India and the Two Wings of Pakistan

FOR THE PAST THREE DAYS, I have been overcome with horror watching innumerable social media posts from Bangladesh. Each one of them tells a grim story of citizens turning against other citizens on the strength of either their political convictions or their faith. In the past three days, as the people’s insurrec­tion against Sheikh Hasina and the Awami League government acquired momentum, we saw videos of politi­cal activists being hung upside down and being thrown from the terraces of five-storied buildings for the crime of belonging to the wrong side. We saw images of a protester urinating on a statue of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, described till recently as the ‘Father of the Nation’, prior to it being pulled down—in a manner reminiscent of what happened to the gigantic statues of Saddam Hussein after the fall of Baghdad. We saw frenzied mobs depart from the premises of the prime minister’s house carting electronic items, pieces of furniture and even clothes that had belonged to a lady who had been in residence since 2009.

August has traditionally been a very cruel month for Bengal, on both sides of the international border that was arbitrarily drawn by Sir Cyril Radcliffe, an English barrister entrusted with the near-impossible task of drawing up the boundaries of two sovereign nations. Radcliffe, of course, had never set foot inside the province he was entrusted with carving up into two. It wouldn’t have made a difference even if he had. The process of dividing a province that had perceived itself to be one for centuries was never going to be easy.

Radcliffe’s deadline was mid- August 1947. It set in motion the first round of an exodus that has continued in fits and starts for the past 77 years. It will probably continue till the nightmare project of a complete transfer of population between India and the two wings of Pakistan—grudgingly envisaged by the likes of Sardar Patel and Babasaheb Ambedkar—is completed.

 

On August 14, 1947, the day Pakistan was separated from the two wings of India, the scheme to effect an emotional estrangement of Indians was already in motion. On August 16, 1946, the great city of Calcutta (always pronounced Kolkata by the natives) was gripped by frenzied sectarian killing. It had been dubbed Direct Action Day by the Muslim League led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah and its purpose was twofold. First, to force the hands of the Hindu leaders of Congress who would recoil in horror at the sight of the streets of a great city littered with corpses. Second, to ensure that the eastern wing of Pakistan had control over Calcutta, the erstwhile imperial capital and, arguably, the second city of the British Empire.

The second part of Jinnah’s grand project failed to materialise. Calcutta remained with India and Jinnah had to be satisfied with a ‘moth-eaten Pakistan’. It became even more moth-eaten in 1971 when, courtesy the high-handedness of those who were called the ‘Khan Sena’ from West Pakistan, a new country called Bangladesh was created. Its hero was Sheikh Mujib, a demagogue par excellence, who knew exactly how to work the crowds.

Then came another August. On the night of August 14- 15, 1975, when India was preparing to celebrate an exceptional Independence Day—the first under a state of Emergency—Mujib and his family were killed in cold blood by a section of the army. It was horrible and it was justified by the perpetrators as a desperate bid to save Bangladesh from Bangabandhu’s high-handedness.

It doesn’t matter whether those mid-ranking army officers who were destined to spend the rest of their lives fleeing from justice were right or wrong. What mattered was that for the next 34 years or so, Sheikh Mujib was transformed into a non-person and airbrushed from the consciousness of people. Nearly two generations of Bangladeshis grew up without appreciating his colossal role in moulding the creation of a new country in 1971. The imbalance was partially rectified after Hasina returned to power in 2009. In her 15-year rule, she may have overdone the personality cult around her father, but it must be appreciated that she had a lot of catching up to do. Now, with her overthrow, it is the entire Mujib legacy which is again in danger of being junked. And this time, there is the double danger of the spirit of Bangladesh being completely usurped by the Islamists who very successfully took over the street protests.

This year on August 15, we will both commemorate and celebrate our Independence Day. We will celebrate it in roughly the same way, if not the same intensity, as my grandfather and my father. In India, we have maintained a continuity that our estranged cousins in Pakistan and Bangladesh lack. Is there something in our DNA that makes our sense of freedom and democracy more enduring and, maybe, more civilised? This politically incorrect poser is worth reflecting on.

BangladeshFreedom Issue 2024freedom struggleIndependence DayMujibur RahmanSheikh HasinaSir Cyril Radcliffe