This is in response to some of the comments by A. B. M. Shamsud Doulah and Q. A. Rahman.
While we should look at our history and learn from it, I think we should focus more on the present and the future.
On Mr. Doulah's comments, I would say that for our own corrections and advancement we need to blame our forefathers more than the foreign rulers. If our forefathers were not divisible, the foreign rulers could not divide and rule our ancestral land. In that respect I see two serious problems that we need to work on.
1) Hindu caste system was a serious chronic disease that our ancestors had. It is still there within us. It is going away, but not fast enough.
2) Religion-based hatred was another serious chronic disease. It is also still there. It is also going away, but not fast enough.
The first problem is more clearly recognized, and most outgoing and academically qualified people no longer defend it. The practice of it as a tool for denigrating and depriving people has diminished to a great extent. All indications are that it will continue to go away.
The second one is a more intractable problem in Bangladesh; and I am ignoring Pakistan, because it is too hopeless and quite far from our neck of the woods.
That brings me to Mr. Rahman's comments.
I agree with Mr. Rahman's statement that religion-based hatred is 'codified in Hindu religion/tradition'. However, most Hindus do not care to know and adhere to the codes of their religion/tradition. I see progress when a Hindu eats beef, for example.
Muslims are clearly behind when it comes to giving up the codes of their religion. The purely foolish codes may be OK. But the hateful codes are not. An example of the hateful codes would be to bring Islam into the business of the state, where non-Muslims become secondary at best, and nothing at worst.
To me, creation of Pakistan in 1947 would not have been a problem if Pakistan engaged in a competition with India on fair treatments for religious minorities in the country. Instead, through systematic hatred and atrocities, that country has expelled and marginalized the non-Muslims of the land over the last 65 years. In that respect, Bangladesh has acted as a mini Pakistan for most of its lifetime so far, although the current situation gives a glimmer of hope.
BTW, I have seen a few Hindus who differentiated between Bangalees and Muslims. I did not like it, and corrected them. However, I must disappoint Mr. Rahman by saying that it had some logical basis. Just look at the history of Pakistan, for example. Why was Urdu proposed and accepted as the national language there? Because, to the Muslim elite class, Urdu was the language of the Muslims; the overwhelmingly majority language, Bangla, was not the language of the Muslims.
There is a difference between making a distinction between Bangalee and Muslim, and asking a Bangladeshi non-Muslim, 'where in India are you from?' Non-Muslim (mostly Hindus) elite class never migrated to India voluntarily; they migrated due to real and systematic hatred against them in their homeland of centuries. And here we are talking about the ones that did not migrate in spite of all the hatred they got in their motherland. In any case, the newer generations of Hindus know better, and they do not talk/think like Bangalee and Muslim were opposite words.
Oh, well that is all for now,
Sukhamaya Bain
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