Author: Kuldip Nayar
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: December 16, 2003
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/archive_full_story.php?content_id=37312
Introduction: The plight of minorities
in Bangladesh has bothered me. It frightens me much more now. The record
of the Khaleda Zia government is littered with anti-minority moves
I Fell in love with the Bangladeshis
long before they liberated themselves from West Pakistan 32 years ago.
The independence struggle has an aura of sacrifice and selflessness that
invigorates even the cynic and the sceptical to look beyond. Theirs was
different from ours which was nonviolent but had the same ideals of democracy
and pluralism to tend. The participation by Hindus - then one-tenth of
the country's 100 million population - in the liberation struggle made
me feel elated that the nation had quickly overcome the hatred which the
Muslim League of olden days had disseminated to divide.
The manner in which the Mukti Vahini
and the Indian forces on the one hand, and Muslims and Hindus on the other,
overcame the Pakistani forces showed unity of purpose and outlook. It was
a saga of chivalry and cohesion. Indeed, brutal and indiscriminate killings
by the Pakistan army before winding up their show in Bangladesh shocked
me. I sought the answer from Zulfiqar Ali when I met him at Rawalpindi.
He was then Pakistan's President. He did not defend the killing but said
so on tape.
"You know that the people on the
subcontinent are a very civilised people. They don't like violence; once
a civilised people, whether they are Greeks, Romans or even Indians or
Pakistanis, once they go berserk, they go berserk even more than savages.
It is something psychological. They say, 'we are not human', before they
get into this orgy; they must accept the fact that they are not human,
and then they become like this. This was what happened in 1947. A person
who cannot literally kill an ant or would revolt when he sees a dog shot,
when he comes into this, first he hates it; but after he uses the dagger
for the first time, he no longer thinks he is a human being and this was
what happened. This was what happened with all civilised societies, they
have turned like that, a complete perversion of the whole (range of) values
and moral considerations...But even in this welter of murder, there was
no process of trying to restrain them, there was no upper umbrella over
these people in East Pakistan."
However, I have great faith in the
durability of unity between the peoples of India and Bangladesh. The real
picture was not to my liking when I visited Dhaka within a few months of
the liberation. The average man tended to believe in the propaganda that
his difficulties were because "everything was going to India". A few Bangladesh
leaders, like Maulana Bhashani, exploited the people's hardships for their
political ends. They said things were bad because "our neighbours are making
the best of our miseries".
Here were the people who had fought
together. The blood of Hindus and Muslims had spilled at the same places
through the same bomb or mortar. And now they had already gone distant.
Even though New Delhi had banned private trade between India and Bangladesh,
the propaganda was that the old Hindu Marwari was returning to East Bengal
through the backdoor, opened by local Muslims. The pre-partition fear that
the Muslims would be condemned to be hewers of wood and drawers of water
was sought to be revived.
The then finance minister, Tahyddin,
told me, "I wish I could die now because relations between India and Bangladesh
are so good today that I do not want to see them deteriorate." He was anyway
killed in a coup; first jailed and then shot dead. But Sheikh Mujib-ur
Rahman, the father of the nation, looked unperturbed when I met him. He
said: "I know that some elements assisted by international interests are
indulging in a whispering campaign against India. But they cannot sabotage
the relationship between your great country and Bangladesh. A Bengali does
not forget even those who give him only a glass of water. Here your soldiers
laid down their lives for my people. How can they ever forget your sacrifice?
You fed 10 million refugees for more than 10 months. I can assure you that
my people are not ungrateful. Therefore, those who are trying to foment
trouble will not succeed in their designs."
Still, many years went by in the
midst of estrangements and suspicions. The first official recognition of
India's contribution came when Bangladesh was completing its 25 years of
independence. Lt Gen J.S. Aurora was invited to Dhaka and honoured for
having led the Vahni and Indian troops to victory and accepting the surrender
of Lt Gen A.A.K. Niazi, chief of Pakistan's Eastern Command. Indeed, the
credit for it should go to Sheikh Hasina who, as prime minister, took the
initiative. She also raised a memorial to recall the sacrifice of thousands
of Indian soldiers who were killed or wounded in the war. Before the memorial
came up, I would often say at Dhaka that there was not even a brick raised
to remind the Bangladeshis of the sacrifice by the Indian soldiers. But
there was always a stony silence in reply. I imagined it was a hangover
of the past, of partition. After all, the Muslim League was born in East
Pakistan.
The plight of minorities has bothered
me. It frightens me much more now. The record of the government by Khaleda
Zia - this is her second stint - is littered with fundamentalism and anti-minority
moves. Her compulsions because of her alliance with the Jamat-i-Islamia
in the government are understandable. But the atrocities against the minorities
are not. Only last month, 11 Hindus were killed near Chittagong. Sheikh
Hasina's Awami League says that the massacre was designed to scare Hindus
into fleeing the country. "It's been a pattern ever since the government
came to power over two years ago," says Abdur Razzak, a League spokesman.
According to him, hundreds of Hindus have already left.
Another shocking report is from
the Chittagong Hill Tracts where the Chakma and Marma tribes experienced
the wrath of fundamentalists. Some tribals were killed and houses burnt.
It is tragic to see the country going the fundamentalist way when the image
of an average Bangladeshi Muslim is that of a liberal.
