Back when I was smaller, 1971 was a thing of paramount importance to me. This happened through my reading. Recent Bengali children's literature seems to suffer from a severe dearth of subject. The only issue it covers is the war of 1971 and the liberation of Bangladesh. Elaborate details of heroic deeds of young Bengali guerrillas is discussed with insidious facets of massacre, mass killing, assault, rape and violence done by the Pakistan army; this is done without providing any preceding historical references. As if all of this happened out of the blue.Back then, I was too small anyways to doubt or try-to-look-through anything that is printed and bound. So, I hated Pakistan.
Racism was inflicted to the unwitting mind of an adolescent with the ebony tentacles of half-finished-tales and history-in-fragments. History was hidden from me/us. Inaccessible. The politicians did it because they didn't need to rewind any far backward to achieve their goals of attaining popularity and the authors did it because they could not come out of their petty emotions. I cannot blame either much; the former, because I already ceased to expect from them and the latter, because the war had happened during their youth. Their [latter] closest ones had been murdered or raped or both. But they must come out of this. It is about time they give the children a comprehensive detail.
Why should a child live with an animosity towards his neighbor country, only because he chose to read? Who is to blame? "There are things which took place on the night of the March 25th [1971] which must remain permanently in the state of confusion"- Midnight's Children. Who is to blame? The only acclaimed literary giant, who spoke about the unsurpassed, unparalleled and unthinkable wrongdoings of modern political history, with comprehensive specifics of the three preceding decades, is banned in Bangladesh. The west, however, reaches out so far as to honor him with knighthood. Whether they do it out of appreciation for good literature or out of a sense of guilt, I doubt. Who is to blame? The religious fanatics? If so, why them; who made them, I ask.
The west condemns the East (largely Muslims) as religious terrorism. On the 3rd June 1947, Viscount Lord Mountbatten of Burma, the last British Governor-General of India, announced the partitioning of the British Indian Empire into India and Pakistan, under the provisions of the Indian Independence Act 1947. At the stroke of midnight, on 14 August 1947, India became an independent nation. And the partitioning – let's not go into the back-then- prevalent political ideologies – was done on the basis of religious identities of the peoples; the chain reactions that would follow should have not been unanticipated by the great political minds who entered these lands in the name of the "Lord". Now there are grown up men who write books justifying colonization; I doubt neither their motive nor their ethics; I doubt their faculty of logic.
Why should a youth intent upon knowing his history end up with an identity crisis; Who is to blame?
It is, beyond doubt, a tough question to answer whom to blame. The British East India Company ruled over us for two centuries and then left us divided on the basis of our religions, which turned out to be a clever act to sustain political and social chaos in this subcontinent in the long run. We can also mention the politicians of that time who could not understand the plan that their european masters had plotted to eradicate harmony and enhance animosity between them and their subcontinental brothers. We can also mention the writers and movie makers who emotionally speak out loud about the glorious independence war that took place in 1971, but who deliberately forgot, or don't really feel like discussing the prologue of the events that happened in 1971, the prologue which actually had begun much earlier. Though the history of our struggle for independence can practically be stretched upto more than a century back, emotionally we are stuck in 1952, and we seem to have lost track of the events that occured earlier. A genuine identity crisis it is I suppose. The present generation can name Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Mahatma Ghandhi, Muhammad Ali Zinnah, and some others, but it a matter of doubt how many actually know or even heard the names of the people who started to revolt much earlier- Khudiram, Titumir, Master da Surya Sen, Pritilata Waddedar, Deshbandhu C. R. Das? How many knows about Jalianwalabag mass murder? I suppose there won't be significant responses.
ReplyDeleteAn identity crisis, indeed.
Anindya, this is by far the most educated comment I have received on my blogging days so far.Thank you for that.
ReplyDeleteI shall admit that,it is an audacious act for a layman like me,to talk about ID crisis due to post-colonial issues, in and within such a shallow frame.
But the post was spontaneous and provoked by a certain Mr. Rushdie. He did indeed mention a lot of those names,in his book, "Shame". My post came out as reaction to the fact, that even the name Salman Rushdie, has been successfully tabooed in our(Bangladeshi)society.
So far, I have found some non biased books(purbo-poshchim; Ami ebong amra, Prothom Alo - Sunil)on this matter, as in, a comprehensive history. But they are all in Bengali. Rushdie writes in a much, shall I say, recognised language.
I wrote out of a helpless wrath that many wouldn't even read him(Rushdie)only because of the social stigma associated with his name.
Anindya, this is by far the most educated comment I have received in my blogging days.** (Ignore repetition of so far in the first sentence of my last comment) :)
ReplyDeleteMD write about wooster sometime haha
ReplyDelete