MUJIB'S LOST PAGE
Abid Bahar
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman the great leader of Bangladesh was never a studious person. He preferred to hear things about history from the wiseman around him. However, to avoid hearing different people saying different things, immediately after the independence, he asked a known historian to write the Bangladesh history in two pages. As instructed the historian began with his thesis saying: "Bangladesh is defined by India and Pakistan." Bangabandhu couldn't understand the meaning. He asked Moni Singh the wiseman around him to explain the sentence. Interestingly, the article gave the example of Bhasani who it said in 1947 fought against joining with India and refused to stay with Pakistan in 1971. The author identified Bhasani as an example of an independent minded Bangladeshi. Moni Singh being a pro-Indian and anti Pakistani politician, finding Bhasani's name on it and negative things about Indian hegemony and the Farakka dam, quickly hid the page under the sofa. Moni Singh began explaining to Mujib the atrocities committed by the Pakistanis while Mujib was in Pakistan. During the session, Mujib once in a while lost his concentration by noticing only one page in Moni Singh's hand because he knew there was another page and interrupted him to ask about the other page. Moni Singh said in reply, "No, I only found one page."
Mujib began to read the only one page whenever he had time to read. He began to read it as if like a page from the Holy book, the page saying we are defined by Pakistan. But he always knew that there was another page that was there. Every morning he read the only page and looked for the other page.
Moni Singh once in a while visited Mujib to check his devotion to the page. In the absence of the lost page, Mujib began propagating only against Pakistan to define Bangladesh. One day Ziaur Rahman paid a visit to Mujib's house and found a full page hiding under the sofa; which says Bangladesh is defined by India. He read the material and left it where he found. Mujib found it the day before his assassination and called Bhasani to explain how Bangladesh is defined by India.
Bhasani said, "We are an independent country with our history evolved from being part of Bengal. Then West Bengal led by its Hindu majority joined with India and Muslim Bengal joined with Pakistan. Mujib said in reply, "Yes, that is why lately when I finish my speech with joy Bangla, my people don't applaud." At the Dhaka university campus speech next day, he decided to say "Hoda Hafez" for "Joy Bangla." But it was too late.
What were the materials written on pages of history? Like it or not, it was about the soul-searching of Bangladesh people about the important elements of their history. The author of the article began to explain why in 1947 East Bengal didn't join with India and why East Bengal also refused to stay with Pakistan in 1971; the reason behind it were the two important identities of Bangladesh (1) The liberal Sufi religious identity of the majority people(2) Its language Bangla identity of the majority people. The equation of the two makes Bangladesh as a country of majority Muslim Bengali people. This identity makes them different from both India and Pakistan. We were known as the East Bengalis or Mujib just called it "Bengalis."
In the independent Bangladesh during Mujib's time tribals complained that they could be Bangladeshis but not the Bengalis. Zia to include the tribals and Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist renamed the previous ethnic Bengali identity (Bengali) to its evolved new territorial identity and he called them the Bangladeshis.
True, when the soul searching is done we are reminded that we are different from the Indians that put fence to divide the Bengal, built dams to control the rivers entering Bangladesh. In the pre partition time, Hindu zamindari oppression against Muslim peasants led to the rebels like Titumir Shariatullah and the others responsible for East Bengal to join with Pakistan and conversely we are defined by Pakistan that reminds us the genocide committed by the Pakistani military rulers. Thus, Bangladeshi's identity is as if like the two sides of the same coin: its religious identity and its linguistic identity.
In the mean time, like Mujib, Moni Singh also died and the story of the lost page was never raised to Hasina. Lately Hasina following the Indian pattern wanted to remove Bangladesh's religious identity and to turn Bangladesh into a secular state (Dharmohinota) Professor Talukdar Moniruzan pointed out that such measures would cause the loss of Bangladesh's religious values of tolerance needed in a democratic system. True, Bangladesh is known to treasure the great tradition on Sufi Islamic values of tolerance and liberalism. Hasina only fearing the backlash figured it to be unwise to hurt the sentiment of the people so she left it alone but never bothered to find her father's lost page of history.
( Professor Abid Bahar Ph.D. teaches in Canada and wrote several books on Burma and Bangladesh)
| 