and freedom fighter amended his comment and included in the list the politicians, as well. The other silly remark she made was that should Bangladesh not join the ‘Asian Highway’ the country would be isolated from the world!

Sheikh Hasina in 1971
Recalling back one may find that Sheikh Hasina in 1971 had both good and bad days; she had been carrying her first issue JOY and her father in the West Pakistan prison. The independence war went on in the real war fronts not only in the absence of her father but also in her being in almost royal care of the army doctors and nurses in the Dhaka Cantonment Combined Military Hospital (CMH). In that sense State Minister Tajul Islam was right before amending his first comment about politicians’ participation in the war fronts. Many fought undoubtedly very courageously for the name of Hasina’s father but none for Hasina’s name, because she was then a young house wife of a working young scientist and rarely known to other people except to the very near ones. The question of her participation in the war did not arise at all for her age just passed teens and first child carrying or expecting mother. Only historical forces and incidents of rare kind made her the P.M. not only this time in 2009 but also in the earlier term (1996-2001). Even so, when she as the P.M. shows courage for upholding the sovereignty of Bangladesh against India (JUJU), the attitude is undoubtedly laudable. People would appreciate her in the exuberance shown. But the crucial questions remain elsewhere.

India in 1971
The first is the tricky issue of legacy of India’s active help in the 1971 war of independence and the way they came in for help that in the end despite heroic sacrifices of the Bangladeshi freedom fighters, the war ended in the form of war between India and Pakistan. Whatever may have been the argument against this thesis and whatsoever have been the style of rhetoric, the surrender of Pakistan Eastern Command was not made, in fact, to the joint command of the Mukti Bahini and the Indian Army Eastern Command but to the Indian command General Arora alone who signed the document as against Pakistan’s General Niazi. That documentarily made Bangladesh then an occupied territory of Indian army. The incident preceded another lacuna that established India as the invader for at least three days of the territory of East Pakistan starting on the 3rd December 1971 for the simple reason that Indian Government did not recognize Bangladesh as an independent country until on the 6th December 1971. Such initial lacunas put the Indian lordship on top that clearly impinged on and limited the sovereignty of Bangladesh. Thus until the withdrawal of the Indian army in March 1972, Bangladesh had been not only under Delhi’s full army control but also the administration were being run by them.

Fall out of 1971
The withdrawal of the Indian Army from the soil of Bangladesh was not completed and took effect unless and until the so-called ‘friendship’ treaty was undertaken on the 19th March 1972 in Dhaka that made Dhaka in reality subservient to Delhi for the term of 25 years set therein. The articles of the treaty 8, 9 and 10 were clear proofs for the point. That amazingly looked like an extension of the Seven Point Treaty Tajuddin, the Exile Government P.M., undertook as pre condition for armed help before the war began in December 1971. The interesting issue about the total subservience under the treaty was such that the then Acting President of the country Syed Nazrul Islam got fainted as Tajuddin had signed the treaty in his presence in Delhi for the document was nothing but a signed piece of paper for Bangladesh to give in to remain bonded subservient to Delhi for good for Delhi’s help for winning in the impending war against Pakistan and getting Bangladesh out of Pakistan frame work. The clauses 8, 9 and 10 of the 25-year treaty, in fact, formalized those conditions of subservience Tajuddin had yielded. In other words, the recognized formal leader of Bangladesh gave a clear and irrevocable nod to those disabilities about sovereignty of Bangladesh at per with India.

1996 onwards
The treaty duration expired in March 1997 when Hasina had been in power as the P.M. in her first term. She tried to renew the treaty for her safe survival, but could not do so for stiff opposition in the country against the treaty. But she took other means to give India other advantages against the sovereignty of Bangladesh. The first one being the 30 years treaty for Ganges water sharing that in fact gave all advantage to India so much so that Bangladesh since then continued to receive less than what normal natural quantity should have been obtained as from the age old natural course of water flow down in Bangladesh territory in the Padma River. The other one was the inequitable treaty signed with the Hill Tracts people so much so that the people other than tribal groups turned into second-class citizens in their own ‘sovereign’ country.

Term 2009 onwards
In the second term she began in January 2009, she is well on for giving land transit to India first by nodding to use the Ashuganj River port that was resisted by the people for decades, seems to have yielded to India for the Tipaimukh Dam /Barrage at the cost of consequent desertification of about one fourth of the eastern south of Bangladesh that is estimated to cost Bangladesh nearly two and a quarter million Taka loss of production etc. each year for adverse effects of the Tipaimukh Dam just as Farakka Barrage‘s adverse effects have been costing nearly one and half million Taka each year to Bangladesh and would continue so possibly at increasing figures year after year. Nod is given by the recent visit of the Bangladesh Foreign Minister also to the loss of Bangladesh due to India’s Gazaldoba Barrage erected recently at the upstream of the River Teesta like the Farakka is yet to be figured out but the likely figure would be anything of thousands of million Taka each year as adverse effects during each dry season scarcity of water flow since about a decade now as the Teesta Irrigation Project of Bangladesh has been made almost nonfunctional due to withdrawal of almost all water in the dry season by India (See, Asaf Ud Dowla, Daily Naya Diganta, 13 September, 2009). The amazing thing is that when she has been pursuing without putting the slightest resistance against India for the sovereignty of the country clearly as a loyal good woman of India, her humbug on the question of sovereignty can be nothing, to say the least, but only absurd rhetoric.

Anti-Indians
It is reported in The Times of India on September 11, 2009 that Delhi need be ‘hard’ on Dhaka for anything and everything that Bangladesh tend to hit India’s interest. The prestigious daily of India has invented that the bureaucracy and intelligence people being trained as ‘anti-Indian’ have been trying to restrain Hasina to become soft on India in any matter! What a new theory! Fortunately, the daily has, in their way, reconfirmed that compared to the patriotic bureaucracy she is much more for protecting Indian interests. Albeit, so. How can she forget that she had the best sympathy and protection in Delhi not only during her six years of trying time following the 1975 August coup in Dhaka but also it is well known that Delhi played the crucial role in bringing her the second term into power this time in the December 2008 general election revealing lately as the fraudulent one of only of its kind in the history of Bangladesh.

Humbleness
The real situation and geographical position is that Bangladesh has remained encircled by Indian territories almost on all sides. Bangladesh has, as such, genuine fear (JUJUR VOE) against the sovereignty and that mainly from India not only for India encircling Bangladesh but also much bigger in military might in comparison to the much smaller might of Bangladesh. There is thus no scope to remain careless about the threat that may at any time come from India as the past experience shows that since six decades now she has forcibly occupied many of her smaller neighbors and assimilated them all into the Indian domain, the only exception has been the continuing resistance in the Indian held Jammu and Kashmir.

India’s fear
I am sure India has a genuine fear that should India violate the sovereignty of Bangladesh, she might face continued resistance like the overwhelming people of Jammu and Kashmir now going on with huge sacrifices for over six decades. If Hasina has in mind the example of the continued resistance of the overwhelming majority people of Jammu and Kashmir, that is certainly appreciable and a different matter.

Hasina grossly wrong
I am afraid she is grossly wrong, illogical and very much silly when she said that Bangladesh would be isolated from the world unless it gets on the Asian High way obviously the way India has imposed on Bangladesh. Is that at all so? If she had really meant Asian Highway of the type of historic Grand Trunk Road of the 16th century that would have been something worth. Because we could then get road connection to the east and the West from further east of Akiab (Myammar) to Bangladesh to Delhi to Peshawar to Khybar to Kabul and onwards, not only to Nepal and Bhutan, our two other closest neighbors. Let’s not be fooled that we are now in 2009 A.D. in the fastest moving internet-age connecting one another from one corner of the globe to another in seconds, not even minutes. Besides, road transports are now a day considered not at all suitable for heavy goods both for quantity and for road durability in alluvial soil that most Bangladesh soil is. Bangladesh had no direct road/rail transports for the last six decades the way India has been insisting on and Hasina seems to have yielded to the idea. Even so, the people of Bangladesh, much less the country had not been isolated from the world. The silly remarks she made in the Parliament might have made, if one may use the term used by BBC’s renowned journalist Serajur Rahman, the HUQQA HUAs pleased but not any sensible one in the country.

Author: Dr. M.T. Hussain

Bangladesh Pakistan Relation: An Appraisal Perspective from Dhaka

Pak PM’s visit
There was a news item published in a Dhaka daily that PM Hasina while she met the Pakistan P.M. Gillani sidelined on a recent visit to Cairo has invited him to visit Bangladesh. The visit might, as the report went, take place at some agreeable time in near future. The news was certainly a good one as people of both the countries would be benefited possibly in sorting out from the proposed visit many issues that still after 38 years, at times, make things unpleasant and create unreasonable acrimony.

Two Decades
It is only historical truth that both people struggled long, then founded the State of Pakistan and stayed together for little over two decades (1947-1971). The two parts or wings geographically distanced away at one thousand miles, a separate sovereign country in between, made some difficulties in many day-to-day issues of administration. Even so, the issue did not create any stumbling block in forward advancement compared to many neighboring and developing countries. The only lacuna was that the country partly failed in open democratic polity and so had some grumbling at certain quarters that absence of free democracy had had the obvious effect.

Dictatorship
In about two decades of confused dictatorship hopes for democracy was shining in the minds of the people that though a non-politician and army dictator set goals for in 1970 election in both wings of the country. Fortunately the election was held on schedule, but the result had one unfortunate feature in that the two regional or provincial parties, the Awami League in the East and the People’s Party in the West won in the polls with absolute majority in exclusion of the other party in the provinces. People in both the wings had fears of anything bad for the two main party leaders were in non-conciliatory mood. That provided a golden opportunity for the big neighbor to grind her axe against the unity and integrity of one and united Pakistan as she continued to do since the days of 1947 partition of British India.

R&AW
Here it may be worthwhile to make some in depth look into the big neighbor’s intelligence activities manned and managed by the stalwarts of the R&AW (Research and Analysis Wing). There are many published documents in the matter dating back for their activities in early 1950s to the 1971 crisis and their fuelling of the opportune crises one after another following the 1970 election. Though the R&AW was formally launched by the then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1968 to augment and strengthen further its earlier activities of the 1950s and 1960s, she had in the main three main goals then to accomplish, one, dismember Srilanka and establish Tamil Land in the north and east, occupy the small Himalayan independent country Sikkim and most importantly effect secession of East Pakistan to dismember Pakistan, her ‘Number one Enemy.’ The 1970 election result of East Pakistan, in particular, gave Delhi the best of opportunities of ‘one thousand years’. Among the published documents from the &AW operatives working during 1950s and 1960s, one may have some insight look into the works of Jyoti SenGupta (History of Freedom Movement of Bangladesh 1947-73, 1974) and Ashok Raina (Inside RAW, 1982) both of R&AW’s, intelligence operatives, and the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) findings report compiled meticulously in details since 1947 and published in an internet edition on the 24th August 2009 by David Miller Smith.

Design of Delhi
There had been no hide and seek of Delhi’s design in the region, and so aggressively for East Pakistan. But it is a pity that many top-level leaders who even had fought for Pakistan in 1947 joined the R&W operation in early 1950s (if Jyoto Sen Gupta is to be believed), no matter fully knowingly or unknowingly due to callousness.

Self Seekers
The matter did not end in the egoist hard and backward looking attitude of the politicians. Even the Army General who had the gun at his control in view of the Martial Law in force in the country had licentious evil habits so much so that an Indian R&AW spy ‘RANI’ (possibly nicknamed as mentioned in Sarder Mohammad Chowdhury’s Ultimate Crime, 1999) might have played a critical role in the 25th March (1971) suicidal ‘Operation Searchlight’ in Dhaka that obviously triggered dismemberment of Pakistan and secession of East Pakistan.

Better way out
The subsequent history of both (West) Pakistan and Bangladesh are recent and in everybody’s fresh memory. To me, both have gained something, no doubt, from the 1971 secession, but the losses are yet to be fully accounted for they would continue to hound both compressed, if not oppressed, in between the bigger arms of the much bigger neighbor.

Inequality
At popular level millions of commoners are not better off but suffer from exploitation, grinding poverty and utter frustration of minimum dignified living. Increasing rate of inequality between man and man from region to region is a harsh reality in both the countries and yet independent, and so making mockery of freedom. The big neighbor India do not fare better in terms of inequality between man and man, exploitation of one region by another, and yet the R&AW imposes threat and dominance for devouring all smaller neighbors around sooner than latter.

Two powers
In the backdrop briefly outlined above, history asks us to look long long back to rediscover that there were and are only two great and contesting powers in the subcontinent, the egalitarian Muslims for emancipation of all human beings, on the one hand, and the racist Hindus for perpetuating hatred and inequality, on the other, and that are the open options ahead for these countries to obviously move forward. Possibly, no other third way out whatever bandwagon for democracy and secularism is loudly given. Pakistan and Bangladesh, if they would contemplate afresh in this line, and pragmatically may look ahead consciously ignoring the follies and lapses of the past they may gain something positive and usefulness in dialogue in the proposed visit of the Pakistan P.M. of the second generation having no backlog liability.

Author: M.T. Hussain

RAW, Secession and Independence of Bangladesh

New yet old story
Nothing new in the fact that the Indian central intelligence agency, R&AW had plan for secession of East Pakistan from the day one of 1947 but also that Bangladesh came into being as the essential by product of the design. A US NGO report has only now in August 2009, too late if not too little, made the fact public in their document. Those who are already aware of the R&AW’s machination in early 1950s and 1960s as there are in Jyoto Sengupta’s memoirs (A History of Freedom Movement of Bangladesh 1947-73: Some Involvement, 1973) and Ashok Raina’s documentary evidences (Inside RAW) had no surprise in the matter that David Miller Smith made on the 24th August 2009 a three-page item I have received from the internet.

Bengal Muslims
If one would honestly recall the background history and movement of the Bengal Muslims during the colonial British period it would really appear to be a matter of surprise that the people who popularly supported the Muslim League since almost about the inception in 1906 and overwhelmingly voted for one Pakistan in the 1946 general election could have gone all the way out for secession from Pakistan and seriously sought for independent Bangladesh just after 24 years in 1971. Five years back in September 1965 when Pakistan-India war broke out, and I was then posted at Rangpur district town about 200 miles north west of Dhaka, teaching in a college there, I recall thousands in that small district town thronged into the streets to cheer up the EPR (East Pakistan Rifles) and the Pakistan Army units posted in the locality to ‘crush India’ at the war. Did I see anything wrong of the people’s sentiment against Indian aggression or were the people wrong about their sentiment for Pakistan’s unity and integrity? The 1971 26th March army Operation Searchlight changed no doubt many calculations, but was that deep enough to bring secession and cut Pakistan to size for ensuring all strategic benefits to the regional Indian power? Was there no scope to look for dignified and respectful way out except secession?

Why not all Bengalis?
Some other relevant questions could also be raised. Indians had been eager to get Bengalis of East Pakistan in 1971 freedom from Pakistan; very lofty proposition indeed, and a pious wish of them. Why could not they have had even before 1971 the same pious wish for freedom of the Kashmiris who have been brutally enchained against their free will by Delhi’s occupation armed force for over six decades now figuring about half a million and since 1947? How about the independence struggle of the people of the so known ‘seven sisters’ of the eastern India who remained close to and neighbor of former East Pakistan and now Bangladesh? Why can’t Delhi let the 80 million Bengalis of West Bengal and Tripura living adjacent to Bangladesh territory could go off its control and suzerainty to form together still greater Bengali State of about 230 million people with Bangladesh after 1971? I am sure, Delhi had no easy, much less satisfactory answer to all the questions above, and so they cannot rationalize secession of East Pakistan in 1971. That means the R&AW and Delhi had other rotten rats in the bag.

RAW in FAS’s findings
Possibly the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), established in 1945 and having had its wide- ranging members of high credentials including members from among 45 Nobel Laureate cannot be given a dam to the RAW involvement in the secession of East Pakistan since 1947. That is however not to suggest that thousands of sincere and dedicated Bengali freedom fighters had no mean contribution in snatching independence of Bangladesh in 1971. Even so, say for example, foreign dignitaries like US Senator Ted Kennedy, etc. who among the rare Americans supported the Bangladesh movement in 1971 against his country’s policy not to support secession need be seen in still wider context.

Exuberant and yet immoral Kennedy
By the way, Kennedy coming of a political family had been an exuberant Democratic Party youth of 39 years in 1971. He was well known to be licentious as many of the Democrats used to be. He was warned several times by police for fast driving quite possibly under alcohol. In moral turpitude he was a close friend of such elements. Though free sex and alcoholism are no public crime so long those remained indoors, but other moral turpitude could have been with these vices. Once in 1969 he had a young girl with him at a nightclub, possibly drank heavily, and then driving himself to their destination. Unfortunately, the car met an accident he was driving when the car overturned and fell in a water pool by the road from a small bridge on the road. He swam across from inside the car, went away caring nothing for the girl (Possibly call girl), not even informed the police to rescue her from the drowned car. That incident should speak well about the standard of his morality and ethics. Exuberance for a subject matter and feeling for a great humanitarian cause in association with high morality and ethics are different matters.

Akhanda Bharat
Coming back to the main theme and concentrating in deeper aspect of the subject, irrespective of what other parties contemplated, India went absolutely ahead with her own design that she set right in 1947 just as Pandit Nehru made clear in May 1947 in a letter addressed to one of the Congress leader Ashrafuddin Chowdhury of Comilla. He stated clearly in the letter addressed to him dated 23 May that they had accepted the condition of partition of India (and for founding Pakistan) for the time being as a strategy for ‘reuniting once again India sooner than latter’ (See, Rajdrohi Ashrafuddin Chowdhury by his son Jamaluddin Chowdhury). If one would recall further the first spontaneous response of the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on the 16th December 1971 announcing the defeat of Pakistan Army to the Indian victorious Army General Arora, ‘HAME HAJAAR SHALO KA BADLA LE LIA’ (we have taken the historic revenge of one thousand years)! Revenge of Delhi against Pakistan alone? Revenge for whose freedom? Bengalis freedom? Why not for the Bengalis of West Bengal and Tripura along with Bengalis of Bangladesh?

Weaker Pakistan
It is true that for the R&AW’s success Pakistan has been weakened after 1971 that emboldened India more than ever before 1971. Even so, there is some competition for rivalry at least in possession of nuclear arms by both Pakistan and India. How does Bangladesh fare in this matter? Not even a nuclear power station!

Unequal and subservient
That Bangladesh does not fare equal with India is a fact of reality. In addition, Delhi had imposed whatever they wished against Dhaka ranging from the Constitution tailored to their need and goal for AKHANDA BHARAT or reunited India to complementary and supplementary economy, to subservient foreign relations, to educational and cultural policies, to internal security and even in matters of national secrets, if there is any. The 25 year treaty Bangladesh made in Dhaka on the 19th March was clearly a treaty of subservience, particularly by the power of the clauses 8, 9 and 10 (though it lapsed in 1997, the hangover remains in other areas like the 30 year treaty for water sharing and the CHT treaty of gross inequity among citizens of the same country and locality). The vulnerability of maritime boundary with the neighbors, inefficient border protection, control of water flows at the upstream of the 54 rivers by India at their free will and causing all disadvantages to Bangladesh remained as Achilles Heel of Bangladesh making independence a play toy in the hand of Delhi so much so that more of the capable ministers like AMA Muhith made on the 18th August a frank but guarded remark, “The sovereignty of the nation is limited now due to different reasons” (The weekly Holiday, 29 August 2009). Unfortunately he did not elaborate or had to guard his job by not elaborating and indict the R&AW and Delhi.

15th August 1975 gains now lost
Some patriots, particularly in the Army, who having had discovered the mockery made a decisive blow and ousted the puppet government on The 15th August 1975, because the game of secession had no clear sanction of the people but engineered and well managed by the R&AW. Unfortunately, the gains accrued were almost all lost and brought the R&AW once again in to the driving position so much so that many sensible men and women consider the High Commissioner of Delhi now in Dhaka in full control of internal affairs of Bangladesh since January 2009.

Affluent few and millions have not
Well, in the kind of independence a microscopic minority have thrived but the main slogan for the masses in millions for emancipation remain a matter of illusion in the last four decades so much so that nearly half of the 150 million live under the extreme poverty line. And if the domination of Delhi and the policy of Akhanda Bharat of the RAM RAJ or caste ridden division between man and man continues to be operative, the R&AW would continue to keep its hold for such perpetual discrimination, and so would continue to remain illusive the real freedom for all in Bangladesh.

Author: Dr.M.T.Hussain

Geographical Helplessness!

Inferiority due to Encirclement by India!
The pity is that so far in the last four decades the governments of Bangladesh with rare exception at times miserably failed to rise psychologically above the feelings of inferiority, vulnerability and helplessness for geographical containment of Bangladesh by India. The government now in power since January 2009 has been reminding the people repeatedly that Bangladesh must accept whatever India prescribes for everything internally and externally. That is why they are giving India the transit through the territory of Bangladesh, yielding the three CHT districts to the tribal people alone in exclusion of all other citizens in India’s terms of pleasure, permitting India to have the Tipaimukh Dam in detriment of the water system and ecology of one fourth of Bangladesh just as earlier in 1997 gave India for 30 years the inequitable share of water of the Ganges/Padma river upstream, turning the BDR ineffectual than before by first intimidating and then killing about six dozen brilliant senior army officers in an orchestrated mayhem soon after the government saddled them in power in January 2009 that certainly looks like helping India possibly to turn the Bangladesh national army to be subservient and fully loyal to India. The conspicuous hush ups in the matter of the BDR massacre of 25-26 February 2009 (See M. Joynal Abedin, BDR Massacre, July 2009, London) by the present government is no mean task in finishing up the self-confident army that is now seen to be followed by dismissing senior and efficient top army officers, on the one hand, and re-appointing already retired lots having proven allegiance both to the government and India, on the other! In the machination of the CHANAKYA’s theory and Macaulay’s curriculum prescriptions of ‘secularism’ that this government has been in action programs to isolate the otherwise monotheist spiritual nation drawing enough psychological utilities in the face of scarce mundane items now in short supply at increasing rate than any time ever before particularly the youths essentially towards atheism.

Is it realistic in the context of world power rivalry around the region and elsewhere that the geographical helplessness of Bangladesh almost fully encircled by India obviously made it so? Must not Bangladesh look beyond that it is also a fact of situational reality that there are many such smaller countries in other continents that do not fare geographically better than the position of Bangladesh? Nascent capability and inherent united power of the people can make wonders in such situation.

Vulnerable since Birth
It’s one hundred percent true that smaller Bangladesh is encircled by much bigger India both in land and water geographical fronts. The real position remains so vulnerable since the days of 1947 partition of the British Indian empire and independence of India and Pakistan as two separate independent countries. For over two decades though Pakistan stayed divided into two distant wings separated by Indian territories in between, and also that Pakistan was smaller in size than India in all aspects, there was at least a psychological power balance in the region for they represented two peoples competing here for at least a millennium. The 1971 war and the founding of Bangladesh in the territory of East Pakistan disturbed the balance that favored India enormously on the one hand and Pakistan weaker than before, and Bangladesh the weakest of the three. The post 1971 vulnerability and helplessness had been so acute that even the international telephone system of Bangladesh was kept operative via Delhi that the post August 1975 coup government of Khondoker Moustaque Ahmad claimed to have had snapped and reinstalled the line via Singapore. The helplessness perceived in reality that a fiery left politician in late 1960 and now a minister in the cabinet in Bengali verbatim stated during closing days of Pakistan period, ‘SHIALER MUKH THEKE MURGI BACHATE GIE JENO AMORA BAGHER MUKHE NA PORI’ (Lest not we are grabbed by a Tiger while trying to save a live chicken from the mouth of a jackal).

Severance from Indianization on the August 15 of 1975
In post independence Bangladesh the first government due to its sole dependence in the 1971 war of independence on India including the armed intervention of the Indian Army, Delhi continued to plan and dictate all basic policies and administration of Bangladesh by their renowned bureaucrats and professional intelligence personalities like D.P. Dhar, General Ovan etc. The Constitution was tailored to suit Delhi’s goal in the region. Prescription for economy was given to stay as complementary and supplementary to India’s much bigger economy. Education and culture was redesigned to conform to total ‘Indianisation’ (see Indian leading theoretician Balraj Modak for definition of the term Indianization) of the psyche of the younger generation. Bangladesh had little option for foreign policy of its own and so was the defense policy just only to suit Delhi’s AKHAND BHARAT design and hegemony in the region. The 25-year unequal treaty of 1972 bonded Bangladesh to all helplessness. The cumulative effect was that independent Bangladesh soon turned into Bottomless Basket Case from the position of its firmly stable economy in pre 1971 days so much so that corrupt ridden or man made famines of the ruling class then in 1974 (Amartya Sen) cost lives of vulnerable thousands, if not lakhs. It was the obvious and decisive armed coup of the 15th August 1975 that the inefficient, public property grabbers and corrupt government’s top boss was toppled that caused some shivering in much bigger India by the historic action of tiny and vulnerable Bangladesh yet confident enough against persistent hegemony of Delhi.

Confidence built up and then shattered
The post coup governments though had been shaky in fear of the possible armed intervention from Delhi, friends like China, Saudi Arabia, etc kept Delhi in check. That followed gaining confidence for some years. The 1982 army coup led by General Ershad, however, took the position of Bangladesh once again to the 1972-75 periods. His period of illegitimate rule until 1990 ended in promise for regaining national confidence during the subsequent nationalist government. But Delhi was not at rest and looked for opportune time for imposing control once again as they did during 1996-2001 and in a much bigger way since January 2009 now not only threatening the nation with brute majority but also in all pervading fascist modes and actions across the country.

The Need is the Post 15th August determination
What needed essentially are the self confident and spiritually motivated nationalist forces of the highest qualities just as of the 15th August 1975 and of the immediate post that only could free the country from Delhi’s hegemony and ‘radar control’ for their GREAT GAME in the region. Otherwise, Bangladesh can hardly be expected to free herself from the helplessness it owed to its birth in facing with the much bigger India. In the mean time, however, the lackeys of Delhi and the well-known Fifth Columnist in their desperate bid to hold on to the power at the behest of Delhi may go all their way out for fascist attacks against the nationalist forces and political witch-hunting of all opposition elements. That on going real helplessness is to be redressed now by rock solid unity of all patriotic people.

Author: M.T. Hussain

Break-up of India: The Only Regional Solution

Almost coinciding with the 13th round of Sino-Indian border talks (New Delhi, August 7-8, 2009), an article (in the Chinese language) has appeared in China captioned ‘If China takes a little action, the so-called Great Indian Federation can be broken up’ (Zhong Guo Zhan Lue Gang, www.iiss.cn, Chinese, August 8, 2009).

Interestingly, it has been reproduced in several other strategic and military Web sites of the country and by all means, targets the domestic audience. The authoritative host site is located in Beijing and is the new edition of one, which so far represented the China International Institute for Strategic Studies (www.chinaiiss.org).

Claiming that Beijing’s ‘China-Centric’ Asian strategy, provides for splitting India, the writer of the article, Zhan Lue (strategy), has found that New Delhi’s corresponding ‘India-Centric’ policy in Asia, is in reality a ‘Hindustan centric’ one. Stating that on the other hand ‘local centres’ exist in several of the country’s provinces (excepting for the UP and certain northern regions), Zhan Lue has felt that in the face of such local characteristics, the ’so-called’ Indian nation cannot be considered as one having existed in history.

According to the article, if India today relies on any thing for unity, it is the Hindu religion. The partition of the country was based on religion. Stating that today nation states are the main current in the world, it has said that India could only be termed now as a ‘Hindu religious state’. Adding that Hinduism is a decadent religion as it allows caste exploitation and is unhelpful to the country’s modernisation, it described the Indian government as one in a dilemma with regard to eradication of the caste system as it realises that the process to do away with castes may shake the foundation of the consciousness of the Indian nation.

The writer has argued that in view of the above, China in its own interest and the progress of Asia, should join forces with different nationalities like the Assamese, Tamils, and Kashmiris and support the latter in establishing independent nation-States of their own, out of India. In particular, the ULFA (United Liberation Front of Asom) in Assam, a territory neighboring China, can be helped by China so that Assam realises its national independence.

The article has also felt that for Bangladesh, the biggest threat is from India, which wants to develop a great Indian Federation extending from Afghanistan to Myanmar. India is also targeting China with support to Vietnam’s efforts to occupy Nansha (Spratly) group of islands in South China Sea.

Hence the need for China’s consolidation of its alliance with Bangladesh, a country with which the US and Japan are also improving their relations to counter China.

It has pointed out that China can give political support to Bangladesh enabling the latter to encourage ethnic Bengalis in India to get rid of Indian control and unite with Bangladesh as one Bengali nation; if the same is not possible, creation of at least another free Bengali nation state as a friendly neighbour of Bangladesh, would be desirable, for the purpose of weakening India’s expansion and threat aimed at forming a ‘unified South Asia’.

The punch line in the article has been that to split India, China can bring into its fold countries like Pakistan, Nepal and Bhutan, support ULFA in attaining its goal for Assam’s independence, back aspirations of Indian nationalities like the Tamils and Nagas, encourage Bangladesh to give a push to the independence of West Bengal and lastly recover the 90,000 sq km territory in southern Tibet.

Wishing for India’s break-up into 20 to 30 nation-States like in Europe, the article has concluded by saying that if the consciousness of nationalities in India could be aroused, social reforms in South Asia can be achieved, the caste system can be eradicated and the region can march along the road of prosperity.

The Chinese article in question will certainly outrage readers in India. Its suggestion that China can follow a strategy to dismember India, a country always with a tradition of unity in diversity, is atrocious, to say the least. The write-up could not have been published without the permission of the Chinese authorities, but it is sure that Beijing will wash its hands out of this if the matter is taken up with it by New Delhi.

It has generally been seen that China is speaking in two voices — its diplomatic interlocutors have always shown understanding during their dealings with their Indian counterparts, but its selected media is pouring venom on India in their reporting. Which one to believe is a question confronting the public opinion and even policy makers in India.

In any case, an approach of panic towards such outbursts will be a mistake, but also ignoring them will prove to be costly for India.

Author: David Miller Smith
Courtesy: Pakistan Daily

China should break up India into 20-30 states: Chinese strategist

In an article likely to raise Indian hackles, a Chinese strategist contends that Beijing should break up India into 20-30 independent states with the help of ‘friendly countries’ like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan.

The publication of the article nearly coincided with the 13th round of India-China border talks that ended in New Delhi Saturday on a positive note, with Beijing emphasizing the need to build strategic trust and elevate strategic partnership to a new level to include coordination on global issues.

Written in Chinese, the article, ‘If China takes a little action, the so-called Great Indian Federation can be broken up,’ is published in the new edition of the website of the China International Institute for Strategic Studies (CIISS), an influential think tank that advises Beijing on global and strategic issues.

According to D.S. Rajan, director of the Chennai Centre for China Studies, Chennai, Zhan Lue, the author of the article, argues that the ’so-called’ Indian nation cannot be considered as one having existed in history as it relies primarily on Hindu religion for unity.

The article says that India could only be termed a ‘Hindu religious state’ that is based on caste exploitation and which is coming in the way of modernisation.

The writer goes on to argue that with these caste cleavages in mind, China in its own interest and the progress of whole of Asia should join forces with ‘different nationalities’ like Assamese, Tamils and Kashmiris and support them in establishing independent nation states of their own.

In particular, the article asks Beijing to support the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), a militant separatist group in the Indian northeast, to it achieve independence for Assam from India.

Furthermore, the article suggests that China can give political support to Bangladesh to encourage ethnic Bengalis in India get rid of ‘Indian control’ and unite with Bangladesh as one Bengali nation.

If this is not possible, the creation of at least another free Bengali nation state as a friendly neighbour of Bangladesh would be desirable for the purpose of weakening India’s expansion and threat aimed at forming a ‘unified South Asia’, the article argues.

The article recommends India’s break up into 20-30 nation-states like in Europe and contends that if the consciousness of ‘nationalities’ in India could be aroused, social reforms in South Asia can be achieved, the caste system can be eradicated and the region can march towards prosperity.

The Chinese strategist suggests that to split India, China can seek support of friendly countries including Pakistan, Nepal and Bhutan.

China should encourage Bangladesh to give a push to the independence of West Bengal and recover the 90,000 sq km territory in Arunachal Pradesh, which China calls Southern Tibet, says Rajan who has analysed the article for the Chennai-based think tank.

‘The write-up could not have been published without the permission of the Chinese authorities, but it is sure that Beijing will wash its hands out of this if the matter is taken up by New Delhi,’ says Rajan.

‘It has generally been seen that China is speaking in two voices - its diplomatic interlocutors have always shown understanding in their dealings with their Indian counterparts, but its media is pouring venom on India,’ says Rajan.

Which one to believe is a question confronting the public opinion and even policy makers in India, Rajan says, adding that ignoring such an article will ‘prove to be costly’ for India.

Courtesy: Indo Asian News Service

Source: http://in.news.yahoo.com/43/20090810/812/tnl-china-should-break-up-india-into-20.html