What divides us

One of the coolest people I met at the BDI Conference at Kennedy School a few days ago was Lawrence Lifschultz, whose Bangladesh: The Unfinished Revolution should be a must read for anyone interested in the country’s politics, governance, and history.  Without necessarily accepting its normative/prescriptive judgment, it is easily one of the best positive/descriptive account of what happened in Bangladesh in 1975. 

At the risk of sounding heretical, 1975, not 1971, is the pivotal year for Bangladesh — Forum’s Zafar Sobhan once told me.  1971 is settled history.  The important issue of war crimes trial notwithstanding, there is no political division over 1971 — no one is really anti-1971, no one says Bangladesh should become East Pakistan.  The division is, or has been for much of the past 3 decades, over the direction a sovereign Bangladesh should take, with 1975 providing the crossroads.  How one interpretes 1975, who one considers to be the heroes and villains of that blood-stained year, have been the key determinants of one’s politics until recently.

 Last September, two prominent Bangladeshi political scientists echoed these points in back-to-back interviews to Prothom Alo.  There is much that the professors predicted right.  And there is some that they missed.  I thought it would be a good idea to revisit these interviews a year on. 

Once upon a time in Dacca

Watching Inglourious Basterds — Quentin Tarantino’s Spaghetti Western set in the Nazi-occupied Europe — reignited one of my longstanding daydreams: a big screen epic on Bangladesh’s Liberation War.  I wrote last year about various logistical difficulties of making an epic movie on the Liberation War.  Keeping those issues in mind, I think it is still possible to write a reasonable script.  This post outlines some ideas. 

What ifs revisited…

My last year’s 15 Aug post formed the basis of a Forum article a few weeks ago.  The big takeaway: we have spent a lot of time imagining our nation when there was nothing inevitable about the way things turned out, but we do have a republic that is up to us to shape. 

This year, let’s have some quick fun with what ifs.  What are the big ‘what if’ questions of the 20th century South Asia? 

Independence Day

Today we observe the 38th birth anniversary of our People’s Republic.  This post marks this occassion in two ways.

First, it notes ten milestone events in the preceding half century to that got us to 26 March 1971.  History does not begin with the speeches and declarations of that month.  Our Liberation War didn’t happen overnight, in a vacuum. We do ourselves an immense disservice if we fail to mark those events.

Then it updates a 2-year old list by Rumi Ahmed.  The list compiles achievements that, written from the vantage point of a quarter century ago, would seem fantastically optimistic.  And yet, everything in that list is true.  We have beaten the odds many times.  And we will continue to do so.  Tomorrow will be a better day.

Airbrushing, personality cults, birthday thoughts

Had he lived, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman would have been 89 today.  I have never had much time for those quibbling over his contribution to the creation of Bangladesh.  One can play parlour games of ‘what ifs’ until the ocean rises to Dinajpur, but Mujib’s central place in our freedom struggle is undisputed.

Or it ought to be.  Sadly, for many in my generation, it hasn’t been that straightforward.  When I grew up, under martial law, Sheikh Mujib was never mentioned.  I recall one of my teachers, in the Air Force run Shaheen School, being heavily reprimanded by someone in uniform for referring to Bangabandhu during a school function.  I remember my father’s excitement when he came across an Indian magazine in Calcutta because the particular issue was banned in Bangladesh for running a cover story on Mujib (along with Indira Gandhi and ZA Bhutto).

Even though he had already been been dead for a decade, and even though the people ruling Bangladesh at that time has walways maintained an on-again-off-again relationship with his party, Mujib’s wagging finger still sent a shiver to the powers-that-be.  That’s why Mujib was being airbrushed out of history.

The 25 January post (or the amazing adventures of M&M)

I should have written this post on 25 Jan, but better late than never.  I cover how on 25 Jan 1975, our democratic experiment came to a halt, how it took 16 years of assassinations, coups, palace conspiracies, rigged elections, and street violence, to start a second bout of democratic journey, which lapsed for a couple of years in late 2006 / early 2007.  On this 25 Jan, we started another round of democratic experiment.  I believe we are where we would have been in Jan 2007 had the democratic path not been interrupted.  It is important to realise that despite the rhetoric, not much has fundamentally changed in our politics.  Using two individuals’ political journeys, since the ‘original’ 25 Jan, I try to show how best we can chart the future path of our democratic experiment. 

The other Sep 11

Long before the planes hit the World Trade Centre, Sep 11 marked a major political event of the 1970s.  On this day in 1973, a violent military coup overthrew the government of Salvador Allende in Chile.  Allende was the first communist to rule a country with a democratic mandate.  Henry Kissinger considered him to be one of the few individuals who upset his schemes for ‘world peace’ or ‘balance of power’ or something like that, and CIA actively assisted the coupmakers.  I heard about Allende as a kid.  He was a ‘good guy’ to my left-leaning family, and Augusto Pinochet – the general who ruled Chile with an iron-fist for 17 years after the coup – was a ‘baddie’.  I also heard about parallels with Bangladesh. 

If I had to pick a side, I’d choose Allende over Pinochet anytime, but I no longer think good vs bad is quite that simple, and I don’t think parallels to Bangladesh work out that neatly.  And yet, what happened in Chile probably has pertinent lessons for Bangladesh of the near future.

পূর্ব পাকিস্তানের উপন্যাসে দেশভাগ

দেশভাগের ৬১ বছর হয়ে গেল গত সপ্তাহে ।  পশ্চিম বঙ্গে দেশভাগ খুবই গুরুত্বপূর্ণ বিষয় ।  অনেক লেখালেখি হুয়েছে সেদেশে ৪০ দশকের সেই ঘটনাগুলি নিয়ে ।  কিন্তু বাংলাদেশের লেখকদের কলমে ঘটনাবহুল ৬০-৭০ দশকের কথাই উঠে এসেছে, দেশভাগ রয়ে গেছে আড়ালে ।    আমাদের কাছে ১৪ আগস্ট কেবলই ক্যালেন্ডারে আরেকটি দিন, আর আমাদের কাছে গুরুত্বপূর্ণ ১৫ আগস্ট  ১৯৭৫, ১৯৪৭ নয় ।  কিন্তু ১৪-১৫ আগস্ট ১৯৪৭ আমাদের ইতিহাসেরও অবিচ্ছেদ্য অংশ ।  সেই চিন্তা থেকেই আজকের লেখা ।  পূর্ব পাকিস্তান সময়ের দুটি উপন্যাসে কেমন ভাবে দেশভাগ এসেছে তাই আমরা দেখব ।

(দেখুন না বলা কথায়)

Imagining history

The first general election in what is now Bangladesh took place in 1937.  People, well about 10 per cent of adult population, voted for the legislative assembly of the British Indian province of Bengal.  Elections were held under communal electorates.  Indian National Congress became the largest party, but it fell well short of a majority.  More importantly, it performed very poorly among the Muslim majority of the province.  Muslim seats in the assembly were divided between AK Fazlul Huq’s Krishak Praja Party (KPP), HS Suhrawardy’s Muslim League, and independents, with KPP having the most seats. 

KPP and Congress were both committed to secularism (by which they both meant pluralism), and Mr Huq expressed an interest in forming a coalition government with Congress.  Provincial leaders of Congress were keen on the idea, but it was vetoed by their all-Indian leadership.  Huq formed a coalition with the League.  Within three years, he would be moving the Lahore Resolution.  Within a decade, Bengal would be partitioned.  What if Congress had taken up Huq’s offer? 

Ziaur Rahman’s legacy: puzzle, lesson and tragedy

Zia has gone through an almost Darwinian process of selection through the war with Pakistan and coups in Bangladesh. He has never denigrated politicians as a class – which is itself typical of the present day military rulers of many third-world countries. On the contrary, he has shown adroit political skills in bringing together diverse political groups and accumulating political power though coalition-building.

That’s from the last paragraph of Prof Talukdar Maniruzzaman’s ‘The Bangladesh Revolution and its aftermath’. This post is about some puzzle, lesson and tragedy about the legacy of the president assassinated 27 years ago today.