Rakib Khan’s Blog

The geographical figure (map) of Bangladesh territory is exactly what a populist great leader once in late 1940s termed it exactly as the ‘Moth-Eaten and Truncated’ one. Neither the map of the one third of pre-1947 province of Bengal adjacently west of the Bangladesh territory anything pleasing to look at but somewhat still more odd looking like a continually skeleton of top of the body and a swelled belly under having no leg below to support the weight of the big belly. That is how the DADAS (older brothers) then based at Calcutta (now Kolkata) forced the vivisection ( See Dr. Joya Chatterjee, Bengal Divided 1997 and Bangla Bhag Holo, 2002) of the age old province of Bengal in 1947, albeit, in full connivance of the British Raz leaders during the closing years here, particularly the notorious Radcliff. Had they been little more tolerant and accommodative in late 1940s neither of us would have the ignominy of inheriting the odd-looking geographical maps nor Bangladesh would have the ‘moth-eaten and truncated’ one as of now in post 1947 period. The unfortunate but real psyche of vendetta did hardly care for minimum rationality in shaping the current odd geography of both and historical pains of the two peoples speaking the same language but staying quite apart despite being the next adjacent neighbors, fighting since then with arms to keep the border free from ‘intrusion’ or ‘infiltration’ of both from either sides, nothing changed in 24 years during 1947-71 as then onwards after Bangladesh had independence from Pakistan. Neither the design they had for grabbing both East Pakistan and then, as well, independent Bangladesh in case it had failed for welcome merger by them in the main body of the AKHANDA BHARAT or ‘Undivided India’ as yet remains somewhat a mystery despite the vulnerabilities in almost every matters of concern for the ‘moth-eaten and truncated’ Bangladesh. Where does lie the strength and power of resilience?
Despite geographical vulnerabilities and economic difficulties, the 150 million people of Bangladesh proudly inherit sustained inner strength for survival drawn from the past historical struggle in its remaining simultaneously absorbed in spiritual heritage in hearts, minds and overall psyche. The very power gave them determined courage to stand boldly to face any adversary and fight them all. No doubt that the loss of Muslim political power in this region ditched them in difficulties one after another, but nothing could keep them down for all time. In fact, they rose and continued to put up resistance. One such significant resistance came to take shape in 1906 in the founding of the All India Muslim League in Dhaka, then capital of the newly formed province of East Bengal and Assam. Although the founding of the Muslim League came in 1906, the background had quite long preparation and spade work by Nawab Abdul Latif of Faridpur, Syed Ameer Ali Calcutta and also through the Aligargh school and college movement pioneered by Syed Ahmad Khan for promoting awareness through modern education among the Muslims so long fell backward after the British took over this country in 1757 A.D. The founding of the Muslim League however, had another crucial point and issue to take on that was the preservation and maintenance of the new province of East Bengal and Assam formally created in October 1905. During the whole British period previous to 1905 this geographical area and its people remained backward in education, economy etc that the new province had some possibility and promise to redress. The British Professor of Indian History based at SOAS in late mid twentieth century Rushbrook Williams had viewed the new province in the following way:
‘Between 1905 and 1911, there came the promise of a change. In the former year the then Viceroy, Lord Curzon, decided that the enormous province of Bengal was administratively unwieldy, and that the neglect which had for centuries over-shadowed its eastern regions could no longer be tolerated. He established the new province of East Bengal and Assam, with its capital at Dacca. For the next few years, steady progress was made in education, communications and other concomitants of growth… For the first time in centuries, the land that is now East Pakistan became a separate entity…. Lord Curzon’s move was hotly denounced by the educated classes, mainly Hindu, of Calcutta and of what is now West Bengal. He was accused of striking a blow at the entire nationalist movement- of which Bengal had been for some time the spearhead – by splitting the Presidency and setting up a Muslim majority province. Agitation both violent and non-violent continued unabated. It achieved its objective in 1911….I (when visited in 1918) could understand their (Muslims) dismay. Progress had been halted; Dacca was forlorn, with its brave new buildings crumbling into obsolescence and its Muslim population relapsing into their former apathy’ (R.Williams, The East Pakistan Tragedy, Tom Stacey, London, 1972, pp.14-15).
The new province created in 1905 though made by the British Government for administrative expediency not only opened many avenues for advancement of the people in the big geographical area that was in no way intended to halt advancement of the West Bengal Presidency including then Bihar and Orissa with it. The argument that the Calcutta based elite wished to pursue was for harming the ‘nationalist movement’. What nationalist? Bangali or the big Indian nationalist? The renowned Bangali poet Tagore who had been one of the leaders in the movement for annulment of the partition of 1905 did hardly believe in Bangali nationalism but in greater Indian nationalism having his preferred hero for Indian national leadership in the person of Shivaji, not a Bangali but a Marathan Hindu, the toughest anti-Muslim fighter of the early eighteenth century. There is no authentic document available that they planned to have independent Bangali nationalist identity out of the framework of BHARAT MATA or Mother India and continued to have dream for the epical Ram Raz or Kingdom of God Ram in the whole subcontinent. Had their next generation been serious about independent Bangali nationalist they would in 1947 stood for the Independent Greater Bengal issue then formulated by Abul Hashem- Sohrawardy-Sarat Bose not only to remain outside the framework of Pakistan but also independent of the big Indian union. The well known fact is that the Calcutta based elite like Dr. Shyma Prasad Mukerjee, the leader of the Hindu Mahasava and Patel, Nehru etc of the Congress exploded this plan (See, Dr. Shila Sen, Muslim Politics n Bengal: 1937-47, 1973 and Dr. Joya Chatterjee, Op.cit.) that had earlier been nodded by the Muslim League President Jinnah (See, H.V. Hodson, The Great Divide, 1968). That is how the moth-eaten and truncated East Pakistan born in 1947 became independent Bangladesh in 1971 having the same stigma of being moth-eaten and truncated. Had there been no annulment of the partition in 1911, it can safely be presumed that this country would not have been vulnerable but be much bigger and stronger one as our forefathers had in the new province of East Bengal and Assam in 1905 that had not been anyway moth-eaten and truncated one we inherit now since 1947.

M.T. Hussain
Dhaka-1206
14 October 2008

Annihilation and, at times, massacre of religious and other minorities at a single go are nothing new in the euphemistically called ‘Largest Democracy’, Bangladesh’s big neighbor, and ‘Big Brother’. Of late when the minority Christians in Orissa and the minority Muslims in Assam are being attacked, their houses and even churches and similar places of worship are being burnt down, many done to death with both crude and modern arms and not sparing even pregnant women and children day in and day out, one renowned journalist M J Akbar in a recent column published in a Dhaka daily has gone on to rediscover there ‘Secularism is a way of life’, and amazingly in contrast, another big shot Kuldip Nayar in separate column published here exploded the opposite ugly face and myth of secularism in his own country. Who should the commoners would believe and trust? On the Godhra massacre of Muslims in 2002, the earlier Justice Bannerjee Commission Report and the recently published Justice Nanintri Report giving opposite views of the matter but astonishingly in full tune with the well known Muslim killer Narendra Modi’s (BJP’s Guzrat Chief Minister) stance being debated not only outside but also inside among their own sane people. The recent banning of the SIMI ( STUDENTS’ ISLAMIC MOVEMENT OF INDIA) and that the involvement of the invisible Indian Mujaheedin in the recent bomb blasts in Jamia Nagar in Delhi was nothing but a hoax is also being talked about there. Also quite amazing is that while the SIMI was banned by the Delhi Government long ago, the Bajrang Dal or the extremist Hindu fanatics out to finish all non Hindus from their exclusive motherland or RAM RAZ remains there not only untouched by the administration but emboldened much more than as ever so mush so that they had motor cycle processions wielding saffron colored flags in front of the nose of the law enforcing agencies as was seen n the NDTV news. Less said about the freedom movement and huge blood letting of the Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir in perpetual suppression, oppression and killings in thousands for six decades the better. In the scenario that we see now around but nothing unusual for decades, should not sane people look back a bit seriously in historical lessons of the last century for useful guidance of the present generation for deciding on their imperatives?
The Indian subcontinent or the lower Himalayan region is a vast geographical area having huge people living in since unknown pre-historic past ages of several millenniums not in anyway homogeneous but diverse in living modes, beliefs and attitudes to life and occupations. Foreign rules in the early centuries attempted time and again to unite the region and the people but such efforts had failed every time having at best short preludes. The latest one of the foreign rule at a stage in the beginning of the last century being uncomfortable in running their RAZ here in 1905, after a well thought out planning for years, divided the Bengal Presidency, the largest in the empire having Calcutta (now Kolkata) consisting of Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and Assam in to two parts, one having Calcutta as the centre of the old Presidency and East Bengal and Assam out of the Presidency as another new province making Dacca ( Dhaka) as its capital city for running the administration from this old Muslim city but desolated over the centuries after the fall of Muslim power in the region. The new province thus established was considered for expediency of the British rulers but it incidentally provided some possible opportunity for marginal advancement for the people who fell backward since the coming of the British compared to the new elites based mainly at Calcutta in the new framework of the province having capital at Dhaka. Naturally but not in fairness, the Calcutta based new Bangali elite took the likely advancement of the people of the new province as a threat to their already established vested interests in education, employment, business interests etc. So they rose in revolt to reverse the history and annul the partition of 16th October 1905. Being already advanced in English Education and schooled professions, they had their political and social organizations like the Congress (INC), the Hindu Mahasava, etc. that offered all possible sustenance to the anti-partition movement. The pro-partitioners had then been not only backward but also unorganized, despite the Muslim League formed in 1906 with a commitment to preserve the new set up through people’s movement. The new British administration did not survive unfortunately for long but merely six years, and the backward people though expected some opportunities for advancement but that soon ended in December 1911 by annulment of the partition by the RAZ due to pressure tactics of the advanced community, on the one hand, and weaknesses to put effective counter pressure by the backward community, on the other. Had the partition of 1905 would not be annulled in 1911 and that would survive afterwards, the minority and majority syndrome of 1940s and as of today would not be here in the region, because, in that case the partition of 1947 would not come about that solved then, no doubt, some minority and majority issues but not all inside the post 1947 independent India. Not only this, the whole lower Himalayan region would further thrive after the British had left in federal or at least confederation structure possibly with minimum distrust between people of different communities.
There is nothing now one could do about to reverse those undesirable events of the past except to recapitulate follies, no matter bigger or smaller, but what particularly Delhi had to do was to ensure full rights as provided in the Constitution of India and state safety and security to all minorities there including the Dalits, as well. Unfortunately, as the world knows their failures are beyond any proportion in civilized norm.
The experience of the last six decades of free India after 1947, however, in contrast with Pakistan and Bangladesh having no serious communal problem the Big Brother has been continually and dangerously infested with communalism and repression of the distinct minorities by various sections aligned with the ruling sections made it crystal clear that she is unable to contain effectively and satisfactorily any violence against the minorities of all shades irrespective of religions, caste divides etc. Her secular Constitution is being continually violated in one form or the other in this particular matter. A conclusion could thus be made safely that the freedom movement of the distinct national minorities in the north-west and in the north-east be given due appreciation and granted independence just as the SOVIETS gracefully did in early 1990s.
The partition of the British Indian subcontinent first in 1905 and then in 1947 should show Delhi the right way for peaceful solution not only of the majority-minority issue that has taken once again over the years dangerous turn in various parts of India but also for yielding to the inalienable right of self-determination of the people are concerned.

M.T. Hussain
Dhaka-1206
12 October 2008