I will not comment on Ghaffar bhai's article's many false premises.
To Dr. Mushrafi's comment << Mr. Choudhury put secularism as a solution of this tragedy. But all of us we know that India is a secular nation. One would ask despite the secularism why Indian minorities are discriminated >> I would like to point out that to everyone a misconception. Today's India, or post-Partition India, is not the same INDIA we are talking about when we speak of the tragedy of Partition. Today's India is very much ONE of the TWO nations in the heinous 2-nation theory despite its avowed official "secularism."
Ghaffar bhai, like many in discussing Partition, undermines the effect of British colonization that created communalism.
The British were so confounded by the co-mixture of so many religions, languages, customs and even laws in India that they decided to break up the harmony in every which way they could. One of the ways was to count people by their religious identities only (The Census of Bengal, 1872). They even started ascribing religious identities on languages -- Muslim Indian language and Hindu Indian language, etc. This forced pre-selected classification ignores other principles of grouping. count people by their religious identities
Unfortunately a great human tragedy befell the people of India based on those silly, imparactical, hatemongering notions. It was partitioned. The birth of Bangladesh is a revolt and a negation of that ridiculous and disasterous 2-nation theory.
http://newagebd.com/newspaper1/op-ed/9491.html
I hope you have a new and deeper appreciation of Ekushey, the Partition, and the birth of Bangladesh after reading my article.
By the way, true secularism is what we always had in Bengal for centuries, and it is what we must always aspire for come hell or high water.
Farida Majid
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
From: mushrafi@hotmail.com
Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2011 07:24:57 +0000
Subject: RE: [mukto-mona] Abdul Gaffar Chowdhury's column-Fair view
Today Mr. Jinaah is a 'man of dust bin' to most of us who once was worshiped by the muslims when they were often cornered, discriminated, humiliated by the majorities of undivided India. The politics is such a twist that once 'The ambasador of Hindu-Muslim unity' was pushed to become the leader of minority Muslims of India. Mr. Choudhury rightly could not deny that fact that the arogancy, jelousy and grandiosity of Patel-Neheru forced him to take adverse decision at the end.
The 'Half educated Barister' kind of statement is an insult to the historical facts. There were full educated Indian baristers at that time in India, many of whom loved to be in the good book of British rather then to speak out about the rights of the Indians. It is unfair to forget that Mr. Jinnah, Moulana Azad were the congress leaders much beofore Mr.Gandhi joint the congress after returning from South Africa or Mr. Neheru returned from UK.
In the twist of dirty politics Mr. Jinnah was pushed out and lived in UK for about 5 years away from Indian politics. Barister Shahed Ali and other Muslim students went to Mr. Jinnah and requested him to fight for Muslims right and respect in India. Mr. Jinnah was so annoyed and furious on this idea that he asked them to leave his home at once. But later he unwillingly agreed to pursue. The Pakistan was acheived mainly by the actvities of Muslims of Bengal, being the majority population of the then Pakistan. That was the reality of time given the political twists and turns that always drove mob towards some thing to change to unexpected.
Even then Mr. Jinnah's vision of Pakistan was totally diffrent then what was in the reality after his death. We know Mr. Liaquat Ali khan was shot dead in a meeting by the communal political force. One can be sure that Mr. Jinnah would have been shot the same way as Mr. Gandhi if he was alive and pursuing his vision.
Mr. Jinaah is dead in East Bengal becuase of his historic blander of language decision for Pakistan by undermining Bangla. It is also true the force behind his that fateful decision were Khaja Najimuddin and their gang. Though they were themselves Bangali speaking.
Pointing to the failures of today's Bangladesh, many of us now often blame Sheikh Mujibur Rahman for his leadership of our liberation war. Its easy to critisize when crtical decision making moment is a past event. But at the moment of decision-making a considerable number of factors and events works which is usually not evident.
Now just stop for a moment and assume that we Bangladeshi's are in Indian union today. Where would each of us including Mr.Choudhury, be today. We could easily be part of neglected Muslims of India as the statistics of US Embassy expressed. Instead of 16 crores we could be counted as 13 crores of Bengali in East Bengal. Instead of 18 crores of Indain Mulslims, it could be 18croes(India)+16croes (Bangladesh)+18croes (Pakistan)= total 48 crores in that discriminatory condition. Mr. Choudhury put secularism as a solution of this tragedy. But all of us we know that India is a secular nation. One would ask despite the secularism why Indian minorities are discriminated. It is because no 'ism' can give the solution for such issues. Only human sincerity to their ideals and responsibility of action can bring a just soceity. Often it appears as utopia in reality.
It would be fair if we exercise greatfulness, impartial judgement and a bias free knowledge-based attitude towards the history and the historical personalities as they deserve.
Dr. Mushrafi
Australia
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
From: jnrsr53@yahoo.com
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2011 17:26:06 -0700
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Abdul Gaffar Chowdhury's column--my comments--see below
This is a very informative article, as expected, from Ghaffar Chowdhury. I liked every thing he said in this article.
It reminded me of a talk I gave in a seminar at the St. John's University, right after the general election in 2001 in Bangladesh. This seminar was organized to protest the wide spread targeted attacks on the religious minorities in Bangladesh, especially Hindus, by BNP and Jamati cadres after their election victory. The title of my talk was "The Forgotten Religious Minorities." I raised the very same question that Ghaffar Chowdhury has raised in his article, which is – partition of India has made religious minorities, on both sides, suddenly alien in their own ancestral homeland for no fault of their own, and altered their destiny forever. On the contrary, majority, especially leaders, have reaped the fruits of the partition, and have totally forgotten to think about the possible impact of the partition on the lives of those minorities left behind. Otherwise, repatriation of religious minorities from both parts would have been mandatory with the partition. Who gave those leaders the right to play with the destiny of millions of people? I asked. This article has brought back that thought once again after 10 years. Ghaffar Chowdhury is correct – communality gave birth to the partition of India, and partition perpetuated communality in that region. It was a grave miscalculation on the part of the leadership of both sides. Such communality cannot be erased easily. I do not think communal harmony can ever be established between India and Pakistan. I will be the happiest man on earth if I am proven to be wrong someday.
Bangladesh is altogether a different animal. Here we are lucky to have an instrument - called the Bangalee-Nationalism - that can form the required bond between different religious communities. Only Awami League can use it, but they have so far avoided it. I don't know why?
Jiten Roy --- On Mon, 9/12/11, S A Hannan <sahannan@sonarbangladesh.com> wrote:
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