[Reader-list] Lalon & Terror: Re-configuring PoliticalMapDuringEmergency

[Shuddhabrata Sengupta]

Dear M. Ray,

This is in response to your previous mail on this thread. I am afraid  
I fail to see how you can make a set of provocative statements and  
then shirk the consequences of having them discussed, debated,  
criticized if need be.

As I have said several times before. I hold no brief for Islamic  
Fundamentalists and their political mentors in Bangladesh. I condemn  
them and their politics just as much as I condemn Hindu  
Fundamentalists and their political mentors in India. I have also no  
doubt that minorities in Bangladesh have just as hard a time as  
minorities do in India, Pakistan or Sri Lanka, and that it is the  
duty of every sane person in every country in South Asia to stand up  
against the discrimination against minorities in their own country.

However, i find your remarks about the 'nature of Islam' in  
Bangladesh, unwarranted, xenophobic and deeply objectionable. I find  
them particularly pathetic, in the context of the deep anti- 
Bangladeshi prejudice that is being consciously stoked by Hindutva  
Fascists in India. I find them as objectionable as it would be if  
anyone were to suggest that the oppression meted out to Christians in  
Orissa or Muslims in Gujarat has anything to do with the 'nature of  
the Hindu religion' in India. I condemn your remarks in this regard  
exactly as I would have condemned anyone who attacked Hindus for  
being Hindus on this list.

I am familiar both with the work of the Hindu-Buddhist-Christian  
Unity Council (HBCUC) in Bangladesh as well as the contents of their  
website. I appreciate their work and think that they are doing  
excellent work in ensuring that the rights of minorities in  
Bangladesh are not trifled with.  And I have studied their website,  
including the reports of 'atrocities' meted out to non-Muslims in  
Bangladesh. These incidents are not substantively different from the  
reports of any such incidents, especially as they pertain to the  
situation of minorities (Muslims, Christians and others) in india  
today. Morover, in a large number of incidents reported on the site,  
there is specific mention of action taken by the authorities to  
redress complaints as a result of the intervention of the HBCUC. I am  
not saying that these actions by the government are consistent or  
represent justice being done, just that a law and order problem (land  
grab, extortion) is treated with the tardiness or promptness with  
which law and order problems are treated anywhere in South Asia. The  
fact that complaints by the HBCUC  are acted upon however itself goes  
to show that there is a vigorous mechanism within civil society in  
Bangladesh that fights against any effort to oppress minorities. This  
does not mean that the oppression does not occur, but that when it  
occurs, it does not go unchallenged.

Further, the personalities you mention, (Shahriar Kabir, Daud Haider,  
Muntasir Mamun, Abul Barkat, Humayun Azad, Taslima Nasrin) some of  
whom have either been assasinated, exiled or detained, all of whose  
work I am acquainted with, happen to all have Muslim names. If Islam  
or an Islamic inheritance were of a uniform character were as  
monotonous as you imagine it to be, then, not a single one of these  
names would have been that of people born into a Muslim milieu. Their  
very presence in your mail exposes the hollowness of your position.  
And conversely, 'the nature of Islam' or of 'Hinduism' for that  
matter has nothing whatsoever to do with the base instincts and  
fascist politics of those who claim to speak in the name of either  
faith. For me, the disgusting politics of a Ghulam Azam or of a  
Motiur Rahman Nizami (erstwhile and present Ameers of the Jamiat e  
islami Bangladesh) or of a Praveen Togadia of the VHP or of a  
Narendra Modi of the BJP in India are cut from the same cloth.

Finally, let me quote  for you a 'Message of Greetings' by C.R.  
Datta, a decorated veteran of the War of Liberation of 1971 in  
Bangladesh, and currently Chairman of the Hindu-Buddhist-Christian  
Unity Committee of Bangladesh (HBCUC)-  an organization which you  
yourself invoke. This is my translation of the original Bengali  
version of the letter as published in this years Sharodiya/Puja Issue  
of 'Bodhan', a Bangla periodical published from Dhaka, (Bengali  
Calendar 1416)

----------------------
"Message of Greetings
[Pg. 12, Bodhan (Sharodiya/Puja Issue, Bengali Calendar 1416)]

Today is a day of great joy because Durga Puja, the most important  
festival for Bengali Hindu society is being celebrated for the first  
time in the Gulshan area of Dhaka. For us Durga Puja is a truly  
public festival, the divisions of community, caste and origin have no  
meaning in this context. In order for us to realize the true meaning  
of this celebration, it is necessary that this traditional festival  
be observed in different neighbourhoods of today's modern Dhaka. It  
is this feeling that inspires different groups of individuals to take  
the initiative to organize new Puja festivities in different  
neighbourhoods of Dhaka. I believe that this is a very important  
initiative from the point of view of the promotion and affirmation of  
our heritage and culture.

The creation and sustenance of a non-secterian and secular milieu was  
one of the primary objectives of the struggle for the liberation of  
Bangladesh. In the last 37 years, no matter how eroded that ideal  
might have become in the course of the twists and turns and tumult of  
history, those of us who have irrigated that hard won freedom with  
our blood still believe that the vast majority of ordinary people in  
Bangladesh are still an exemplar of the upholding of the ideal  
combination of secularism in public contexts and religious piety in  
personal life. We hope that festivals such as  Eid, Puja and  
Christmas continue to be celebrated in peoples hearts with the same  
kind of joy and devotion, We condemn and negate every kind of  
intolerant religious fanaticism and fundamentalism and call for an  
enlightened patriotism inspire the same feelings in all our hearts.  
This is our prayer today.

This festival organized by the Gulshan Public Puja Celebration  
Committee will bring together people from every locality of Dhaka,  
regardless of religion or class. The Puja grounds will be flled with  
rhythm, music and the sound of prayers to the goddess Durga. The  
timeless stream of tradition and creativity will flow into modernity.  
With these hopes, I extend my seasons greetings to one and all.

May truth and beauty prevail,

Major General (retired) C. R. Datta, (Bir Uttom)
Sector Commander of the Liberation War of 1971
President: Gulshan Public Puja Celebration Committee, 2007-2009
Principal Adviser: Bangladesh Puja Celebration Council
Principal Adviser: Metropolitan Puja Celebration Council
Chairman: Hindu-Buddhist-Christian Unity Committee (Bangladesh) "
----------------
You will notice that Datta writes that: "those of us who have  
irrigated that hard won freedom with our blood still believe that the  
vast majority of ordinary people in Bangladesh are still an exemplar  
of the upholding of the ideal combination of secularism in public  
contexts and religious piety in personal life."

If your observation that "the atrocities, tortures and ethnic  
cleansing of the Hindus from Bangladesh have few parallels in the  
modern history which is still going on everyday" were true, we would  
have difficulty in being able to justify the statement made by the  
above remark of the Chairman of an organization that you actually  
have the temerity to invoke in support of your argument. You cannot  
invoke an organization like the HBCUC and at the same time make  
remarks that are completely contradicted by its leadership. You  
cannot have it both ways.

I reiterate, it is one thing to condemn the communal and secterian  
biases of the current political leadership of Bangladesh (which I do)  
and quite another to say that it is the 'Nature of Islam in  
Bangladesh' that gives rise to this phenomenon.

I do hope you will choose your words more carefully in future,

regards

Shuddha
----------

On 06-Nov-08, at 7:49 AM, MRSG wrote:

> Dear Khemendra Kaul,

> My only request to you that to know the plights of the Hindus of  
> Bangladesh and nature of Islam in Bangladesh, do not be misguided  
> by the apologists of
> Islamic barbarism who can cover the hard facts of Islamic  
> fundamentalism by their long academic discourses (and some blatant  
> lies like observing Durga
> Puja freely) to confuse the issue. The atrocities, tortures and  
> ethnic cleansing of the Hindus from Bangladesh have few parallels  
> in the modern history which is still going on everyday.