When East Pakistan Became Bangladesh
BY SULTAN REZA
The Fall of Dhaka was sudden and abrupt. As late as December 15th 1971, my pro-Pakistan friends kept saying that the Seventh Fleet of the US Navy was on its way and as soon as it reaches the Indian Ocean, India and its ally Russia would back down. Their claim about Chinas intervention to provide air support to Pakistani troops, without which they had become sitting ducks, made more sense. China had already fought a war with India and was considered a more reliable friend of Pakistan. But neither the Americans nor the Chinese showed up. The Indians and the Russians did!
On the morning of December 16th, 1971 around 8 a.m, I heard a rumor that General Arora of the Indian Armed Forces was coming to Dhaka to accept the surrender of General Niazi. By 10 a. m this rumor became the news.
Millat, my bridge partner, who was a co-coordinator of the freedom fighters movement in Bangladesh, confirmed that a General of the Indian Army was at that very moment having a meeting with his Pakistani counter-part at Savar, just outside Dhaka, to discuss the terms and conditions of the ensuing surrender.
An hour later, I came to know that the draft agreement was approved by Pakistan and the formalities of the surrender would take place at Ramna Racecourse in late afternoon.
It actually took place at 5 p.m after General Arora arrived from Calcutta by helicopter. Pro-Bangladesh Bengalis started celebrating and the Pro-Pakistan Bengalis and non-Bengalis started panicking. By noon, one could see Pakistani soldiers heading towards the Ramna Race Course. Then I noticed some flags being hoisted on roof tops. It was a green flag with a red circle on it. Someone explained to me that the green background symbolized the greenery and the red disc represented the rising sun and the sacrifices we made to gain the independence.
I was on my way to Shantinagar from Tipu Sultan Road, when I saw near the Christian graveyard, three Bengalis with guns chasing four Bengalis and two non Bengalis. The crowd was running behind them. Mukti Bahinis, were chasing the Razakars, to kill them. The crowd was shouting Joy Bangla, Joy Bangla and gun shots or blank fire in the air could be seen and heard. I could not feel any joy or excitement. I was relieved, yes, because the liberation war was coming to an end without millions more having to pay the price for it. But I abhorred this revenge part. Why not arrest and hand the suspects over to the authorities and let the court decide? Many Bengalis like me had similar mixed feelings of relief and sorrow. But for those, whose loved ones could only return to their homeland after the departure of the Pakistani troops or those whose daughters, mothers and sisters were raped by the Pakistani Militia and Army, this was a day of rejoice and revenge. They could not touch the defeated Pakistani Army, who had surrendered to the victorious Indian Army and were therefore under their protection. So they went after the civilians and the paramilitary forces those who had openly supported Pakistan and were called Razakars.
For the Biharis and Razakars, it was doomsday. Bihari was the term used for all non-Bengalis and Razakars were paramilitary forces who had volunteered their services to the Pakistan Army, who utilized them as Mujahideens to kill the Kafirs by giving them Islamic names like Al-Badr and Al-Shams and misleading them into believing that East Pakistanis were no longer Muslims. Razakars could be a Bihari or even a Bengali. Many of them were hunted and killed by the people who recognized them, supported by the Mukti Bahinis with guns and pistols . Every Bengali became a Freedom Fighter and all the non-Bengalis became Razakars. Those Bengali civilians, even politicians who cooperated with the Pakistan government, were termed as traitors and treated as such.
There were many Bengalis, from other political parties like Muslim League and Jamaat-e- Islami, who did not agree with Awami League mandate of autonomy. Nor did they wish the break up of Pakistan. Some of them even cooperated with the Martial Law government to buy time and to convince the military rulers that what they were doing was not right. Maulvi Fariduddin was one of them. He was a God fearing Muslim and a genuine Bengali. He had been a Member of the National Assembly too. Fariduddin was mercilessly beaten to death. There were many others like him who did what they thought were right and it turned out to be a wrong decision that cost them their lives.
Even Mohammad Idris, who started shooting at the Mukti Bahinis because they had broken up Pakistan, was not a bad person. He was more patriotic than many in West Pakistan and simply could not stand the sight of its armys surrender. He decided to go down fighting for the country he loved most. It is a pity that Pakistan does not appreciate this sense of patriotism and is still making excuses about bringing the Biharis back home. Almost all the non-Bengalis were treated badly after the fall of Dhaka with the exception of the members of Aga Khan community, who had behaved very sensibly by not acting like Maulvi Fariduddin or Mohammad Idris. From the beginning, they followed the command of their leader Aga Khan, to mingle with the local people, respect them and learn their language.
December 16, 1971 was a day of Saneha, Doorghotona or "Tragedy" for the Muslims of the Indo-Pak subcontinent including a large percentage of Bengali Muslims in East Pakistan, who considered that Yahya Khans reluctance to convene the National Assembly was very unfair and his agreement with Bhutto to keep Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from becoming the Prime Minister of Pakistan was a conspiracy. But all of them were not Awami Leaguers and most of them believed that people charged in the Agartala conspiracy case, if found guilty, should be punished. They did not support the break up of Pakistan. They remembered well, the bad treatment their fathers and grand fathers had received from the Hindu Zamindars before the partition of India in 1947 and felt relieved to find Pakistan as their new homeland. Therefore at the beginning only Awami League and its staunch supporters wanted a separation while the majority wanted that the power should be handed over to the person who had won the election.
Sheikh Mujib controlled the majority seat in the National Assembly. Out of 300 National Assembly seats, Awami League had won 167 and Wali Khan had offered to join him with his 30 seats, yet Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto wanted to be the Prime Minister of Pakistan with his only 97 seats. Yahya Khan supported him because he was promised to be made the President. The parties failed to agree on anything or were failed to decided on a solution and Martial Law was declared. Failing to beat the Bengalis into submission, they resorted to committing the greatest genocide in recent history. This atrocious behavior of Pakistani politicians and army generals alienated all the Bengalis of East Pakistan and infuriated many, resulting in the War of Liberation on March 26 itself. At the behest of a Chittagong industrialist Mr. A. K. Khan and on behalf of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, General Zia declared the independence of Bangladesh from Chittagong radio station.
Slowly but steadily, more and more East Pakistanis realized that independence from the clutches of the rulers of West Pakistan was the only way left for them. Their children started going away to India to join the liberation war and they continued to suffer in the hands of what was now the Occupation Army. They sought Indias help, who was anxiously waiting to provide them. This was their chance to retaliate against Pakistan that was calling their part of the Kashmir as Occupied Territory and fought two wars with them over this issue.
India declared that Pakistan was occupying its Eastern Wing against the will of its people and forcing them to seek shelter across the border. They intervened with the backing of Russia and the result was the creation of the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh - even better than the autonomous East Pakistan that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had initially demanded. A look at Dhaka alone will testify that it turned out to be a great boon in disguise and the reward fully justified the demand for it.
A new generation of Bengali industrialists, entrepreneurs, bureaucrats and diplomats cropped up overnight and started building the city skyward. A look at the Dhaka high-rises puts Calcutta (Kolkata now) to shame.
In the villages too, thanks to NGOs like BRAC and Grameen, people are in sync with the progress that the country has made in the past 35 years. More educated, better skilled and less poor, they certainly look happier than they ever were in the colonial days of British and then with Pakistan. Yet I sometimes feel that we should have retained the name of Pakistan and Mr. Bhutto, if he so desired, could have walked away with his Sindh province and found a name for his new country. Just kidding!
But it is a fact that in 1970, there were more Bengalis in united Pakistan than there were Punjabis or Sindhis or Pathans combined. It was the Muslims of East Bengal who had wholeheartedly supported the Lahore Resolution of 1906 that the Sher-e-Bangla A. K. Fazlul Huq moved and Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah mooted - making the demand for the division of India on the basis of religion. Even though Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, as a Muslim leader and the President of the Indian Congress Party had appealed to the 120 million Indian Muslims to stay back, over 60 millions of them left their home and hearth to migrate to Pakistan. Mostly to West Pakistan and some to East Pakistan - from the neighboring states of Bihar, West Bengal, Orissa and even Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. For them, it would have been Loves Labor Lost.
My parents migrated from West Bengal to East Bengal, which became East Pakistan. But my grandmother did not. She remained in Calcutta (now Kolkata) and even advised her only son to stay behind. He did not listen to his mother and eventually had to pay a price. My parents admired Mr. Jinnah so much that when he declared that Urdu and Urdu alone will be the state language of Pakistan", they admitted us to an Urdu medium school. But we continued learning and speaking Bengali because that was our mother tongue and she did not know any Urdu. Nor did any of our maternal aunts and uncle know Urdu. After the independence of Bangladesh, we quickly reverted back to Bangla Bhasha. Who wants to be a second class citizen? That is what the non-Bengalis had suddenly become.
After Bangladesh was created and after the 90,000 troops of the Pakistan Army and some civilians who surrendered to the Indian Army were taken to India and after President Yahya Khan resigned and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto became the Prime Minister of what was left of Pakistan, Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rahman was released from the Pakistani jail and sent to London. There he gave the statement (in English) that he was against the creation of Pakistan. Bhutto was vindicated. It restored his credibility having said that Mujib wanted independence. It seemed to me Bongo Bondhu (Sheikh Mujib) was out smarted or was it a condition of his release?
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman returned to Dhaka on January 10, 1972. A proclamation of Independence, adopted and formally announced by the Bangladesh Government in Exile on April 17, 1971 had declared that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was the President of The Peoples Republic of Bangladesh, Tajuddin Ahmed the Prime Minister and Nazrul Islam, the Vice President. Nazrul Islam had signed it as the Acting President in the absence of President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman who was locked up in a Pakistani jail. Some say that it was only after he reached London that he was told that Pakistan had lost the war and Bangladesh had won the war of liberation. I do not buy this simply because I cannot believe that Mr Bhutto would unconditionally release the Big Fish without laying any fresh bait. It sounds fishy.
I was there at the Tejgaon airport when Sheikh Mujibur Rahman returned to a heros welcome. M illions of his countrymen came from far flung areas and villages to catch a glimpse of their Bongo Bondhu. Advocate Kamal Hossain was with him. It was rumored that because of his affinity to Urdu, he had betrayed the champion of the Bengali Language Movement, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. First thing that Sheikh Shaheb did was to introduce Kamal Hossain as his friend in need who , he said was a loyal friend indeed. He called him a proud citizen of Bangladesh just like him. I personally was impressed and liked the gesture and felt encouraged that with his arrival the riot among Bengalis and Biharis would stop and this racial problem of Bengalis seeking revenge against the Biharis would come to an end.
I also hoped that like Kamraj of the Indian Congress, he would resign from the office of the President and continue as the Party Chief of the Awami League allowing Mr Tajuddin to run the government under his guardianship, supervision if necessary. Something that Sonia Gandhi is doing now. I was disappointed on both counts. He did resign from the post of the President but only to become the Prime Minister of Bangladesh. Mr. Tajuddin was sent a prepared resignation letter to sign on, which he did, and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman became the Prime Minister of Bangladesh that very day. Justice Sayeed Chowdhury was sworn in as the figure head President which Mujib refused to be. He then introduced the one party system BAKSAL, which he called the 2nd. Revolution.
Mujib now made new enemies. He changed the constitution and once again became the President of Bangladesh on January 24, 1975. Sheikh Mujibur was the Father of the Nation and the most beloved and respected person in Bangladesh at the time of its independence. He could have been the King Maker for the rest of his life, but he decided to become the king himself and ended up losing his life.
With the deportation of the Pakistani Army and Militia and the disappearance of Razakars - the paramilitary voluntary force of the Pakistan Army, people in the streets once again started rejoicing. Army remained the main topic and all kinds of jokes and slogans surfaced about them. Some real and some made up. Some were even taken from Moin Akhtar shows. For instance, there was this story about an Army Major and his wife being stopped at the gates of Dhaka Inter-Continental Hotel by a Pathan Sentry. The guard asked the Major to show his Denty ( identity) card. He said that he was Major so and so and this was his wife and they were going inside the hotel to watch a cultural show. Denty cards?" the sentry insisted. I have left it at home the Major replied. He was getting annoyed and felt insulted by being questioned like this in front of his wife. Without blinking an eyelid and looking at the wife, the Pathan pondered aloud What is this? The thing that he should have left at home, he brought along and the thing that he should have brought with him, he left that at home ?
Similarly there was this joke about two soldiers walking inside the Thetari Bazaar with an intention to bully the hawkers who were selling chickens. They asked the first one:
What do you feed your chicken? He said that I feed them gaum Which means wheat. With a kick at his butt, he was admonished with these words: "We send wheat from West Pakistan to feed the men and women and you feed it to hens and chicks?
When the next hawker was asked the same question, he said that he was feeding them Chawool (Rice ) He too received a kick and was sternly told There is no rice to feed the people and you are feeding it to the birds?
The 3rd.hawker was a Dhakayeah Kutti, a native of Dhaka, well known for their wit and humor. When asked, what he fed his chickens, he said : I do nothing of the sort. Early in the morning, every day, I give a Shikki ( a Quarter or 25 paisa ) to each of my birds and they buy and eat whatever they fancy You do the right thing. The soldiers remarked and went away. These jokes may or may not have been made up by the people who had suffered from the indignity and humiliation of rude behavior of its own army that they once loved and respected.
But this is what I know to be a fact. One day I met a staff of my friend Somji who was my competitor in jute business but always helped me out when I got stuck with the pricing of hessien and sacking. He was a gem of a person. I noticed an expensive Omega watch in Aslams wrist and asked when did he get it. He said "yesterday while I was riding my bike in front of Gulistan cinema, one Swati Militia stopped me and asked for my citizen watch. I had to give it to him. He tied it on his wrist, next to three other watches that he was already wearing. I complained Khan Saheb, you already have three other watches and you decided to take away my one and only watch? The man said You do not have any other watch I said No So he took out the first watch that he had on his wrist and gave it to me. "This is it. Not a bad exchange Aslam smiled.
I laughed, thinking about one day when a Militia was frantically looking for a building. He went around asking :Sona Ka Bangla Kahan Hai ? Perhaps someone had half understood the Rabindra Nath Tagore song Amar Shonar Bangla, Ami Tomai Bhalo Bashi (This is our National Anthem now.) and told him that in Dhaka, they have Bungalows that are made of gold. Mercifully, those army Jawans and Militia kids, who were made to believe the infidelity story of the Bengalis and fairy tales of the Bangla Desh, were now sitting in Indian prison camps near Agra and the slogan in the streets of Dhaka was: "Merein tou Shaheed, Marain tou Ghazi aur Surrender Karey to Niazi. Meaning that if you get killed, you are Shaheed, if you kill, you are Ghazi but if you surrender, you are Niazi
This was a way of making fun of the Pakistan Army who had declared Bengalis as Kafirs and used Islamic terms like Al-Badr and Al-Shams to subdue them and yet had surrendered in such a large number to Indian army, whose Commander-in-Chief Field Marshall Manikshaw had simply outfoxed them. His larger army by-passed the entrenched forces of the Pakistan army at the various cantonments of East Pakistan and reached Dhaka without facing much resistance. Perhaps never before, in the history of Islam, more than 90, 000 Muslims had surrendered to a Hindu force, no matter how big. But again, never before a Muslim army had committed an act of genocide against its own Muslim countrymen.
Cheers and jeers apart, after downfall of Dhaka on December 16th 1971, I personally got very worried about my school friends, who were Urdu speaking and living in district towns of Khulna and Mymensingh. Most of them had already left for Karachi or London but one of my childhood friend Matiullah Khan was from Bihar and he was caught up in Khulna. He was working as an Assistant to my brother-in-law, who was the Chief Engineer at the Crescent Jute Mills, in Khalispur, Khulna. When army cracked down on the night of March 25, 1971, my brother-in-law had to run away to his home town in Noakhali and he resigned from his job. Matiullah was given the charge by the army to run the workshop and now the army had gone. I knew that he would be in trouble. So I started calling and could not trace him. The Security Officer of the Mill said that he was not there but he was last seen at the Sports Club of the Residential Quarters by the side of the river. I decided to go to Khalishpur with another friend Majeed who was more fluent in Bengali. Majeed was nearly killed by a Bengali Razakar but managed to save his life by speaking in Urdu to a Punjabi soldier. He was also a very good singer and often sang Rabindra Sangeet for us. So we flew to Jessore and went by bus to Khalishpur. There someone told us that all the Biharis were either killed or arrested. Those living were placed in a camp under the protection of the Indian Army from Bihar. We went and found Matiullah. He was still dazed by the killings he had witnessed, while sitting at the Officers Club. Killing of Bihari men, women and children took place with swords and knives across the river at the ghat of Star Jute Mill. Majid and I were ashamed to hear his sad story but at the same time we felt proud that we had risked our own lives to save Matiullahs. We brought him back to Dhaka. He is now living in Karachi. I was also lucky to be able to safely see off another Bihari friend and his family and my wifes Punjabi friend and her family at the Dhaka airport after the 30th of December. But I could not save the life of another good friend Riaz, who played cricket with us. An amiable and harmless person, who copied Khan Mohammad while bowling, was a manager of the United Bank in Mymensingh. I heard later that he was put in jail for ten days, then killed.
I had always wanted to drive to Calcutta and then drive up to Delhi through the Grand Trunk road that was originally built by Sher Shah Suri. I got the necessary permission from the Government of Bangladesh and convinced my wife to come along. I also invited my brother Naim and my nephew Yusuf to join us. Depending on who you are, you can call it an adventure or a stupid act. The treacherous road to Calcutta from Dhaka via Aricha, Kushtia and Jessore had land mines laid out by the Mukhti Bahini for the Pakistan Army and by the Pakistani Forces for the Indian invaders. We had to get off from the road at some places and drive through the Dhan-Khet or paddy field. It took us 18 hours to reach Calcutta. Here I found one of my stay back aunts sadly sitting in the dark without even lighting a candle. I asked her if the power was out. She said, No, I just did not feel like switching on the light, thinking that Pakistan has moved away from us. We felt so comfortable and strong when Dhaka was a part of Pakistan.
Next day, we were treated like film stars wherever we parked our car. Returning to our car after watching a Bengali movie, very often we would find garlands at the windshield of the car which had an East Pakistani number plate EBD 3. When told that we were planning to drive up to Delhi, we were advised even by strangers not to travel through Bihar at day time, as they were very mad at the Bengalis for killing the Bihari immigrants. We left in the evening. Before reaching Banaras, the clutch plate of our car got burnt and we had to leave the car in a garage until we could purchase and bring back a new clutch plate from Delhi.
Continuing our journey by train, I had to face one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. We were traveling Janata class and the compartment was full. A punditji with a big mustache, made place for all of us and then asked me if we were Muslims. After I said yes, very politely he narrated the story of how, once when he was traveling from Karachi to Lahore in First Class with a First Class ticket, a few Pathan passengers entered the compartment and asked him to sit on the floor because he was a Hindu. Then he said, again very politely You meat eater Muslims have very little patience as compared to us vegetarian Hindus. See, how nicely we made place for all of you Feeling embarrassed, all I could say was We are Bengalis, not Pathans. Other than that, we received a favorable treatment by the Indian Railway officials, who thought that we were Freedom Fighters from Bangladesh.
Our one page passport was mistaken to be a travel pass and more than one booking clerk told us that we did not require tickets because we were Mukti Bahinis. For fear of being apprehended as Bihari refugees from Bangladesh, we were careful not to speak in Urdu, even after reaching New Delhi. The clutch parts we were looking for were not available there and on the return trip, the boys had to get down in Banaras while we continued to Calcutta. They arranged to bring the car back to Calcutta on a truck and narrated this interesting story about the Banarsi mechanic who opened the hood of the Volkswagen and yelled, "This car has no engine This is how unfamiliar the Indians were of foreign cars in 1971.
Under pressure from Maulana Bhashani and following his own election mandate, within three months of assuming power, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman nationalized major industries, trades and banks. The British Delegation that had come to convince him to not nationalize the jute trade at this critical juncture, was turned back without the Prime Minister taking the time to even see them and explain his point of view. When I was driving them back to the airport, we saw Mujib addressing a group of beggars with their list of demand. Bill Duncan, the leader of the Jute Delegation remarked that Perhaps he is not wasting his time. He must learn to beg because business, he does not understand. Obviously, he felt insulted by Mujibs refusal to meet the delegation that he was leading. But during those same days, I was surprised and rather annoyed to see a similar statement made by US Secretary of State, Dr. Henry Kissinger. He had described Bangladesh, as a basket case. Looking back, I now realize that by saying that, Kissinger had in fact done a favor to Bangladesh. Since its inception in 1971, Bangladesh has been receiving aids and grants to the tune of nearly one billion dollars annually. It still remains one of the poorest countries and many of its loans are routinely written off.
In 1970-71, the Republican Government of Richard Nixon had to take a pro-Pakistan stand against India and Russia as far as the separation of the Eastern Wing of Pakistan was concerned. But Nixon never considered sending the Seventh Fleet to Indian Ocean in aid of Pakistan. Something that the Pakistanis were so desperately hoping for during its 1971 war with India. In spite of all the NATO and SEATO pacts that the USA had signed with Pakistan, it did not feel obliged to defend Pakistan against India and Russia.
The genocide in East Pakistan was no secret to the American public or its government. Even though at times the Republican tried to look the other way and called this issue an internal affair of Pakistan, there were people like George Harrison of UK, who lent their ears and opened the eyes of the Americans by holding concerts for Bangladesh
The refugees had spilled over to India and India was smart enough to solicit the support of Russia and the United Nations to send back the Muslim Bengalis to Muslim Bangladesh. Nixon was no Bush. He fully understood the consequences of going to war with India and Russia away from home. He did not want to be responsible for losing American lives for the sake of Pakistan retaining its Eastern Wing. Yet, after the fall of East Pakistan, when it appeared that India would continue with the annihilation of Pakistan in the West, it was Nixon who warned India and forced Indira Gandhi to declare a cease-fire. Otherwise India was planning to overrun Lahore and perhaps even Islamabad. I therefore think that Pakistanis should be thankful to America for at least keeping a part of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnahs dream alive. Just as well. Today Pakistan is Americas biggest ally against Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. Could Nixon be so farsighted?
I left Bangladesh after the nationalization of its jute trade and migrated to the United States at the end of 1972. I had come to USA for a visit with my wife and child in July 1972 and leaving them here, I went back to Dhaka a month later with the hope that jute trade would not be nationalized and I would call them back. After they nationalized banks, most trades and industries, I tried to find a suitable job for myself in Bangladesh. But I was told by a director of the jute board that I had my turn and now it was their turn. So, instead of getting my family back to Dhaka from USA, I decided to join them in Chicago and then moved to Metropolitan Washington DC area.
After spending some time here, I realized that Sheikh Mujibs demand for autonomous East Pakistan was not as outrageous as Pakistan made it out to be. Over here, each state has that sort of autonomy, with their own flag and even flower. As a matter of fact, Maulana Abul Kalam Azads idea of United States of India was even better. With no big budget for defense, United States of India would be such a viable country today.
Of course it needed more planning and a mutual understanding to treat the various provinces justly and fairly like the agreement that the original thirteen states of USA signed with each other. The Constitution that the Founding Fathers of USA drafted, could have served as a sample. But our Founding Fathers started fighting with each other even before the British left and we were not European immigrants like the Americans here are.
Bangladesh Minister for Jute, Mr. M. R. Siddiqui, became the Bangladesh Ambassador to USA. I knew him very well and often visited the Embassy near Connecticut Avenue. Because of my fluency of the Urdu language, a First Secretary at the Embassy once remarked that since I speak such good Urdu, I could not possibly be a Bengali. Narrow mindedness is a big handicap that we Bengalis suffer from. Mainly because we do not want to learn other languages. Urdu, Persian and English were the court languages of the British Government in India that broadened the minds of its intelligentsia.
In 1974, I read a story in the front page of the Washington Post that went like this; Two young boys in their twenties were arrested and brought to a police station in Dhaka, Bangladesh on suspicion of a robbery and rape case. The Officer-in-Charge telephoned the Police Commissioner, described the boys and asked What should I do with them? The Commissioner told him to hold the line and called the Home Minister, describing the situation and asking the same question. The Minister in turn called the Prime Minister and informed him that two boys of his sons age and description were arrested. What should be done with them?
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman gave a shout and asked Hasinas mother: Are Kamal and Jamal home? After being told that they were resting in their rooms, PM told the Minister and the Minister told the Commissioner and the commissioner told the OC to lock the boys in the cell and file a charge against them.
The Washington Post reporter remarked that while this story may have been fabricated to illustrate a point, it is true that the situation in Bangladesh is very much like this. The sons of the Prime Minister are doing whatever they want and they are protected by their parents.
Within a year of reading this story, one morning in August, 1975 when I opened my front door and grabbed the Washington Post lying on my door mat, I was shocked to read the headline. It said something to the effect: SHIEKH MUJIB UR RAHMAN AND HIS 14 FAMILY MEMBERS SLAIN IN THEIR DHANMONDI HOUSE.
I took the newspaper to my mother-in-law who was visiting us at that time. She started crying thinking of her husband who was a friend of Mujib. How could a man so popular, well loved and respected only three and a half years ago, be now hated so much that his entire family would be ruthlessly killed. It was the shortest span of time during which love turned into hatred.
Footnote:
My Phoopi used to mention about an old lady she once saw many years ago. Some time after Bangladesh came into existence, she went to Makkah for Umrah. There she saw this old lady, touching the cover of Kabbah and praying to Allah: O Allah, whoever has been responsible for the death of my family members, make them pay a price with their own death and the death of their family members.
As I sat back and reflected upon the old lady's prayer, I recalled that both of Indira Gandhi's sons, Sanjay and Rajiv Gandhi died violently. She herself met a violent death. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto got hanged - his eldest son Murtaza got murdered and his youngest son Shahnawaz died of poisoning. Sheikh Mujibur and all his family members except for Shaikh Hasina were eliminated by his own army.
Were these people or any one of them responsible for the death of the old lady's family? Had Allah punished them in response to her call? Or is it just co-incidence?
May Allah guide us and our political leaders to the right path and forgive us and our families for all of our sins. He is Most Gracious, Most Merciful and oft-forgiving.
But I have not seen anywhere in the Holy Quran saying that He is Always Forgiving!
OOPS! | DesPardes.com
BY SULTAN REZA
The Fall of Dhaka was sudden and abrupt. As late as December 15th 1971, my pro-Pakistan friends kept saying that the Seventh Fleet of the US Navy was on its way and as soon as it reaches the Indian Ocean, India and its ally Russia would back down. Their claim about Chinas intervention to provide air support to Pakistani troops, without which they had become sitting ducks, made more sense. China had already fought a war with India and was considered a more reliable friend of Pakistan. But neither the Americans nor the Chinese showed up. The Indians and the Russians did!
On the morning of December 16th, 1971 around 8 a.m, I heard a rumor that General Arora of the Indian Armed Forces was coming to Dhaka to accept the surrender of General Niazi. By 10 a. m this rumor became the news.
Millat, my bridge partner, who was a co-coordinator of the freedom fighters movement in Bangladesh, confirmed that a General of the Indian Army was at that very moment having a meeting with his Pakistani counter-part at Savar, just outside Dhaka, to discuss the terms and conditions of the ensuing surrender.
An hour later, I came to know that the draft agreement was approved by Pakistan and the formalities of the surrender would take place at Ramna Racecourse in late afternoon.
It actually took place at 5 p.m after General Arora arrived from Calcutta by helicopter. Pro-Bangladesh Bengalis started celebrating and the Pro-Pakistan Bengalis and non-Bengalis started panicking. By noon, one could see Pakistani soldiers heading towards the Ramna Race Course. Then I noticed some flags being hoisted on roof tops. It was a green flag with a red circle on it. Someone explained to me that the green background symbolized the greenery and the red disc represented the rising sun and the sacrifices we made to gain the independence.
I was on my way to Shantinagar from Tipu Sultan Road, when I saw near the Christian graveyard, three Bengalis with guns chasing four Bengalis and two non Bengalis. The crowd was running behind them. Mukti Bahinis, were chasing the Razakars, to kill them. The crowd was shouting Joy Bangla, Joy Bangla and gun shots or blank fire in the air could be seen and heard. I could not feel any joy or excitement. I was relieved, yes, because the liberation war was coming to an end without millions more having to pay the price for it. But I abhorred this revenge part. Why not arrest and hand the suspects over to the authorities and let the court decide? Many Bengalis like me had similar mixed feelings of relief and sorrow. But for those, whose loved ones could only return to their homeland after the departure of the Pakistani troops or those whose daughters, mothers and sisters were raped by the Pakistani Militia and Army, this was a day of rejoice and revenge. They could not touch the defeated Pakistani Army, who had surrendered to the victorious Indian Army and were therefore under their protection. So they went after the civilians and the paramilitary forces those who had openly supported Pakistan and were called Razakars.
For the Biharis and Razakars, it was doomsday. Bihari was the term used for all non-Bengalis and Razakars were paramilitary forces who had volunteered their services to the Pakistan Army, who utilized them as Mujahideens to kill the Kafirs by giving them Islamic names like Al-Badr and Al-Shams and misleading them into believing that East Pakistanis were no longer Muslims. Razakars could be a Bihari or even a Bengali. Many of them were hunted and killed by the people who recognized them, supported by the Mukti Bahinis with guns and pistols . Every Bengali became a Freedom Fighter and all the non-Bengalis became Razakars. Those Bengali civilians, even politicians who cooperated with the Pakistan government, were termed as traitors and treated as such.
There were many Bengalis, from other political parties like Muslim League and Jamaat-e- Islami, who did not agree with Awami League mandate of autonomy. Nor did they wish the break up of Pakistan. Some of them even cooperated with the Martial Law government to buy time and to convince the military rulers that what they were doing was not right. Maulvi Fariduddin was one of them. He was a God fearing Muslim and a genuine Bengali. He had been a Member of the National Assembly too. Fariduddin was mercilessly beaten to death. There were many others like him who did what they thought were right and it turned out to be a wrong decision that cost them their lives.
Even Mohammad Idris, who started shooting at the Mukti Bahinis because they had broken up Pakistan, was not a bad person. He was more patriotic than many in West Pakistan and simply could not stand the sight of its armys surrender. He decided to go down fighting for the country he loved most. It is a pity that Pakistan does not appreciate this sense of patriotism and is still making excuses about bringing the Biharis back home. Almost all the non-Bengalis were treated badly after the fall of Dhaka with the exception of the members of Aga Khan community, who had behaved very sensibly by not acting like Maulvi Fariduddin or Mohammad Idris. From the beginning, they followed the command of their leader Aga Khan, to mingle with the local people, respect them and learn their language.
December 16, 1971 was a day of Saneha, Doorghotona or "Tragedy" for the Muslims of the Indo-Pak subcontinent including a large percentage of Bengali Muslims in East Pakistan, who considered that Yahya Khans reluctance to convene the National Assembly was very unfair and his agreement with Bhutto to keep Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from becoming the Prime Minister of Pakistan was a conspiracy. But all of them were not Awami Leaguers and most of them believed that people charged in the Agartala conspiracy case, if found guilty, should be punished. They did not support the break up of Pakistan. They remembered well, the bad treatment their fathers and grand fathers had received from the Hindu Zamindars before the partition of India in 1947 and felt relieved to find Pakistan as their new homeland. Therefore at the beginning only Awami League and its staunch supporters wanted a separation while the majority wanted that the power should be handed over to the person who had won the election.
Sheikh Mujib controlled the majority seat in the National Assembly. Out of 300 National Assembly seats, Awami League had won 167 and Wali Khan had offered to join him with his 30 seats, yet Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto wanted to be the Prime Minister of Pakistan with his only 97 seats. Yahya Khan supported him because he was promised to be made the President. The parties failed to agree on anything or were failed to decided on a solution and Martial Law was declared. Failing to beat the Bengalis into submission, they resorted to committing the greatest genocide in recent history. This atrocious behavior of Pakistani politicians and army generals alienated all the Bengalis of East Pakistan and infuriated many, resulting in the War of Liberation on March 26 itself. At the behest of a Chittagong industrialist Mr. A. K. Khan and on behalf of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, General Zia declared the independence of Bangladesh from Chittagong radio station.
Slowly but steadily, more and more East Pakistanis realized that independence from the clutches of the rulers of West Pakistan was the only way left for them. Their children started going away to India to join the liberation war and they continued to suffer in the hands of what was now the Occupation Army. They sought Indias help, who was anxiously waiting to provide them. This was their chance to retaliate against Pakistan that was calling their part of the Kashmir as Occupied Territory and fought two wars with them over this issue.
India declared that Pakistan was occupying its Eastern Wing against the will of its people and forcing them to seek shelter across the border. They intervened with the backing of Russia and the result was the creation of the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh - even better than the autonomous East Pakistan that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had initially demanded. A look at Dhaka alone will testify that it turned out to be a great boon in disguise and the reward fully justified the demand for it.
A new generation of Bengali industrialists, entrepreneurs, bureaucrats and diplomats cropped up overnight and started building the city skyward. A look at the Dhaka high-rises puts Calcutta (Kolkata now) to shame.
In the villages too, thanks to NGOs like BRAC and Grameen, people are in sync with the progress that the country has made in the past 35 years. More educated, better skilled and less poor, they certainly look happier than they ever were in the colonial days of British and then with Pakistan. Yet I sometimes feel that we should have retained the name of Pakistan and Mr. Bhutto, if he so desired, could have walked away with his Sindh province and found a name for his new country. Just kidding!
But it is a fact that in 1970, there were more Bengalis in united Pakistan than there were Punjabis or Sindhis or Pathans combined. It was the Muslims of East Bengal who had wholeheartedly supported the Lahore Resolution of 1906 that the Sher-e-Bangla A. K. Fazlul Huq moved and Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah mooted - making the demand for the division of India on the basis of religion. Even though Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, as a Muslim leader and the President of the Indian Congress Party had appealed to the 120 million Indian Muslims to stay back, over 60 millions of them left their home and hearth to migrate to Pakistan. Mostly to West Pakistan and some to East Pakistan - from the neighboring states of Bihar, West Bengal, Orissa and even Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. For them, it would have been Loves Labor Lost.
My parents migrated from West Bengal to East Bengal, which became East Pakistan. But my grandmother did not. She remained in Calcutta (now Kolkata) and even advised her only son to stay behind. He did not listen to his mother and eventually had to pay a price. My parents admired Mr. Jinnah so much that when he declared that Urdu and Urdu alone will be the state language of Pakistan", they admitted us to an Urdu medium school. But we continued learning and speaking Bengali because that was our mother tongue and she did not know any Urdu. Nor did any of our maternal aunts and uncle know Urdu. After the independence of Bangladesh, we quickly reverted back to Bangla Bhasha. Who wants to be a second class citizen? That is what the non-Bengalis had suddenly become.
After Bangladesh was created and after the 90,000 troops of the Pakistan Army and some civilians who surrendered to the Indian Army were taken to India and after President Yahya Khan resigned and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto became the Prime Minister of what was left of Pakistan, Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rahman was released from the Pakistani jail and sent to London. There he gave the statement (in English) that he was against the creation of Pakistan. Bhutto was vindicated. It restored his credibility having said that Mujib wanted independence. It seemed to me Bongo Bondhu (Sheikh Mujib) was out smarted or was it a condition of his release?
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman returned to Dhaka on January 10, 1972. A proclamation of Independence, adopted and formally announced by the Bangladesh Government in Exile on April 17, 1971 had declared that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was the President of The Peoples Republic of Bangladesh, Tajuddin Ahmed the Prime Minister and Nazrul Islam, the Vice President. Nazrul Islam had signed it as the Acting President in the absence of President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman who was locked up in a Pakistani jail. Some say that it was only after he reached London that he was told that Pakistan had lost the war and Bangladesh had won the war of liberation. I do not buy this simply because I cannot believe that Mr Bhutto would unconditionally release the Big Fish without laying any fresh bait. It sounds fishy.
I was there at the Tejgaon airport when Sheikh Mujibur Rahman returned to a heros welcome. M illions of his countrymen came from far flung areas and villages to catch a glimpse of their Bongo Bondhu. Advocate Kamal Hossain was with him. It was rumored that because of his affinity to Urdu, he had betrayed the champion of the Bengali Language Movement, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. First thing that Sheikh Shaheb did was to introduce Kamal Hossain as his friend in need who , he said was a loyal friend indeed. He called him a proud citizen of Bangladesh just like him. I personally was impressed and liked the gesture and felt encouraged that with his arrival the riot among Bengalis and Biharis would stop and this racial problem of Bengalis seeking revenge against the Biharis would come to an end.
I also hoped that like Kamraj of the Indian Congress, he would resign from the office of the President and continue as the Party Chief of the Awami League allowing Mr Tajuddin to run the government under his guardianship, supervision if necessary. Something that Sonia Gandhi is doing now. I was disappointed on both counts. He did resign from the post of the President but only to become the Prime Minister of Bangladesh. Mr. Tajuddin was sent a prepared resignation letter to sign on, which he did, and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman became the Prime Minister of Bangladesh that very day. Justice Sayeed Chowdhury was sworn in as the figure head President which Mujib refused to be. He then introduced the one party system BAKSAL, which he called the 2nd. Revolution.
Mujib now made new enemies. He changed the constitution and once again became the President of Bangladesh on January 24, 1975. Sheikh Mujibur was the Father of the Nation and the most beloved and respected person in Bangladesh at the time of its independence. He could have been the King Maker for the rest of his life, but he decided to become the king himself and ended up losing his life.
With the deportation of the Pakistani Army and Militia and the disappearance of Razakars - the paramilitary voluntary force of the Pakistan Army, people in the streets once again started rejoicing. Army remained the main topic and all kinds of jokes and slogans surfaced about them. Some real and some made up. Some were even taken from Moin Akhtar shows. For instance, there was this story about an Army Major and his wife being stopped at the gates of Dhaka Inter-Continental Hotel by a Pathan Sentry. The guard asked the Major to show his Denty ( identity) card. He said that he was Major so and so and this was his wife and they were going inside the hotel to watch a cultural show. Denty cards?" the sentry insisted. I have left it at home the Major replied. He was getting annoyed and felt insulted by being questioned like this in front of his wife. Without blinking an eyelid and looking at the wife, the Pathan pondered aloud What is this? The thing that he should have left at home, he brought along and the thing that he should have brought with him, he left that at home ?
Similarly there was this joke about two soldiers walking inside the Thetari Bazaar with an intention to bully the hawkers who were selling chickens. They asked the first one:
What do you feed your chicken? He said that I feed them gaum Which means wheat. With a kick at his butt, he was admonished with these words: "We send wheat from West Pakistan to feed the men and women and you feed it to hens and chicks?
When the next hawker was asked the same question, he said that he was feeding them Chawool (Rice ) He too received a kick and was sternly told There is no rice to feed the people and you are feeding it to the birds?
The 3rd.hawker was a Dhakayeah Kutti, a native of Dhaka, well known for their wit and humor. When asked, what he fed his chickens, he said : I do nothing of the sort. Early in the morning, every day, I give a Shikki ( a Quarter or 25 paisa ) to each of my birds and they buy and eat whatever they fancy You do the right thing. The soldiers remarked and went away. These jokes may or may not have been made up by the people who had suffered from the indignity and humiliation of rude behavior of its own army that they once loved and respected.
But this is what I know to be a fact. One day I met a staff of my friend Somji who was my competitor in jute business but always helped me out when I got stuck with the pricing of hessien and sacking. He was a gem of a person. I noticed an expensive Omega watch in Aslams wrist and asked when did he get it. He said "yesterday while I was riding my bike in front of Gulistan cinema, one Swati Militia stopped me and asked for my citizen watch. I had to give it to him. He tied it on his wrist, next to three other watches that he was already wearing. I complained Khan Saheb, you already have three other watches and you decided to take away my one and only watch? The man said You do not have any other watch I said No So he took out the first watch that he had on his wrist and gave it to me. "This is it. Not a bad exchange Aslam smiled.
I laughed, thinking about one day when a Militia was frantically looking for a building. He went around asking :Sona Ka Bangla Kahan Hai ? Perhaps someone had half understood the Rabindra Nath Tagore song Amar Shonar Bangla, Ami Tomai Bhalo Bashi (This is our National Anthem now.) and told him that in Dhaka, they have Bungalows that are made of gold. Mercifully, those army Jawans and Militia kids, who were made to believe the infidelity story of the Bengalis and fairy tales of the Bangla Desh, were now sitting in Indian prison camps near Agra and the slogan in the streets of Dhaka was: "Merein tou Shaheed, Marain tou Ghazi aur Surrender Karey to Niazi. Meaning that if you get killed, you are Shaheed, if you kill, you are Ghazi but if you surrender, you are Niazi
This was a way of making fun of the Pakistan Army who had declared Bengalis as Kafirs and used Islamic terms like Al-Badr and Al-Shams to subdue them and yet had surrendered in such a large number to Indian army, whose Commander-in-Chief Field Marshall Manikshaw had simply outfoxed them. His larger army by-passed the entrenched forces of the Pakistan army at the various cantonments of East Pakistan and reached Dhaka without facing much resistance. Perhaps never before, in the history of Islam, more than 90, 000 Muslims had surrendered to a Hindu force, no matter how big. But again, never before a Muslim army had committed an act of genocide against its own Muslim countrymen.
Cheers and jeers apart, after downfall of Dhaka on December 16th 1971, I personally got very worried about my school friends, who were Urdu speaking and living in district towns of Khulna and Mymensingh. Most of them had already left for Karachi or London but one of my childhood friend Matiullah Khan was from Bihar and he was caught up in Khulna. He was working as an Assistant to my brother-in-law, who was the Chief Engineer at the Crescent Jute Mills, in Khalispur, Khulna. When army cracked down on the night of March 25, 1971, my brother-in-law had to run away to his home town in Noakhali and he resigned from his job. Matiullah was given the charge by the army to run the workshop and now the army had gone. I knew that he would be in trouble. So I started calling and could not trace him. The Security Officer of the Mill said that he was not there but he was last seen at the Sports Club of the Residential Quarters by the side of the river. I decided to go to Khalishpur with another friend Majeed who was more fluent in Bengali. Majeed was nearly killed by a Bengali Razakar but managed to save his life by speaking in Urdu to a Punjabi soldier. He was also a very good singer and often sang Rabindra Sangeet for us. So we flew to Jessore and went by bus to Khalishpur. There someone told us that all the Biharis were either killed or arrested. Those living were placed in a camp under the protection of the Indian Army from Bihar. We went and found Matiullah. He was still dazed by the killings he had witnessed, while sitting at the Officers Club. Killing of Bihari men, women and children took place with swords and knives across the river at the ghat of Star Jute Mill. Majid and I were ashamed to hear his sad story but at the same time we felt proud that we had risked our own lives to save Matiullahs. We brought him back to Dhaka. He is now living in Karachi. I was also lucky to be able to safely see off another Bihari friend and his family and my wifes Punjabi friend and her family at the Dhaka airport after the 30th of December. But I could not save the life of another good friend Riaz, who played cricket with us. An amiable and harmless person, who copied Khan Mohammad while bowling, was a manager of the United Bank in Mymensingh. I heard later that he was put in jail for ten days, then killed.
I had always wanted to drive to Calcutta and then drive up to Delhi through the Grand Trunk road that was originally built by Sher Shah Suri. I got the necessary permission from the Government of Bangladesh and convinced my wife to come along. I also invited my brother Naim and my nephew Yusuf to join us. Depending on who you are, you can call it an adventure or a stupid act. The treacherous road to Calcutta from Dhaka via Aricha, Kushtia and Jessore had land mines laid out by the Mukhti Bahini for the Pakistan Army and by the Pakistani Forces for the Indian invaders. We had to get off from the road at some places and drive through the Dhan-Khet or paddy field. It took us 18 hours to reach Calcutta. Here I found one of my stay back aunts sadly sitting in the dark without even lighting a candle. I asked her if the power was out. She said, No, I just did not feel like switching on the light, thinking that Pakistan has moved away from us. We felt so comfortable and strong when Dhaka was a part of Pakistan.
Next day, we were treated like film stars wherever we parked our car. Returning to our car after watching a Bengali movie, very often we would find garlands at the windshield of the car which had an East Pakistani number plate EBD 3. When told that we were planning to drive up to Delhi, we were advised even by strangers not to travel through Bihar at day time, as they were very mad at the Bengalis for killing the Bihari immigrants. We left in the evening. Before reaching Banaras, the clutch plate of our car got burnt and we had to leave the car in a garage until we could purchase and bring back a new clutch plate from Delhi.
Continuing our journey by train, I had to face one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. We were traveling Janata class and the compartment was full. A punditji with a big mustache, made place for all of us and then asked me if we were Muslims. After I said yes, very politely he narrated the story of how, once when he was traveling from Karachi to Lahore in First Class with a First Class ticket, a few Pathan passengers entered the compartment and asked him to sit on the floor because he was a Hindu. Then he said, again very politely You meat eater Muslims have very little patience as compared to us vegetarian Hindus. See, how nicely we made place for all of you Feeling embarrassed, all I could say was We are Bengalis, not Pathans. Other than that, we received a favorable treatment by the Indian Railway officials, who thought that we were Freedom Fighters from Bangladesh.
Our one page passport was mistaken to be a travel pass and more than one booking clerk told us that we did not require tickets because we were Mukti Bahinis. For fear of being apprehended as Bihari refugees from Bangladesh, we were careful not to speak in Urdu, even after reaching New Delhi. The clutch parts we were looking for were not available there and on the return trip, the boys had to get down in Banaras while we continued to Calcutta. They arranged to bring the car back to Calcutta on a truck and narrated this interesting story about the Banarsi mechanic who opened the hood of the Volkswagen and yelled, "This car has no engine This is how unfamiliar the Indians were of foreign cars in 1971.
Under pressure from Maulana Bhashani and following his own election mandate, within three months of assuming power, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman nationalized major industries, trades and banks. The British Delegation that had come to convince him to not nationalize the jute trade at this critical juncture, was turned back without the Prime Minister taking the time to even see them and explain his point of view. When I was driving them back to the airport, we saw Mujib addressing a group of beggars with their list of demand. Bill Duncan, the leader of the Jute Delegation remarked that Perhaps he is not wasting his time. He must learn to beg because business, he does not understand. Obviously, he felt insulted by Mujibs refusal to meet the delegation that he was leading. But during those same days, I was surprised and rather annoyed to see a similar statement made by US Secretary of State, Dr. Henry Kissinger. He had described Bangladesh, as a basket case. Looking back, I now realize that by saying that, Kissinger had in fact done a favor to Bangladesh. Since its inception in 1971, Bangladesh has been receiving aids and grants to the tune of nearly one billion dollars annually. It still remains one of the poorest countries and many of its loans are routinely written off.
In 1970-71, the Republican Government of Richard Nixon had to take a pro-Pakistan stand against India and Russia as far as the separation of the Eastern Wing of Pakistan was concerned. But Nixon never considered sending the Seventh Fleet to Indian Ocean in aid of Pakistan. Something that the Pakistanis were so desperately hoping for during its 1971 war with India. In spite of all the NATO and SEATO pacts that the USA had signed with Pakistan, it did not feel obliged to defend Pakistan against India and Russia.
The genocide in East Pakistan was no secret to the American public or its government. Even though at times the Republican tried to look the other way and called this issue an internal affair of Pakistan, there were people like George Harrison of UK, who lent their ears and opened the eyes of the Americans by holding concerts for Bangladesh
The refugees had spilled over to India and India was smart enough to solicit the support of Russia and the United Nations to send back the Muslim Bengalis to Muslim Bangladesh. Nixon was no Bush. He fully understood the consequences of going to war with India and Russia away from home. He did not want to be responsible for losing American lives for the sake of Pakistan retaining its Eastern Wing. Yet, after the fall of East Pakistan, when it appeared that India would continue with the annihilation of Pakistan in the West, it was Nixon who warned India and forced Indira Gandhi to declare a cease-fire. Otherwise India was planning to overrun Lahore and perhaps even Islamabad. I therefore think that Pakistanis should be thankful to America for at least keeping a part of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnahs dream alive. Just as well. Today Pakistan is Americas biggest ally against Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. Could Nixon be so farsighted?
I left Bangladesh after the nationalization of its jute trade and migrated to the United States at the end of 1972. I had come to USA for a visit with my wife and child in July 1972 and leaving them here, I went back to Dhaka a month later with the hope that jute trade would not be nationalized and I would call them back. After they nationalized banks, most trades and industries, I tried to find a suitable job for myself in Bangladesh. But I was told by a director of the jute board that I had my turn and now it was their turn. So, instead of getting my family back to Dhaka from USA, I decided to join them in Chicago and then moved to Metropolitan Washington DC area.
After spending some time here, I realized that Sheikh Mujibs demand for autonomous East Pakistan was not as outrageous as Pakistan made it out to be. Over here, each state has that sort of autonomy, with their own flag and even flower. As a matter of fact, Maulana Abul Kalam Azads idea of United States of India was even better. With no big budget for defense, United States of India would be such a viable country today.
Of course it needed more planning and a mutual understanding to treat the various provinces justly and fairly like the agreement that the original thirteen states of USA signed with each other. The Constitution that the Founding Fathers of USA drafted, could have served as a sample. But our Founding Fathers started fighting with each other even before the British left and we were not European immigrants like the Americans here are.
Bangladesh Minister for Jute, Mr. M. R. Siddiqui, became the Bangladesh Ambassador to USA. I knew him very well and often visited the Embassy near Connecticut Avenue. Because of my fluency of the Urdu language, a First Secretary at the Embassy once remarked that since I speak such good Urdu, I could not possibly be a Bengali. Narrow mindedness is a big handicap that we Bengalis suffer from. Mainly because we do not want to learn other languages. Urdu, Persian and English were the court languages of the British Government in India that broadened the minds of its intelligentsia.
In 1974, I read a story in the front page of the Washington Post that went like this; Two young boys in their twenties were arrested and brought to a police station in Dhaka, Bangladesh on suspicion of a robbery and rape case. The Officer-in-Charge telephoned the Police Commissioner, described the boys and asked What should I do with them? The Commissioner told him to hold the line and called the Home Minister, describing the situation and asking the same question. The Minister in turn called the Prime Minister and informed him that two boys of his sons age and description were arrested. What should be done with them?
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman gave a shout and asked Hasinas mother: Are Kamal and Jamal home? After being told that they were resting in their rooms, PM told the Minister and the Minister told the Commissioner and the commissioner told the OC to lock the boys in the cell and file a charge against them.
The Washington Post reporter remarked that while this story may have been fabricated to illustrate a point, it is true that the situation in Bangladesh is very much like this. The sons of the Prime Minister are doing whatever they want and they are protected by their parents.
Within a year of reading this story, one morning in August, 1975 when I opened my front door and grabbed the Washington Post lying on my door mat, I was shocked to read the headline. It said something to the effect: SHIEKH MUJIB UR RAHMAN AND HIS 14 FAMILY MEMBERS SLAIN IN THEIR DHANMONDI HOUSE.
I took the newspaper to my mother-in-law who was visiting us at that time. She started crying thinking of her husband who was a friend of Mujib. How could a man so popular, well loved and respected only three and a half years ago, be now hated so much that his entire family would be ruthlessly killed. It was the shortest span of time during which love turned into hatred.
Footnote:
My Phoopi used to mention about an old lady she once saw many years ago. Some time after Bangladesh came into existence, she went to Makkah for Umrah. There she saw this old lady, touching the cover of Kabbah and praying to Allah: O Allah, whoever has been responsible for the death of my family members, make them pay a price with their own death and the death of their family members.
As I sat back and reflected upon the old lady's prayer, I recalled that both of Indira Gandhi's sons, Sanjay and Rajiv Gandhi died violently. She herself met a violent death. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto got hanged - his eldest son Murtaza got murdered and his youngest son Shahnawaz died of poisoning. Sheikh Mujibur and all his family members except for Shaikh Hasina were eliminated by his own army.
Were these people or any one of them responsible for the death of the old lady's family? Had Allah punished them in response to her call? Or is it just co-incidence?
May Allah guide us and our political leaders to the right path and forgive us and our families for all of our sins. He is Most Gracious, Most Merciful and oft-forgiving.
But I have not seen anywhere in the Holy Quran saying that He is Always Forgiving!
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