Untold Facts

Pakistani spies & new Pakistan in India

A hypothesis is recently advanced by the Awami League that the former President of Bangladesh General Ziaur Rahman was a Pakistani spy. On the 27th April 2010 Madhuri Gupta, an Indian diplomat, has been arrested by her government for allegedly working as a Pakistani spy. The other current news is that the Maoist controlled large area in West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Jharkhanda, Chattisgarh, Telengana etc all closer to Bangladesh western border are named by the law enforcing agencies of India as Pakistan. Are they not interesting?

No matter whether these issues in the air are sustainable or not the underlying matters are not beyond common interest.

General Ziaur Rahman started his army career in Pakistan (united) in early 1960s. During the 1965 India-Pakistan war he was known to be a valiant fighter in the Khemkaran Sector. Later on in early 1971 he was posted as Major in a Pakistan army unit in Chittagong, East Pakistan. There he once again proved to be heroic with few of his comrades to declare unilateral independence of Bangladesh or East Pakistan seceded from Pakistan making a revolt against the Federal Government of Pakistan on the 26-27 March 1971. In course of Bangladesh becoming independent and changes one after another Ziaur Rahman rose to the position of Bangladesh President in late 1975 and then fell in 1981. During these five years in power he had been very dynamic to lift the country from utter frustration to some degree of dignity and honor. Lifting the country up owed in particular his making close relations with the Muslim countries including Pakistan after the bitterness of 1971 war.

Not much known about Madhuri Gupta for her credentials. She had been a mid level diplomat of India lately posted in Islamabad Indian High Commission. She had been called back to Delhi and then arrested for spying for Pakistan! Her name indicates that she is a respectable Bengali woman from high caste in Hindu religion. There is, however, a new propaganda in India that she had embraced Islam about six years ago. She thus may be made a scapegoat. If proved guilty in the spying she may face ten years imprisonment.

Indian Maoists are by now well known all over the world. They have been fighting for nearly half a century now for minimum rights of the deprived tribal and scheduled caste millions of India particularly of the provinces mentioned. Their predecessors had been known as Naxals that started the movement in 1960s under Charu Mjumder, a well known left Maoist in the West Bengal province of India. The Indian famous writer Arundhati Roy (49) for her alleged sympathy with the Maoists had been sentenced to imprisonment for two years in 2007 by her own government! She does not deny that she is sympathetic to the endless deprivations of the tribal poor people that she had herself tasted with the Maoists in their jungle hideouts their mode of selfless armed struggle that gradually gained ground so much so that the seating PM of India Manmohon Singh declared the Maoists to be ‘the biggest threat to the security of the country’ and ordered crushing them by the joint forces now going on in the name of Green Hunt security operation. The Union Home Minister Chidambaram hinted at, in addition, strike by the Air Force. In the neighboring county of Nepal, the Maoists had already brought to an end of the age old Monarchy, rose to state power through winning election, stayed in power for some time, then abandoned running the country in matters of principle hinting at dislike for Indian interference, but soon may come up to hold on to the power of the State.

Zia was a Pakistani spy, so is alleged for Madhuri having amazing coincidence that the Maoists have established ‘Pakistan’ in large chunk inside Indian territories. It looks much more substantive than spying by two prominent Bengalis, being close to Bangladesh border and not border with Pakistan like Jammu and Kashmir! Who’s to blame? Pakistan, Bangladesh or India herself? And what must be the substance of the blames and accusations except signaling that the 1947 partition of the British India further be pursued for emancipation and liberation of the majority billions of India suffered inhumanly for centuries at the hands of the ruling elite.

Author: H B Khair