Untold Facts

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