RAW strategists have cleverly created disagreement and division even over the issue of national ideology. A debate has been going on whether the country should adopt Bangladeshi nationalism or Bengafee nationalism. Unfortunately RAW has succeeded in making this fundamental issue an aging controversy. Bangladeshi nationalism relates to all the people living in Bangladesh. It is a description of the fee1ing of political cohesion which inspires Bangladeshis to be proud of their separateness. Since Muslims constitute more than 85% of the country's population, thererfore, Bangladeshi nationalism in fact, means nationalism of majority of its population. As French nationalism implies not the nationalism of Algerian immigrants settled i~ France but the national feelings of those Frenchrllen who once were affiliated to the Catholic Church.
Bangladeshi nationalism also reflects aspirations of majority community, i.e.
Muslims. The term Bangladeshi nationalism was adopted by President
Ziaur Rahman as a compromise between those secularists who would not favour
any description which savoured of religion and those who wanted that
the nationalism should reflect aspirations and sentiments of majority
community. However, even this secular expression which only indirectly
points at Bangladesh's character as a Muslim country with Muslim
traditions in art, literature and social life, is not to the liking of RAW
influenced intellectuals. They abhor the use of word Bangladeshi nationalism
calling it communal and insist on adoption of Bengalee nationalism.
Much of this campaign is being waged on wink from RAW.
Bengali nationalism encompasses all the Bengali speaking people irrespective of where they live. Going by this definition all Bengali speaking people form one nation.d HOwever, the concept of forming nations on the basis of language has become redundant. If language was the only factor for making of a nation, all Arabic speaking people of the Middle East should have formed one state instead of 22. Going by the logic of language, India has no right to function as a single country as it has 171 languages and 544 sub-languages(RuhulAmin: Our Nationalism: page, 20). Thus the concept of nationhood based on language alone is not in vogue. Besides Bangladesh, the Bengali speaking people are inhabited in West Bengal, Tripura, Assam, Orissa and Behar states of India. In the first two states they are thepredominant ethnic group. They belong to the same BEmgali stock as people of Bangladesh and- in some cases have similar social and cultural behavior . But still they are distinctly different from Bangladeshis in matters of national identity, history, faith, hopes and spirations. This difference is due to religion. Infact, the difference was created the day Islam came in this region. The advent of Islam brought in a new social culture which gave a new identity. to those who embraced Islam. The Bengali speaking Muslims and Hindus became two separate religious-cultural groups. These differences gradually became the reason for pronouncement of Two Nation. Theory and eventual division of India into Pakistan and India. East Pakistan, after separation from Pakistan in December 1971, became Bangladesh.
The basic differences between the two communities (Hindus and Muslims) are as evident today as these were thousands of years ago. Common cultural identity. and common nationalism could never grow between the two communities. British writer John Marshall while. discussing the peculiarities of ancient Indian culture of the Hindus and the Muslims wrote. "It was never seen before in human history that the two religions and cultures coexisted side by side while one could not swallow the other(quote from John Marshal:by Abdul Mobin: Cultural Mischief, page 80).
The separate cultural identities of Bengali speaking Hindus and Muslims remained intact for ages despite conflicts and clashes. Such conflicts rather hardened their separate identities and religious beliefs. The Hindu poets, litterateurs and intellectuals Bever, accepted the Bengali speaking Muslims as Bengalee. They used the term Bengalee only for Benga.li speaking Hindus. The Muslims were not considered Bengalees. Instead they used to be referred as Muslims. On the other hand, the Bengali speaking Muslims did not care much about their' Bangaleeness. They took pride in their Muslim identity and culture. Being a Bengalee came only after their Muslim identity.
Religion based cultural identity in course of time created political conflicts. The differences on political issues specially since the advent of British rule in Bengal led the Bengali speaking Muslims of this region to think that their interests and goals are not the same as of their Hindu neighbours. The Muslims of Bengal opposed the rule of the British East India Company while the Hindus welcomed it and cooperated with the foreign rulers. In ,return the East India Company allotted vast lands of Bengal to the Hindus who emerged as Zamind-ars. The anti-British struggle of Titunrir, Haji Sharlat Ullah and the 1857 War of Independence, all ended in smoke due to the non-cooperation and oppositipn of the Hindus.
The Hindus of Bengal once again stated in 1905, at the time of partition
of Bengal, that their interest and that of the Muslims are not the same. Not a single Hindu political leader or intellectual rose above his communal feelings and interests to support the partition of Bengal in 1905. Rather, inspired by Hindu nationalism, they vowed to fight for annulment of partition.The very inimfcal attitude of the Hindus towards Muslims gave them a chance to unearth the real face of Hindus. They realized the necessity of preserving their own religious, cultural, economic and political interests.
The Bengalee Hindus had shown more affinity with non-Bengalee Hindus and developed Hindu nationalism. The anti-Muslim attitude of the Hindus made the Muslims of.Bengal to welcome the Two Nation Theory of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Based On this theory the resolution for partition of India to create separate home-land for the Muslims was adopted in 1940 in the All India Muslim League's annual session at Lahore.
Just before the partition of India in 1947, some Muslim leaders of the then Bengal like Suhrawardy, Abul Hashem and lone Hindu Leader Sarat Bose worked for a united'.Independent Bengal. Bq.t the Hindus, led by Ghandhi and Nehru, vetoed the scheme and thus neutralized the last chance of keeping Bengal united. Had it materialized, it could have formed the basis for emergence of Bengalee nationalism. But the Hindus, who preferred Hindu nationalism, themselves gave final burial to the Bengali nationalism.
Pakistan was created on the basis of Two Nation Theory Partition of India also led to partition of Bengal on the insistence of Congress. Bengal's Muslim majority area i.e.East Bengal joined Pakistan as its province named East Pakistan, while West Bengal, the Hindu majority area went with India. Thus there remained no chance for a nationalism based on language to take roots.The Bengali nationalism, however, did find currencyduring movement against Pakistani ruling junta. But in actual fact the separatism was an expression of regionalism; phenomenon also noticeable elsewhere. The people of East Pakistan felt deprived due to the expoitation and usurpation of their rights by an administration dominated by West Pakistanis. Their demand for emancipation found expression in Bengalee nationalism. This was purely in the context of Pakistan and at no stage the people intended to part with the Two Nation Theory. The emergence of Bangladesh is in consonance with Lahore Resolution of 1940. The resolution says, "It is the considered opinion of this session of the All India Muslim League that no constitutional arrangement would be workable or acceptable to the Muslims unless they would be based on the following principles viz. (a) that the contiguous geographic areas have to be demarcated as a region. (b) that the territorial adjustments should be such that the Muslim majority areas in the north-west and Eastern India should constitute independent states and © that the states should be autonomous and sovereign".
After the emergence of Bangladesh, RAW and its stooges have been relentlessly preaching that dismemberment of Pakistan has proved that the Two Nation Theory has failed. Once renunciation of Two Nation Theory is accepted reunification of India becomes obvious.
Indians advise that Bangladesh should give up its Muslim identity and adopt so called Bengalee nationalism. RAW's aim In promoting Bengalee nationalism is to pave way for merger of Bangladesh into West Bengal. One may ask that why Hindus of West Bengal do nqt support Bengalee nationalism against Indian (Hindu) nationalism. Why the idea is being drummed to people of Bangladesh only? During the Pakistan period we used to be known as Bengalees on the basis qf race and language as we did not then have an independent country named Bangladesh. After the establishment of Bangladesh our territorial identity and sovereignty overrode the linguistic and racial identity. Bengali speaking Hindus and the Muslims could never become one nation in the past. Now that the ideological, cultural and political differences between the two have grown further, how can 'there be any rationale for a common Bengalee nationalism.
Basant Chatterje, an Indian journalist said in his book 'Inside Bangladesh', "The Bengali language had been used as political weapon in the struggle against Pakistan and with the establishment of Bangladesh its usefulness had been exhausted. The Muslims had made no contribution to the culture called Bengalee culture which was essentially an upper caste Hindu culture. It would be impossible for Bangladesh to preserve its sovereignty by insisting on the Bengaliness of its political chara1ter".Another problem with Bengalee nationalism is that it excludes those citizens of Bangladesh whose mother tongue is not Bengali. When Sheikh Mujib insisted' on tribal leaders of Chlttagong Hill Tracts, (CHT) to accept Bengalee nationalism, it back fired. RAW capitalized the issue and helped Chakmas to form Shanti Bahini which is continuing to wage armed movement for separation of CHT from Bangladesh.
RAW's propagation and promotion of Bengalism is a conspiracy against the very foundations of Bangladesh which must be snubbed and neutralized with the contempt it deserves.
azimkhan1983@gmail.com
Friday, 30 October 2009
Indian Intelligence Involvement In Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh
ndian intelligence outfit Research & Analysis Wing(RAW) is deeply involved in the problem of Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh.Some admissions:
1.The Chakma guerrillas had closely assisted RAW operatives. They were assisted during and after the liberation war of Bangladesh. The Chakmas, after the change of govt in 1975, contacted the RAW. The Chakmas offered to infiltrate among the Mizo rebels and pass on information to the Indian govt in lieu of assylum. This offer was accepted (Inside RAW : The Story of India's Secret Service, Asoka Raina, Vikas Publishers, New Delhi, 1981, pp.86-87).
2.In 1975, the RAW was instructed to assist the Chakma rebels with arms, supplies , bases and training. Training was conducted in the border camps in Tripura but specialized training was imparted at Chakrata near Dehra Doon. Shantu Larma's Shanti Bahini members were flown to Chakrata and then sent back to Tripura to infiltrate into Chittagong Hill Tracts. A RAW office and its operatives at Agartala monitored the progress of the trainees. In 1976, the Shanti Bahini launched its first attack on the Bangladesh force. A new insurgency had been born and India's secret war in the hills of Bangladesh had begun (South Asia's Fractured Frontier, Binalaksmi Nepram, Mittal Publishers, New Delhi, 2002, pp-153).
3.The RAW was involved in training rebels of Chakma tribes and Shanti Bahini to carry out subversive activities in Bangladesh (RAW's role in Furthering India's Foreign Policy, The New Nation, Dhaka, 31 August 1994).
4.The Indian intelligence had collaborated the armed rebels of Chittagong Hill Tracts to destabilise the region ( Indo-Bangladesh Relation, Motiur Rahman, daily Prothom Alo, Dhaka,10 December 2002).
1.The Chakma guerrillas had closely assisted RAW operatives. They were assisted during and after the liberation war of Bangladesh. The Chakmas, after the change of govt in 1975, contacted the RAW. The Chakmas offered to infiltrate among the Mizo rebels and pass on information to the Indian govt in lieu of assylum. This offer was accepted (Inside RAW : The Story of India's Secret Service, Asoka Raina, Vikas Publishers, New Delhi, 1981, pp.86-87).
2.In 1975, the RAW was instructed to assist the Chakma rebels with arms, supplies , bases and training. Training was conducted in the border camps in Tripura but specialized training was imparted at Chakrata near Dehra Doon. Shantu Larma's Shanti Bahini members were flown to Chakrata and then sent back to Tripura to infiltrate into Chittagong Hill Tracts. A RAW office and its operatives at Agartala monitored the progress of the trainees. In 1976, the Shanti Bahini launched its first attack on the Bangladesh force. A new insurgency had been born and India's secret war in the hills of Bangladesh had begun (South Asia's Fractured Frontier, Binalaksmi Nepram, Mittal Publishers, New Delhi, 2002, pp-153).
3.The RAW was involved in training rebels of Chakma tribes and Shanti Bahini to carry out subversive activities in Bangladesh (RAW's role in Furthering India's Foreign Policy, The New Nation, Dhaka, 31 August 1994).
4.The Indian intelligence had collaborated the armed rebels of Chittagong Hill Tracts to destabilise the region ( Indo-Bangladesh Relation, Motiur Rahman, daily Prothom Alo, Dhaka,10 December 2002).
Lest we fail to understand Indian design
On December 16, 2007 Bangladesh entered 37 years of its existence. But during this long span of time Bangladesh could not reach its cherished goal of independence for which we fought, it rather faced unthinkable impediments and predicaments. This happened due to our utter failure of identifying our friends and foes, mending our stupidity and zeal for personal interest and power. It is our ill luck that we considered and some of us still consider our arch rival and foe as our friend.
The country that came forward as an ally and salvager during our war of liberation, ironically emerged as deadly giant. Our successive governments, right from Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to Fakharuddin Ahmad, though comprehend Indian designs, could not and still cannot take bold step to frustrate them (Indian designs), as they remain busy to tackle internal chaos and problems imposed by India. On the other hand, it is an irony that most of the Bangladeshi policymakers, politicians, intellectuals, bureaucrats, business magnets, etc., who directly and indirectly control the statecrafts of Bangladesh have either become India's pawns to grab their self-interest, who give priority to their immediate gains instead of national interest and sovereignty and independence of our motherland for which three million sons of our soil welcomed martyrdom. Some of them, including Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, on good faith sincerely believed that India would behave with us as brotherly and friendly neighbour and never poke its nose in our affairs or try to minimise our sovereignty and independence or impede our march towards prosperity.
But Indian Brahmanic policymakers, since pre-Palasy War era, sided with the then British East India Company and aligned to one principle till date to keep the Muslims of the subcontinent under their knee. Indian leadership who against their will, though conceded to the partition of the subcontinent that led to the emergence of a separate Muslim homeland named Pakistan in 1947, kept their dream alive to jeopardise Pakistan and unify the map of the British-administered India, what they term as 'Ramraj' or 'Awkhand Bharat'. Nehru through his writings and utterances repeatedly declared that the areas that comprised Pakistan, particularly East Pakistan (today's Bangladesh) and West Punjab (today's Punjab Province of Pakistan) would return to Indian fold immediately after the partition of the subcontinent. To translate this dream into practice, Indian leaders, whether they are so- called secularists, or communists, or fundamentalists, or arch communalists, never set aside their dream of unifying the British-India and all the successive governments, right from Nehru to Manmohan Singh, worked and work to materialise that end into practice.
To reach their goal the then Hindu-dominated Congress leadership prepared a secret blueprint of undoing the separate homeland—
Pakistan strangely eight days before the partition of the subcontinent and kept their efforts continued to implement it. Indian government, its intelligence agencies and media, availing the errors, omissions and failures of the Pakistani rulers, above all anti-West Pakistan sentiment in East Pakistan that originated due to the exploitative policies of the successive Pakistan governments, fueled secessionist movement in the then East Pakistan that subsequently paved the way for Indian intervention in the liberation war of Bangladesh. Indian media and intellectuals proudly declared that the dismemberment of Pakistan in 1971 was one step forward to reunify those territories India that formed Pakistan and later Bangladesh.
Through such comment they confessed that India assisted our liberation war against Pakistan not for our sake but India's sake. Now it is clear that India helped us not to flourish Bangladesh as an independent and sovereign country, but to make it as its sole Bazar and subsequently merge it with India right way. With this end in view, India deliberately marched its Army to Bangladesh, which is unprecedented in the contemporary world. Many countries, including USA, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Afghanistan, etc., were liberated through armed struggles. France extended its support to the liberation war of the United States of America; Russia and China to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. To liberate Afghanistan many countries, particularly all the Muslim countries and Western world, even China extended their open support, but none ever militarily intervened in the name of liberating Afghanistan.
India's subsequent ugly and cruel behaviour unfolded the fact that under the cover of liberating Bangladesh, Indian government assisted us virtually to merge our country with India in course of time. It means Indian Army marched to Bangladesh not to leave it, but to remain stationed here (Bangladesh) for ever, but was compelled to retreat considering the then world opinion in favour of Bangladesh whose founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman publicly asked India to withdraw its troops. Indian President late Zail Singh later publicly indicated that India withdrew from Bangladesh against its will. In his last interview as President with an Indian newsweekly 'Sunday' (July 27, 1987) he lamented saying that the decision of withdrawing Indian troops from Bangladesh was not judicious and it hampered India's interest. India's covert design is amply uncovered if one goes through the 7-piont secret treaty that India before militarily involving in Bangladesh War of Liberation compelled the then revolutionary interim government of Bangladesh exiled in India to sign. The treaty contained the following uneven and unacceptable conditions:
a.After the establishment of Bangladesh, the administrative officers who actively participated in the war of liberation would remain in their posts. The rest would be terminated and the vacant posts would be filled up by the Indian administrative officials. (To fill the so-called vacancies, many Indian civil servants reached Dhaka soon after the Indian soldiers took its control and an Indian ICS official presided over the first meeting of the Bangladeshi administrative officials held at the DC's office in Dhaka.)
b.After the liberation of Bangladesh the required number of Indian soldiers would remain in Bangladesh. (It was not made clear for how many years or decades they would remain in Bangladesh.)
c.Bangladesh would not form and maintain any formal and regular Army. (Sheikh Mujib raised a small-sized weak Armed Force defying Indian pressure.)
d.To maintain internal security and law and order a militia was formed comprising the freedom fighters. (Accordingly a brutal militia was formed under the name 'Rakkhi Bahini' whose power and facilities superseded that of the Armed Forces. It is strongly believed that the real headquarters of the Rakkhi Bahini was at Delhi and many Indian nationals hailing from West Bengal and the Deccan were recruited in this militia who resembled to the Bangladeshis in appearance and physical height.)
e.The chief of Staff of Indian Armed Forces would lead the probable war with Pakistan. The Mukti Bahini (Freedom Fighters) would work under the command of Indian Armed Forces.
f.Trade transaction between the two countries would be free and open. The volume of trade would be calculated once in a year and the price would be paid in pound-starlings. (Interview of late Humayun Rashid Chowdhury: see the books 'BAngladesher Sadinata Juddayee RAW O CIA' by Masudul Haq and RAW and Bangladesh' by Mohammad Zainal Abedin.)
g.The foreign ministry of Bangladesh would maintain a close liaison with External Affairs Ministry of India and the latter would assist the former as far as possible. (It means Bangladesh would follow Indian foreign policy what Bhutan or Sikkim (India swallowed Sikkim in 1974).
To keep uniformity with this accord, the provisional Bangladesh government headquartered in India conceded to the following arrangements:
a.Lt. Gen. Arora was appointed as the commander-in-chief of the Allied Forces instead of Gen, M A G Osmani, the Chief of Bangladesh Armed Forces and Mukti Bahini.
b.Surrender of Pakistani soldiers to Indian solders (Lt. Gen.
Arora) instead of Bangladesh Army. (By doing this India documentarily tried to burry the contribution and sacrifices of the Bangladeshi people in liberating their homeland and prove that our war of liberation was a war between India and Pakistan. It paved the way for India to loot Bangladesh and grab all the weaponries and equipments of Pakistani soldiers that they accumulated in East Pakistan. India also got the chance of arresting 93 thousand Pakistani soldiers as prisoners of war and compelled the Pakistan government to sign a humiliating Simla Treaty.)
c.Allow the Indian civil servants to arrive Dhaka to take over the responsibility of civil administration. (Indian civil servants came to Dhaka accordingly, but failed to stay).
d.Continued presence of Indian soldiers in Bangladesh even after surrender of Pakistan Army on December 16, 1971.
e.Formation of Rakkhi Bahini (virtually under Indian command).
Indian efforts to maintain permanent military presence in Bangladesh, above all, turn it to a subservient vassal State outright after our war of liberation though were partially stumbled, Indian policymakers did not retreated from their original blueprint. They comprehended that it was not an easy task to swallow Bangladesh by muscle power—the traditional way of occupying a country, which was neither appropriate nor practicable in the changed international scenario. So they chalked out fresh strategies and intrigues to cripple Bangladesh politically, economically, psychologically, and culturally, which India and its intelligence agencies ably implement till date through their local tentacles.
The pro-India tilt of the helmsmen of our statecraft utterly failed to strengthen our sovereignty and ensure economic prosperity, by frustrating Indian designs. Rather they to assume and remain in power did not hesitate to hand over our vital and strategic interests to India one after another. Their outward and verbal sources of power are Bangladeshi people prior to election, but India becomes their inward power and inspiration as soon as they assume any responsible position to run the country.
Bangladesh in its 37-year of existence failed to stand on its own feet due to the multi-pronged problems one after another that India imposes on us due to the pro-India tilt of our leaders. No governments right from Sheikh Mujb to Fakharuddin Ahmed could rule the country facing no hazards manipulated by India -- from street and campus violence, and from arson and burn the industrial and business installations to political feuds.
To make Bangladesh totally dependent on and subservient to India, Indian expansionists ruined our education, culture, social value, economy, agriculture, industries. To frustrate national unity and irk chaos, if possible civil war, India fuels controversies that include Bangali versus Bangladeshi, freedom fighters versus razakars, secularists versus fundamentalists, anti-liberation versus pro-liberation forces, so on and so forth. These are being done to pull Bangladesh from behind its back. India designs to throw Bangladesh to such an awkward position so that it becomes dysfunctional and failed State goes beyond our ability to salvage it by ourselves so that Bangladeshis beg India to merge Bangladesh with India.
We the people, particularly the bureaucrats, students, teachers, intellectuals, journalists, business community, politicians, above all the Armed Forces, who directly and indirectly run and influence the country, should genuinely comprehend the danger that looms on us. Our time to solidify national unity and reconciliation and consensus sharply passes by. We have no room to allow our foes to use us. We should restudy the history why the Muslims sought for separate homelands through Lahore Resolutions. Our new generation should know under what circumstances, our forefathers opted to side with those Muslims who were unknown to and differed from them geographically, culturally, socially. It is not only our religion (Islam) that prompted the Bengalee Muslims to massively side with the Muslims of Northwestern regions of the British-India (today's Pakistan). Our forefathers finding no other way to get rid of the master-like misbehaviour, torture, exploitation and subjugation of their neighbouring Hindus were compelled to massively vote for single Pakistan. Their decision was so genuine that enabled us to secede from Pakistan and form another Muslim country, our great achievement—Bangladesh.
If our forefathers by being bewildered with the sweet words of the Hindu leaders like Gandhi, Nehru, Patel or even Moulana Abul Kalam Azad or Olama-e-Hind, we would never be able to struggle for our linguistic and separate political identities that led to the creation of independent Bangladesh. Our neighbouring Bengali-speaking Hindus of West Bengal have already lost their language, identity and even prosperity. Our all the ethnic nations living under Indian domination in Meghalaya, Assam, Tripura, and Mizoram just on the other sides of our border, now feel the bite of the mistake of their forefathers who trusting on the sweet assurances of the Indian leaders merged with India. They cannot get out of Indian claws and yokes despite their long armed struggle and sheding tears and bloods for six decades. We should also get lessons from the sufferings of the India's minority religious communities, particularly the Muslims. The fate of the Bengali speaking Muslims would have become far worse than their Kashmiri counterparts if our forefathers would have merged with India.
Indian leadership throughout the 60-year of partition of the subcontinent, remains busy in creating undesirable and unexpected situation inside Pakistan. After the creation of Bangladesh India gets encouraged to reverse our glorious history and achievements to pre-partition era in order to encage us under Indian fold. We are to remain vigil of Indian game. We have no room to handover our anymore strategically essential keys to India like transits, fort facilities, gas or coal-based investment, joint patrol in the bordering areas, open border trade, detour Asian Highway via Assam etc.
We must understand this bitter reality that whatever facilities India designs to get from us are directed to minimise and jeopardise our independence, as in the map of dreamy 'Awkhand Bharat' there is no existence of Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Nepal and even Bhutan. Chronologies and analysis of India's rude behaviour from looting Bangladesh to water blockading, from unilateral withdrawal of the waters of the international rivers to killing our people living in the bordering areas and from surfacing and fueling so-call Islamic extremism to sponsoring and imposing secession war, unequivocally justifies that India helped us not to keep us independent, rather to grab our country today or tomorrow. Like all other expansionist bullies India deliberately creates and imposes problems one after another on Bangladesh and keeps us busy to tackle them so that we cannot give attention to face and frustrate Indian design and uplift our position.
To deter and frustrate India's expansionist zeal and dream we should shun all types of internal debates and controversies and rivalries to gain personal petty interest and strengthen our national unity. We, in our lifetime, should build a prosperous and solid independent country for our future generation for which we fought. We must not forget that we left Pakistan to end foreign domination and exploitation, but not to become the slaves of India and allow her to dominate and exploit us. We must not forget what inhuman sorrows and sufferings and tortures our forefathers had to bear that were caused by our Hindu neighbours who kept them under their feet during the entire British period. The British were their (Muslims) rulers but the Hindus were their local masters.
This is for the first time in our known history that we the real sons of this soil rule ourselves. If we are not alert and cautious and accordingly work, we or our next generation will become the victims of Indian domination that will again make us or them the slaves of the Hindus. On August 20, 2004, Hindu leaders at a meeting of the Dhaka City Puja Celebration Committee held at Dhakershari Mandir expressed their anti-Muslim anguish saying, no Muslim is available to work in the house of the Hindus as servant. They said, "It is very pity that the Muslims do not come to work in the houses of the Hindus. This sorrowful situation started since 1947 (when a separate Muslim homeland came into being)." I think this open anguish of the Hindus is enough to imagine and comprehend the hidden reason why India disturbs and frustrates us in all fronts and the reason is very clear and clean that India does not believe in our separate independent existence and works to make us their slaves merging Bangladesh with India.
We cannot allow India anymore to dictate us and frustrate our independence. The more we will engage in quarrel and debate, the more chance India will get to undermine and undo our independence and sovereignty and enslave us. Let us comprehend and face Indian game and keep us from her domination and subjugation and build a prosperous Bangladesh for which we fought and sacrificed a lot. We should not allow others to become our mentors and shun policy of mortgaging our nation to grab power or remain in power.
The country that came forward as an ally and salvager during our war of liberation, ironically emerged as deadly giant. Our successive governments, right from Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to Fakharuddin Ahmad, though comprehend Indian designs, could not and still cannot take bold step to frustrate them (Indian designs), as they remain busy to tackle internal chaos and problems imposed by India. On the other hand, it is an irony that most of the Bangladeshi policymakers, politicians, intellectuals, bureaucrats, business magnets, etc., who directly and indirectly control the statecrafts of Bangladesh have either become India's pawns to grab their self-interest, who give priority to their immediate gains instead of national interest and sovereignty and independence of our motherland for which three million sons of our soil welcomed martyrdom. Some of them, including Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, on good faith sincerely believed that India would behave with us as brotherly and friendly neighbour and never poke its nose in our affairs or try to minimise our sovereignty and independence or impede our march towards prosperity.
But Indian Brahmanic policymakers, since pre-Palasy War era, sided with the then British East India Company and aligned to one principle till date to keep the Muslims of the subcontinent under their knee. Indian leadership who against their will, though conceded to the partition of the subcontinent that led to the emergence of a separate Muslim homeland named Pakistan in 1947, kept their dream alive to jeopardise Pakistan and unify the map of the British-administered India, what they term as 'Ramraj' or 'Awkhand Bharat'. Nehru through his writings and utterances repeatedly declared that the areas that comprised Pakistan, particularly East Pakistan (today's Bangladesh) and West Punjab (today's Punjab Province of Pakistan) would return to Indian fold immediately after the partition of the subcontinent. To translate this dream into practice, Indian leaders, whether they are so- called secularists, or communists, or fundamentalists, or arch communalists, never set aside their dream of unifying the British-India and all the successive governments, right from Nehru to Manmohan Singh, worked and work to materialise that end into practice.
To reach their goal the then Hindu-dominated Congress leadership prepared a secret blueprint of undoing the separate homeland—
Pakistan strangely eight days before the partition of the subcontinent and kept their efforts continued to implement it. Indian government, its intelligence agencies and media, availing the errors, omissions and failures of the Pakistani rulers, above all anti-West Pakistan sentiment in East Pakistan that originated due to the exploitative policies of the successive Pakistan governments, fueled secessionist movement in the then East Pakistan that subsequently paved the way for Indian intervention in the liberation war of Bangladesh. Indian media and intellectuals proudly declared that the dismemberment of Pakistan in 1971 was one step forward to reunify those territories India that formed Pakistan and later Bangladesh.
Through such comment they confessed that India assisted our liberation war against Pakistan not for our sake but India's sake. Now it is clear that India helped us not to flourish Bangladesh as an independent and sovereign country, but to make it as its sole Bazar and subsequently merge it with India right way. With this end in view, India deliberately marched its Army to Bangladesh, which is unprecedented in the contemporary world. Many countries, including USA, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Afghanistan, etc., were liberated through armed struggles. France extended its support to the liberation war of the United States of America; Russia and China to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. To liberate Afghanistan many countries, particularly all the Muslim countries and Western world, even China extended their open support, but none ever militarily intervened in the name of liberating Afghanistan.
India's subsequent ugly and cruel behaviour unfolded the fact that under the cover of liberating Bangladesh, Indian government assisted us virtually to merge our country with India in course of time. It means Indian Army marched to Bangladesh not to leave it, but to remain stationed here (Bangladesh) for ever, but was compelled to retreat considering the then world opinion in favour of Bangladesh whose founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman publicly asked India to withdraw its troops. Indian President late Zail Singh later publicly indicated that India withdrew from Bangladesh against its will. In his last interview as President with an Indian newsweekly 'Sunday' (July 27, 1987) he lamented saying that the decision of withdrawing Indian troops from Bangladesh was not judicious and it hampered India's interest. India's covert design is amply uncovered if one goes through the 7-piont secret treaty that India before militarily involving in Bangladesh War of Liberation compelled the then revolutionary interim government of Bangladesh exiled in India to sign. The treaty contained the following uneven and unacceptable conditions:
a.After the establishment of Bangladesh, the administrative officers who actively participated in the war of liberation would remain in their posts. The rest would be terminated and the vacant posts would be filled up by the Indian administrative officials. (To fill the so-called vacancies, many Indian civil servants reached Dhaka soon after the Indian soldiers took its control and an Indian ICS official presided over the first meeting of the Bangladeshi administrative officials held at the DC's office in Dhaka.)
b.After the liberation of Bangladesh the required number of Indian soldiers would remain in Bangladesh. (It was not made clear for how many years or decades they would remain in Bangladesh.)
c.Bangladesh would not form and maintain any formal and regular Army. (Sheikh Mujib raised a small-sized weak Armed Force defying Indian pressure.)
d.To maintain internal security and law and order a militia was formed comprising the freedom fighters. (Accordingly a brutal militia was formed under the name 'Rakkhi Bahini' whose power and facilities superseded that of the Armed Forces. It is strongly believed that the real headquarters of the Rakkhi Bahini was at Delhi and many Indian nationals hailing from West Bengal and the Deccan were recruited in this militia who resembled to the Bangladeshis in appearance and physical height.)
e.The chief of Staff of Indian Armed Forces would lead the probable war with Pakistan. The Mukti Bahini (Freedom Fighters) would work under the command of Indian Armed Forces.
f.Trade transaction between the two countries would be free and open. The volume of trade would be calculated once in a year and the price would be paid in pound-starlings. (Interview of late Humayun Rashid Chowdhury: see the books 'BAngladesher Sadinata Juddayee RAW O CIA' by Masudul Haq and RAW and Bangladesh' by Mohammad Zainal Abedin.)
g.The foreign ministry of Bangladesh would maintain a close liaison with External Affairs Ministry of India and the latter would assist the former as far as possible. (It means Bangladesh would follow Indian foreign policy what Bhutan or Sikkim (India swallowed Sikkim in 1974).
To keep uniformity with this accord, the provisional Bangladesh government headquartered in India conceded to the following arrangements:
a.Lt. Gen. Arora was appointed as the commander-in-chief of the Allied Forces instead of Gen, M A G Osmani, the Chief of Bangladesh Armed Forces and Mukti Bahini.
b.Surrender of Pakistani soldiers to Indian solders (Lt. Gen.
Arora) instead of Bangladesh Army. (By doing this India documentarily tried to burry the contribution and sacrifices of the Bangladeshi people in liberating their homeland and prove that our war of liberation was a war between India and Pakistan. It paved the way for India to loot Bangladesh and grab all the weaponries and equipments of Pakistani soldiers that they accumulated in East Pakistan. India also got the chance of arresting 93 thousand Pakistani soldiers as prisoners of war and compelled the Pakistan government to sign a humiliating Simla Treaty.)
c.Allow the Indian civil servants to arrive Dhaka to take over the responsibility of civil administration. (Indian civil servants came to Dhaka accordingly, but failed to stay).
d.Continued presence of Indian soldiers in Bangladesh even after surrender of Pakistan Army on December 16, 1971.
e.Formation of Rakkhi Bahini (virtually under Indian command).
Indian efforts to maintain permanent military presence in Bangladesh, above all, turn it to a subservient vassal State outright after our war of liberation though were partially stumbled, Indian policymakers did not retreated from their original blueprint. They comprehended that it was not an easy task to swallow Bangladesh by muscle power—the traditional way of occupying a country, which was neither appropriate nor practicable in the changed international scenario. So they chalked out fresh strategies and intrigues to cripple Bangladesh politically, economically, psychologically, and culturally, which India and its intelligence agencies ably implement till date through their local tentacles.
The pro-India tilt of the helmsmen of our statecraft utterly failed to strengthen our sovereignty and ensure economic prosperity, by frustrating Indian designs. Rather they to assume and remain in power did not hesitate to hand over our vital and strategic interests to India one after another. Their outward and verbal sources of power are Bangladeshi people prior to election, but India becomes their inward power and inspiration as soon as they assume any responsible position to run the country.
Bangladesh in its 37-year of existence failed to stand on its own feet due to the multi-pronged problems one after another that India imposes on us due to the pro-India tilt of our leaders. No governments right from Sheikh Mujb to Fakharuddin Ahmed could rule the country facing no hazards manipulated by India -- from street and campus violence, and from arson and burn the industrial and business installations to political feuds.
To make Bangladesh totally dependent on and subservient to India, Indian expansionists ruined our education, culture, social value, economy, agriculture, industries. To frustrate national unity and irk chaos, if possible civil war, India fuels controversies that include Bangali versus Bangladeshi, freedom fighters versus razakars, secularists versus fundamentalists, anti-liberation versus pro-liberation forces, so on and so forth. These are being done to pull Bangladesh from behind its back. India designs to throw Bangladesh to such an awkward position so that it becomes dysfunctional and failed State goes beyond our ability to salvage it by ourselves so that Bangladeshis beg India to merge Bangladesh with India.
We the people, particularly the bureaucrats, students, teachers, intellectuals, journalists, business community, politicians, above all the Armed Forces, who directly and indirectly run and influence the country, should genuinely comprehend the danger that looms on us. Our time to solidify national unity and reconciliation and consensus sharply passes by. We have no room to allow our foes to use us. We should restudy the history why the Muslims sought for separate homelands through Lahore Resolutions. Our new generation should know under what circumstances, our forefathers opted to side with those Muslims who were unknown to and differed from them geographically, culturally, socially. It is not only our religion (Islam) that prompted the Bengalee Muslims to massively side with the Muslims of Northwestern regions of the British-India (today's Pakistan). Our forefathers finding no other way to get rid of the master-like misbehaviour, torture, exploitation and subjugation of their neighbouring Hindus were compelled to massively vote for single Pakistan. Their decision was so genuine that enabled us to secede from Pakistan and form another Muslim country, our great achievement—Bangladesh.
If our forefathers by being bewildered with the sweet words of the Hindu leaders like Gandhi, Nehru, Patel or even Moulana Abul Kalam Azad or Olama-e-Hind, we would never be able to struggle for our linguistic and separate political identities that led to the creation of independent Bangladesh. Our neighbouring Bengali-speaking Hindus of West Bengal have already lost their language, identity and even prosperity. Our all the ethnic nations living under Indian domination in Meghalaya, Assam, Tripura, and Mizoram just on the other sides of our border, now feel the bite of the mistake of their forefathers who trusting on the sweet assurances of the Indian leaders merged with India. They cannot get out of Indian claws and yokes despite their long armed struggle and sheding tears and bloods for six decades. We should also get lessons from the sufferings of the India's minority religious communities, particularly the Muslims. The fate of the Bengali speaking Muslims would have become far worse than their Kashmiri counterparts if our forefathers would have merged with India.
Indian leadership throughout the 60-year of partition of the subcontinent, remains busy in creating undesirable and unexpected situation inside Pakistan. After the creation of Bangladesh India gets encouraged to reverse our glorious history and achievements to pre-partition era in order to encage us under Indian fold. We are to remain vigil of Indian game. We have no room to handover our anymore strategically essential keys to India like transits, fort facilities, gas or coal-based investment, joint patrol in the bordering areas, open border trade, detour Asian Highway via Assam etc.
We must understand this bitter reality that whatever facilities India designs to get from us are directed to minimise and jeopardise our independence, as in the map of dreamy 'Awkhand Bharat' there is no existence of Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Nepal and even Bhutan. Chronologies and analysis of India's rude behaviour from looting Bangladesh to water blockading, from unilateral withdrawal of the waters of the international rivers to killing our people living in the bordering areas and from surfacing and fueling so-call Islamic extremism to sponsoring and imposing secession war, unequivocally justifies that India helped us not to keep us independent, rather to grab our country today or tomorrow. Like all other expansionist bullies India deliberately creates and imposes problems one after another on Bangladesh and keeps us busy to tackle them so that we cannot give attention to face and frustrate Indian design and uplift our position.
To deter and frustrate India's expansionist zeal and dream we should shun all types of internal debates and controversies and rivalries to gain personal petty interest and strengthen our national unity. We, in our lifetime, should build a prosperous and solid independent country for our future generation for which we fought. We must not forget that we left Pakistan to end foreign domination and exploitation, but not to become the slaves of India and allow her to dominate and exploit us. We must not forget what inhuman sorrows and sufferings and tortures our forefathers had to bear that were caused by our Hindu neighbours who kept them under their feet during the entire British period. The British were their (Muslims) rulers but the Hindus were their local masters.
This is for the first time in our known history that we the real sons of this soil rule ourselves. If we are not alert and cautious and accordingly work, we or our next generation will become the victims of Indian domination that will again make us or them the slaves of the Hindus. On August 20, 2004, Hindu leaders at a meeting of the Dhaka City Puja Celebration Committee held at Dhakershari Mandir expressed their anti-Muslim anguish saying, no Muslim is available to work in the house of the Hindus as servant. They said, "It is very pity that the Muslims do not come to work in the houses of the Hindus. This sorrowful situation started since 1947 (when a separate Muslim homeland came into being)." I think this open anguish of the Hindus is enough to imagine and comprehend the hidden reason why India disturbs and frustrates us in all fronts and the reason is very clear and clean that India does not believe in our separate independent existence and works to make us their slaves merging Bangladesh with India.
We cannot allow India anymore to dictate us and frustrate our independence. The more we will engage in quarrel and debate, the more chance India will get to undermine and undo our independence and sovereignty and enslave us. Let us comprehend and face Indian game and keep us from her domination and subjugation and build a prosperous Bangladesh for which we fought and sacrificed a lot. We should not allow others to become our mentors and shun policy of mortgaging our nation to grab power or remain in power.
Tipaimukh Dam, a threat to Bangladesh
INDIA so far failed to provide to Bangladesh comprehensive data on its Tipaimukh Dam. India also failed to assure many of its own citizens in north-east India as well as Bangladesh that the controversial dam would do them no harm. When did India complete its study? Why does India refuse to share the study report with Bangladesh? If the project would benefit both Bangladesh and India, why India started its construction without the approval of Bangladesh? If India had good intentions, how could its High Commissioner in Bangladesh make such arrogant remark, "No international law can stop Tipai Dam?"
The Indian High Commissioner's more recent comments on Bangladeshi experts were uncalled for, indecorous, undiplomatic and arrogant too.
India must understand that the people of Bangladesh have the right to know about the Tipaimukh Dam.
The government of Bangladesh should constitute a national and international team consisting of geologists, engineers, biologists, agricultural scientists, environmentalists, lawyers and economists to examine the Tipaimukh project.
There are many unanswered questions about the adverse impacts of the Tipaimukh dam on Bangladesh. Will India solve these problems? What resources will India provide Bangladesh to offset the adverse effects that people of Bangladesh would suffer in the Kushiyara, Surma and Meghna basins. Topaimukh will cause untold environmental disasters in Bangladesh. The problems, threatening the existence of Bangladesh, need to be scrutinised by national experts. Water Resources Minister Ramesh Chandra Sen made contradictory and incoherent remarks on the issue.
Bangladesh cannot allow the construction of the Tipaimukh Dam without a thorough review of the risks and the potential of the dam to devastate the environment of Bangladesh.
Bangladesh and India should publish their findings on the project after joint visits to the site. The project must be examined from the perspectives of geo-political, socio-economic, food production and demographic impact in the affected regions of Bangladesh.
The government should share all it knows with the opposition. The opposition parties in Bangladesh should independently analyse the Tipaimukh project based on correct data. They should also share their findings with the government. The people of Bangladesh will appreciate such positive steps. The Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, recently said that her government would not approve the construction of the Tipaimukh Dam against the national interest of Bangladesh.
Therefore, the opposition parties should trust and extend her support in handling the issue. They should disagree with the government only if it fails to protect the interests of Bangladesh.
How can the people of Bangladesh trust that India's Tipaimukh Dam will not do any harm to them when they have been suffering numerous environmental disasters for the last 35 years due to the barrages, in the upstreams of the Ganges and the Teesta, built by India? What reason the people of Bangladesh have to believe that this dam would be different?
Why India should not help or compensate Bangladesh to solve these problems created by India? India's construction of dams or barrages on the common rivers one after the other violates international law regarding common rivers, the norms of good neighbourliness and threatens the livelihood of the people of Bangladesh. India should be well aware of the environmental disasters in Bangladesh caused by Farakka, Teesta and other barrages built by India.
India's lack of sensitivity to the neighbours does not speak of friendly act by a friendly country. India should not be insensitive to the environmental and the negative consequences of the Tipaimukh Dam on lower riparian Bangladesh. (A P.G. environmental geologist, Kansas Department of Health and Environment, Adjunct Faculty-Cowley County Community College, Team Leader-WATC International Arsenic, Water, Ecosystem and Environment Research Center, Wichita, Kansas, USA, the writer can be reached at
The Indian High Commissioner's more recent comments on Bangladeshi experts were uncalled for, indecorous, undiplomatic and arrogant too.
India must understand that the people of Bangladesh have the right to know about the Tipaimukh Dam.
The government of Bangladesh should constitute a national and international team consisting of geologists, engineers, biologists, agricultural scientists, environmentalists, lawyers and economists to examine the Tipaimukh project.
There are many unanswered questions about the adverse impacts of the Tipaimukh dam on Bangladesh. Will India solve these problems? What resources will India provide Bangladesh to offset the adverse effects that people of Bangladesh would suffer in the Kushiyara, Surma and Meghna basins. Topaimukh will cause untold environmental disasters in Bangladesh. The problems, threatening the existence of Bangladesh, need to be scrutinised by national experts. Water Resources Minister Ramesh Chandra Sen made contradictory and incoherent remarks on the issue.
Bangladesh cannot allow the construction of the Tipaimukh Dam without a thorough review of the risks and the potential of the dam to devastate the environment of Bangladesh.
Bangladesh and India should publish their findings on the project after joint visits to the site. The project must be examined from the perspectives of geo-political, socio-economic, food production and demographic impact in the affected regions of Bangladesh.
The government should share all it knows with the opposition. The opposition parties in Bangladesh should independently analyse the Tipaimukh project based on correct data. They should also share their findings with the government. The people of Bangladesh will appreciate such positive steps. The Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, recently said that her government would not approve the construction of the Tipaimukh Dam against the national interest of Bangladesh.
Therefore, the opposition parties should trust and extend her support in handling the issue. They should disagree with the government only if it fails to protect the interests of Bangladesh.
How can the people of Bangladesh trust that India's Tipaimukh Dam will not do any harm to them when they have been suffering numerous environmental disasters for the last 35 years due to the barrages, in the upstreams of the Ganges and the Teesta, built by India? What reason the people of Bangladesh have to believe that this dam would be different?
Why India should not help or compensate Bangladesh to solve these problems created by India? India's construction of dams or barrages on the common rivers one after the other violates international law regarding common rivers, the norms of good neighbourliness and threatens the livelihood of the people of Bangladesh. India should be well aware of the environmental disasters in Bangladesh caused by Farakka, Teesta and other barrages built by India.
India's lack of sensitivity to the neighbours does not speak of friendly act by a friendly country. India should not be insensitive to the environmental and the negative consequences of the Tipaimukh Dam on lower riparian Bangladesh. (A P.G. environmental geologist, Kansas Department of Health and Environment, Adjunct Faculty-Cowley County Community College, Team Leader-WATC International Arsenic, Water, Ecosystem and Environment Research Center, Wichita, Kansas, USA, the writer can be reached at
Neighbour's threat to interfere in Bangladesh affairs condemned
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) strongly condemned a nuclear neighbor's "threat to directly interfere" in Bangladesh's internal affairs and urged the country's patriotic-nationalist forces to remain alert and united at this critical hour.
The protest came in resolutions adopted in a meeting of the BNP national standing committee, party's highest policymaking body, chaired by chairperson and former premier Khaleda Zia at her Gulshan office on Tuesday night.
BNP secretary-general Khondoker Delwar Hossain, reading out the
resolutions at a press briefing at Begum Zia's Gulshan office yesterday noon, said the standing-committee meeting was observing
with deep concern reports published in various newspapers at home and abroad that a big neighboring state is issuing threat of "naked interference" in Bangladesh's domestic matters.
He mentioned that a policymaking-level leader of that 'atomic power' at a recent meeting clearly said that country would not sit idle if opposition against the present government of Bangladesh turned for the extreme.
Delwar quoted that person having further stated that, if necessary, they would directly intervene in Bangladesh affairs.
"The standing-committee meeting firmly mentioned that aggressive and expansionist attitude got exposed through such kind of threat which is a violation of international laws, norms and courtesy," he said.
At the same time, this attitude is threat to the regional peace, stability and security as well as runs contrary to the principle of establishing honest neighborly relations on the basis of sovereign equality and sprit of South Asian regional cooperation, Dewar read
the meeting's resolution
He said the standing committee was surprised as the government side did not make any protest.
The meeting also expressed concern over what was described as relentless fictitious smear campaign against Bangladesh by the intelligence and media of that big neighboring country. "That false propaganda got intensified recently after the BDR headquarters carnage," it noted.
The BNP standing committee thinks that such naked propaganda is being carried out from the desire of "interfering and spreading supremacy in Bangladesh".
"The key objective of this false campaign is to gather support from the international community to their planned aggression," Delwar said, without naming that country.
He felt that statements of some leaders of the ruling party of Bangladesh matched with the malice campaign of that country.
The major objective of the campaign is to hide the mastermind behind the scene and sponsors through misleading the investigation into Peelkhana's tragic incident.
The standing-committee meeting demanded the recasting of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) to make it effective and trustworthy to restore the nation's confidence in the watchdog body.
The BNP secretary general said presently the institution is totally "dysfunctional and playing the pawn into the government's hands".
He further said the ACC is trying to be in the good books of the government through carrying out campaign and filing "false" cases against opposition leaders and workers.
"The ACC has already turned into a controversial institution due to its activities during the last emergency rule," he told the journalists, a day after it sued BNP chief's younger son, Arafat Rahman Koko, and also notified her brother Major (rtd) Syed Iskander for submitting statement of his wealth.
Replying to a question about the filing of the money-laundering case against Koko, he said, "The government is doing whatever it wishes as everything, including ACC and police, is under their control."
Replying to a question on BDR investigation he said people are in doubt and confusion over fair, transparent and neutral investigation following the appointment of a Minster, also a politician of the ruling party, as coordinator for the probe committees.
Delwar said the minister was made coordinator to make the report of the investigation according to the ruling party's wish.
The standing-committee meeting expressed concern over recent return Bangladeshi workforce from various countries following termination from their jobs, cancellation of 25 percent order for Bangladeshi RMG items on international market, deterioration of law and order, increase in dacoity, extortion, terrorism, repression and attack on of BNP and its front organizations' activists.
It also expressed concern over heightening "instability through massive harassment in all spheres, including civil and police administrations, by the three-month-old government".
The meeting expressed agony as the opposition is not allowed to play its role in parliament. "Rather the ruling party and the Speaker have already turned parliament into a centre of baseless campaign against opposition, as a result of which the parliament has become dysfunctional," said the BNP high-up.
azimkhan1983@gmail.com
The protest came in resolutions adopted in a meeting of the BNP national standing committee, party's highest policymaking body, chaired by chairperson and former premier Khaleda Zia at her Gulshan office on Tuesday night.
BNP secretary-general Khondoker Delwar Hossain, reading out the
resolutions at a press briefing at Begum Zia's Gulshan office yesterday noon, said the standing-committee meeting was observing
with deep concern reports published in various newspapers at home and abroad that a big neighboring state is issuing threat of "naked interference" in Bangladesh's domestic matters.
He mentioned that a policymaking-level leader of that 'atomic power' at a recent meeting clearly said that country would not sit idle if opposition against the present government of Bangladesh turned for the extreme.
Delwar quoted that person having further stated that, if necessary, they would directly intervene in Bangladesh affairs.
"The standing-committee meeting firmly mentioned that aggressive and expansionist attitude got exposed through such kind of threat which is a violation of international laws, norms and courtesy," he said.
At the same time, this attitude is threat to the regional peace, stability and security as well as runs contrary to the principle of establishing honest neighborly relations on the basis of sovereign equality and sprit of South Asian regional cooperation, Dewar read
the meeting's resolution
He said the standing committee was surprised as the government side did not make any protest.
The meeting also expressed concern over what was described as relentless fictitious smear campaign against Bangladesh by the intelligence and media of that big neighboring country. "That false propaganda got intensified recently after the BDR headquarters carnage," it noted.
The BNP standing committee thinks that such naked propaganda is being carried out from the desire of "interfering and spreading supremacy in Bangladesh".
"The key objective of this false campaign is to gather support from the international community to their planned aggression," Delwar said, without naming that country.
He felt that statements of some leaders of the ruling party of Bangladesh matched with the malice campaign of that country.
The major objective of the campaign is to hide the mastermind behind the scene and sponsors through misleading the investigation into Peelkhana's tragic incident.
The standing-committee meeting demanded the recasting of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) to make it effective and trustworthy to restore the nation's confidence in the watchdog body.
The BNP secretary general said presently the institution is totally "dysfunctional and playing the pawn into the government's hands".
He further said the ACC is trying to be in the good books of the government through carrying out campaign and filing "false" cases against opposition leaders and workers.
"The ACC has already turned into a controversial institution due to its activities during the last emergency rule," he told the journalists, a day after it sued BNP chief's younger son, Arafat Rahman Koko, and also notified her brother Major (rtd) Syed Iskander for submitting statement of his wealth.
Replying to a question about the filing of the money-laundering case against Koko, he said, "The government is doing whatever it wishes as everything, including ACC and police, is under their control."
Replying to a question on BDR investigation he said people are in doubt and confusion over fair, transparent and neutral investigation following the appointment of a Minster, also a politician of the ruling party, as coordinator for the probe committees.
Delwar said the minister was made coordinator to make the report of the investigation according to the ruling party's wish.
The standing-committee meeting expressed concern over recent return Bangladeshi workforce from various countries following termination from their jobs, cancellation of 25 percent order for Bangladeshi RMG items on international market, deterioration of law and order, increase in dacoity, extortion, terrorism, repression and attack on of BNP and its front organizations' activists.
It also expressed concern over heightening "instability through massive harassment in all spheres, including civil and police administrations, by the three-month-old government".
The meeting expressed agony as the opposition is not allowed to play its role in parliament. "Rather the ruling party and the Speaker have already turned parliament into a centre of baseless campaign against opposition, as a result of which the parliament has become dysfunctional," said the BNP high-up.
azimkhan1983@gmail.com
AIDS Threat to Bangladesh from India
Indian demand for corridor, under the guise of transit must be thwarted to keep it free from HIV/AIDS, as it will spread the menace in the country rapidly. India is now the largest AIDs and HIV contaminated country in the world. According to Feacham, Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, India has outstripped South Africa and has more people living with AIDS than any other country. Being the second largest populous country in the world, it will not be strange if India have already outstripped South Africa. While UNAIDS puts the Indian figure at 5.1 million, Feacham said that, with the speed at which the disease was spreading, the figure in India must by now exceed the South African figure of 5.3 million. Feacham suspected that the figure in India might already have crossed 1 per cent of the population and what really set the alarm bells ringing, as WHO, UNAIDS and Indian Council of Medical Research, some experts put the figure at 8 million (India sitting on AIDS bomb? - India - NEWS - The Times of India).
On the other hand the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has forecast the number of people with HIV/AIDS in India could touch 20 million by 2010.
The rapid spreads of the menace among the Indian security forces, particularly deployed in the India's Northeastern states having common borders with Bangladesh, indicates how seriously the disease is spreading in India, which poses serious threat to Bangladesh. Indian security forces, particularly, Assam Rifles, officially admitted the presence of HIV/AIDS virus among many of its jawans. Sensing the imminent danger, Indian Defence authorities have asked soldiers battling violent separatist insurgencies in India's troubled northeast to carry condoms to prevent contracting HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Assam Rifles jawans top in the list to have endured with AIDS/ HIV while among the three defence forces Army jawans rank highest to have contacted with this dreaded diseases, said Director General of Armed Forces Medical Services (DGFAMS), V.K. Singh.Assam Rifles Chief, Lieutenant General Bhopinder Singh revealed that 141 of his jawans have been tested AIDS/HIV positive and presently are undergoing medical treatment while 32 others have died(http://northeasttribune.com/4805.htm).
As a preventive measure, on the other hand, India's President A J Abdul Kalam said all new recruits to the country's armed forces would be tested for the HIV virus after the deaths of some 200 soldiers due to AIDS in the past two years.
"The military will be testing for HIV in new recruits and undertake pre-natal examination of wives of personnel in the services," President Abdul Kalam said recently at an army seminar in Shillong in India's restive northeast where thousands of troops are posted to "fight separatist rebels." Officials said the HIV testing would start this October.
"HIV/AIDS has become a security threat to India ," Lieutenant-General Bhupinder Singh told the seminar. "AIDS is no less destructive than war itself. We want to keep our force fighting fit." Government records show more than 300 soldiers are currently infected with the HIV virus
(http://in.today.reuters.com/news/New...a-217221-1.xml).
To avert the disease, Vice Admiral V.K. Singh, Director General of the Armed Forces Medical Services, told soldiers at an army cantonment in the Meghalaya state capital Shillong to use condom during extra-marital sexual intercourses. "We have instructed our men to carry stocks of condoms to prevent contracting HIV-AIDS while working in vulnerable areas," he acknowledged.
The directive to carry condoms comes after army and paramilitary authorities in the northeast confirmed that scores of soldiers deployed in the region were struck by HIV, with promiscuous sex being the main reason for contracting the deadly virus.
The paramilitary Assam Rifles was the first to officially acknowledge the presence of a large number of soldiers afflicted with HIV-AIDS, although other army and paramilitary units in the Northeast are yet to come up with a formal
assessment(Condoms for troops battling N-E rebels - India - NEWS - The Times of India).
The instruction for precautionary measures and warning from the head of the state did not come without sufficient reason. But they deliberately bypassed one reason of taking so much precautionary measures, including testing the wives of the jawans. The most serious reason was the threat of the Northeast rebels. The Times of India in a despatch on September 26, 2005, said, "Insurgent groups in the Northeast are now threatening to use a new weapon against India's security forces."
The Assam Rifles has received threats from the militants that they would let loose HIV infected women to spread the disease among jawans posted in the region. The DG of Assam Rifles, Lt. Gen. Bhoopinder Singh acknowledged that they received threats from the insurgent groups fighting to secede their regions from India. "The insurgent groups will unleash women infected with HIV to spread the disease among our jawans as a way to neutralising the security forces. . Criminals groups are also trying to infect gullible young girls of this region with the virus in order to leave a trail of HIV in the region."
The Additional Project Director of National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) N S Dharmashaktu informed, "Insurgent groups are now trying new, less expensive ways to attack our forces. Biological warfare has become a reality. AIDS can be quite a deadly weapon. It does not need money, sophisticated weapons and manpower. All they have to do is infect young hapless girls of the region with AIDS and let them inflect our security forcers with the disease."
The precautionary measures taken by the concerned Indian authorities indicate that AIDS emerges as such a menace for Assam Rifles that it has already claimed the lives of 40 Assam Rifles jawans, while 139 other are lying infected. Assam Rifles is spending Rs. 2 crore annually on the caretaking programmme of the inflected jawans. It has established a three-tier HIV/AIDS control faciltieis in the regin. An AIDS centre at CPAR Hospital at Sukhoi is being set up. Over 40 treatment detection centres have also been established. It is also upgrading 30-bed existing unit to 50-bed nodal centres in Shilong of Meghalaya. Over 275 testing and reporting centres have also been built at all company posts where the samples will be collected. Knowledgeable sources believe that the situation in other branches of Indian security services are equally dangerous, which are kept hidden under the blanket of secrecy. Indian authorities for obvious reason do not disclose the deteriorating health situation in the Armed Forces. The comments of several officials, even the suggestion of the President, to test the jawans before their recruit and even their wives unveils the gravity of AIDS menace in the Armed Forces and the common people as well.
This also reveals the truth that Indian soldiers are morally bankrupt and India officially allows them to be bankrupt through commiting such immoral and illegal act of sexual relations. If the jawans are officially allowed to have illegal sexual transactions, the wives of these jawans will automatically indulge in same immoral acts with their boyfriends. The process will automatically lead India to a greater Bothell
Sex is now a booming industry in India. India now earns crores of rupees every by selling the flesh of its girls and young women. People of different age group from several countries particularly from Bangladesh and Middle Eastern countries throng India to buy sex. As a result, HIV and AIDS virus spread in India in an alarmingly way.
Security forces of any country, are to maintain generally restricted and regulated life. If the position of the Indian security forces is so serious the condition of the common people is more dangerous. The disease surely has spread among the common people more horribly. So being a neighbouring country Bangladesh faces a serious threat to HIV/AIDS virus. It can spread in Bangladesh in various ways. Indian truck drivers, helpers and labourers who illegally enter and stay inside Bangladesh territory near the land ports exchange sex with the local prostitutes.
About 2,000 Indian trucks enter Bangladesh daily. If even a microscopic number these Indian truckers, are infected with HIV or AIDS virus, it will surely spread in Bangladesh.
The disease can also spread in Bangladesh through the Indian businessmen and tourists and illegal Indians, who frequently enter Bangladesh. Indians can enter Bangladesh from three sides and all the states neighbouring Bangladesh have strong presence of HIV/AIDS.
Preventive measures should be taken immediately. Number of truckers, businessmen, tourists and illegal Indians must be restricted immediately.
Illegal intrusion should be stopped at any cost. Law enforcers should remain vigil to deter the entrance of the illegal Indians. Bangladesh missions in India must seek health certificates from the Indians before issuing visa.
HIV/AIDS virus testing machines, if possible, in all the entry point of Bangladesh to avert the spread of the disease.
Under this situation, if transit is given to India, Bangladesh will not be able to get rid of the menace of HIV/AIDS virus. So the pressure of providing corridor to India in the name of transit must be thwarted not only for economic and military reasons, but also keep Bangladesh free of the AIDS threat from India.
azimkhan1983@gmail.com
On the other hand the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has forecast the number of people with HIV/AIDS in India could touch 20 million by 2010.
The rapid spreads of the menace among the Indian security forces, particularly deployed in the India's Northeastern states having common borders with Bangladesh, indicates how seriously the disease is spreading in India, which poses serious threat to Bangladesh. Indian security forces, particularly, Assam Rifles, officially admitted the presence of HIV/AIDS virus among many of its jawans. Sensing the imminent danger, Indian Defence authorities have asked soldiers battling violent separatist insurgencies in India's troubled northeast to carry condoms to prevent contracting HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Assam Rifles jawans top in the list to have endured with AIDS/ HIV while among the three defence forces Army jawans rank highest to have contacted with this dreaded diseases, said Director General of Armed Forces Medical Services (DGFAMS), V.K. Singh.Assam Rifles Chief, Lieutenant General Bhopinder Singh revealed that 141 of his jawans have been tested AIDS/HIV positive and presently are undergoing medical treatment while 32 others have died(http://northeasttribune.com/4805.htm).
As a preventive measure, on the other hand, India's President A J Abdul Kalam said all new recruits to the country's armed forces would be tested for the HIV virus after the deaths of some 200 soldiers due to AIDS in the past two years.
"The military will be testing for HIV in new recruits and undertake pre-natal examination of wives of personnel in the services," President Abdul Kalam said recently at an army seminar in Shillong in India's restive northeast where thousands of troops are posted to "fight separatist rebels." Officials said the HIV testing would start this October.
"HIV/AIDS has become a security threat to India ," Lieutenant-General Bhupinder Singh told the seminar. "AIDS is no less destructive than war itself. We want to keep our force fighting fit." Government records show more than 300 soldiers are currently infected with the HIV virus
(http://in.today.reuters.com/news/New...a-217221-1.xml).
To avert the disease, Vice Admiral V.K. Singh, Director General of the Armed Forces Medical Services, told soldiers at an army cantonment in the Meghalaya state capital Shillong to use condom during extra-marital sexual intercourses. "We have instructed our men to carry stocks of condoms to prevent contracting HIV-AIDS while working in vulnerable areas," he acknowledged.
The directive to carry condoms comes after army and paramilitary authorities in the northeast confirmed that scores of soldiers deployed in the region were struck by HIV, with promiscuous sex being the main reason for contracting the deadly virus.
The paramilitary Assam Rifles was the first to officially acknowledge the presence of a large number of soldiers afflicted with HIV-AIDS, although other army and paramilitary units in the Northeast are yet to come up with a formal
assessment(Condoms for troops battling N-E rebels - India - NEWS - The Times of India).
The instruction for precautionary measures and warning from the head of the state did not come without sufficient reason. But they deliberately bypassed one reason of taking so much precautionary measures, including testing the wives of the jawans. The most serious reason was the threat of the Northeast rebels. The Times of India in a despatch on September 26, 2005, said, "Insurgent groups in the Northeast are now threatening to use a new weapon against India's security forces."
The Assam Rifles has received threats from the militants that they would let loose HIV infected women to spread the disease among jawans posted in the region. The DG of Assam Rifles, Lt. Gen. Bhoopinder Singh acknowledged that they received threats from the insurgent groups fighting to secede their regions from India. "The insurgent groups will unleash women infected with HIV to spread the disease among our jawans as a way to neutralising the security forces. . Criminals groups are also trying to infect gullible young girls of this region with the virus in order to leave a trail of HIV in the region."
The Additional Project Director of National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) N S Dharmashaktu informed, "Insurgent groups are now trying new, less expensive ways to attack our forces. Biological warfare has become a reality. AIDS can be quite a deadly weapon. It does not need money, sophisticated weapons and manpower. All they have to do is infect young hapless girls of the region with AIDS and let them inflect our security forcers with the disease."
The precautionary measures taken by the concerned Indian authorities indicate that AIDS emerges as such a menace for Assam Rifles that it has already claimed the lives of 40 Assam Rifles jawans, while 139 other are lying infected. Assam Rifles is spending Rs. 2 crore annually on the caretaking programmme of the inflected jawans. It has established a three-tier HIV/AIDS control faciltieis in the regin. An AIDS centre at CPAR Hospital at Sukhoi is being set up. Over 40 treatment detection centres have also been established. It is also upgrading 30-bed existing unit to 50-bed nodal centres in Shilong of Meghalaya. Over 275 testing and reporting centres have also been built at all company posts where the samples will be collected. Knowledgeable sources believe that the situation in other branches of Indian security services are equally dangerous, which are kept hidden under the blanket of secrecy. Indian authorities for obvious reason do not disclose the deteriorating health situation in the Armed Forces. The comments of several officials, even the suggestion of the President, to test the jawans before their recruit and even their wives unveils the gravity of AIDS menace in the Armed Forces and the common people as well.
This also reveals the truth that Indian soldiers are morally bankrupt and India officially allows them to be bankrupt through commiting such immoral and illegal act of sexual relations. If the jawans are officially allowed to have illegal sexual transactions, the wives of these jawans will automatically indulge in same immoral acts with their boyfriends. The process will automatically lead India to a greater Bothell
Sex is now a booming industry in India. India now earns crores of rupees every by selling the flesh of its girls and young women. People of different age group from several countries particularly from Bangladesh and Middle Eastern countries throng India to buy sex. As a result, HIV and AIDS virus spread in India in an alarmingly way.
Security forces of any country, are to maintain generally restricted and regulated life. If the position of the Indian security forces is so serious the condition of the common people is more dangerous. The disease surely has spread among the common people more horribly. So being a neighbouring country Bangladesh faces a serious threat to HIV/AIDS virus. It can spread in Bangladesh in various ways. Indian truck drivers, helpers and labourers who illegally enter and stay inside Bangladesh territory near the land ports exchange sex with the local prostitutes.
About 2,000 Indian trucks enter Bangladesh daily. If even a microscopic number these Indian truckers, are infected with HIV or AIDS virus, it will surely spread in Bangladesh.
The disease can also spread in Bangladesh through the Indian businessmen and tourists and illegal Indians, who frequently enter Bangladesh. Indians can enter Bangladesh from three sides and all the states neighbouring Bangladesh have strong presence of HIV/AIDS.
Preventive measures should be taken immediately. Number of truckers, businessmen, tourists and illegal Indians must be restricted immediately.
Illegal intrusion should be stopped at any cost. Law enforcers should remain vigil to deter the entrance of the illegal Indians. Bangladesh missions in India must seek health certificates from the Indians before issuing visa.
HIV/AIDS virus testing machines, if possible, in all the entry point of Bangladesh to avert the spread of the disease.
Under this situation, if transit is given to India, Bangladesh will not be able to get rid of the menace of HIV/AIDS virus. So the pressure of providing corridor to India in the name of transit must be thwarted not only for economic and military reasons, but also keep Bangladesh free of the AIDS threat from India.
azimkhan1983@gmail.com
Tuesday, 29 September 2009
বিজ্ঞান শিক্ষা বনাম বিজ্ঞান মনস্কতা
শিরোনামটি পড়ে অনেকের মধ্যেই বিভ্রান্তি তৈরি হতে পারে।আমরা সমাজতন্ত্র বনাম পুজিবাদ বিতর্ক, শচীন বনাম ওয়ার্ন দ্বৈরথ,theism বনাম deism তত্ত্বালোচনা-এই ধরণের ক্ষেত্রে সাধারণত ‘বনাম’ শব্দটি ব্যবহার করে অভ্যস্ত। বিশেষত যখন বিজ্ঞান শিক্ষা ও বিজ্ঞানমনস্কতার মধ্যে আপাত কোন বিরোধ থাকার কথা নয়,বা বিজ্ঞান শিক্ষা ও বিজ্ঞান মনস্কতা আপাত দৃষ্টিতে মুখোমুখী দাঁড়ানোর কথা নয়,সেখানে এদের মাঝে ‘বনাম’ শব্দের অবির্ভাব ভুরু কুচকানোর মত ব্যাপার বৈকি। সত্যি কথা বলতে বিজ্ঞান শিক্ষার বিপরীতে বিজ্ঞান মনস্কতা এই বিতর্কের আবির্ভাবই স্বাভাবিক বিচারে বিষ্ময়কর হওয়ার কথা।কিন্তু আমাদের সামাজিক প্রেক্ষাপটে একদিকে বিজ্ঞানের ছাত্রটি কুসংস্কারাচ্ছান্ন,অপরদিকে সাহিত্যের ছাত্রটি মুক্তমনা-এমন দৃশ্যপট মোটেও ব্যতিক্রম নয়। অর্থাৎ একজন বিজ্ঞানের ছাত্র হলেই যে সে বিজ্ঞানমনস্ক হবে এমন কোন নিশ্চয়তা নেই। বরং নিউটন-আইনস্টাইন পড়েও একজন বিলক্ষণ যুক্তিহীন হয়ে গড়ে ওঠে, প্রাণীবিজ্ঞানের ছাত্র হয়েও একজন ‘বিশ্বাস’ করেন বিবর্তনবাদ একটি ভুয়া মতবাদ-এমনটাই আমাদের দেশের স্বাভাবিক দৃশ্য। কাজেই আমাদের প্রথাগত বিজ্ঞানশিক্ষা যে সুবিশাল একটি গলদ নিয়ে গঠিত এবং শুধুমাত্র বিজ্ঞানশিক্ষাই যে যুক্তিবাদিতা নিশ্চিত করে না সেটাই আমার এই লেখার মূল উপজীব্য।
বছরখানেক আগে ফেসবুকে একটি স্ট্যাটাস দিয়েছিলাম। লেখাটা অনেকটা এরকম ছিলঃ
‘আহমেদ শরীফ বা হুমায়ুন আজাদ,কেউই বিজ্ঞানের ছাত্র ছিলেন না,দর্শন-সাহিত্যের ছাত্র হয়ে তারা বিজ্ঞানমনস্কতার যে দৃষ্টান্ত স্থাপন করেছেন আমাদের দেশের বিজ্ঞান ও প্রকৌশল শিক্ষার ছাত্র-শিক্ষকদের মাঝে ততখানি বিজ্ঞানমনস্কতা,কিংবা বিজ্ঞানমনস্কতাকে প্রতিষ্ঠিত করার সাহস কোনটাই খুব একটা দেখা যায় না/নি (ব্যতিক্রম ব্যতীত)…কিংবা আরুজ আলী মাতব্বরের কথাই ধরা যাক,বরিশালের কোন এক গন্ডগ্রাম থেকে উঠে আসা একজন ‘স্ব’শিক্ষিত ব্যক্তি,যিনি নিজের চেষ্টায় বিজ্ঞানের আধুনিকতম তত্ত্বগুলো বোঝার চেষ্টা করলেন এবং শেষ পর্যন্ত এমন কিছু প্রশ্ন রাখলেন যা ঘুণে ধরা কুসংস্কারাচ্ছন্ন সমাজের মূলে কুঠারাঘাত হানল!আর আমরা ঢাকা শহরের থেকে,বিজ্ঞানের হাজারও সুযোগ সুবিধা চোখ বুজে গ্রহণ করে,ফিজিক্স কেমিস্ট্রি ম্যাথ একগাদা টিচারের কাছে প্রাইভেট পড়ে নামের আগে ডাক্তার ইঞ্জিনিয়ার বসিয়ে শেষ পর্যন্ত সেই গোড়া,অন্ধ আর কুসংস্কারাচ্ছন্নই থেকে যাচ্ছি।’
— লেখাটার একটু গভীরে যেতে হলে আমাদেরকে আমাদের মানসিক বৈকল্যের দিকে দৃষ্টিপাত করতে হবে। আমাদের প্রথম ও প্রধান মানসিক বৈকল্য হচ্ছে আমরা কোন কিছু জানার আগেই নির্দিষ্ট কিছু বিষয়ে বিশ্বাস স্থাপন করে ফেলি(বা ফেলানো হয়);এরপর যে যে বিষয় বস্তু ঐ ঐ বিশ্বাসের সাথে সাংঘর্ষিক সেগুলোকে আমরা অস্বীকার করি কিংবা অবাস্তব/অসম্ভব দাবি করি। অথচ এই দাবিটি করছিই আমরা একটি অযৌক্তিক Assumption কে ভিত্তি করে। সমস্যাটা হচ্ছে,আমাদের শিক্ষা ব্যবস্থা এই অযৌক্তিক assumption কে নির্মূল করা তো দূরে থাক,প্রকারান্তে এই অবাস্তব assumptionকেই প্রতিষ্ঠিত করে মুক্তচিন্তার পথকে বাধাগ্রস্ত করছে। এক কথায় বিজ্ঞানের মূল উৎস যেখানে, ‘কি কেন এবং কিভাবে’ এই প্রশ্ন করা কিংবা কার্যকারণ অনুসন্ধান করা-এই বেসিক বিষয়ে বিস্মৃত রেখে আমাদেরকে বিজ্ঞান শিক্ষা দেয়া হচ্ছে।ফলে নিউটনের সূত্র টপাটপ গলধঃকরণ করে কিংবা পাঠ্যবইয়ের বাইরেও জ্ঞান আহরণ করার পরও আমাদের মধ্যে যুক্তিবোধ জাগ্রত হচ্ছে না।কারণ আমাদেরকে চিন্তা করানো শিখানোই হয়েছে ভুল একটা পদ্ধতিতে। ভুলভাবে চিন্তা করার প্রশিক্ষণ দেয়া হয়েছে আমাদেরকে এই শিক্ষা ব্যবস্থার মধ্য দিয়ে।
বিজ্ঞান কি? আইনস্টাইনের জেনারেল থিওরি অব রিলেটিভিটি গুলে খাওয়া কিংবা ফ্লুইড মেকানিক্সের নেভিয়ার স্ট্রোক ইকুয়েশনে প্যাশনেট হওয়া কিংবা অয়লারের কঠিন গাণিতিক তত্ত্বে পারদর্শী হওয়াই কি বিজ্ঞান? আমি অনেক ফিজিক্স জানি,গণিতের পোকা-তাতেই কি আমার বিজ্ঞান শিক্ষা সার্থক হয়ে গেল? আমার উত্তর হচ্ছে না। বিজ্ঞান হচ্ছে একটা দর্শন,যে দর্শনের মূল ভিত্তিটাই হচ্ছে প্রশ্ন করা,কার্যকারণ অনুসন্ধান করা। সেই প্রশ্ন করা আর সত্যান্বেষণ করার চেতনা বা মানসিকতা যদি আমার মধ্যে তৈরি না হয় তবে হাজার হাজার বই পড়ে আমি হয়তো জ্ঞানী হতে পারবো কিন্তু বিজ্ঞানমনস্ক হতে পারবো না। আর বিজ্ঞান পড়ে যদি বিজ্ঞানমনস্কতাই তৈরি না হয় তবে এর চেয়ে হতাশাজনক আর কিছু হতে পারে না,কিন্তু এই চিত্রটাই আমাদের দেশে বর্তমানে সবচেয়ে common।সমস্যাটা এখানেই।
সমস্যাটার প্রকার দুই রকম।প্রথমত,আমাদের শিক্ষাব্যবস্থা এখন Two M সিনড্রোমে ভুগছে- marks and money. লেখাপড়ার মূল উদ্দেশ্য ভাল নম্বর পাওয়া এবং শিক্ষাজীবন শেষে ভালো বেতনের চাকরি পেয়ে সুন্দরী বউ ঘরে তুলে সংসারী হওয়া-এটাই হচ্ছে ভেতো বাঙ্গালির কমন জীবন দর্শন,কিংবা আরেকটু বাড়িয়ে বলা যায়,এটিকেই বাঙ্গালি জীবনের সর্বোচ্চ সার্থকতা(মতান্তরে সাফল্য) হিসাবে বিশ্বাস করে। যেখানে ভালো মার্কস পেয়ে পাস করে ভালো চাকরি করে সংসারী হয়ে ‘দিন আনে দিন খায়’-এর আধুনিক শিক্ষিত ভার্সনে পরিণত হওয়াটাই জীবনের মূল উপজীব্য সেখানে মুক্তচিন্তার চর্চা করা কিংবা বিজ্ঞানমনস্ক হওয়াটা শুধুমাত্র অপ্রয়োজনীয়ই নয়,আজগুবি ধারণাও বটে। আর এই কারণেই প্রকৃতিতে সুজলা সুফলা কিংবা সংস্কৃতিতে রত্নভান্ডারি হওয়ার সত্ত্বেও বিজ্ঞানমনস্কতা ও বিজ্ঞান চর্চার ক্ষেত্রটিতে বাঙ্গালির পদচারণা হতাশাজনক এবং পশ্চাদপদ।
দ্বিতীয় সমস্যাটা আরও করুণ। শিক্ষাব্যবস্থার যন্ত্রণাদায়ক যন্ত্রণা আর শিকলের বলয় ভেঙ্গে কেউ কেউ একটু মুক্ত বাতাসে নিঃশ্বাস নেয়ার পথে এগিয়ে গেলেও শেষপর্যন্ত সেই Pre-assumption এর কারণে খাঁচা ভেঙ্গে মুক্ত বিহঙ্গ হওয়ার ক্ষেত্রে ট্র্যাজিক পরিণতি ঘটে। একারণে সে হয়তো বিজ্ঞানী হয়,কিন্তু বিজ্ঞানমনস্ক হয় না;প্রকৌশল বিদ্যার আধুনিক তত্ত্বে উচ্চশিক্ষা নেয় কিন্তু বিজ্ঞান দর্শনের সন্ধান পায় না; আধুনিক পদার্থবিদ্যার শিক্ষক হয়েও যুক্তিবাদী হয় না,স্টিফেন হকিং এর ভক্ত হয়েও মুক্তমনা হয় না। এই বৈপরিত্যগুলোই শুধু বিষ্ময়করই নয়, সবচেয়ে বেশি পীড়াদায়ক।
এই সমস্যাগুলোর উদ্ভব আমাদের সমাজের প্রচলিত কিছু সংস্কার থেকে।ছোট থেকে আমাদের শেখানো হয় গুড বয় হতে।গুড বয়ের সংজ্ঞা কি? যে বিনা বাক্যব্যয়ে সব মেনে নেয়,কথার বিপরীতে পালটা যুক্তি দেয় না, এমনকি প্রতিবাদও করে না। প্রতিবাদ করাটা এক অর্থে আমাদের গুরুজনদের কাছে অভদ্রতার প্রতীক,রীতিমত যেন এক ঝামেলা। গায়ে কাদা না লাগিয়ে সাক্ষী গোপাল হিসেবে একটা কুপমন্ডূক জীবন কাটিয়ে দিতে পারলেই বাঙালি মহাখুশি। রবীন্দ্রনাথ বোধহয় এজন্যই বলেছিলেন-‘ইহার চেয়ে হতেম যদি আরব বেদুইন’!!! কিংবা নজরুলের শেষ ভাষণের এই বাক্যটির কথাই ধরা যাক-‘আমাকে বিদ্রোহী বলে খামোখা লোকের মনে ভয় ধরিয়ে দিয়েছেন কেউ কেউ। এই নিরীহ জাত টাকে আচড়ে কামড়ে তেড়ে নিয়ে বেড়াবার ইচ্ছা আমার কোনদিনই নেই। আমি বিদ্রোহ করেছি, বিদ্রোহের গান গেয়েছি অন্যায়ের বিরুদ্ধে, অত্যাচার এর বিরুদ্ধে। যা মিথ্যা, কলুষিত, পুরাতন, পঁচা, সেই মিথ্যা সনাতনের বিরুদ্ধে, ধর্মের নামে ভন্ডামি ও কুসংস্কার এর বিরুদ্ধে।’ এই নজরুল যখন তুরস্কের খিলাফত বিলুপ্তির পর লিখলেন ‘তুর্কি মহিলার ঘোমটা খোলা’ তখন তিনি আমাদের সমাজে ‘শয়তান’ আখ্যায়িত হলেন।কারণ তিনি শুধু অন্যায়ের প্রতিবাদ করেন নি,প্রতিবাদ করেছিলেন এই সমাজব্যবস্থার বিরুদ্ধে,প্রশ্ন উত্থাপন করেছিলেন আমাদের ঘুনে ধরা প্রাচীন অর্বাচীন চিন্তা-ধারার বিরুদ্ধে।তাই তিনি হয়ে পড়লেন বেয়াদব,শয়তান, ‘শান্তি’ বিনষ্টকারী। এখন অবশ্য বাঙালি মুসলমানদের মধ্যে যারা অতি সাম্প্রদায়িক এবং ধর্মান্ধ তাদের কাছে নজরুলই হচ্ছেন একমাত্র যক্ষের ধন রবীন্দ্রনাথ নামক মালাউনের বিপরীতে!!!! এক মালাউনের লেখা গান কেন আমাদের জাতীয় সংগীত তা নিয়ে স্বাধীন বাংলাদেশের সাবেক স্বাস্থ্যমন্ত্রী সাকা চৌধুরী জাতীয় সংসদে বসেই ব্যাপক আহাজারি করেছিলেন।তখন কিন্তু নেহায়েৎই শিক্ষিত শ্রেণীর কিছু সাহসী মানুষ ব্যতীত আপামত জনগোষ্ঠীর মধ্যে আহামরি কোন প্রতিক্রিয়া দেখা যায় নি,কারণ প্রতিক্রিয়া দেখানোটা আমাদের সমাজে অভদ্রতা,যদি সেটা হয়ে ধর্মান্ধতার বিরুদ্ধে তাহলে তো কথাই নেই।একারণে তথাকথিত নিরপেক্ষ বুদ্ধিজীবীগণ আর টকশোএর বুদ্ধিজীবীগণ তাদের দেশ উদ্ধারের বক্তৃতায় এ বিষয়গুলোতে নীরব থাকেন।
প্রসঙ্গক্রমে ঈশ্বরচন্দ্র বিদ্যাসাগরের কথা বলতে ইচ্ছা করছে। আমাদের পাঠ্যপুস্তক থেকে এটুকু জানতে পেরেছি উনি বাংলা সাহিত্যের একজন দিকপাল ছিলেন,বাংলার গদ্যরূপের জনক এবং উনি একজন সমাজ সংস্কারক। কিন্তু যে বিষয়টি পাঠ্যপুস্তকে এড়িয়ে যাওয়া হয়েছে সচেতনভাবে কিন্তু অবশ্যই থাকা উচিত ছিল সেটি হচ্ছে,দিনান্তে বিদ্যাসাগর ছিলেন একজন সমাজ বিদ্রোহী। তার বিদ্রোহের সূচনা হয়েছিল কিন্তু নির্দোষ প্রশ্নের মধ্য দিয়ে,যে প্রশ্নে রিচুয়াল অপেক্ষা নৈতিকতা-মানবিকতা বেশি প্রাধান্য পেয়েছিল।যেকোন বিদ্রোহ-বিপ্লবের সূচনা হয়েএক বা একাধিক প্রশ্নের ভিত্তিতে।প্রশ্ন ব্যতীত বিপ্লবের প্রয়োজন অনুভূত হয় না।প্রশ্ন ব্যতীয় বিদ্রোহ সূচিত হয় না। আমাদের সমাজ সেই প্রশ্ন করাকেই নিরুৎসাহিত করে,প্রশ্নকর্তাকে আঘাতে জর্জরিত করে,তাকে সমাজচ্যুত করতে উঠে পড়ে লাগে। ঈশ্বরচন্দ্র একজন প্রশ্নকর্তা,সেই প্রশ্নের উত্তর খুঁজতে তিনি সমাজে বিপ্লবের জন্ম দিয়েছিলেন বলে তৎকালীন সম্ভ্রান্ত ব্যক্তিবর্গরা তাকে নাস্তিক আখ্যা দিয়ে মানুষের সাথে তাকে বিচ্ছিন্ন করতে চেয়েছিল। সেকালে কলকাতার বাবুরা সন্ধ্যায় বৈঠকখানায় মদ গাজার আসরে বাইজির সাথে ফস্টি নষ্টি করতেন উপরতলায় স্ত্রী সন্তানের উপস্থিতি সত্ত্বেও।তাতে জাত-পাতের কোন ক্ষতি হত না,ধর্ম অক্ষুণ্ণ থাকতো।কিন্তু বিধবার বিয়ে দিলে বা স্ত্রীলোক থিয়েটার করলে কিংবা লেখাপড়া শিখলে জাত নষ্ট হয়ে যেত,ধর্ম গেল ধর্ম গেল রব উঠতো। বাঙ্গালির এই দ্বিচারিতা এখনও বিদ্যমান।তবে ঈশ্বরচন্দ্র,রামমোহন,ডিরোজিওর মত কিন্তু বেয়াদব,নষ্ট মানুষ জন্মেছিল বলেই গত ২০০ বছরে সনাতন ধর্মাবলম্বী সম্প্রদায়ের জীবনাচরণে প্রভুত ‘সভ্যতা’-র উন্মেষ ঘটেছে। মূলত পশ্চাদপদ,অসভ্য ও বর্বর হিন্দুসমাজকে মোটামুটিভাবে একটি সহনশীল রূপে দাঁড় করানোই এই ক্ষণজন্মাদের সবচেয়ে বড় কৃতিত্ব। কিন্তু আমাদের পাঠ্যপুস্তকে উনাদের এই ভূমিকার কথা লেখা আছে কোথায়? নেই!! থাকবে না তো,কারণ থাকলে আমরা প্রশ্ন করতে শিখবো,বিদ্রোহ করতে শিখবো,পরিবর্তনের ডাক দিতে শিখবো। আর প্রশ্ন,বিদ্রোহ আর পরিবর্তন-আমাদের সমাজের সবচেয়ে বড় জুজুর ভয় বুঝি এগুলোই!!!!
কিছুটা বিষয়চ্যুত হয়ে গেলাম লিখতে লিখতে। জোর করে তাহলে একটু প্রসঙ্গে আসি। বিদ্যাসাগর কিন্তু সমাজ সংস্কারক,সাহিত্যের মানুষ,বিজ্ঞানী নন। অথচ তিনি গ্রামে গ্রামে স্কুল প্রতিষ্ঠা করে বিজ্ঞান শিক্ষা দিয়েছেন শিশুদের।শিখিয়েছে আহ্নিক গতি বার্ষিক গতির ব্যাপার স্যাপার। অকপটে বলেছেন কোন রথের চাকায় ভর করে সূর্য যাতায়াত করে না,বলেছেন সূর্য পৃথিবীর নিচে কোথাও গিয়ে চোখ বুজে ঘুমায় না। এই হচ্ছে বিজ্ঞান শিক্ষা,এই হচ্ছে বিজ্ঞানমনস্কতার সূচনা। এই কাজটি তিনি করেছিলেন কারণ তিনি বিজ্ঞানমনস্ক ছিলেন,যে বিজ্ঞানমনস্কতার ধার ধারেন না আমাদের ফিজিক্স কেমিস্ট্রি জুলজি বা প্রকৌশলীর শিক্ষকগণ।(এখানে একটা বিষয় বলা অবশ্য কর্তব্য যে,বিদ্যাসাগর সরাসরি ধর্মাচরণের বিরুদ্ধে উচ্চারণ করেছেন এমন নজির পাওয়া যায়নি,কিন্তু প্রথাগত চিন্তার বাইরে গিয়ে নতুন করে সমাজটিকে দেখার শিক্ষাটা তিনি দিয়ে গেছেন ভাল করেই।)
লেখাটা আরো দীর্ঘায়িত হয়ে যাওয়ার আগে যবনিকাপাতের দিকে চলে যাই! লেখার মূল বার্তাটি হচ্ছে,শুধু বিজ্ঞান পড়লেই হবে না,বিজ্ঞানমনস্ক হতে হবে। আর সেটা হওয়ার জন্য বিজ্ঞানের ছাত্র হওয়ার প্রয়োজন নেই। প্রয়োজন হচ্ছে প্রশ্ন করার মানসিকতা,বিদ্রোহ করার বাসনা আর পরিবর্তনের ডাক দেয়ার সাহস! সত্যিকারের যুক্তিবাদিতা আসলে এগুলোর মধ্যেই নিহিত।
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