Banner Advertiser

Sunday, May 8, 2011

[ALOCHONA] When innocent made to suffer, govt loses most




Innocents falling prey to police brutality are anything but rare in this country, and the latest addition to the long list of such victims is Limon. Still in his teens, Limon serves as a grim reminder of how a section of law enforcers operates with impunity and little regard for human rights. His sufferings bring to mind the ordeal of Partha.

Partha was 24 when he was detained in 2004 for allegedly issuing a death threat by email to the then leader of the opposition Sheikh Hasina. He had just returned from India after completing MBA in Chennai and been looking for a job.

Why he was taken to jail remains a mystery till this day.Like him and Limon, many innocent people end up being on the receiving end of torture by the very ones assigned by the state to protect them.For instance, some Rab men last year tried to frame a person in Satkhira by planting firearms on him.

In 2004, when now-deceased noted intellectual Humayun Azad was attacked by militants, police officials, to everyone's surprise, had arrested, tortured and tried to implicate Dhaka University student Mohammad Abu Abbas Bhuiyan.

All these incidents raise questions what makes law enforcersvictimise innocent people and why the government tends to defend such rogue cops.

While these queries require in-depth investigations, one view that is broadly shared is the government stands to lose most when innocents suffer at the hands of law enforcers. Experts say in many cases police set up people to divert the course of investigation and save the real culprits.

Law enforcers mainly target those who are easy to pick and are not on a strong footing in terms of political connections or money. The victims of this kind are usually beset by insecurity and thus more likely to behave in the way the cops want.

If they fail to follow the dictates of law enforcers or higher authorities, they find themselves implicated in many more cases that are false.

Immediately after release from jail in 2005, Partha told this correspondent how police and intelligence officials had tried to lure him into making confessions. They said he would be paid any sums and sent to any country he wanted.

"Otherwise, they threatened, they will bury me alive," Partha said narrating the harrowing experience.

Some analysts say when policemen make mistakes during operations, they get so desperate to cover up those mistakes that they make up stories and stand by those.Not only that, they fabricate different charges against their victim to show how notorious a criminal he is.

In these cases, the high-ups usually defend their colleagues to save face of the force. And the culprit officers get away with misdeeds.Whatever the reasons behind police violence, the demand for accountability of the law enforcement and intelligence officials has grown ever louder.

Frequent transgressions on the part of law enforcers and the government bring into question the integrity of those who are responsible for protecting the citizenry.While it has yet to be seen what happens to Limon in the end, one thing is obvious: his family's views of the government and law enforcers will never be the same again.

As if losing a leg in Rab fire was not enough, Limon was made accused in two cases and sent to jail soon after his release from hospital.

Partha, meanwhile, is plumbing the depths of despair for the disaster that turned his life upside down six years back. As he struggles to continue in a job and be the breadwinner for his family in the village, the memories of the days in custody still haunt him like a ghost.

The list of people who have been victims of police brutality does not stop with these two. Alongside custodial deaths and extra-judicial killings, the practice of bringing false charges against politicians, intellectuals, teachers, journalists and other professionals goes on unabated.

Killing "criminals" in the name of "crossfire" and falsely implicating people out of political vengeance have long made ethics and principles a thing of the past for the law enforcers and the government. Yet, when innocents like Partha and Limon fall victims, it adds to the sense of insecurity among the ordinary people.

Talking to this correspondent lately, Partha observed that no individual can be sure that he is safe from police brutality, no matter how plain a life he leads.It was clear to everyone that the harassments Partha endured had only discredited the then government.

With that experience in mind, what this government would gain by walking down the same path with regard to Limon remains to be seen.
http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=184876


__._,_.___


[Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.]
To unsubscribe/subscribe, send request to alochona-owner@egroups.com




Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe

__,_._,___

[ALOCHONA] Positive Bangladesh: Bangladeshi farmers to plough barren African lands



http://www.bssnews.net/newsDetails.php?cat=0&id=174708&date=2011-04-27

 

DHAKA, April 27 (BSS) – Against the backdrop of dwindling arable land in densely populated Bangladesh, a large group of farmers are now set to run their ploughs in barren lands in Sub Saharan Tanzania from June this year.

 

A leading private Bangladeshi agriculture farm explored the opportunity of sending at least one lakh farmers from the country to Tanzania in next 12 months and 50,000 fishermen in subsequent years.

 

"Initially we will start farming 30,000 hectares of land with 4,000 farmers," Chief Executive Officer of Bhati Bangla Agrotec Ltd Mizanur Rahman Azad told BSS today.

 

He said the target of his farm, however, was to cover three lakh hectares within one year with sending a total of one lakh Bangladeshi agro-workers there.

 

The development came as a high-profile official delegation recently visited a number of African countries to review scopes to turn the nearly unexplored region as destination of Bangladesh's manpower and products.

 

Under the consultation of Bhati Bangla Agrotec Ltd., 75 Bangladeshi agro entrepreneurs have taken lease 30,000 hectares of land. "We took the lands for 99 years lease free of cost in the condition that we will give our 10 percent of profit to the Tanzanian government," he said.

 

Each Bangladeshi farmer will get Taka 13,000 per month while the Bangladeshi entrepreneurs will arrange accommodation and food without any charge.

 

"Initially we will make three years contract with the agro-workers keeping option of renewing visas and as per the Tanzanian government, a worker is permitted to work till 60 years of age," Azad said.

 

He said presently 140 lakh hectares of cultivatable land are vacant in Tanzania, a country bigger than six and half times of Bangladesh having only 4.5 crore people.

 

Azad said they are planning to cultivate rice, pulses and corn in Tanzania. "We will sell corn to Tanzanian markets and bring rice and pulses in Bangladesh."

 

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has taken the initiatives of farming African lands by the Bangladeshi farmers for ensuring food security of the country as well as creating employment opportunities for Bangladeshi agro workers.



__._,_.___


[Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.]
To unsubscribe/subscribe, send request to alochona-owner@egroups.com




Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe

__,_._,___

[ALOCHONA] FW: World Bank Mischief with Madrassah --2009




 


Subject: World Bank Mischief with Madrassah
Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 17:25:05 -0400

WB Report on the Goodness of Qoumi Madrassahs

 

                 Farida Majid

 

 

The news of a new World Bank report on Quomi madrassahs in Bangladesh, published on 9th May, 2009 on the front page of the New Age, raised quite a few eyebrows. We learn from it that the madrassahs are normal educational venues of communities and survive under community and individual household donations. While percentages of madrassah running expenses that derive from these donations are mentioned, there is a conspicuous silence on the share of money that comes from abroad.  Though there are 5,230 Quomi madrassahs with about 14 lakh students, their uncontrolled proliferation should not cause any public alarm, the report claims. Quomis are doing a good job because all Muslim Bangladeshi parents only care about their children excelling in religious studies.

 

Several references are made to unfavorable "popular beliefs" about madrassahs that the World Bank report seems eager to dispel. The West's negative attitude towards 'Muslim countries' is also to be reckoned. The goodness of this staggering number (the count is according to a Bangladesh Bureau of Education Information & Statistics finding published in December 2008)  of quomi madrassahs will presumably cure the malady of West's  negative attitude towards 'Muslim countries'.

 

The report is especially troubling to those of us who have dedicated our lives to the service of education.  Curiously it does not make a single reference to the Education Ministry of Bangladesh or to any recognizable academician who is or had been connected with the education policy of the nation in any capacity.  Neither was any Islamic scholar or any representative of a respected, non-partisan Islamic institution named whose opinion supported the report's conclusions.

 

What made the World Bank decide that it is its business to study the goodness of quomi madrassahs in Bangladesh?  Since it is a fact that Madrassah system is a peculiar education system prevalent among the Muslim population of the subcontinent only and not anywhere else in the Muslim world, a pertinent question to ask would be: Has the World Bank made a similar report on the goodness of Madrassahs in Pakistan? What about the goodness of madsassahs of India?

 

We have been reading many accounts of Pakistani madrasahs for the last 15 years or so, especially since the rise of the Afghani Talibans in Pakistani refugee camps, and then, with renewed interest, after the trauma of September 11, 2001. United States Institute of Peace, whose mailings I used to receive regularly, completed a project on madrassahs in August 2005 conducted by Dr. Saleem H. Ali. It was largely descriptive with a predictable prescription for reform. Though it talked about madrassahs traditionally providing free religious education, boarding and lodging for the poor, I do not recall Dr. Ali saying anything about them 'doing a good job' for the general student population of today's Pakistan. In 2008 USIP brought out a book by C. Christine Fair titled The Madrassah Challenge: Militancy and Religious Education in Pakistan which is an extensive survey with lots of recommendations for reform.

 

"Reform" is a buzzword heard everywhere in connection with madrassah in the subcontinent. Deobandi and Barlevi Ulemas of both India and Pakistan express desire for madrassah reform in various interviews and articles I read on the internet. However, it would be a grave mistake to think the word bears the same meaning in every camp. For instance, none other than Syed Abul 'ala Moududi (1903-79) the Indian-born founder of Jamaat-e-Islami party and the father of modern Islamic fundamentalism, urged for reforming the existing madrassah system, calling for discarding "centuries old cultural heritage." Dr. Yoginder Sikand, a prolific Indian author and scholar of Islam and Muslim civilization in India, praises Moududi's  madrassah reform ideas in a review of Islami Nizam-e-Talim, a book in Urdu which was actually a document sent by Moududi to Pakistan Educational Commission in 1950, and recently re-issued by Jamaat-e-lslami Hind. [Posted on the internet by Sikand, 12/07/2007].

 

India, one should note in this context, holds the third largest Muslim population in the world, and the state of its massive number of madrassah-enrolled students should have provided the World Bank with a negative model, supposing it missed, by some miracle, any account of the Pakistani model.   Madrassah system's responsibility for the lamentable failure of providing appropriate education for the Muslim children of India is undeniable.  Hence Yogi Sikand, a sincere activist for renovating Indian madrassahs, sees good ideas emanating from Moududi's powerful polemic against the existing system. Yogi, my scholarly Indian friend, is oblivious of its political implications in Bangladesh.

 

Moududi's critique of madrassahs is, in fact, quite tricky when we delve deeper into what he wants changed and why, and what he would like to see in a revamped system that he describes as Islami Nizam-e-Talim.  This "reformed" system envisioned by Moududi aims to obliterate our local cultural identity (Bengali Muslims, Tamil Muslims, Gujarati Muslims, Punjabi Muslims, Sindhi Muslims, Pashtun Muslims, etc.), and indoctrinate the children in a Mussolini-modern type of 20th century ideology labeled "Islam." Along with our local cultural heritage he was, of course, opposed to the Western-style secular education introduced by the British Imperial rule. Moududi's educational policy, like his politics, is therefore geared to a contesting imperial form of domination in the shape of a religion-based global political system that is just as imperious in its rationalization of subjugation of human beings.

 

It is vitally important to understand this political agenda behind the proliferation of madrassahas everywhere in the Muslim world in the last two decades. Touted vigorously as "a moderate Islamic country" by the Bangladeshi Islamists, the extraordinary mushrooming of madrassahs can hardly be deemed 'moderate' by any count.  Successive governments, led by either military dictatorship or any of the two major political parties, endorsed extending the tentacles of madrassahs for fear of losing a public image of religious piety. There is an unspoken taboo against any intelligent discussion of madrassah system of education. Any objection to the politicized madrassahs of today's Bangladesh faces a counter-accusation of being a slave of the West, Zionist spy, anti-Islamic and in possession of a colonized mindset.

 

 Irony upon irony! In my opinion the madrassah system in the subcontinent, as we know it, owes its existence to the meddling of the white British colonizer sahib's education reforms of 19th century. There were more than 50,000 public schools in Bengal at the time of the pronouncements of Thomas B. Macaulay's infamous "Minutes on Indian Education" on 2nd February, 1835 in Calcutta.  Schools prior to that time were not state-sponsored in the way we now know, because there was no "State" in the European sense. There were land grants, shrine or mazaar grants or mandir/mosque-cum-pond grants from the Raja, Badshah or Sultan to sufi oganizations, or Brahmanical tols and ashramas, that would school boys in scriptural and other basic studies. Girls learned to read the Qur'an in traditional home-schools, or mosque verandas on Fridays as they still do in the villages of Bangladesh.

 

In the pre-colonial days madrassahs were ordinary schools where Muslim children were educated. Without colonial interference they would have withered on the vine, or muted into modern-day schools. Some extracurricular, mosque or orphanage affiliated schools would have remained to serve the community with religious education of the children.  Sunday schools do the same service in the Christian West.  Macaulay's "Minutes on Indian Education" initiated English-oriented curricula to the central metropolitan stage in 1835, shoving the madrassah in the shadowy margin.  That is where it remains to this day carrying on its intellectually impoverished but tenacious life.

The World Bank report on the goodness of quomi madrassahs in Bangladesh is a cruel joke considering the recent public exhibition of unruly madrassah students in ugly, violent demonstrations against freedom of artistic expression, women's development policy and Bengali cultural icon. It is utterly ridiculous for the report to suggest that Bangladeshi Muslim parents lack means to provide religious education to their children, and that thousands upon thousands of madrassahs are needed to fulfill the need.

 

Talk of structural reform is futile because these are already "reformed" from the old quomi madrassahs that used to be in Bengal some 200 years ago. Not only quomi, but I imagine all types of madrassahs in Bangladesh are already "reformed" following Moududi's poisonous prescription. It is an unexplored area of study, so I will urge all the persons involved in the education of our future generation to pay attention.

 

Let me sign off with a quote from a scholar and columnist who has had to pay enough attention to the subject because he is a Pakistani. Husain Haqqani, who also happens to be the current Pakistani Ambassador to the United States, warned in an article in Foreign Policy (Nov.Dec. 2003):

"Now, with the prospect of madrassahs churning out tens of thousands of would-be militant graduates each year, calls for reform are growing. But anyone who hopes for change in the schools' curriculum, approach, or mind-set is likely to be disappointed. In some ways, Madrassahs are at the center of a civil war of ideas in the Islamic world".

 

___________________________________________

©2009 Farida Majid is a scholar, former professor at CUNY, and a Board Member of Interreligious Center on Public Life, Boston, MA, U.S. A.



Lauren found her dream laptop. Find the PC that's right for you.

__._,_.___


[Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.]
To unsubscribe/subscribe, send request to alochona-owner@egroups.com




Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe

__,_._,___

[ALOCHONA] 150th Birth Anniversary of Tagore - The Home and the World - 3




 

The Home and the World

by Rabindranath Tagore

Chapter Two

Bimala's Story - IV

 

    

THIS was the time when Sandip Babu with his followers came to our neighbourhood to preach Swadeshi.

There is to be a big meeting in our temple pavilion. We women are sitting there, on one side, behind a screen. Triumphant shouts of Bande Mataram come nearer: and to them I am thrilling through and through. Suddenly a stream of barefooted youths in turbans, clad in ascetic ochre, rushes into the quadrangle, like a silt-reddened freshet into a dry river-bed at the first burst of the rains. The whole place is filled with an immense crowd, through which Sandip Babu is borne, seated in a big chair hoisted on the shoulders of ten or twelve of the youths.

Bande Mataram! Bande Mataram! Bande Mataram! It seems as though the skies would be rent and scattered into a thousand fragments.

I had seen Sandip Babu's photograph before. There was something in his features which I did not quite like. Not that he was bad-looking--far from it: he had a splendidly handsome face. Yet, I know not why, it seemed to me, in spite of all its brilliance, that too much of base alloy had gone into its making. The light in his eyes somehow did not shine true. That was why I did not like it when my husband unquestioningly gave in to all his demands. I could bear the waste of money; but it vexed me to think that he was imposing on my husband, taking advantage of friendship. His bearing was not that of an ascetic, nor even of a person of moderate means, but foppish all over. Love of comfort seemed to . . . any number of such reflections come back to me today, but let them be.

When, however, Sandip Babu began to speak that afternoon, and the hearts of the crowd swayed and surged to his words, as though they would break all bounds, I saw him wonderfully transformed. Especially when his features were suddenly lit up by a shaft of light from the slowly setting sun, as it sunk below the roof-line of the pavilion, he seemed to me to be marked out by the gods as their messenger to mortal men and women.

From beginning to end of his speech, each one of his utterances was a stormy outburst. There was no limit to the confidence of his assurance. I do not know how it happened, but I found I had impatiently pushed away the screen from before me and had fixed my gaze upon him. Yet there was none in that crowd who paid any heed to my doings. Only once, I noticed, his eyes, like stars in fateful Orion, flashed full on my face.

I was utterly unconscious of myself. I was no longer the lady of the Rajah's house, but the sole representative of Bengal's womanhood. And he was the champion of Bengal. As the sky had shed its light over him, so he must receive the consecration of a woman's benediction . . .

It seemed clear to me that, since he had caught sight of me, the fire in his words had flamed up more fiercely. Indra's [11] steed refused to be reined in, and there came the roar of thunder and the flash of lightning. I said within myself that his language had caught fire from my eyes; for we women are not only the deities of the household fire, but the flame of the soul itself.

I returned home that evening radiant with a new pride and joy. The storm within me had shifted my whole being from one centre to another. Like the Greek maidens of old, I fain would cut off my long, resplendent tresses to make a bowstring for my hero. Had my outward ornaments been connected with my inner feelings, then my necklet, my armlets, my bracelets, would all have burst their bonds and flung themselves over that assembly like a shower of meteors. Only some personal sacrifice, I felt, could help me to bear the tumult of my exaltation.

When my husband came home later, I was trembling lest he should utter a sound out of tune with the triumphant paean which was still ringing in my ears, lest his fanaticism for truth should lead him to express disapproval of anything that had been said that afternoon. For then I should have openly defied and humiliated him. But he did not say a word . . . which I did not like either.

He should have said: "Sandip has brought me to my senses. I now realize how mistaken I have been all this time."

I somehow felt that he was spitefully silent, that he obstinately refused to be enthusiastic. I asked how long Sandip Babu was going to be with us.

"He is off to Rangpur early tomorrow morning," said my husband.

"Must it be tomorrow?"

"Yes, he is already engaged to speak there."

I was silent for a while and then asked again: "Could he not possibly stay a day longer?"

"That may hardly be possible, but why?"

"I want to invite him to dinner and attend on him myself."

My husband was surprised. He had often entreated me to be present when he had particular friends to dinner, but I had never let myself be persuaded. He gazed at me curiously, in silence, with a look I did not quite understand.

I was suddenly overcome with a sense of shame. "No, no," I exclaimed, "that would never do!"

"Why not!" said he. "I will ask him myself, and if it is at all possible he will surely stay on for tomorrow."

It turned out to be quite possible.

I will tell the exact truth. That day I reproached my Creator because he had not made me surpassingly beautiful--not to steal any heart away, but because beauty is glory. In this great day the men of the country should realize its goddess in its womanhood. But, alas, the eyes of men fail to discern the goddess, if outward beauty be lacking. Would Sandip Babu find the Shakti of the Motherland manifest in me? Or would he simply take me to be an ordinary, domestic woman?

That morning I scented my flowing hair and tied it in a loose knot, bound by a cunningly intertwined red silk ribbon. Dinner, you see, was to be served at midday, and there was no time to dry my hair after my bath and do it up plaited in the ordinary way. I put on a gold-bordered white sari, and my short-sleeve muslin jacket was also gold-bordered.

I felt that there was a certain restraint about my costume and that nothing could well have been simpler. But my sister-in-law, who happened to be passing by, stopped dead before me, surveyed me from head to foot and with compressed lips smiled a meaning smile. When I asked her the reason, "I am admiring your get-up!" she said.

"What is there so entertaining about it?" I enquired, considerably annoyed.

"It's superb," she said. "I was only thinking that one of those low-necked English bodices would have made it perfect." Not only her mouth and eyes, but her whole body seemed to ripple with suppressed laughter as she left the room.

I was very, very angry, and wanted to change everything and put on my everyday clothes. But I cannot tell exactly why I could not carry out my impulse. Women are the ornaments of society--thus I reasoned with myself--and my husband would never like it, if I appeared before Sandip Babu unworthily clad.

My idea had been to make my appearance after they had sat down to dinner. In the bustle of looking after the serving the first awkwardness would have passed off. But dinner was not ready in time, and it was getting late. Meanwhile my husband had sent for me to introduce the guest.

I was feeling horribly shy about looking Sandip Babu in the face. However, I managed to recover myself enough to say: "I am so sorry dinner is getting late."

He boldly came and sat right beside me as he replied: "I get a dinner of some kind every day, but the Goddess of Plenty keeps behind the scenes. Now that the goddess herself has appeared, it matters little if the dinner lags behind."

He was just as emphatic in his manners as he was in his public speaking. He had no hesitation and seemed to be accustomed to occupy, unchallenged, his chosen seat. He claimed the right to intimacy so confidently, that the blame would seem to belong to those who should dispute it.

I was in terror lest Sandip Babu should take me for a shrinking, old-fashioned bundle of inanity. But, for the life of me, I could not sparkle in repartees such as might charm or dazzle him. What could have possessed me, I angrily wondered, to appear before him in such an absurd way?

I was about to retire when dinner was over, but Sandip Babu, as bold as ever, placed himself in my way.

"You must not," he said, "think me greedy. It was not the dinner that kept me staying on, it was your invitation. If you were to run away now, that would not be playing fair with your guest."

If he had not said these words with a careless ease, they would have been out of tune. But, after all, he was such a great friend of my husband that I was like his sister.

While I was struggling to climb up this high wave of intimacy, my husband came to the rescue, saying: "Why not come back to us after you have taken your dinner?"

"But you must give your word," said Sandip Babu, "before we let you off."

"I will come," said I, with a slight smile.

"Let me tell you," continued Sandip Babu, "why I cannot trust you. Nikhil has been married these nine years, and all this while you have eluded me. If you do this again for another nine years, we shall never meet again."

I took up the spirit of his remark as I dropped my voice to reply: "Why even then should we not meet?"

"My horoscope tells me I am to die early. None of my forefathers have survived their thirtieth year. I am now twenty-seven."

He knew this would go home. This time there must have been a shade of concern in my low voice as I said: "The blessings of the whole country are sure to avert the evil influence of the stars."

"Then the blessings of the country must be voiced by its goddess. This is the reason for my anxiety that you should return, so that my talisman may begin to work from today."

Sandip Babu had such a way of taking things by storm that I got no opportunity of resenting what I never should have permitted in another.

"So," he concluded with a laugh, "I am going to hold this husband of yours as a hostage till you come back."

As I was coming away, he exclaimed: "May I trouble you for a trifle?"

I started and turned round.

"Don't be alarmed," he said. "It's merely a glass of water. You might have noticed that I did not drink any water with my dinner. I take it a little later."

Upon this I had to make a show of interest and ask him the reason. He began to give the history of his dyspepsia. I was told how he had been a martyr to it for seven months, and how, after the usual course of nuisances, which included different allopathic and homoeopathic misadventures, he had obtained the most wonderful results by indigenous methods.

"Do you know," he added, with a smile, "God has built even my infirmities in such a manner that they yield only under the bombardment of Swadeshi pills."

My husband, at this, broke his silence. "You must confess," said he, "that you have as immense an attraction for foreign medicine as the earth has for meteors. You have three shelves in your sitting-room full of. . ."

Sandip Babu broke in: "Do you know what they are? They are the punitive police. They come, not because they are wanted, but because they are imposed on us by the rule of this modern age, exacting fines and-inflicting injuries."

My husband could not bear exaggerations, and I could see he disliked this. But all ornaments are exaggerations. They are not made by God, but by man. Once I remember in defence of some untruth of mine I said to my husband: "Only the trees and beasts and birds tell unmitigated truths, because these poor things have not the power to invent. In this men show their superiority to the lower creatures, and women beat even men. Neither is a profusion of ornament unbecoming for a woman, nor a profusion of untruth."

As I came out into the passage leading to the zenana I found my sister-in-law, standing near a window overlooking the reception rooms, peeping through the venetian shutter.

"You here?" I asked in surprise.

"Eavesdropping!" she replied.

    

______

11. The Jupiter Pluvius of Hindu mythology.

    

Â

Bimala's Story - V

    

When I returned, Sandip Babu was tenderly apologetic. "I am afraid we have spoilt your appetite," he said.

I felt greatly ashamed. Indeed, I had been too indecently quick over my dinner. With a little calculation, it would become quite evident that my non-eating had surpassed the eating. But I had no idea that anyone could have been deliberately calculating.

I suppose Sandip Babu detected my feeling of shame, which only augmented it. "I was sure," he said, "that you had the impulse of the wild deer to run away, but it is a great boon that you took the trouble to keep your promise with me."

I could not think of any suitable reply and so I sat down, blushing and uncomfortable, at one end of the sofa. The vision that I had of myself, as the Shakti of Womanhood, incarnate, crowning Sandip Babu simply with my presence, majestic and unashamed, failed me altogether.

Sandip Babu deliberately started a discussion with my husband. He knew that his keen wit flashed to the best effect in an argument. I have often since observed, that he never lost an opportunity for a passage at arms whenever I happened to be present.

He was familiar with my husband's views on the cult of Bande Mataram, and began in a provoking way: "So you do not allow that there is room for an appeal to the imagination in patriotic work?"

"It has its place, Sandip, I admit, but I do not believe in giving it the whole place. I would know my country in its frank reality, and for this I am both afraid and ashamed to make use of hypnotic texts of patriotism."

"What you call hypnotic texts I call truth. I truly believe my country to be my God. I worship Humanity. God manifests Himself both in man and in his country."

"If that is what you really believe, there should be no difference for you between man and man, and so between country and country."

"Quite true. But my powers are limited, so my worship of Humanity is continued in the worship of my country."

"I have nothing against your worship as such, but how is it you propose to conduct your worship of God by hating other countries in which He is equally manifest?"

"Hate is also an adjunct of worship. Arjuna won Mahadeva's favour by wrestling with him. God will be with us in the end, if we are prepared to give Him battle."

"If that be so, then those who are serving and those who are harming the country are both His devotees. Why, then, trouble to preach patriotism?"

"In the case of one's own country, it is different. There the heart clearly demands worship."

"If you push the same argument further you can say that since God is manifested in us, our self has to be worshipped before all else; because our natural instinct claims it."

"Look here, Nikhil, this is all merely dry logic. Can't you recognize that there is such a thing as feeling?"

"I tell you the truth, Sandip," my husband replied. "It is my feelings that are outraged, whenever you try to pass off injustice as a duty, and unrighteousness as a moral ideal. The fact, that I am incapable of stealing, is not due to my possessing logical faculties, but to my having some feeling of respect for myself and love for ideals."

I was raging inwardly. At last I could keep silent no longer. "Is not the history of every country," I cried, "whether England, France, Germany, or Russia, the history of stealing for the sake of one's own country?"

"They have to answer for these thefts; they are doing so even now; their history is not yet ended."

"At any rate," interposed Sandip Babu, "why should we not follow suit? Let us first fill our country's coffers with stolen goods and then take centuries, like these other countries, to answer for them, if we must. But, I ask you, where do you find this 'answering' in history?"

"When Rome was answering for her sin no one knew it. All that time, there was apparently no limit to her prosperity. But do you not see one thing: how these political bags of theirs are bursting with lies and treacheries, breaking their backs under their weight?"

Never before had I had any opportunity of being present at a discussion between my husband and his men friends. Whenever he argued with me I could feel his reluctance to push me into a corner. This arose out of the very love he bore me. Today for the first time I saw his fencer's skill in debate.

Nevertheless, my heart refused to accept my husband's position. I was struggling to find some answer, but it would not come. When the word "righteousness" comes into an argument, it sounds ugly to say that a thing can be too good to be useful.

All of a sudden Sandip Babu turned to me with the question: "What do you say to this?"

"I do not care about fine distinctions," I broke out. "I will tell you broadly what I feel. I am only human. I am covetous. I would have good things for my country. If I am obliged, I would snatch them and filch them. I have anger. I would be angry for my country's sake. If necessary, I would smite and slay to avenge her insults. I have my desire to be fascinated, and fascination must be supplied to me in bodily shape by my country. She must have some visible symbol casting its spell upon my mind. I would make my country a Person, and call her Mother, Goddess, Durga--for whom I would redden the earth with sacrificial offerings. I am human, not divine."

Sandip Babu leapt to his feet with uplifted arms and shouted "Hurrah!"--The next moment he corrected himself and cried: "Bande Mataram."

A shadow of pain passed over the face of my husband. He said to me in a very gentle voice: "Neither am I divine: I am human. And therefore I dare not permit the evil which is in me to be exaggerated into an image of my country--never, never!"

Sandip Babu cried out: "See, Nikhil, how in the heart of a woman Truth takes flesh and blood. Woman knows how to be cruel: her virulence is like a blind storm. It is beautifully fearful. In man it is ugly, because it harbours in its centre the gnawing worms of reason and thought. I tell you, Nikhil, it is our women who will save the country. This is not the time for nice scruples. We must be unswervingly, unreasoningly brutal. We must sin. We must give our women red sandal paste with which to anoint and enthrone our sin. Don't you remember what the poet says:

Come, Sin, O beautiful Sin,
Let thy stinging red kisses pour down fiery red wine into our blood.
Sound the trumpet of imperious evil
And cross our forehead with the wreath of exulting lawlessness,
O Deity of Desecration,
Smear our breasts with the blackest mud of disrepute, unashamed.

Down with that righteousness, which cannot smilingly bring rack and ruin."

When Sandip Babu, standing with his head high, insulted at a moment's impulse all that men have cherished as their highest, in all countries and in all times, a shiver went right through my body.

But, with a stamp of his foot, he continued his declamation: "I can see that you are that beautiful spirit of fire, which burns the home to ashes and lights up the larger world with its flame. Give to us the indomitable courage to go to the bottom of Ruin itself. Impart grace to all that is baneful."

It was not clear to whom Sandip Babu addressed his last appeal. It might have been She whom he worshipped with his Bande Mataram. It might have been the Womanhood of his country. Or it might have been its representative, the woman before him. He would have gone further in the same strain, but my husband suddenly rose from his seat and touched him lightly on the shoulder saying: "Sandip, Chandranath Babu is here."

I started and turned round, to find an aged gentleman at the door, calm and dignified, in doubt as to whether he should come in or retire. His face was touched with a gentle light like that of the setting sun.

My husband came up to me and whispered: "This is my master, of whom I have so often told you. Make your obeisance to him."

I bent reverently and took the dust of his feet. He gave me his blessing saying: "May God protect you always, my little mother." I was sorely in need of such a blessing at that moment.

BanglaBlog:http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogigo/xRIo/~6/1


 


__._,_.___


[Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.]
To unsubscribe/subscribe, send request to alochona-owner@egroups.com




Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe

__,_._,___

Re: [ALOCHONA] All charge-sheeted accused use ruling party links; one home minister's cousin



"BICHARER  BANI  NIBHRITEY  KADEY" N THAT TOO IN BANGLADESH ONLY AND ONLY IN BANGLADESH. 

THE MARTYRS WHO  CREATED BANGLADESH BY THEIR BLOOD MUST BE FEELING SORRY FOR THEIR ROLE.

Faruque Alamgir

On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 8:27 AM, Isha Khan <bdmailer@gmail.com> wrote:
 

Govt moves to let off 7 indicted for murder

All charge-sheeted accused use ruling party links; one said to be home minister's cousin, Sahara neither denies nor confirms

Chaitanya Chandra Halder and Kailash Sarkar

The government has made several moves in recent months to see a murder case withdrawn against seven charge-sheeted accused, citing political affiliations.
The latest came on April 19 when the metropolitan public prosecutor directed the special PP of Speedy Trial Tribunal-1 to take necessary steps towards withdrawal of the case, filed for the murder of Ashikur Rahman Khan Apu.

The special PP, Abu Abdullah, has told The Daily Star that an application will be submitted to the Tribunal-1 on April 27 for withdrawal of murder charges against all the seven accused.The case was filed with the capital's Sutrapur Police Station on May 24, 2008, a day after Apu, a private university student, was shot dead and his two brothers were injured in Wari.

In October that year, charges were pressed against the seven--Monjurul Abedin Russell, Mahbub Alam, Mohammad Ali alias Munna, Nawshad Hossain Mollah alias Robin, Iftekhar Beg alias Jhalak, Biplob Chandra Das and Atiq Ahmed Shiplu.Of the accused, Russell, Jhalak and Munna are behind bars, Biplob and Robin on the run, and Mahbub and Shiplu are out on bail.

Shiplu and Biplob are activists of Jubo League, the youth front associated with the ruling Awami League; and Munna is said to be a cousin of Home Minister Sahara Khatun.Mahbub and Russell are charge-sheeted accused also in a case for a double murder in Tantibazar in 2005, and Jhalak is an accused in an arms case.

Contacted yesterday over the phone, Sahara Khatun declined to confirm if Munna is really her cousin.She also would not make any comments about the case, which her ministry considers to be "politically motivated and meant for harassment".Close relatives of the minister and Munna, however, said that their mothers are indeed siblings.State Minister for Law Kamrul Islam, also head of the committee reviewing the "politically motivated cases", told The Daily Star, "I cannot remember if Munna is home minister's cousin, as I deal with 8,000-10,000 such cases."

Home Secretary Abdus Sobhan Sikdar said that since he was not present in the last two meetings of the committee, he does not know of any move to save a cousin of the home minister.Asked about separate moves to have charges dropped against seven individuals in a single case, the state minister for law said it is because the applications were submitted at different times by different people.

In the first move, the home ministry on July 5 last year decided to drop charge against Shiplu. The court, however, rejected the withdrawal petition on grounds that the trial was about to be completed.

Then on November 25, the committee for withdrawal of "political cases" decided to have the entire case withdrawn. The application to that end is pending with the court.

The next move came on January 25 this year when the government decided not to proceed with the trial of Biplob who has remained a fugitive since the murder.Atia Khan Keya, complainant of the case and sister of the victim, told The Daily Star that their family is worried over the bid to withdraw charges against the accused.
"None of my brothers was involved with any political parties. How could the government portray the case as politically motivated and try to withdraw it?" she asked.
Her mother Dr Tofatun Nahar said the accused attacked her sons, killing one and crippling the two other in front of her Hare Street house in Wari and in presence of the locals."The attack was meant to serve the purpose of my tenant Jhalak. And there was nothing political about it," she said."My family is already in ruins. I have quit my job as a gynaecologist at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University because I was too demoralised to continue," said Dr Nahar.

To make life even more miserable, she added, the accused out on bail are issuing death threats.Of those on the run, Biplob has fled to India during the last caretaker rule, said locals of Purbo Para of Suvadda village in South Keraniganj where his family home is.Legal experts say the law does not allow any fugitives to petition with the authorities for withdrawal of murder charges against them.The home secretary, however, differed. He said there is no legal bar to trying to have charges against an accused withdrawn, be he fugitive or behind bars.

On May 17, 2009, Biplob submitted a prayer to Dhaka district authorities, seeking withdrawal of the charge against him. He wrote, "I'm an active member of Jubo League. The case against me was filed during the BNP-Jamaat regime and the caretaker government rule as part of a conspiracy and [for] harassment."He made the claim of harassment by political rivals even though the case was filed during the last caretaker government rule.

http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=183075




__._,_.___


[Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.]
To unsubscribe/subscribe, send request to alochona-owner@egroups.com




Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe

__,_._,___

Re: [ALOCHONA] Re: GRAMEEN BANK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Dear Ezajur


If you have gone through my earlier write up on Grameen n it's fate then you would have understood my satiric comment of the justice system prevailing in our digital Bangladesh. Presently justice is dispensed by the spirit of party of the accused belongs.Thousands and thousands convicted and charge sheeted accused of BAL had been relieved from criminal charges including  some convicts who were awarded Capital punishment were pardoned by the power. The concerned people think that  Justice has become a matter of history since it is now handled by so-called Judges who has tainted criminal records while they were students. 

The known verdict( people knew about it earlier as the PM n BAL stalwarts vowed to destroy Yunus) that was handed over to Dr. Yunus was nothing but a joke with real Justice. I was rejoicing(???) with the BAL activist who were immensely happy over the verdict and took it as victory of their netri in making Bangladesh a digital one.

Regards

Faruque Alamgir

On Sun, May 8, 2011 at 5:49 PM, ezajur <Ezajur@yahoo.com> wrote:
 

Dear Faruque

Could you please clarify your position on Dr Yunus and Grameen Bank?

Thanks

Ezajur Rahman
Kuwait



--- In alochona@yahoogroups.com, Faruque Alamgir <faruquealamgir@...> wrote:
>
> HURRAY HURRAY HURRAY JUSTICE HAS BEEN DONE REGARDING GRAMEEN BANK .
>




__._,_.___


[Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.]
To unsubscribe/subscribe, send request to alochona-owner@egroups.com




Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe

__,_._,___

[ALOCHONA] The reactions following Bin Laden's death



A Little Help from a Foe
The reactions following Bin Laden's death are a disaster. A person's death may sometimes be good news. But somebody's assassination never is. A commentary by Stephanie Doetzer
.
Angela Merkel is happy. Hillary Clinton is happy. Barack Obama claims that justice has been done and hundreds of Americans celebrate cheerfully right next to Ground Zero. Hmm. Is this the Western world that likes to think of itself as an epitome of civilisation?
Bin Laden has never been the Arab icon that many Westerners believed him to be. And during the last four months of Arab revolutions Al Qaida has become even more irrelevant. But the fact that he was shot by American special forces on a "kill mission" changes the picture. He now has a chance of becoming an icon after all.
To be sure, many Arabs aren't even interested in Bin Laden's death. There are far bigger issues to care about these days and the young revolutionary crowd doesn't have time for a man they perceive as a mere Western obsession. They didn't care while Bin Laden was still alive, and why would they now?
German chancellor Angela Merkel comments on the death of Bin Laden in front of the press (photo: dapd)
Epitome of civilisation? Chancellor Angela Merkel was chided in Germany for expressing "joy" of Osama Bin Laden's death
Others, however, do care quite a lot. They started caring when the news of the killing broke and changed the tone in which Bin Laden is being talked about. While most Western media prefer to use the word "killing" rather than "assassination", Arab media go for either ightiyaal, meaning political murder, or istishhad, which is martyrdom said to lead straight to paradise.
More than ever, Bin Laden is now referred to as "Sheikh Osama Bin Laden". In most Arab countries this is a sign of respect – or at least, it's not the kind of word one would use to describe a heretic who has besmirched religion and misused Islam for his own goals.
Complex picture of Arab realities
In secular media, formulations are neutral and almost indifferent, but in many more religiously conservative outlets the tone is clearly one of mourning. But how to write about this for Western media without distorting the complex picture of Arab realities with its many shades of grey?
Does it make sense to quote the most outrageous reader's comments from Al Jazeera Arabic's website? From "May God have mercy on his soul and let him enter paradise" to "If he's dead, then we're all Bin Laden"?
Or is it more appropriate to quote those Arabs who say exactly the kind of stuff that Westerners want to hear? Like the commentators in Egypt's Al Wafd newspaper who call Bin Laden a "black spot in Islamic clothes" and hope to close a dark chapter of Arab history.
There has been plenty of both. What is new is that people who are neither Salafi, nor particularly religious now defend Bin Laden as a person. They don't approve of attacks on civilians, but they do consider him a fighter for a just cause rather than a criminal. And not because of 9/11, no. It's because of his criticism of the Saudi royal family, because of his speeches about Palestine and because he allegedly relinquished his family's fortune to lead a life of poverty.
Those who praise his principles and 'good intentions' don't hate the West, nor are they likely to ever turn terrorist. But they feel an immediate urge for solidarity when one of them – and that's what Bin Laden remained after all – gets shot by the special forces of a country of which they have ceased to expect anything good.
What may sound offensive to most Westerners, doesn't shock many Arabs. After all, Bin Laden's image in the Arab world has never only been that of a ruthless mastermind of international terrorism. He was the man that you could see on those Al Qaida videos from time to time, until they were replaced by audio-tapes. A man with a calm voice, a charismatic face and a captivating way of speaking classical Arabic – which is not exactly what the Western world got to see. Outside the Arab world, Bin Laden was reduced to fear-inspiring soundbites without context.
Front page of a Pakistani newspaper covering the death of Bin Laden (photo: picture alliance/dpa)
Is Bin Laden merely an obsession of the West? Al Qaida believes in violence as a political means, and, writes Doetzer, "the problem with many Western powers is that they believe in similar things, but without ever openly acknowledging it"
By listening to him directly, Arabs could disagree, discard his ideas and compare him with their official leaders they liked even less. Unlike most Westerners, they knew Bin Laden wasn't only talking about US foreign policy and Israel, but also about climate change and food security. And that he sometimes came up with suggestions for a US withdrawal from the Middle East that weren't completely preposterous.
Emotional mishmash and contradictions
But events in these days also show that many Arab Muslims never quite figured out their own take on Bin Laden: Within one conversation, the same person may well claim that Bin Laden was on the payroll of the CIA, then deny his involvement in the 9/11 attacks – and end up by saying that the attack could be morally justified given the American atrocities on Arab soil.
It's usually an emotional mishmash without much moral reflection, but a high dose of an intra-Islamic sense of unity that allows to downplay crimes committed by one's own group by pointing to those committing by others.
The mechanism is strikingly similar to what Americans and Europeans do when they celebrate the extrajudicial killing of an individual and justify their reaction by highlighting his crimes.
It's yet another example to show that the current enemies may have much more in common than they would ever admit: The problem with Al Qaida is that it believes in violence as a political means. The problem with many Western powers is that they believe in similar things, but without ever openly acknowledging it.
Watching those YouTube videos of Americans cheering in front of the White House feels a bit like a Déjà-vu. Last time, it was some Palestinians cheering the killing of Israeli settlers. And if I remember it rightly, Westerners were appalled by the pictures.
US Americans celebrate the death of Osama Bin Laden in front of the White House in Washington (photo: AP)
An eye for an eye: Doetzer criticises the extrajudicial killing of Bin Laden, arguing the victory of Al Qaida's ideology would have been more sustainable had it been achieved in court
Those chanting "U.S.A." and "We did it" in New York and Washington don't sound fundamentally different from Islamists chanting "Allahu Akbar". And in both cases, it's not the words that are problematic, it's the spirit behind them.
A myth rather than a man
Both are tearing at each other for double standards, but neither truly believe in the rule of law. After all, things could have been done differently: Bin Laden could have been captured and put on trial. We could have listened to his version of events and might have found out what kind of person he was.
Instead, all we have are a couple of pictures: Bin Laden as a young fighter in Afghanistan, and then the man with a turban and a greying beard. It's not much. And it allows him to be a myth rather than a man who has lived until a couple of days ago.
Had he died of kidney failure instead of the bullets, it may indeed have been a blow to Al Qaida.
But as things are, American special forces did him a huge favour by making him a martyr in the eyes of many. "I swear not to die but a free man" he said on an audio tape released in 2006.
He got what he wanted – with a little help from a foe.
Stephanie Doetzer
© Qantara.de 2011
Editor: Lewis Gropp/Qantara.de


M.A.Mannan AZAD
Editor:www.parisvisionnews.com




__._,_.___


[Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.]
To unsubscribe/subscribe, send request to alochona-owner@egroups.com




Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe

__,_._,___