A Tale Of Two Bengals Where Never The Twain Shall Meet

[Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury]

This statement has an inherent fallacy.
India going to war against Pakistan means West Bengal going to war against Pakistan.

I was presupposing that West Bengal was a sovereign nation.

Do you think the mainstream populations of West Bengal and Bangladesh are ethnically slightly different? If we are then I suppose it would make sense we stay separate, but if we are exactly the same then there is no reason why reunification with us (not with them) shouldn't be on the cards.

To answer my own question, I found this. I suppose some of the people of Bangladesh and West Bengal are somewhat different due to the Muslim influence over East Bengal (Bangladesh) for several centuries.

This is from Wikipedia:

In Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan), an unknown number of ethnic Pashtuns (together with at the later stage numbers of Iranian-speakers, these often secondary migrants from north India) settled among Bengalis from the 12th century to mid 18th century. These ethnic Afghans assimilated into Bengali culture, and intermarried with native Bengali Muslims to provide a component of the modern Bengali Muslim meme and biological identity, most prominently among the older wealthy classes of Bangladeshi Muslims.

 

[godofwar]

I was presupposing that West Bengal was a sovereign nation.

I was aware of that when I quoted you. Let me pose a question.
Which one out of the two better reflects your mindset
1.You would like Pakistanis to kill Indians including West Bengalis in case of a war.
2.You would like West Bengalis to kill Pakistanis in case of a war.

You have the same internal conflict that most Pakistanis have.
It comes from religion,which is a personal thing, trying to play a public role.

 

[Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury]

I was aware of that when I quoted you. Let me pose a question.
Which one out of the two better reflects your mindset
1.You would like Pakistanis to kill Indians including West Bengalis in case of a war.
2.You would like West Bengalis to kill Pakistanis in case of a war.

You have the same internal conflict that most Pakistanis have.
It comes from religion,which is a personal thing, trying to play a public role.

If I had to choose then it would be the first, except I would want any victims to be non-Bengali Indians. But I would prefer there were no wars at all. Why even have non-Bengali Indian victims? Why have any bloodshed at all?

Although I don't want Pakistanis dead, there is a small part of me that doesn't wish them very well as far as their economy is concerned. Our own GDP stands at $153bn, making us the 43rd biggest in nominal terms and 33rd biggest in PPP, with $343bn. I do sometimes wonder how much bigger the economy would have been if we became Bangladesh in 1947 instead of 1971. During those 24 'lost years', when Pakistan decimated our economy and transferred much of the wealth to its own territory, and then taking us a further three decades to fully recover after gaining independence in 1971, I reckon our economy would today be twice as big. If not twice as big, at least 50% bigger.

I suppose the only good thing to come out of all this is that we Bengalis have a nation of our own, which isn't the case for most other ethnic groups across India.

 

[khair_ctg]

I was presupposing that West Bengal was a sovereign nation.



To answer my own question, I found this. I suppose some of the people of Bangladesh and West Bengal are somewhat different due to the Muslim influence over East Bengal (Bangladesh) for several centuries.

This is from Wikipedia:

In Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan), an unknown number of ethnic Pashtuns (together with at the later stage numbers of Iranian-speakers, these often secondary migrants from north India) settled among Bengalis from the 12th century to mid 18th century. These ethnic Afghans assimilated into Bengali culture, and intermarried with native Bengali Muslims to provide a component of the modern Bengali Muslim meme and biological identity, most prominently among the older wealthy classes of Bangladeshi Muslims.

dude obviously they are !! are Pakistani Punjabis and East Punjabis the same? are Muslim Sindhis and Hindu Sindhis the same? No. but are you trying to probe something deeper than the obvious?

however.. as i said in an earlier post, West Bengal Hindu-Sanskrit culture or 'Tagorized culture' have made huge inroads among Muslims during British Rule when Hindus and Brahmins became very powerful, and these Hindus and Brahmins formed and standardized Bengali scripts and literature to break away from Farsi and Urdu practiced by Muslims and used by erstwhile Muslim administrations.

after 1947 Bengal Muslims were made to adopt a lot of this 'Tagorized' elements as "Bengali" which was infact Hindu-Bengali culture dominating over the Muslims. so culturally we could see some convergence.

 

[Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury]

I was aware of that when I quoted you. Let me pose a question.
Which one out of the two better reflects your mindset
1.You would like Pakistanis to kill Indians including West Bengalis in case of a war.
2.You would like West Bengalis to kill Pakistanis in case of a war.

You have the same internal conflict that most Pakistanis have.
It comes from religion,which is a personal thing, trying to play a public role.

I am going to take back what I said earlier. I would choose neither option. I think the world has gone beyond waging war needlessly - in the name of ethnicity or/and religion. All humans should be on friendly terms with others irrespective of race/religion and should not wish ill on anyone else. No one should be killed. Everyone has the right to live out their lives and it should not be terminated prematurely.

 

[Saiful Islam]

I'm thinking a few people chatting a load of bak-waas on this thread tbh.

These threads are like a never ending cycle.

 

[Aka123]

I don't know about you but as far as I am concerned the Chakma and other tribal peoples should be thrown out of the country. There is a danger their blood might get mixed at some point in the future. If I had my way I would even be willing to kill them.

Interesting point you made with this line: "What had 1947 Partition to do with one ethnicity? not only was formation of East Pak/Bangladesh not involving just one ethnicity, the whole history of Muslims of Bengal had a dynamic heterogenous ethnic pool of people"

Do you think the mainstream populations of West Bengal and Bangladesh are ethnically slightly different? If we are then I suppose it would make sense we stay separate, but if we are exactly the same then there is no reason why reunification with us (not with them) shouldn't be on the cards.

Join the union of India. That's the only way you can achieve the above.
But we'll cleanse the radicals(like our army will eliminate the Jamatis)before we include you. Anyhow half of your population is in India only.
Then you can join as a separate state. How about that ? Bhebe dekho..

 

[seethru]

V.S. Naipaul's 'Among the believers' should be made a compulsory reading for all Bangladeshi students. what's with this self hatred?

 

[Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury]

Join the union of India. That's the only way you can achieve the above.
But we'll cleanse the radicals(like our army will eliminate the Jamatis)before we include you. Anyhow half of your population is in India only.
Then you can join as a separate state. How about that ? Bhebe dekho..

We don't want to join India, no way. Bengali people should have their own nation.

I have actually given this some thought. We should build a border all around Bangladesh but still keep good relations with India. India is much more important to us than Pakistan. India is next door and we can benefit so much from trade with them. As India's economy gets bigger it will benefit Bangladesh.

 

[jarves]

We don't want to join India, no way. Bengali people should have their own nation.

I have actually given this some thought. We should build a border all around Bangladesh but still keep good relations with India. India is much more important to us than Pakistan. India is next door and we can benefit so much from trade with them. As India's economy gets bigger it will benefit Bangladesh.

You should think of joining India,You can then boast about a lot of things we have achievd like space technology,great economy,great cricket team,great army,great and big nation,Think about it.

 

[dray]

@Aka123 @jarves
How do we benefit if they join India? Only thing I see is that they will spread more freely in parts of Assam and West Bengal in large numbers, change the demography, and later claim an even bigger region as a separate sovereign country followed by a fresh round of ethnic and religious cleansing, again!!

 

[jarves]

@Aka123 @jarves
How do we benefit if they join India? Only thing I see is that they will spread more freely in parts of Assam and West Bengal in large numbers, change the demography, and later claim an even bigger region as a separate sovereign country followed by a fresh round of ethnic and religious cleansing, again!!

Bengali;s are smart people,but this identity crisis has rusted up the minds of BD's.When they will join us.we will edn extremists and live happily thereaftr fo thousand of years.

 

[dray]

Bengali;s are smart people,but this identity crisis has rusted up the minds of BD's.When they will join us.we will edn extremists and live happily thereaftr fo thousand of years.

The smartest Bengalis have already crossed over to this side during partition, you already have your fair share of smart Bengalis here, trust me; you don't need more.

 

[Aka123]

@Aka123 @jarves
How do we benefit if they join India? Only thing I see is that they will spread more freely in parts of Assam and West Bengal in large numbers, change the demography, and later claim an even bigger region as a separate sovereign country followed by a fresh round of ethnic and religious cleansing, again!!

We don't benefit. It's a burden of another 150 million, which will be bad for our health. So we are good as neighbours.

And yes noway I support the re unification crap things.
Reason - Many radical elements from their countries will come into ours and may again create riots and situations like 1947.So even if we do that, first we have to thoroughly cleanse those. Anyhow no point as these things won't happen.

 

[Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury]

We don't benefit. It's a burden of another 150 million, which will be bad for our health. So we are good as neighbours.

And yes noway I support the re unification crap things.
Reason - Many radical elements from their countries will come into ours and may again create riots and situations like 1947.So even if we do that, first we have to thoroughly cleanse those. Anyhow no point as these things won't happen.

You should be ashamed to call yourself Bengali. No wonder West Bengal people are treated with disdain by people from North India. You guys are so meek and just let them walk over you. If they tried to do that to Bangladeshis we would put them back in their place.

We don't want to reunite with WB if they are part of India anyway. The only way a reunification can take place would be for WB to breakaway from India first. We are dismantling the hardliners not to please India but for our own good. I quite like the idea of a greater Bengal (Bangladesh and WB) in the future (as our regions get richer) connected by high speed trains, great road links where people from Dhaka could commute to Kolkata in the morning for work and return in the afternoon or people from Kolkata travelling to Dhaka.