Fall of Dacca

[bd_wonder]

yes lots of injustices happened in bd that west pakistanis dont know thanks to their media and govt.
likewise bdeshis had/has a lot of misconceptions about pakistan even TODAY,
one such misconception is mentioned in article that all west pakistanis were punjabis.
that west pakistan's mother tongue was urdu and hence it wasn't a neutral language.
lol talk about manipulation.

 

[bd_wonder]

those that i mentioned above are just misconceptions among bdeshi public.

 

[roadrunner]

Interesting you brought this out.

and yet it was the same Abdus Salam's grave which was disfigured with support from the govt itself. If you ask an ahmedi whether the rest of Pakistanis treat them as the same as other Pakistani, what would be his answer and why? The greatest scientist which Pakistan has till now produced and who worked for Pakistan inspite of many oppurtunities elsewhere and humiliations in pakistan itself - his memory has been defiled and humiliated.

Interesting you bring religion into a discussion about nationalities too. Think about it. Abdus Salam was Pakistani. Tagore was Indian. Forget religion. Why bring it up, since it has nothing to do with the discussion.

When a non-ahmedi Pakistani does not respect an ahmedi's outstanding contribution and does not give the respect deserved for a road side begger, wouldnt the ahmedis feel slighted and humiliated?

More off thread religious stuff.

Apply the same concept towards bengalis. It requires the identification that there are differences in the people and so a fist-handed uniform solution does not work. This was the point which was lacking from west pakistan with its political centre lacked at that time.

Not sure what you're on about here. You're saying the federal government should have treated East Pakistan differently from the other provinces? Why would that be? Are they special?

for the bolded part:
This singles out the reason of the whole issue. Why should somebody (teachers) decide what I should do? I decide what I do, if I am interested in physics and even though the teachers may say anything, I should take physics. How and why does the teacher have an iota of control over my life, its my f*cing life, he can advice me, gracefully accepted and if I do poorly in his test- fail me. Rest, I take my own decisions. That teacher does not run my life.

Similarly the elite should not decide in what way should bengalis correspond.

Simple. Because youre actions are going to give a bad reputation to the school. You're welcome to go somewhere else and take your exams though, and fail them there. Similarly, the Bengalis were not going to be treated as a special case by having their own language and thereby cause disunity amongst the population.

There was no way the 6 point plan was going to be implemented either. That would have destroyed Pakistan internally, without any external help. So those things that were not in Pakistan's interest were not allowed to occur. It's all very simple if you think about it with a couple of brain cells.

 

[roadrunner]

Give us a break.

Let's leave religion out of the discussion. Pilgrims can say what they want and congregate where they want.

Another break if you don't mind.

Next you will tell us that Esperanto is a popular language with a fabulous literature.

lol, the point about all this is that having one Nobel Prize winner for literature (who was a west bengali Hindu anyway), does not in anyway give Bengali literature a fabulous history. It is quite a weak history in fact compared to other historical literatures, but they believed in the superiority of their literature and language. This was their incorrect pride coming through.

We have no superiority complex. It is just that in literature and culture we were much advanced, be we, Bengalis, Hindus, Moslem or Christians!

lol. it is a superiority complex in fact. Bengali culture is not particularly advanced, and never has been. Give some examples of your "advanced Bengali culture". I'd like to know, since I havent heard of any cultural achievements of Bengalis. I could give many from regions of Pakistan if you liked.

It appears you know very little about life and hence a trifle myopic. An Indian won the Nobel for Physics before any Pakistani won it. That way, count the number of Indians who have won the Nobel compared to Pakistanis.

Does it really matter? Alright, let's compare Bengal with Punjab (Abdus Salam was a Punjabi, after all). Should Punjabis feel they are superior physicists, because they've had a Nobel Prize Winner? And so on.

And anyway, I believe the Pakistani is an Ahmediya and thus not reckonable.

lol, now you're bringing religion into it!

Your knowledge is limited. An India won the Physics Nobel before a Pakistani. Guess who that was?

Do you feel a bit inferior at having a Pakistani win the Nobel Physics Prize, and now you need to prove that an Indian has won it?

Take another guess! The Bengalis and the Mohajirs were the ones who were educated and intelligent.

The Bengalis weren't educated my fascist friend. Education was around 11% in Bengal at Partition, in Pakistan it was 7%. Both East and West Pakistan were more or less equally uneducated. The Muhajirs that moved to Pakistan generally had more money though. This had nothing to do with intelligence though

I think this issue has been clarified by Bhangra.

And anyway, you never really assimilated East Pakistan into the Pakistan biradari. So, how come you expect them to accept Urdu?

Not sure what you mean here. Can you explain it?

Do some heart searching.

Good reply

Crying over spilt milk.

Another factual reply.

You should have realised that your superiority complex was alienating people who so willingly and happily joined the new country called Pakistan.

Why were they alienated. I haven't seen many way in which they were alienated, except for the propaganda issued by the Bengali elites. Give some examples, so they can be discussed instead of one sentence nonsense replies.

Good for them.

Great reply.

At the expense of slowing down EP? Hardly a thing that would warm the coc-kles of the EP heart.

So what should happen? Pakistan should have kept growing the industries in East Pakistan, so that West Pakistani people were always more deprived than East Pakistanis? That really would be parity for you. Why should East Pakistan have been more developed than West Pakistan?

What isBharati' Mohajirs?

They are still not a part of Pakistan? Is that what you are implying? Are they that superior that they are threatening your existence and so you dislike them as is evident by your categorising them as "Bharati". They left India to go to Pakistan all starry eyed that there was going to be a Moslem motherland. And you talk of them with such contempt? And you then want to blame Bengalis for separating? If this was the attitude in India, I would also separate. Fortunately it is not so.

The fact the Mohajirs were in the helm of administration, law etc proves they are way above the others!

Salim, you're such a fascist and you don't even realize it !

I never mentioned anything about Muhajirs not being Pakistani though. A "Bharati Muhajir" is a Muhajir that comes from Bharat during Partition..at least that's my definition. No need to put words into mouths!

Ask yourself why they get blamed. You are not hesitating to insult Mohajirs, so imagine what was the plight of the Bengalis a 1000 miles away!

Well I don't mind Muhajirs. And if 1971 were to be wiped away from existence, I guess I wouldn't see the Bengalis are traitors, to-faced, self pitying, docile etc..

Pot calling the kettle......

Good reply again.

Dacca University was one of the prime location for education! The Bengalis were not illiterate at all. Ill educated are those with biases like you.

Bengalis had 11% literacy at Partition. They were ill-educated, just like the West Pakistani population.

If West Pakistan had no industry, don't blame it on East Pakistan Bengalis. You did not have the vision. And you talk of being educated! You were not even educated to understand how economy should be built, if indeed WP had no industry!

So what would you have suggested? That East Pakistan be the "land of opportunity" while the West Pakistanis starve without any industries being built? Would that be fair for you?

The Pakistanis who you are calling traitors don't think so.

They're not Pakistanis for the most part, as far as I know. They're coming from other countries. But those that do would be traitors. A traitor is defined as "a person who says one thing and does another" or "person who betrays his country by committing treason". I think that taking up arms to split the country in two is pretty much treason !

They sided with themselves.

So they didn't side with India is what you're saying?

It shows that you have no idea of history.

When was East Pakistan ever attacked?

Read that article by a Pakistan Army officer I appended in one of the post about what happened in the wars with India?

In which case the federal government must have been pretty intelligent to realize that the Indians were too stupid to not attack East Pakistan, when there was no defence there! Take this with a lot of sarcasm, and you might see the point

 

[roadrunner]

Unfortunate but true, we never treated East Pakistani's as equal.

Of course I don't agree with you here surprisingly I've yet to see one instance of solid evidence that East Pakistan was not treated as an equal. I'm willing to keep and open mind and be proved wrong though.

As for the quote. I think that this doesnt prove much. If an officer had quoted it, then this author should have reported it, and so on. But what one officer says, does not necessarily represent the views or the policy of the whole federal government.

 

[roadrunner]

This surely is a very shameful remark. You have no right to doubt their nationalism they are as much Pakistani then you are.

Just because Salim put words into my mouth, doesn't mean I said them, genius. Where did I doubt their "nationalism". Read what I wrote. I wrote that Bharati Muhajirs moved their banks to West Pakistan. Where exactly did i doubt their nationality/-ism? What would you like me to call them instead of "bharati muhajirs"? Pakistanis? If so, then my sentence, and whole point, would make no sense..DUH. Here is what my quote would sound like if I didn't write "Bharati Muhajirs" and wrote Pakistanis instead.

This isn't true. The "power barons" were the Pakistanis that moved to Karachi at Partition. They even took the capital to Karachi such was their influence. The Pakistanis willingly chose West Pakistan over East Pakistan. Whether they wanted to share power or wealth with East Pakistan was up to them. They did, incidentally, but there were so many factors governing the spread of wealth in East and West Pakistan, that this analysis he's made here is too simplistic.

Prescisely, it makes no sense. Stop getting so emotional. It makes for a very poor argument.

You just dont get it, stop with these comments of confrontation. Give the credit to those who rightfully deserve it. The fact is that the first place to have a Muslim League Ministry was Bengal. The fact is that Bengalis supported the Muslim League from the early days.

Yes of course. And the Bengalis voted for the creation of Pakistan, and to join Pakistan in 1946. I don't mind that at all. But what they did subsequently was treachery. A clear example of why joining them in the future would be nothing more than a futile and expensive exercise.

These people whom you call "muhajirs" were also giving the Muslim League 90% of their votes from the beginning. The fact is that not till the 1940s did the Muslim League set up a Ministry in Sindh, then in the Punjab. The Muslim League didnt have a ministry in place in the Frontier or Balochistan till after independence.

You've really got the wrong end of the quote here. It would be good if some of the people on here were more capable of reading.

But getting back to your original statement, its statements like these which can break a nation. Surely this was a very shameful statement on your part. You have no right to doubt any other person ethnicity or their national spirit. Our first Prime Minister Laiquat Ali Khan also considered himself a "muhajir" by pointing a finger at the whole community you are also point a finger at the greatness of this man. Please I beg of you stop these comments, the country cant take comments such as the one above. I am a Pakistani you are a Pakistani, think as a Pakistani not as a Pathan, Punjabi, Sindhi or any other ethnicity. Please for Pakistan's sake.

Whatever dude. You're assuming something about me which I never said, but which Salim did say.

 

[roadrunner]

If anyone has some solid evidence of discrimination as a policy by the West Pakistanis, then do mention it here, with a link. So far, I'm yet to see anything that proves there was discrimination. Just a lot of propaganda by the Indians and Mujib is all.

 

[roadrunner]

So when Pakistan became reality, he was simply thrown out.

Yup, thrown out and discarded..the poor Bengali man (Suhrawardy)..He was treated so badly, that he only became the prime minister of Pakistan (the fourth Bengali leader) within a decade later....the poor man.

Please let us not spread the canard that Bengal had ever voted for urdu as their national language.

Actually they did. Jinnah was very clear, the Muslim League were very clear. And the Bengalis voted for this manifesto, that Urdu would be the national language in the 1946 elections. The 1937 Lucknow resolution recommended Urdu to be made the national language of Pakistan, which would have included East Bengal.

 

[bhangra12345]

Interesting you bring religion into a discussion about nationalities too. Think about it. Abdus Salam was Pakistani. Tagore was Indian. Forget religion. Why bring it up, since it has nothing to do with the discussion.

More off thread religious stuff.

Replace ahmediya and read it as treatment of the non-empowered people, if that is what you want. The matter would not change a bit. It was you who brought Abdus Salam, as though his treatment was to be advertised, when his treatment by Pakistan was pathetic to say the least. I just pointed out the actual treatment he got and tried to draw parallels.

Not sure what you're on about here. You're saying the federal government should have treated East Pakistan differently from the other provinces? Why would that be? Are they special?

They were the majority community.
You have to be firm on some points and loose on some others. If one could not accede to those 6points, Pakistan's govt(Ayub) could have unilaterally declared 4-5 of those and that would have put the issue on the backburner and given time for discussions.

No, they should nt be treated differently, just like punjab and sindh get different percentages of royalty for gas vis-a-vis baluchistan. I guess some states are more equal than others.

Simple. Because youre actions are going to give a bad reputation to the school. You're welcome to go somewhere else and take your exams though, and fail them there. Similarly, the Bengalis were not going to be treated as a special case by having their own language and thereby cause disunity amongst the population.

Difference: a school and a country.

Remember India has 23 official languages and yet hindi is the national language. Does this cause disunity? Infact not having this policy initially caused disunity with dravidian movement and all.

A balance between urdu and bengali could easily have been worked out if they wished. and I repeat "it is difficult to impose a different language on the minority, here Pakistan was trying to impose on majority?"

Got to say, limits of idiosyncracy.

There was no way the 6 point plan was going to be implemented either. That would have destroyed Pakistan internally, without any external help. So those things that were not in Pakistan's interest were not allowed to occur. It's all very simple if you think about it with a couple of brain cells.

Just read the editorial posted 4-5 posts above. Each of them had a particular context in which they were raised.
i) To add insult to injury for them, east bengal in 1965 was saved not because there was pakistan army over there, but because india refused to attack it. and the public and politicians knew it.
ii) Pakistan at that even after 20 years was not able to provide a constitution.
Read the 6 point plan taking into consideration even these points. Today they might seem outrageous for you , but in the then situation, you will understand that they were not as outrageous as they seem to be.

 

[bhangra12345]

Yup, thrown out and discarded..the poor Bengali man (Suhrawardy)..He was treated so badly, that he only became the prime minister of Pakistan (the fourth Bengali leader) within a decade later....the poor man.

hoho!! again details simply escape you, dont they. He was "thrown" out of ML, then he formed UF and won complete support in Bengal. On the back of this, he got the PM ship when he showed that he had public support in bengal not ML.

Actually they did. Jinnah was very clear, the Muslim League were very clear. And the Bengalis voted for this manifesto, that Urdu would be the national language in the 1946 elections. The 1937 Lucknow resolution recommended Urdu to be made the national language of Pakistan, which would have included East Bengal.

Reread again, even the ML chief minister of Bengal in 1946-47, yes the same Suhrawardy, contemplated the idea of united bengal for sometime and dropped it only because the hindus had seen his partisanship during direct action day riots. In 1937 ML was a nonentity. You get an idea right.

Infact the 1940 lahore resolution talks of independent stateS

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

Just because Salim put words into my mouth, doesn't mean I said them, genius. Where did I doubt their "nationalism". Read what I wrote. I wrote that Bharati Muhajirs moved their banks to West Pakistan. Where exactly did i doubt their nationality/-ism? What would you like me to call them instead of "bharati muhajirs"? Pakistanis? If so, then my sentence, and whole point, would make no sense..DUH. Here is what my quote would sound like if I didn't write "Bharati Muhajirs" and wrote Pakistanis instead.

As is normal blame others for your faults.

I put the word "Bharati Muhajirs".

Let's put that in the correct perspective before you use me as a stool pigeon.

First of all, the term "Mohajir" in the Pakistani context - are there any Mohajirs in Pakistan from some other coutnes? To the best of my knowledge, there are none. Therefore, if there any requirement to use the word, "Bharati"? Given the temperament exhibited in your posts, you haven't really oozed love towards what you term as "Bharati". Therefore, I am sure you did not use the word "Bharati Mohajirs" to indicate love! Why "Bharati"?

Please read your posts on the issue of "Bharati Mohajirs" and see the underlining contempt that you have displayed.

This isn't true. The "power barons" were the Pakistanis that moved to Karachi at Partition. They even took the capital to Karachi such was their influence. The Pakistanis willingly chose West Pakistan over East Pakistan. Whether they wanted to share power or wealth with East Pakistan was up to them. They did, incidentally, but there were so many factors governing the spread of wealth in East and West Pakistan, that this analysis he's made here is too simplistic.

The power barons or "Bharati Mohajirs" took the capital to Karachi is what you say.

Was there any better city that was as vibrant as Karachi where you would have loved the capital to be?

I have been to Karachi as a child and I found it very excitingly vibrant and bustling!

BTW, what would you term Jinnah to be?

At least thank the Mohajir that he gave you a Moslem homeland!

Prescisely, it makes no sense. Stop getting so emotional. It makes for a very poor argument.

Hardly.

If something has been pointed out to you is uncomfortable, then this is the type of statement you profess. You are entitled emotions, but you don't want others to have the same facility. This aspect makes more of no sense than what you feel is no sense. Your arguments are the ones which are faulty and poor. Not others.

Yes of course. And the Bengalis voted for the creation of Pakistan, and to join Pakistan in 1946. I don't mind that at all. But what they did subsequently was treachery. A clear example of why joining them in the future would be nothing more than a futile and expensive exercise.

Bhangra has answered it in detail.



You've really got the wrong end of the quote here. It would be good if some of the people on here were more capable of reading.

Whatever dude. You're assuming something about me which I never said, but which Salim did say.

:rofllmao: He is not assuming something that you have never said. You have said all that throughout. I never said it.

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

If anyone has some solid evidence of discrimination as a policy by the West Pakistanis, then do mention it here, with a link. So far, I'm yet to see anything that proves there was discrimination. Just a lot of propaganda by the Indians and Mujib is all.

It would be adequate if you bought your President's (who is not an Indian nor a Bangladeshi) book and read it!

 

[roadrunner]

Replace ahmediya and read it as treatment of the non-empowered people, if that is what you want. The matter would not change a bit. It was you who brought Abdus Salam, as though his treatment was to be advertised, when his treatment by Pakistan was pathetic to say the least. I just pointed out the actual treatment he got and tried to draw parallels.

Which parrallels did you draw. This was a comparison between A Bangladeshi believing his language is superior because an Indian Bengali won a literature Nobel Prize, and A Pakistani believing his Physics ability is superior because a Pakistani won a Physics Nobel Prize. Where does religion come into this comparison? (other than the one that you invented in your post).

They were the majority community.
You have to be firm on some points and loose on some others. If one could not accede to those 6points, Pakistan's govt(Ayub) could have unilaterally declared 4-5 of those and that would have put the issue on the backburner and given time for discussions.

No, they should nt be treated differently, just like punjab and sindh get different percentages of royalty for gas vis-a-vis baluchistan. I guess some states are more equal than others.

LOL. Bogus again.

• East Pakistan's population at partition was 41,783,000
• West Pakistan's population was 39,659,000.

That is roughly 50%-50%.

• Number of schools in West Pakistan = 8,413 (1948)
• Number of schools in East Pakistan = 29,613 (1948)

My question to you is this. Should the Pakistani government have tried to even out the number of public institutions (schools), by allotting greater funds to West Pakistan so that more schools could be built, giving a more fairer accessibility to education (and also jobs) for all? Or do you believe Bengalis are inherently superior people that should be given better treatment and educational opportunities than Pakistanis because they are more deserving of it. I await your answer.

I could of course argue this also from the investor point of view, which is equally valid, but I won't to keep it simple for you.

Difference: a school and a country.

Remember India has 23 official languages and yet hindi is the national language. Does this cause disunity? Infact not having this policy initially caused disunity with dravidian movement and all.

As usual, you speak the truth! Here's one South Indian who would disapprove of your point of view. Not to mention the Tamil language movement.

Yesterday, CNN IBN a news Channel, aired a programme on why South India is better developed than North India. By South they meant the four southern states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala.
While the programme was credible and a lot of statistics were given about higher literacy levels and higher per capita income in the southern states, a certain bias was evident…against South India. As if trying to ‘balance’ out the findings, the anchor gave South India’s so-called ‘bad’ points. She disapproved of the Souths’ loyalty to their own languages and hinted that Hindi should be the national language. (This is an ongoing debate in this country and the speakers of Hindi consider that Hindi should be the national language to ‘unite’ the country rather than English. They have a colonial hangover. They find it difficult to accept that English is a global language today. Why don’t we stop feeling inferior about it?) In my opinion it’s best to use English to ‘unite’ the country and at the same time keep our distinct regional cultures and languages alive. I have written a separate piece on this, in a post titled multi-cultural-multi-racial-india on this same blog.

1) You cannot say that the south is being culturally (and linguistically) conservative. The reason is simple: The south has never tried to impose its culture and language on the north. Its the north who is doing it. In any case, why should one culture do this to any other culture? The Americans did it to the Red Indians…made everybody clones. Please understand that no race should dominate the other. I wonder if you know that if Hindi takes over, the regional language dies - as it happened to the regional language of Punjab - Gurumukhi. On the other hand, if you keep English, our regional languages and culture will thrive. In any case English is the language of the world.

Tell me - do people from Tamil Nadu say that North Indians should speak Tamil? So why do North Indians say that Tamilians should speak Hindi? I am afraid domination like this never works. North Indians are not our rulers
South India is better developed than North India says CNN IBN « A wide angle view of India

Not to mention the hundreds of insurgencies existing in India might have something to do with this.

Alright, it's one blogspot I quoted. Well here's another one

perceptions: Language Dilemma in Tamil Nadu

Well, hell, two blogspots! Alright, then there's the DMK who won so many of the South Indian votes in the 60s they nearly took the government on the basis of secession from North India using the Tamil language as a basis for their complaint against North India. There are plenty of examples to prove what you say isn't true!

A balance between urdu and bengali could easily have been worked out if they wished. and I repeat "it is difficult to impose a different language on the minority, here Pakistan was trying to impose on majority?"

Bengalis were not a majority. It was roughly 50-50. If you're saying 51% is majority enough to impose your language onto them, then you're ignoring the will of hundreds of millions of people. This is not a majority minority case. This is two equally sized populations.

A balance between Urdu and Bengali could not have been worked out either. If Bengali was made an official language, then what of the Punjabis, th Sindhis, and so on. They would have felt victimized, and perhaps rightly so. Eventually Bengali was made an official language, but noone complained it seems.

Got to say, limits of idiosyncracy.


Just read the editorial posted 4-5 posts above. Each of them had a particular context in which they were raised.
i) To add insult to injury for them, east bengal in 1965 was saved not because there was pakistan army over there, but because india refused to attack it. and the public and politicians knew it.

BS. Noone believes that. The Indians would have loved to have overrun East Pakistan. That is why Indira Gandhi made her whirlwind tour to drum up support for an invasion. India wanted any land it could get from Pakistan to weaken it.

ii) Pakistan at that even after 20 years was not able to provide a constitution.

Pakistan had a Consitution from the 50's. So what? The Legal Framework Order (which Mujib broke with his 6 points), was the temporary Constitution under which elections were run until the framing of a new one.

Read the 6 point plan taking into consideration even these points. Today they might seem outrageous for you , but in the then situation, you will understand that they were not as outrageous as they seem to be.

I've taken into consideration your points? You'll need to spell it out for me. I don't see how not framing a Constitution when you have the LFO, makes the 6 point legal, quite the opposite, it's still illegal. What does India (according to you), not attacking Bangladesh in 1965, have anything to do with the 6 points?

 

[roadrunner]

hoho!! again details simply escape you, dont they. He was "thrown" out of ML, then he formed UF and won complete support in Bengal. On the back of this, he got the PM ship when he showed that he had public support in bengal not ML.

He didn't win any support from Bengal my twisting truth friend. He was nominated by the Bengali president of Pakistan, Iskander Mirza in 1956, to take the role of Prime minister. Imagine that, a Bengali president and a Bengali Prime Minister of Pakistan in 1956. Shocking! Even more shocking that the Bengali President nominated the Bengali prime minister and not a Punjabi one! Shocking!

Reread again, even the ML chief minister of Bengal in 1946-47, yes the same Suhrawardy, contemplated the idea of united bengal for sometime and dropped it only because the hindus had seen his partisanship during direct action day riots. In 1937 ML was a nonentity. You get an idea right.

Infact the 1940 lahore resolution talks of independent stateS

Not sure this has anything to do with what I said. I'll repeat it for you. The resolution in 1937 recommended Urdu to be the national language of Pakistan. It was the 1946 elections which were important. Urdu was stated as being the national language of Pakistan on this manifesto.

"It is a fact that the protection of Urdu against the onslaughts of militant advocates of Hindi became the raison d’etre for the founding of the Muslim League in 1906 and Urdu figured as the language of Muslim India right up to the 1946 All-India Muslim League Election Manifesto."
DAWN - Features; September 11, 2002

This is what the Bangladeshis voted for in 1946..a Pakistan where Urdu was the official language.

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

Bengalis were not a majority. It was roughly 50-50.

Once again, a failed postulation by you.

* East Pakistan's population at partition was 41,783,000
* West Pakistan's population was 39,659,000.

Note: East Pakistan had at least 90% Bengalis and so it is 90% of the figures you have mentioned.

Now, West Pakistan population was composed of what? One community?

Therefore, the Bengalis as a group was a huge majority! HUGE!

In fact, they were the real face of Pakistan population wise as a single community, if that is what is the comparison bottomline!