Shun your utopian dream of United
India
Kuldip Nayar
Mohmmad
Zainal Abedin, NY, USA
Some of the
comments of Indian journalist Kuldip Nayar what he made on November 16 (2012)
at the launching ceremony of his book ‘Beyond the Lines’ held at Bangla Academy
of Dhaka seemed to me as undesirable, unexpected and utopian. By doing so he
not only made him controversial, but also deliberately bid to brand the
historically resolved issue of partitioning the subcontinent a controversial
one. A number of Indians earlier also placed such unreasonable and utopian
dream of reunifying the countries of the subcontinent to single entity — Akhand
Bharat. Speaking at the ‘Daily Star’ sponsored book launching function he
tabled the idea in a detoured way advocating the formation of South Asian
Union. He branded the partition of India as fallacious step and suggested the
Hindus, Muslims, Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis to raise above their
identity to create unified South Asia like that of European Union.
Mr. Nayar
you don’t have a face to present such a proposal. You placed this from your mindset
of extreme Hinduism. You were the people who instigated the Muslims to opt for
a separate homeland. To frustrate Muslim interest you sided with your lord —
British government to prolong their rule in India. You played the vital role to
crush all the anti-East India Company crusades right from the resistance of
Titumir to Sepoy mutiny. You were the surrogates of the British and
beneficiaries of British rule and the Muslims had to fight two-pronged
adversaries — the British and the local tentacles Hindu beneficiaries.
You didn’t
even ready to recognize the zeal of independence of the Muslims to end the
British occupation in India. ‘Anushilan Samity’is the glaring example of such
heinous communality. You will not get the name of even a single Muslim member
in the then Anushilan Samity though the Muslims were the majority in numbers in
Bengal. Your so-called Hindu patriots declined to recruit the Muslim youths in
the ‘Anushilan Samity’. Our Sayeed Wali Ullah (litterateur) and Muzzafar Ahmad
(Marxist leader), who at that time were studying in Noakhali Zilla School, went
to Surya Sen to express their willingness to join Anushilan Samity to fight
against the British rule. Surya Sen categorically informed them that the
Muslims had no avenue to enter the group. However, he said, one would have to
swear in front of the image of goddess Kali to be recruited in the group. Both
the Muslim youths disappointedly left Surya Sen. Surya Sen and all others in
Anushilan Samity proved that the Hindus and Muslims are separate nations with
separate belief and goal. It is to be recalled that the goal of Anushilan
Samity was to create purely a Hindu dominated India to be ruled according to
Hindu culture. Now you can comprehend whose communal behaviour first germinated
the seeds of disunion and communality between the two religious communities of
the subcontinent.
Can you
recall who outwardly under the guise of preserving the territorial integrity of
Bengal, but practically out of communality, started agitation against the
partition of Bengal in 1905 when the British government in order to improve the
socio-economic position of neglected and backward Muslims floated a new
province comprising East Bengal and Assam making Dhaka as its capital? Who
started non-cooperation movement against the British government demanding the
annulment of new province and fueled communal riot in Bengal against the poor
Muslims who were not even aware what the partition of Bengal was?
Most of the
Hindus, even the elite ones, seldom accept the Muslims as their neighbours
having equal share in every sphere of life, as they treat them as their
subservient, better to say slaves. Yet the then Muslim leader Quaid-e-Azam
Mohammad Ali Jinnah to keep India’s unity intact placed 14-point proposal where
Muslims would get logical rights and privileges in Hindu-dominated British-free
India. But Congress paid no heed to Jinnah’s 14-point. It was Hindu communalism
and their denial of equitable rights to the Muslims in British-free unified
India compelled Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah to come to this conclusion
that the lone solution to end the hatred, malice, exploitation, negligence of
the Hindus against the Muslims was the creation of a separate homeland for
Muslims partitioning the subcontinent. Still the Muslim leaders okayed the
Cabinet Mission Plan to save India from disintegration.
The Cabinet
Mission proposed to retain the unity of India by dividing it into three
autonomous units. Both Congress and Muslim League initially welcomed the plan.
But astonishing all Congress, due to the obstinacy of Nehru, all on a sudden
retreated from its original commitment. As a result the British government had
no other option but to divide India. Nehru and his accomplices retreated from
the agreed plan as according to them it would benefit the Muslims as they would
remain majority in two units: Unit B and C. These historical facts brand whom
as communal. Are they Muslims or Hindus? So one doesn’t feel comport hearing
the suggestion of the communal Hindus to forget the religious identity of the
Muslims who are liberal. And Mr. Nayar your contaminated proposal also
originated from your Hindu communal sentiment, as it was the dream of your late
communal leaders, like Nehru, who temporarily agreed partition of India.
Mr. Nayar,
in 1905 you were desperate and dedicated to preserve the unity of Bengal. Who
opposed its unity in 1947 when Hossain Shaid Shawardy, Abul Hashem, Sharat
Bose, Kiran Shankar Roy, etc., declared to preserve the unity of Bengal by
creating a sovereign independent Bengal outside India and Pakistan? Your Nehru
attached a precondition that if India would have to be divided Bengal and
Punjab must also be divided so that the portions of Bengal and Punjab that
would go to Pakistan could re-merge to India soon after?
Your covert
and overt activities against Bangladesh and your latest suggestion justified
that you assisted us in 1971 to implement that dream of Nehru to merge East
Bengal, now Bangladesh, to India. Your plan was to weaken and crush Muslim
power of the region and grab us in course of time, to turn Bangladesh to a
flag-oriented vassal state, if you couldn’t swallow it instantly. We frustrated
that design. Now you resurrected the same design in a detoured manner. We are
sure that it is not your personal agenda. It is an expression of your Hindutva
psyche.
Going
through the above mentioned suggestion of Kuldip Nayar I recollected the story
of seeing the elephant by seven blind men. Mr. Nayar took us, as if, we are
blind. You advised us saying, “We will create a unified South Asia like that of
European Union rising above our identity of Hindu, Muslim, Indian, Pakistani,
Bangladeshi.”
Let us see
first of all how much you have come out of extreme Hindutva mindset. You
verbally speak of secularism, but in practice you turned India to an extreme
Hindu State. sikhs,jainas and buddhist are kept under the hindu references
hindu family laws article 25.Your behaviour with Indian Muslims, Kashmiris,
Sikhs, Buddhists, even with the Dalits-Harijans, above all with the Bangladeshis,
since 1971 unequivocally revealed that there are no so much bigoted and extreme
communalists around the world as worst as you. Your cruelty of communality
magnified thousand times more after 1947 than that of pre-47 British era. If
you were really secular, the Architect of the Indian Constitution Dr. Bhim Rao
Ambedkar, a Dalit, would have never converted to Buddhism? He even urged all
other Dalits to shun Hinduism. Your communality, anti-Muslim hatred, and the
mentality of keeping the Muslims under your feet prompted and compelled the
Muslims of the then East Bengal to join Pakistan instead of merging to India.
We became
the owner of an independent Bangladesh in 1971 as our forefathers took the
judicious decision of joining Pakistan in 1947. We would have lost our
existence if in 1947 we would have merged to India in stead of joining
Pakistan. Under that situation Sheikh Mujib would never have emerged. We
wouldn’t have got an independent country named Bangladesh. We would not have
got our own prime minister, president, national parliament, Supreme Court.
There wouldn’t have so many MPs, ministers, bureaucrats, doctors, engineers,
industrialists, poets and litterateurs, journalists, barristers and what not.
So many universities, colleges, schools, madrashas, medical colleges,
engineering universities, or thousand types of other organizations, so many
mills and factories, wouldn’t have established in this region what is now known
as Bangladesh. English Daily Star wouldn’t have surfaced to publish your book
or journalist like Mahfuz Anam or Matiur Rahman might not have emerged. Most of
us would have become your farm-workers, home-servants, maidservants,
day-labourers, boatmen, tailors, mason, carpenters, guards, at best primary
school teachers what the Muslims of West Bengal and elsewhere in India now are.
In
Bangladesh now many families in rural areas, not to speak of urban ones, have
colored TV sets, computers, refrigerators, mobile phones, even buildings and
private cars. Metalled, roads, electricity and gas lines, dish-networks,
internet connections spread in the remote rural areas. Nothing of these sorts
could be achieved if our forefathers would have merged to India in 1947. Above
all, millions of persons like Zainal Abedin wouldn’t have emerged to condemn
and thwart your overt and covert designs. The position of our next generations
will reverse to the pre-47 era after 65 years if we today join so-called
‘Akhand Bharat’ (Undivided India). All of our achievements will be lost and
frustrated and perished to dust.
In this
context I opt to quote psychological grief and agonies of a leader of
Sarbajonin Jatiya Puja Udjapan Committee what he expressed at a meeting held at
Dhakershari Mondhir on August 20, 2004. He moaned saying, we no longer get
Muslim servants or maid servants in the houses of the Hindus. Muslims no longer
prefer to work in our houses. This unfortunate situation was created after
1947. (Daily Inqilab, August 21, 2004).
Mr. Nayar
the above quoted statement and its goal are self-explanatory that exposed the
real mindset of the Hindus. In order to reverse the Muslims to the slave-like
status of per-partitioned era and remove the feeling of grief of your
Bangladeshi representatives, you resurrected or brought forward the theory of
South Asian Union, whose ultimate goal is to create an ‘Akhand Bharat’.
The
root-cause is that you cannot tolerate or accept our success, prosperity and
above all, independence. Your anti-Muslim communal hatred and psyche cannot
tolerate our independent identity and happy and prosperous life. According to
you why should the descendents of the unlettered rustic Muslim farm-workers and
boatmen of East Bengal would have an independent homeland and lead a decent
life. To end this you repeatedly imposed and still are imposing tragedies,
tempests and miseries one after another on us, so that we cannot stand on our
own legs. You are sure if you behave with us like a good neighbour we could
supersede Malaysia or Singapore, not to speak of your India.
On the other
hand, you apprehend if we are allowed to attain prosperity the deprived,
exploited, neglected people of your provinces adjoining Bangladesh, which were
never a part of Indian territory, will be inspired and roared for independence
out of India. To deter their independence you wage clandestine war against us.
Your prime goal is to swallow Bangladesh to reverse us to the status of porters
and labourers. And with that end in view you raised the dead issue of ‘Akhand
Bharat’.
You can
never be a friend of the Muslims. You will never be able to get rid of your
pound of anti-Muslim communalism, as using the anti-Muslim sentiment you keep
the Hindu nationalistic spirit alive to keep India united. Indians were
psychologically divided far earlier. For this reason you let loose your army
against your people and chose anti-Muslim bias as an effective panacea to avert
further subdivision and fragmentation of India. You will become busy to
discover enemy amongst you once anti-Muslim sentiment withers away. Subdivision
and fragmentation of India is the lone solution to the malice of your scores of
castes and sub-castes, dialects and languages, regional and religious rivalry
and strife . For all these reasons, it is a childish utopian dream to reunite
the dead ‘Akhand Bharat.
You claimed that
you documented historical facts in your autobiography. If you were impartial
you would have documented those reasons without bias and partiality that led to
the partition of the subcontinent. Write how you killed and still are killing
and depriving and deceiving the Indian Muslims for the last 65 years. How many
riots have you staged, how many madrashas, mosques and grave yards of the
Muslims have you occupied? How many Muslims have been you kept behind the bars
in fake charges? Can the Muslims use loudspeakers to call the devotees to the
mosques prior to their prayers? Aren’t the Muslims 3rd or 4th grade citizens of
India? What is their representation in government jobs? Have you documented all
these information in your autobiography? I know you will never to that. You are
secular in words, not indeed. You are fanatic communal Hindu, but camouflage
your notoriety to deceive the Muslims.
Why don’t
you confess that the Muslims are still persecuted, oppressed, wounded even
killed daily in India? You were presenting the utopian theory of resurrecting
the dead Akhanda Bharat before your allies in Dhaka just when anti-Muslim riots
were in progress in Assam and Hyderabad (occupied by you). You didn’t mention
in your autobiography, what your flatterers in Dhaka branded as so-called
encyclopedia, the demolition of Babri Mosque followed by anti-Muslim riot,
military operation on the Sikh shrine, or persecution on the Buddhists or
Christians. You didn’t mention those as your design is to hide those cruel
misdeeds. Bring to light your black chapters what are preserved in your evil
heart. You will never do that.
Let us
forget the problems of the Indian Muslims. What is the position of that part of
Bengal what is known as West Bengal where 75% of the total population is Hindu?
West Bengal was the most prosperous and industrialized State among all others
when the British left the subcontinent. Why it is now in a deplorable
destitution? Why your late Rajib Gandhi branded Kolkata as dead city? Who now
control West Bengal? Who are the owners of the main keys of West Bengal, are
they Bengalees or non-Bengalees? Who are the owners of the mills and factories,
business organizations and even most of the residential houses there? Why
Bengali language withers away from West Bengal. What is the principal language
in Kolkata City - Bengali or Hindi? Do the Bengali films get accommodation in
cinema halls of Kolkata? Why do the Bengalees migrate to other states in search
of job? The reason is that West Bengal is now a colony of New Delhi in the
truest term of the term. It is not an independent and sovereign country like
Bangladesh.
You should
not forget it that we are no longer your slave or unlettered like those of the
British-dominated Muslims. We are now qualified enough to face you with equal
intellectuality and sagacity. Don’t imagine that by purchasing some
politicians, journalists, intellectuals, cultural activists, you have won over
Bangladesh. These parasites are not the ultimate deciders of Bangladesh.
Don’t lure
us with the glow of Akhand Bharat. Nagas would not have continued their
resistance for 65 years if India was an abode of paradise. The Kashmiri kids
wouldn’t have attacked the Indian soldiers. The Sikhs wouldn’t have declared
independent Khalistan. Despite launching genocide your (Indian) army failed to
crush the resistance of the people of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Kashmir,
Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, , Nagaland, Punjab, Tripura, etc. Wait to see the
roar of the Tamils. You are to wait to see how these regions one after another
are slipped away from India. On the basis of what you put forwarded the theory
of Akhand Bharat when your India is itself disintegrating. In stead of
advocating for reunification of dead India, you simply wait to count to how
many pieces India is going to be divided.
It will be a
folly if you consider us like those of the Bengalees of West Bengal, who lost
their identity. We broke Muslim Pakistan not to become the slaves of the Hindu
India. Bangladeshis comprehend your cruelty. They carefully watch how you
behave with the Indian Muslims, Dalit-Harijan Hindus, Kashmirs, Sikhs and the
people of Assam, Tipura, Mizoram, Meghalayan, Nagaland, Manipur, Arunachal
Pradesh. You know how cruel you are. All these factors will lead to the
disintegration of India. No prudent and intelligent person can dream the
unification of dead Akhanda Bharat.
You
instanced the European Union. 27 European countries formed an alliance as there
is no country named India around them. None of them deprives any country of the
water of the international river Danube that touches the territories of 10
counties including Romania (29.0% of basin area), Hungary(11.6%),
Serbia(10.2%), Austria(10.0%), Germany(7.0%), Slovakia (5.9%), Bulgaria (5.9%),
Croatia (4.4%), Ukraine (3.8%) and Moldova (1.6%). No European country daily
kills the people of her neighbouring country, no country erects barbed wire
fence along the border of the neighbouring country and hangs the corpse on the
barbed-wire fence killing neighbours. No country smuggles arms and explosives,
penetrates terrorists to their neighbouring country or creates agents to attack
or arson mills and factories to paralyze the economy or blockade water of the
international rivers or creates artificial flood by opening gates of damps and
barrages during the rainy season to cause agriculture and destroy communication
infrastructures and blocks water during the dry season when water becomes
essential for agriculture. No country used its intelligence agencies to
assassinate the presidents of its neighbouring country.
You don’t
have the face of citing the instance of European Union. Your reference to
European Union originated from your communal mindset to encage us under your
fold. You don’t prefer the unity of the South Asian countries; rather you
design to dominate them. You opposed the unity of South Asian countries when
Shahid Ziaur Rahman appealed to form a forum of the South Asian countries. In
his honest proposal you discovered anti-India bias, better to say you branded
it as anti-expansionist alliance. For this reason, despite popular support of
all other countries, South Asian alliance couldn’t be floated so long Zia
remained alive. After the assassination Ziaur Rahman due to your conspiracy you
agreed to form an ineffective SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional
Cooperation) according to your blueprint to implement your hegemonic agenda.
You crippled SAARC by attaching a precondition that any decision of SAARC must
be unanimous. Due to this precondition SAARC cannot adopt any decision beyond
your blueprint. As a result, SAARC failed to reach its cherished vision and
spirit and became an event of annual picnic of feasts and haunt of gossiping
and idle talkers of the South Asian leaders, above all, a trap of recruiting
agents. Ascending on SAARC now you not only spread the market of your
commodities in the South Asian countries, but also bid to station your troops.
Bangladeshis
will no longer trust you. Using some purchased slaves, or spreading the
hegemonic network of intrigues or through military invasion Bangladesh may be
temporarily occupied but in the long run a larger Muslim country will reemerge
with a larger territory centering Bangladesh. So don’t play with fire. Let you
remain happy, we have neither greed for nor malice to your happiness. We simply
desire and deserve equal and good neighbourly treatment from you. If you
refrain from committing nefarious devilry and notoriety against us Bangladesh
will make so much progress in 10 years that your people will throng in Bangladesh
to change their fortune. To change our luck we need not to chain us with your
slavery. Let us simply live in peace.
You
suggested help remove the deadlock that obstructs mutual cooperation in South
Asian region. Who germinated the seeds of mistrusts and non-cooperation? Is it
you or any other else? You are the exponent of all types of evil deeds that
engulfed the subcontinent. The devil of arms race, nursing terrorists,
disintegrating others’ country, twisting other countries, occupying others’
territory, ascribed on you.
Let you set
the example of cooperation. Demolish all the dams and barrages including
Farakka, halt the construction of new dam and river interlinking project,
remove the barbed-wire fence from the border, stop killing the Bangladeshis in
the border area, shun the idea of having corridor through Bangladesh and
develop transit facilities connecting all the SAARC countries. We believe in
coordinated transit system combining all the SAARC member-countries, not in
corridor through Bangladesh.
It is your
responsibility to set the example of cooperation, because you follow the policy
of non-cooperation in every field. Please calculate the extent of
non-cooperation that you have committed. Observe your own face on the mirror.
There prevails the ugly cruelty of communalism on the other side of your theory
of cooperation and unity. We have detected your character and goal. It is
better for you the sooner you leave the utopia of ‘Akhanda Bharat’.
Mr. Nayar if
you are really serious to reunify India, I have a suggestion for you what will
enable you to fulfill your dream. Would you agree to return to those Sultanate
and Moghal eras when entire India was under Muslim rule and Hindus and Muslims
resided together enjoying equal rights? You will voluntarily surrender your
part of India to the Muslims? Delhi will be its capital and Muslims will rule
whole India. This is the only way of reunifying Akhand Bharat. If you are ready
we are also ready. If not, please stop this bogus propaganda of Akhand Bharat).*
Mohammad
Zainal Abedin is a New York-based journalist & researcher
N. B. Please
stand for Bangladesh and send this article to your friends in home and abroad.
A nice right up
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