The bane of Bangladesh
The cycle of vengeful death must stop if the dream of Sonar Bangla is
to be realised
Sunanda K Datta-Ray / New Delhi March 12, 2011
E M Forster's famous observation about hoping to "have the guts to
betray (his) country" if he ever had to choose between his country and
his friend emboldens me to write about a man whose name is anathema to
many people in Bangladesh and India. History moves in cycles and
Salauddin Quader Chowdhury's plight is part of a continuum of violence
that did not begin with him and will not end with him either.
There is a tendency in India to judge events in Bangladesh in terms of
bilateral relations. Salauddin, a burly, blustering barrister who has
been an MP for 32 years, is not regarded as a friend; therefore, his
distress is welcomed. Such stupidity recalls the traditional American
attitude towards smaller countries exemplified in Franklin D
Roosevelt's remark about Nicaragua's ruthless Somoza being "a son of a
bitch", but "our son of a bitch".
India's best friend would be a Bangladesh that is not paying off old
scores but has come to terms with the past and is at peace with
itself.
The septuagenarian conspirators who were hanged for their part in the
night of the long knives were not simple murderers: they represented a
strand in their country's psyche. So did Khandakar Mushtaque Ahmed's
Indemnity Ordinance, the absence of even a police report of the
massacre of August 15, 1975 until October 2, 1996, Ziaur Rahman's
revocation of the Constitution clause banning communal parties and his
erasure of the secular label, as well as Hussain Muhammad Ershad's
elevation of Islam.
At another level, were all the votes that Mrs Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh
Nationalist Party (BNP), Jamaat-i-Islami and Jatiya Party attracted
fudged? The BNP-led alliance still has enough supporters to win 32
parliamentary seats. Jamaat was reduced to just two seats from 18. But
Jamaat, which reportedly set up nearly 65,000 madrassas, is less a
party than a way of thinking that also sometimes finds a resonance in
some sections of the Awami League.
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's "Second Revolution" couldn't have gladdened
the hearts of idealists who dreamt of liberation ushering in a new
civilisation. A one-party dictatorship, suppression of independent
newspapers and a hamstrung judiciary turned dream into nightmare.
Lawrence Lifschultz wrote in the Far Eastern Economic Review in 1974
of the "unprecedented" corruption, malpractices "and plunder of
national wealth" under Mujib.
This is the background to the agonising e-mails I have received from
Saifuddin and Humam Quader Chowdhury, Salauddin's brother and son
respectively. Salauddin is convinced his father, Fazlul Quader
Chowdhury, Muslim League leader and Speaker of Pakistan's National
Assembly was murdered in Dhaka jail for opposing liberation. It would
be an understatement to say he was not ecstatic about it either.
That is remembered. I was staying at the Intercontinental Hotel once
when his driver left a note for me at the reception desk. The young
male receptionist told me afterwards that Salauddin had personally
gunned down Mukti Bahinis in 1971. I have no idea if this is true.
Dhaka thrives on gossip and rumour but the allegation should have been
judicially examined long ago. The framework exists since Bangladesh is
the first South Asian country to sign the Rome Statute of the
International Criminal Court setting standards for prosecuting people
accused of crimes against humanity.
But Salauddin is not accused of war crimes. He is accused of arson in
a case that was filed nine months ago when his name wasn't mentioned.
Humam's letter makes painful reading. "In the early hours of the 16th
December, 2010," he writes, "a 12-member team of armed forces and
intelligence officers broke into" his father's apartment "and began to
brutally torture him. They continued to abuse him and use torture
equipment they had brought for nearly five hours … they had (also)
brought a doctor whose sole job was to make sure that he does not lose
consciousness and to revive him if needed." Salauddin "lost
consciousness three times and was brought back to his senses using
injections of adrenaline".
"After almost 10 hours of torture, he was taken to the magistrate
court of Dhaka but the blood-soaked clothes he was wearing did not
stop the judge from sending him for a further remand of five days."
Salauddin claims that after his father's death in 1973 he advised
Tajuddin Ahmed and his Awami League colleagues to have
air-conditioners and other comforts installed in the jail because
their turn would come one day. It did, with barbaric brutality.
The dream of Sonar Bangla will never be realised unless this cycle of
vengeful death is broken.
http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/bsunanda-k-datta-raybbanebangladesh/428160/
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