Author: Our Reporter
Publication: Dawn
Date: June 6, 2004
URL: http://www.dawn.com/2003/06/06/nat25.htm
Bangladesh will never allow India
to use its territory to take its army and ammunition to fight against the
rebellion people in eastern provinces.
This was stated by the leader of
a 20-member delegation of Bangladeshi politicians, parliamentarians, intellectuals
and journalists, Anwar Zahid, here on Thursday at a reception held by the
Nazaria-i- Pakistan Foundation and Pakistan Movement Workers Trust at their
auditorium here on Thursday.
Mr Zahid said: "Once we allowed
the Indian troops to go through our territory, that would possibly be the
end of Bangladesh."He said Indian states of Assam, Tripura, Mizoram were
the eastern neighbours of Bangladesh and they were fighting for their independence.
India wanted to destabilize Bangladesh to an extent that is started depending
upon it. It wanted to use the rail and road network and ports of Bangladesh
to fight freedom fighters in those provinces.
"India wants us to oblige it because
it had helped us in 1971. Now who should like our obligations first, our
immediate neighbours in the east or those far away in New Delhi?" he said,
adding that this was dilemma and "we cannot allow India to pass through
our territory, militarily speaking."
He said the people in both Bangladesh
and Pakistan had many commonalities - faith, aspirations and even enemy.
"We should combine our efforts for a better life and future of our people."
Mr Zahid said combined efforts were
also required to combat the enemies that were bent upon subverting "our
independence and prosperity. The people of Bangladesh are resisting these
acts of subversion."
He said in 1971 India wanted to
dismember Pakistan not out of love for the right to self-determination
of the people of Bangladesh, but due to its own geographical strategies,
political and economic interests. The then Indian premier Indira Gandhi
had advanced a theory that the economies of both Bangladesh and India were
complimentary. "It had never been nor is it now. Through this theory India
wanted to subvert the economy of Bangladesh."
Mr Zahid, a seasoned journalist
who had been PFUJ secretary before 1971 and now managing director of Bangladesh
Inquilab Television, said the need of the hour was that both the Muslim
countries should develop cooperation in every field, including defence,
trade, commerce and other sectors.
He said Pakistan's becoming a nuclear
power had encouraged not only their people but it had invoked new hopes
and given strength to the people of every Muslim country. The Ummat was
not in happy state these days. It was unfortunate that invasion and occupation
of Iraq had been mostly facilitated by Iraq's Muslim neighbour countries.
Mr Zahid welcomed the recent initiative
taken by Pakistan and India to hold a dialogue which would help diffuse
tension. Such a diffusion of tension would help consolidate the independence
of smaller nations of the region.
Earlier, federal minister Mahmood
Ali said the seeds of separation of East Pakistan had been sown by Gen
Ayub Khan. The 1958 martial law started the process of dismemberment of
the country.
He said the Tehrik Takmil-i-Pakistan
believed in the theory of "one nation, two states" which could bring Pakistan
and Bangladesh close to each other. Poverty alleviation, particularly of
the Muslims of the subcontinent, was the main purpose of launching the
struggle for independence as evident in Allama Iqbal's and the Quaid's
statements. Unless Pakistan got rid of the policies of the World Bank and
IMF, it could never succeed in its poverty alleviation programme.
Pakistan Movement Workers Trust
chairman Dr Javid Iqbal said after invading East Pakistan and succeeding
in creating Bangladesh, Ms Gandhi had said she had proved the two-nation
theory wrong. She was wrong. Her statement was challenged by the next premier
Morarji Desai who had said that instead of one, there were two Pakistans.
Dr Iqbal, who is a former senator,
said the two-nation theory was valid and alive. It was not possible in
the present times to unite two countries into one state. What was required
was a broader unity of the Muslim countries on the pattern of Mahmood Ali's
theory which could be extended to all Muslim countries to call "one nation,
many states."
He said visa requirement between
Bangladesh and Pakistan should be ended which could bring the people of
the two countries closer to one another.Nazaria-i-Pakistan Foundation secretary
Dr Rafiq Ahmad presented welcome address.
