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PROFESSOR SYED SAJJAD HUSAIN (Bangladeshi professor) writes in his book THE WASTES OF TIME REFLECTIONS ON THE DECLINE AND FALL OF EAST PAKISTAN (Pages 202-4)
''The political offensive against Pakistan began almost simultaneously with the cultural. It is not possible wholly to disentangle one from the other, but the main political developments can be distinguished.
First, immediately upon the establishment of Pakistan even before the new government at Dacca had started functioning properly, a campaign against the Two-Nation theory was put in train. This theory, it was said, was no longer valid in the new context, and, if persisted it could lead to further fragmentation of Bengal. Didn’t the Hindus form about eight to nine percent of the population? If they were a nation apart, couldn’t they demand the right to form a state of their own?
Notice how subtly the campaign was carried on! The larger context of India and the history of the Two-Nation theory were now played down. The theory was sought to be pushed to its logical conclusion village by village, town by town, hamlet by hamlet. Those who did not know the past or could not remember it clearly would of course be misled. It was as though you held that since the French and German were two separate nations with their national states, every French minority in Germany and vice versa had the right to secede!
The Congress had used the same argument against the whole idea of Pakistan. The Hindu leaders had said repeatedly that the Hindus and Muslims were so mixed up in the population that it was impossible to distinguish purely Muslim or exclusively Hindu zones, and it therefore followed, according to their logic, that an independent homeland for the Muslims was an absurdity! Now that Pakistan had materialised, they continued to employ the argument to weaken the ideological basis of the state in the eyes of its inhabitants.
Not daring however to suggest openly that Pakistan should be scrapped, they urged that its survival depended on the speed with which it could be consolidated. And didn’t consolidation demand that Tthe system of Separate Electorates should go, that Hindus and Muslims should have the same political rights and learn to think of themselves as citizens with a common loyalty? Unexceptionable logic! The younger generation in particular, students in the Universities who studied political theory and textbook definitions of nationalism were impressed by them and felt embarrassed at the contrast which political realities around them appeared to present to text-book maxims. Public memory is short, and by 1950 the whole background of the struggle for Pakistan ceased to be common knowledge. Even those who knew the facts were swept off their feet by propaganda and began making the silliest statements on the electoral issue. Mr Suhrawardy himself took it up and finally convinced the Pakistan National Assembly by an array of subtle arguments that in its own interests Pakistan ought to terminate the separate electorates system. Thus at one stroke before the foundations of Pakistan had been consolidated and a common Pakistani nationalism forged, the whole basis of the new state was placed in jeopardy.
One of the arguments used by Mr Suhrawardy was that the abolition of Separate Electorates would dispense with the necessity of reserving any seats in the provincial or National Assembly for the non-Muslims, and lead actually to an increase in the number of Muslim members. This wasn’t untrue. But in order to win the confidence of Hindu voters, the Muslims were now obliged not only to lay less stress on the fact that they were Muslims, but also to disown many of their past political beliefs. You could not possibly approach a Hindu electorate for votes with the plea that Islam heeded consolidation, or that special measures were necessary for the protection of Muslim cultural interests. The emphasis now was on ‘secularism’. Secularism as interpreted in the Indian context meant that whereas Hindus were free to talk about their religion and philosophy, references to Muslim traditions were believed to betray a narrowness of outlook unworthy of twentieth-century man!
The whole controversy over the place of religion in the subcontinent’s politics was carefully re-opened. Again, the plan employed was to isolate the issue from its context and focus attention on pure abstractions. Young students, who learned from their teachers that religion was a private affair, were urged to consider the absurdity of having states and governments founded on this ephemeral basis. Yes, they saw, religion was certainly the private concern of individuals; how could their elders have made the blunder of accepting it as the basis of Partition in 1947? ''
http://www.storyofbangladesh.com/ebooks/wastes-of-time/download.html
''The political offensive against Pakistan began almost simultaneously with the cultural. It is not possible wholly to disentangle one from the other, but the main political developments can be distinguished.
First, immediately upon the establishment of Pakistan even before the new government at Dacca had started functioning properly, a campaign against the Two-Nation theory was put in train. This theory, it was said, was no longer valid in the new context, and, if persisted it could lead to further fragmentation of Bengal. Didn’t the Hindus form about eight to nine percent of the population? If they were a nation apart, couldn’t they demand the right to form a state of their own?
Notice how subtly the campaign was carried on! The larger context of India and the history of the Two-Nation theory were now played down. The theory was sought to be pushed to its logical conclusion village by village, town by town, hamlet by hamlet. Those who did not know the past or could not remember it clearly would of course be misled. It was as though you held that since the French and German were two separate nations with their national states, every French minority in Germany and vice versa had the right to secede!
The Congress had used the same argument against the whole idea of Pakistan. The Hindu leaders had said repeatedly that the Hindus and Muslims were so mixed up in the population that it was impossible to distinguish purely Muslim or exclusively Hindu zones, and it therefore followed, according to their logic, that an independent homeland for the Muslims was an absurdity! Now that Pakistan had materialised, they continued to employ the argument to weaken the ideological basis of the state in the eyes of its inhabitants.
Not daring however to suggest openly that Pakistan should be scrapped, they urged that its survival depended on the speed with which it could be consolidated. And didn’t consolidation demand that Tthe system of Separate Electorates should go, that Hindus and Muslims should have the same political rights and learn to think of themselves as citizens with a common loyalty? Unexceptionable logic! The younger generation in particular, students in the Universities who studied political theory and textbook definitions of nationalism were impressed by them and felt embarrassed at the contrast which political realities around them appeared to present to text-book maxims. Public memory is short, and by 1950 the whole background of the struggle for Pakistan ceased to be common knowledge. Even those who knew the facts were swept off their feet by propaganda and began making the silliest statements on the electoral issue. Mr Suhrawardy himself took it up and finally convinced the Pakistan National Assembly by an array of subtle arguments that in its own interests Pakistan ought to terminate the separate electorates system. Thus at one stroke before the foundations of Pakistan had been consolidated and a common Pakistani nationalism forged, the whole basis of the new state was placed in jeopardy.
One of the arguments used by Mr Suhrawardy was that the abolition of Separate Electorates would dispense with the necessity of reserving any seats in the provincial or National Assembly for the non-Muslims, and lead actually to an increase in the number of Muslim members. This wasn’t untrue. But in order to win the confidence of Hindu voters, the Muslims were now obliged not only to lay less stress on the fact that they were Muslims, but also to disown many of their past political beliefs. You could not possibly approach a Hindu electorate for votes with the plea that Islam heeded consolidation, or that special measures were necessary for the protection of Muslim cultural interests. The emphasis now was on ‘secularism’. Secularism as interpreted in the Indian context meant that whereas Hindus were free to talk about their religion and philosophy, references to Muslim traditions were believed to betray a narrowness of outlook unworthy of twentieth-century man!
The whole controversy over the place of religion in the subcontinent’s politics was carefully re-opened. Again, the plan employed was to isolate the issue from its context and focus attention on pure abstractions. Young students, who learned from their teachers that religion was a private affair, were urged to consider the absurdity of having states and governments founded on this ephemeral basis. Yes, they saw, religion was certainly the private concern of individuals; how could their elders have made the blunder of accepting it as the basis of Partition in 1947? ''
http://www.storyofbangladesh.com/ebooks/wastes-of-time/download.html
