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The truth about the Jessore massacre

I think you pretty much summed it up as to why it led to what happened.

Just to let you know I was in Dhaka a few weeks back .. No one spoke hindi and very few spoke english.. talking about the masses.. all the people I was in touch with spoke both with little trouble .. Had some stuff stuck in customs at the airport .. was a nightmare to communicate.. had to hire someone to translate which was another disaster.
 
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I think you pretty much summed it up as to why it led to what happened.

Just to let you know I was in Dhaka a few weeks back .. No one spoke hindi and very few spoke english.. talking about the masses all the people I was in touch with spoke both with little trouble .. Had some stuff stuck in customs at the airport .. was a nightmare to communicate.. had to hire someone to translate which was another disaster.

People of Bangladesh are quickly forgetting Urdu/Hindi as well as English. When people of the world are trying to learn the languages of their neighbours and also English, people in BD are de-learning languages other than Bangla. Here, the anti-Urdu feeling has become synonimous to anti-foreign language.

In a foreign country, when an Indian meets a Pakistani they use their common Urdu/Hindi Language. But, it is not true when one of them meets a citizen from BD, because the latter knows only Bangla. Even to ask him whether he knows Urdu will make him angry.

Most of the BD citizens have wrong perception that Urdu is the mother tongue of all Pakistanis, when in fact, it is true for only 8% of the population there. Most Pakistanis have another mother tongue, such as Punjabi, Sindhi, Brohi, Pashtu etc. They learn Urdu in schools, because Urdu is their State language.

There is another wrong perception. BD people think that Urdu and Hindi are two quite different languges. But, in reality, the two languages are same when spoken. A school going child in Pakistan can speak in three languages including English. Same is true with an Indian citizen.

But, BD people with education may not speak more than two languages. However, you have found in your visit to BD that they can speak only in one language, i.e, Bangla. It shows that either we are stuck with a mind set of bygone days or that our education system itself is deteriorating.
 
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You are so right about the de-learning.. I was getting the same feeling about urdu.. I had no hostility towards me when i demanded they bring someone that could communicate.. I am not talking about passport checkers .. I am refering to Custom inspectors who were unable to communicate with me .. That is just weak .. an international airport where they had to look around for 35mins just to bring someone who could reply to me in numbers .. He was unable to communicate with me as well .. A harrowing experience .. 4 days at the airport everyday in traffic coming from gulshan 1 roughly 9km would take an hour and a half .. met Ms Shameema whose designation I forget but was the top customs official for the airport.. she was answering my questions in numbers .. Looking back at all my paperwork which I cant read because it is in Bangla. I am not interested in wrting about my experiences within the markets. I would seriously encourage the governement to take steps bringing bangladesh to a better international spot.
 
You are so right about the de-learning.. I was getting the same feeling about urdu.. I had no hostility towards me when i demanded they bring someone that could communicate.. I am not talking about passport checkers .. I am refering to Custom inspectors who were unable to communicate with me .. That is just weak .. an international airport where they had to look around for 35mins just to bring someone who could reply to me in numbers .. He was unable to communicate with me as well .. A harrowing experience .. 4 days at the airport everyday in traffic coming from gulshan 1 roughly 9km would take an hour and a half .. met Ms Shameema whose designation I forget but was the top customs official for the airport.. she was answering my questions in numbers .. Looking back at all my paperwork which I cant read because it is in Bangla. I am not interested in wrting about my experiences within the markets. I would seriously encourage the governement to take steps bringing bangladesh to a better international spot.

I think you should not have any problem in Zia with English. Not sure about your exact situation. Urdu or Hindi; No, its not an option in Bangladesh.
PS: Most of the employees in customs are not specialized for International airport but they are regular employee who are stationed there for the time being.
 
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It was Zia International Airport in Dhaka. I was talking about communicating in English .. no hindi or urdu.. that would have eased my troubles a little if they could speak hindi or urdu cause I can very well communicate in that as well. When I say communicate I mean have a logical conversation when both parties can explain their point of veiw completly without having to pause and think what "not in time, 4th floor". The airport has 2 floors that I know of. How can it not be an option not to communicate in hindi and urdu? .. The same people would watch Indian Idol and not understand a damn thing.. They could have picked up a few words here and there .. Even at Dubai airport the arabs can communicate a little bit in udru/hindi and can direct people to the right person. I got blank stares and replies in bangla. And personally speaking I do not consider them to be brighter than our bengali friends. Its just a travesty. Whats the difference between a regular employee and a not regular employee?
 
It was Zia International Airport in Dhaka. I was talking about communicating in English .. no hindi or urdu.. that would have eased my troubles a little if they could speak hindi or urdu cause I can very well communicate in that as well. When I say communicate I mean have a logical conversation when both parties can explain their point of veiw completly without having to pause and think what "not in time, 4th floor". The airport has 2 floors that I know of. How can it not be an option not to communicate in hindi and urdu? .. The same people would watch Indian Idol and not understand a damn thing.. They could have picked up a few words here and there .. Even at Dubai airport the arabs can communicate a little bit in udru/hindi and can direct people to the right person. I got blank stares and replies in bangla. And personally speaking I do not consider them to be brighter than our bengali friends. Its just a travesty. Whats the difference between a regular employee and a not regular employee?

Bengali vocubulary is very wide and most hindi or urdu words are already inclusive in Bengali. You will find most of the Bengalis can understand Hindi or Urdu when you talk but they cant make up the sentences and can reply to it. It just not practiced here the way you dont practice Bengali in Pakistan.
Also there is another tendency, to pretend to be not understanding those languages for some obvious reason. And the airport has 4 floors not 2. :-)
Cusoms has their own permanent employee and they send them to airport. They are not specialized in communicating with the foreigners or to provide services to customers. Infact they dont need to unless some issues arise like yours. I passed through Zia quite a few times and I never had to encounter any customs official except that they scanned my baggage.
 
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Yes Bengalis compromised in a lot of different things only to keep the Pakistan united despite hardship and horror. They accepted Urdu (infact learned urdu), accomodated and accepted W. Pakistanis in the lucrative jobs, allowed w. pakistani and biharis to dominate businesses. They also faught for Pakistan. But the question is how much reciprocacity W. Pakistani shown in return. Could you find a single W. Pakistani who ever tried to learn Bangla or even introduced that to any of the W. Pakistani curricular even though Bengali was granted as one of the State Language.
You have to go deep not just a show off.

PS: As you mentioned, If Pakistan still united, then Bengali would have been still the majority language as it would have been learned by more and more people, like Hindi in India which is still growing. Again only if that was meant to be the state language not an apeasing language to certain groups.

I just want to clear somethings, you may not agree but its ok.
I am from Lahore, my mother language is Punjabi. Urdu is our state language. Before partition Urdu was the sole communication language all over sub-continent. There was a reason for that and quite a good one.
Urdu is a turkish word which means "Lashkar". When mughals ruled India, their mother and official language was Persian. In their army soldiers belonged to all across sub-continent. There were Rajputs, Gorkhas, Sikhs, Afghans, Persian, Turkish, Marhattas to name a few. A new language named urdu was born bearing common words from all these languages. So whether one is a Bengali or Tamil or Pathan or Punjabi, its the only language in sub-continent which everyone can understand and communicate.
So, if Quaid-e-Azam has declared Urdu a national language, that was the main reason. If United Pakistan has been in existence today, Bangalis would also have 2 languages. Urdu as official, Bengali as mother. And being a Pakistani Punjabi, i can tell you with full faith that there would have been no dangerous to Bengali. Even in Pakistan, all local languages are alive. People speak them, write in them, do poetry in them.

One more thing, you can understand my point by just one example and that is of Bollywood. Why would you think that all bollywood films are made in Hindi? Its because its the only language which everyone all across South asia understands.
And Hindi is no language. Its a trick by Indians to brand Urdu as their own. They knew very well from start that to keep India united they need a universal language like Urdu. So they take urdu with Sansikrit script and change many words of it with sansikrit and hijacked a language. Otherwise its a nite-mare for Indians to select a language from at least 20 major lingual groups.
 
PA was carrying paint gun,that's why they cannot kill 3 million out of 70 million unarmed civilian in 9 months.
 
Do you guys really think Lahore was traded with Calcutta, whereas Lahore had Muslim majority and Calcutta had slightly higher % age of Hindus !!!!

Lahore had a size-able chunk of Hindus and Sikhs, while Calcutta had a Hindu majority (Karachi had a sizeable amount of Hindus too). Most of the Muslim majorities in pre-Independence India were in village and suburban areas of the states of Punjab, Bengal and Sindh, not in major cities. Major cities were dominated by businessmen, because of which the (somewhat offensive now) slang "Hindu baniya" (Hindu businessmen) emerged.

The four major cities of pre-Partition India were Delhi, Kolkata, Lahore and Mumbai, none of which had a Muslim majority. However, the British felt that it was unfair to not leave a major city with Pakistan, so they gave a choice between Lahore and Kolkata (since Delhi and Mumbai were far too inland geographically in India for Pakistan to claim).

It is said that Muslim League went or Lahore, because it had more significance in terms of geographic and stratregic location, but also in large extent because of an ethnic Urdu-Punjabi/West Pakistani leaning domination in Muslim League.

The Sikh separatist movement (Khalistan) which started in 1984, a small part of their objective was to re-capture Lahore, a holy Sikh area they felt "enemy Hindu" leaders had easily let go without a fight in 1947.
 
So, why wasn't the entire Bengal transfer to PAK federation like all Hindu majority states were transfer to IND?

Because India was not made as a Hindu Republic, while Pakistan was proudly claimed as an Islamic Rebuplic. I dont know much about Bengal politics of today, but I am fairly well versed about Partition history and politics in general of India-Pakistan, and it is illogical of you to expect Hindus to join an Islamic Republic, just like you would not want to join a Hindu Republic.
 
Nahi Bhai check out the Gazetteer of Lahore before independence , it says Lahore has Muslim majority
 
Lahore had a Sikh majority while Calcutta and Karachi had a Hindu majority. Most of the Muslim majorities in pre-Independence India were in village and suburban areas of the states of Punjab, Bengal and Sindh, not in major cities. Major cities were dominated by businessmen, because of which the (somewhat offensive now) slang "Hindu baniya" (Hindu businessmen) emerged.

The four major cities of pre-Partition India were Delhi, Kolkata, Lahore and Mumbai, none of which had a Muslim majority. However, the British felt that it was unfair to not leave a major city with Pakistan, so they gave a choice between Lahore and Kolkata (since Delhi and Mumbai were far too inland geographically in India for Pakistan to claim).

It is said that Muslim League went or Lahore, because it had more significance in terms of geographic and stratregic location, but also in large extent because of an ethnic Urdu-Punjabi/West Pakistani leaning domination in Muslim League.

The Sikh separatist movement (Khalistan) which started in 1984, a small part of their objective was to re-capture Lahore, a holy Sikh area they felt "enemy Hindu" leaders had easily let go without a fight in 1947.

Incorrect.

According to the 1941 population census, the total population of the Municipality of Lahore was 671,659, out of which Muslims constituted a majority of 64.50 per cent. Except for a small Christian community and some individuals from other minor groups, the rest were Hindus and Sikhs who together made up 36 per cent of the population. In the Lahore District as a whole the situation was similar. Muslims were 60.62 per cent while Hindus and Sikhs together formed 39.38 per cent of the population. The Hindus and Sikhs, however, owned the overwhelming bulk of the property in the city and in the district.

Religion in Lahore - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 

I stand corrected, post edited to sizeable. Thanks for the links. I read somewhere an interview from Radcliffe (was posted on this site too a long time ago) about how he felt that the Radcliffe line in hindsight should have made Lahore a part of India. and I assumed he said that because of demographics. I will try to find it and post it here if I can find it again.
 
1. Sharmila Bose's writings on the 1971 war are not taken seriously by many academics and lack basic academic methodology and objectivity though they have been widely pounced on by Pakistani nationalists and Bengali-haters for their own agenda.

2. Jinnah was fundamentally anti-Bengali and was not originally a Muslim nationalist. In the early 20th century when Muslims in Bengal wanted the first partition (the precursor to the 1947 partition), the division of Bengal in to a Muslim east and Hindu west he was against Bengali Muslims.

His anti-Bengali nature and behaviour continued until after the creation of Pakistan.

3. Bengali was, is and always will be the official language of the People's Republic of Bangladesh and no razakar, traitor, Jamati, Pakistani-wannabe can ever change that.

End of story.

I stand corrected, post edited to sizeable. Thanks for the links. I read somewhere an interview from Radcliffe (was posted on this site too a long time ago) about how he felt that the Radcliffe line in hindsight should have made Lahore a part of India. and I assumed he said that because of demographics. I will try to find it and post it here if I can find it again.

One valid point that you did make earlier on however is the issue of Khalistani nationalism.

Indian-hating Pakistani nationalists using the Khalistan issue to taunt Indians.

However Sikhs are deeply anti-Muslim and Sikh nationalists view Lahore almost as Zionist Jews viewed Jerusalem (prior to them actually conquering it, they now control it) and these Khalistan nationalists ideally want Lahore to be part of a Sikh state as it was under Ranjit Singh.
 
As the date December 16 come close people on the other side will get nervous and start what they do the best, Propose some false theories.
 

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