§ The NFB Jinnah Debate of 1997 §

On October 5, 1997, I (A.H. Jaffor Ullah) wrote an article ("A Fresh Look at the Pages of History: The Year 1948.  Summer of Discontent.") in the aftermath of M.A. Jinnah’s 49th death anniversary.  Dhaka’s newspapers reported that Pakistan High Commissioner’s Office in Dhaka held a Milad and discussion session on that day in which many Bangladeshis had participated in the program.  I wrote my article in protest of such activity in Dhaka.  After the publication of the piece in News From Bangladesh (NFB) quite a few readers posted their rejoinders.  Prominent among them were rejoinders from Prof. Taj I. Hashmi.  Later, Prof. Rashiduzzaman of Rowan College, NJ, USA also wrote an article praising Mr. Jinnah.  This ensued a vigorous debate in NFB, which was called the Jinnah Debate.  In this page, I include the transcript of the Jinnah Debate.

This debate also gave birth to another debate in December 1997, which was called "The Intellectual Collaborator Debate."  That debate lasted almost six months, whose transcripts could be found elsewhere in this Web Site.

Since the Jinnah Debate and Intellectual Collaborator Debate had the common origin, I decided to put the transcripts of both the debates in this Web Site.

Sincerely,

A.H. Jaffor Ullah
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA


News From Bangladesh
September 22, 1997

Disturbing Development in Dhaka
A.H. Jaffor Ullah
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

As much as I try these days to restrict my writings to apolitical subject matter for Amitech, I become frustrated by the outrageous display of silly behavior of our politicians from both sides of the aisle in Sonar Bangla.   One of these behaviors is “Paki-loving” attitude of certain Bangladeshi politicians.  My conscious tells me to protest in strong languages the recent display of “Paki-Philia” by certain top leaders of Bangladesh’s main opposition party, the BNP.

Sometimes I wonder what has gone wrong with these “Indo-Phobic” leaders!  Are they losing their mind to make a statement like –“We have no objections if anybody calls us Razakar.

I never thought that I will live to hear such an outrageous acclamation from some leaders of Bangladesh’s main opposition party.   I must say that the sacrifice of over 3 million Bengalis twenty-six years ago means nothing to these leaders who would like to be called (lovingly) – Razakars.  In the context of our liberation war, Razakars means Paki-lovers or Paki-Philes.

Before I write any further, let me describe what prompted me to write this article.  Dhaka’s Bangla daily “Janakantha” reported on September 12 that on September 11, Abdul Hai Shikder, a senior BNP leader, gave a speech before Bangladesh-Pakistan Friendship Association to mark the 49th death anniversary of Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah.  In that speech, he mentioned that a strong Pakistan was needed to counter the “eternal enemy” India.  The paper quoted Shikder saying, “Our heritage did not divide.”  He further stated, “A strong Pakistan (and) Afghanistan are needed for Bangladesh as India is our eternal enemy.”

It is very unfortunate that rather then condemning Pakistan to allow General Niazi, General Tikka Khan, Rao Farman Ali, and their cohorts to launch a campaign of full-scale genocide in 1971, these self-proclaimed Paki-Philes are uttering the bad R-word as if it is a badge of honor.  Can any self-respecting Bangladeshi trust these politicians?  It seems as if in their wildest dream they would like to reunite Bangladesh with Pakistan.  That is the reason till this day they have the guts to observe the death anniversary of Jinnah, the architect of Urdu-domination of the then East Pakistan, in Bangladesh.

To add insult to the injury, Mrs. Zia, the leader of BNP, visited Pakistan in late August (1997) on her way to attend a conference of the expatriate Bangladeshis in Los Angeles.  I wonder what she discussed with the prime minister of Pakistan?  Does Bangladesh have anything to discuss with the leader of a country that is yet to apologize publicly for the crime committed by her military in the then East Pakistan?  If Mrs. Zia has an ounce of Bangla blood in her body, she would think twice before visiting any Pakistani leader.  Am I being a naïve thinking that she dearly loves our Sonar Bangla?  You got to be kidding!!!

After returning from her holy pilgrimage to Islamabad, has she advised her party leaders to openly admit that she and her party leaders are bona fide Paki-lovers!  From the recent “Janakantha” report it seems that way.  Otherwise, how in the world her party’s information and research secretary, Ehsanul Kabir, could have said -- “We have no objections if anybody calls us Razakar.”

Well, Mr. Ehsanul Kabir, wear your badge of honor “Razakar” all the time and see how far can you go with that slimy label!  I am glad to see that your party leaders are finally revealing their real demeanor.  With the exception of a few, most self-respecting Bangladeshis have not forgotten the "royal treatment" they have received from Pakistani army  in the dark days of 1971.  Do the BNP leaders suffer from amnesia or what?


News From Bangladesh
October 5, 1997

A Fresh Look at the Pages of History
Summer of Discontent: The Year 1948
A.H. Jaffor Ullah
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

I’m a bit amused to know that Muhammad Ali Jinnah fervor is alive till this day in Bangladesh!  While Mr. Jinnah died 49 long-years ago, his legacy and memory still linger in the minds of some Bangladeshis.

As India was celebrating her 50th anniversary as an independent nation, scores of articles were written in the western press about our sub-continent.  This flirtation between our history and the occidental pundits has been going on from the beginning of August this year.  Most major newspapers in the US joined the bandwagon of praising Gandhi, Nehru and other architects of the "Quit India" movement.  It comes as a no surprise that M.A. Jinnah, Liaquat Ali Khan and the other architects of Pakistan did not get their "fair" share of praise from the occidental Indophiles.  Are you surprised at this outcome?

Incidentally, Mr. Jinnah and his cohorts did not go to jail for a single day, whereas, scores of Congress Party members along with its leadership willingly served their jail terms.   We Bangladeshis can ignore this facet of history and may pretend that quite a bit of blood was spilled by the Muslim Leaguers to achieve our "Praner" Pakistan.  Historians pay close attention to the facts, while they review the pages of the history.  Unfortunately, we were spoon-fed not the real history but the "folk lore" of Quaid-e- Azam (The Chief Leader) M. A, Jinnah.  You may ask, "How do you know this?"

Well, I grew up in East Pakistan in the fifties and sixties.  During this period we were given history books in the secondary schools to devour its content.  Those text books were custom-made (written) to fit the mold.  The "mold" being Jinnah was the greatest leader to be born in India.  He was the emancipator for Muslims of our subcontinent.  We were told that Mr. Jinnah was our Fadr-e-Millat or ‘Father of the Nation.’  After his demise in 1948 Jinnah’s popularity skyrocketed and he became almost a cult figure in Pakistan.  His graveyard was transformed into a "Majar."  Now I hear that Jinnah’s graveyard is a national monument in Karachi.

The authorities in Pakistan had enough sense not to put a halo next to his head in the picture.  But historians (both Bengali and Urdu) of the land  tried their level best to make him a messianic figure.  [I see a similar trend in the present day Bangladesh to make Sheik Mujib another "Jinnah-like" figure.  I sincerely hope that Sheik Mujib’s graveyard will not be transformed into a ‘Majar’ and then in Jinnahesque fashion turn the ‘Majar’ into a national monument.]

Being the school children we were required to read concocted biography of ‘Quaid-e-Azam.’  It was a deliberate attempt on the part of the Muslim League-led government to brain wash the young minds.  We read everything good about him.  No mention was made, of course, about his personal habit of drinking liquors and his fondness for western style clothes and values.  Mr. Jinnah was famous for his "Jinnah Cap."  At least that is what we were told by the propaganda machine of Pakistan.  Later, reading books written by journalist of that bygone era, I learned that his famous ‘Sherwani’ and "Jinnah cap" was hurriedly custom made in Bombay.  And a transformed Mr. Jinnah was flown to Karachi just in time for the announcement of birth of the nation by the Viceroy Lord Mountbatten.

Without his usual garb of western cut suit and tie, Mr. Jinnah looked absolutely magnificent in his newly designed attire.  Scores of camera flashed on midnight August 14 in the stage and a "new" Jinnah was born whose garb had the look of traditional Muslim people of Indian subcontinent.   In a true sense Mr. Jinnah was packaged to look like the leader of Muslim Pakistan.  Surprisingly, the whole nation watched this transformation without raising their voice or eye-brow.

Sometime in the summer month in early 1948, Mr. Jinnah visited Dhaka for the first time in his life.  As usual, Mr. Jinnah came to Dhaka wearing his new clothes.  I was told later by neighborhood kids who were quite older than me that a large crowd descended in old airport in Tejgaon to greet Quaid-e-Azam or Fadr-e-Millat.  According to my school teacher in Tejgaon, Mr. Jinnah gave two public lectures while he was in Dhaka.  One lecture was delivered at the Ramna Gymkhana Club Maidan (Later Ramna Race Course Maidan or Ramna'r Mat) and the other one was given in the Curzon Hall of Dhaka University.  As far as the history goes, the second meeting did not go well at all.  In this meeting, among other things, Mr. Jinnah proclaimed,  "Urdu and Urdu shall be the national language of Pakistan."   To his horror Mr. Jinnah heard some noise of disenchantment at the very back of the hall.  It was not a loud protest by any stretch of imagination, but it was loud enough to be recognized.  Later in the mid-fifties (when I was about 7 years old) we were told by our elders that Mr. Jinnah was startled by the mild protest of the Dhaka University students.  Nevertheless, he finished his lecture (some say he cut his lecture short after the incidence).

As far as I am concerned, this "incidence" at the Curzon Hall in the summer days of 1948 was the seminal event of the time.

How could you trust the Urdu speaking politicians of Pakistan? This question was reverberating  in the minds of  Bengali intellectuals throughout East Pakistan.  Suffice it to say that the "seed" of distrust was transplanted in the minds of East Pakistanis at the time.

In some sense, one may say that it (the protest) was the unofficial declaration of the independence of Bangladesh.   The odd part is that the declaration was made well ahead of its time -- 23 years earlier!  The clarion call for independence was made in presence of none other than the Fadr-e-Millat himself by some unidentified students of Dhaka University..

Truth seems to be stranger than fiction.  Isn’t it?


Professor Taj I. Hashmi wrote a rejoinder on October 12, 1997 in response to Dr. Jaffor Ullah's article "Summer of Discontent: The Year 1948 (NFB, Oct 5, 1997), which is unavailable at this time.  We will post it here when it is available.


News From Bangladesh
October 14, 1997

A Fresh Look at the Pages of History:  M.A. Jinnah’s Legacy
A.H. Jaffor Ullah
New Orleans, Louisiana,  USA

Amitech’s editor published my work entitled “A Fresh Look at the Pages of History: The year 1948.  Summer of Discontent” (October 5, 1997) rather belatedly.  Since I was barely few months in 1948, I had to rely on books, periodicals and firsthand observers for my resources to compose the piece.  Dr. Taj Hashmi wrote a rejoinder to my article and was published in today’s (October 12, 1997) “Feature Section” of News from Bangladesh.   I always welcome sound criticism and above all, pointing of factual errors.  Dr. Hashmi’s effort to straighten some of the assertion in my article is laudable.  After all, history should always be free from personal biases and prejudices.  Facts should be put forward irrespective of whether one likes it or not.

I put forward four items in my article “Summer of Discontent.”  The first item was the fact that Mr. Jinnah and his cohorts (Muslim Leaguers) never served any time when the jails all over British India was teeming with “Swadeshis” like M.K. Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, A.K. Azad and the likes of them.  I didn’t hear any disenchantment over my this assertion.

The second item I discussed was “Re-packaging of Mr. Jinnah” prior to his becoming the first Governor General of Muslim Pakistan.  In this regard I mentioned that a tailor in Bombay custom made a Sherwani for Mr. Jinnah and an appropriate cap was also obtained to fit his new attire.  Dr. Taj Hashmi pointed out in his “Rejoinder” to my article (October 12, News from Bangladesh) that my findings were inaccurate.  He further stated that Mr. Jinnah was seen Sherwani clad in photographs as early as 1937.  Well, I looked into a series of photographic plates in the book “Freedom at Midnight” written by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre (1975, Simon and Schuster, New York).  In plate 35 a clear black and white picture depicts Mr. Jinnah wearing a western-cut suit and tie attending a crucial meeting with Congress leader Nehru and Viceroy Lord Louis Mountbatten.   The picture was taken barely 72 days before the independence of Pakistan!  On June 3, 1947, the historic meeting was also attended by Jinnah’s lieutenant Liaquat Ali Khan wearing a suit and tie; conversely, Abdur Rob Nishtar a frontier politician and other Congressi leaders were all wearing regional clothes.  I would very much like to know if Mr. Jinnah really gave up his western attire in 1937 as stated by Dr. Taj Hashmi.

I surmise it to be highly appropriate to quote Collins and Lapierre concerning Mr. Jinnah’s change of attire at the time he was getting ready to be flown to Karachi from New Delhi sometime in the second week of August 1947.  On page 232 of their book “Freedom at Midnight” the authors state:

    “The only thing that remained of the perfect English gentleman was the monocle still clamped imperiously in his right eye.  Gone were the immaculate linen suits and two-tone shoes.  Muhammad Ali Jinnah was flying home to Karachi in clothes he had rarely worn since leaving the port city half a century before to study the law in London – a tight-fitting, knee-length Sherwani, long coat, ankle-hugging churidars, trousers, and slippers.

The third point of contention is that I wrote Mr. Jinnah’s visit to Dhaka in the summer of 1948 was the maiden voyage by the Muslim League leader.  Dr. Taj Hashmi wrote that Mr. Jinnah visited East Bengal several times prior to the partition.  He also mentioned some anecdotal reference to such visitations by Mr. Jinnah.  By reading books and other reference materials I had the impression that Mr. Jinnah never set his foot in East Bengal.  Mr. Jinnah’s able Bengali lieutenant, Khwaja Nazimuddin, crisscrossed rural East Bengal with other Muslim League leaders to promote the “Two-nation theory” of the Muslim League.  If any Amitech’s readers can find information about Mr. Jinnah visiting Dhaka, let alone other hinterland of East Bengal, prior to 1948, please let me know.  The mere presence of Jinnah Park or Monument in rural towns does not qualify them as a proof of visit by the charismatic Muslim leader.  For the sake of reference, though, I would like to quote a paragraph from “Freedom at Midnight” which makes a point about Mr. Jinnah not setting his feet in East Bengal.  On page 279 the authors write:

For the other great dominion born on the subcontinent, August 15 was a particularly auspicious day.  It fell on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan.  The festivities were almost as much a celebration of the state’s founder as they were the state itself.  Jinnah’s photo and name were everywhere – in windows, bazaars, stores, on enormous triumphal arches spanning city streets.  The Pakistan Times even proclaimed that, through the voice of their caretakers, the camels, monkeys, and tigers of the Lahore zoo joined in sending their wishes to the Quaide-e-Azam and trumpeting “Pakistan Zindabad.”  There may have been no flags of the new state (of Pakistan) in Dacca, capital of its eastern wing, but there were pictures everywhere of the leader (Mr. Jinnah) who had never visited its soil.

The fourth point that I discussed deals with the “incidence” in Curzon Hall at Dhaka University.  I took the liberty of calling the “incidence” as our first vocal affirmation to self-governance.  After all, Bangladesh movement started in earnest with the imposition of Urdu as the national language of Pakistan as early as 1948.  In 1952, for defiance we shed some blood.  Language Martyr day was proclaimed throughout East Pakistan.  In the subsequent years 21 February was celebrated with fervor never seen before.  The election results of 1970 affirmed the notion that Two-nation theory of Mr. Jinnah was a defunct concept.  The Bengalis were opting for a Three-nation theory.   The “incidence” at the Curzon Hall in 1948 should be probed more.  There lies the “seed” of our deep rooted discontentment.

Parenthetically, Dr. Taj Hashmi wrote that Bengali leaders at the time had favorable impression of Mr. Jinnah.  I think it is a fair statement.  Outwardly, everyone seemed to have likened Mr. Jinnah in the middle forty’s.  But some Bengali leaders like Hussein Suhrawardy,  Fazlul Haq and Maulana Bhasani would stay away from Muslim Leaguers for reasons of their own.  At one time, Mr. Suhrawardy was a disciple of Netaji Shubhash Bose.  He ran and won the election of Mayor of Calcutta under the banner of Forward Block (Netaji’s party).  In a sense the Awami League had its root to Shubhash Bose’s Forward Block, the most progressive political party of the bygone days.

Dr. Taj Hashmi also mentioned that selection of Ms. Fatima Jinnah to run head-to-head against President Ayub Khan in 1964 should be viewed as a tacit approval for liking Pakistan’s founding father, Mr. Jinnah.   Well, the truth to the matter is that the opposition parties in Pakistan those days were not unified at all.  The united front (or whatever they called themselves) could not pick any candidate favored by all.  They approached Ms. Fatima Jinnah to run against powerful Ayub Khan.  Ms. Fatima Jinnah never liked the army general.  For Ayub Khan divided the Muslim League into two factions; one called Muslim League (Convention) favoring the military general and the “Basic Democracy,” and the other was simply known as Muslim League which broken ranks to favor full democracy like other political parties.  Thus, Ms. Fatima Jinnah was a compromised candidate of the opposition.  As we all know, she was defeated easily by the powerful General.

Were our fathers or grandfathers gullible enough to swallow the sugar-coated pill of Two-nation theory put forward by Muslim League?  Quite frankly, I do not know the answer.  In my article, I never said or hinted that our elders were fooled by the Muslim politicians from the northwestern provinces of India.  We all agree, though, that Pakistan was imposed on us by the north Indian Muslim leaders.  Why the union didn’t work?  Who are to be blamed for the break-up?  May be someone will touch on these issues.  I am a firm believer of learning from the pages of history.


October 14, 1997

A letter (e-mail) from Prof. Taj I Hashmi to Mr. Shafi Khan
Dear Mr. Khan:

Many thanks indeed for your rejoinder. You are absolutely correct that liking or disliking an individual's writings ( or an individual ) is subjective and one should not argue about it.  So, you are at full liberty to dislike Dr. Jaffor Ullah's writings as I should enjoy the liberty to appreciate many of his articles.

I think that there is a slight gap between yours and mine understanding of Jinnah and his Two-Nation Theory.  I have not even hinted at in my piece that the theory has been beneficial to all the Muslims of the subcontinent.  Nevertheless, the facts remain that the theory at least benefitted the Muslims of Pakistan and Bangladesh, because had there been no such theory there would not have been any Pakistan and eventually, no Bangladesh.  So, if the creation of Bangladesh has benefitted anyone in the country (which I believe, has benefitted many) then the Two-Nation Theory was not that bad after all.  However, it should be pointed out that Jinnah was not the creator of that theory nor was he the first Muslim leader to pronounce it in public.  He was rather the most articulate spokesman of Indian Muslims and to paraphrase Ayesha Jalal (Prof of History,Columbia University), he was the "Sole Spokesman".

I cannot agree with you that Jinnah was hypocritical as in his famous speech, made at the Constituent Assembly in Karachi on 11 August,1947, he talked about equality of Hindus and Muslims in the State of Pakistan ("Hindus will cease to be Hindus and Muslims will be cease to be Muslims...in the political sense of the terms,"etc. in Pakistan),and then propounded his Two-Nation Theory.  Historically this assertion of yours is inaccurate, because Jinnah's Two-Nation Theory predates his Karachi speech of 1947 at least by 7 years.

Recently lots of books,based on primary reseach, have come out and they show how neither Jinnah nor the Muslims were responsible for the partition of India.  Joya Chatterjee in her book,Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932-1947 (Cambridge University Press, 1994) is one of such books which has shown how Hindu communalists, even a man like Bengali novelist Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, regarded Indian Muslims as aliens suggesting their expulsion from India as the "final solution".  They were not much different from the communal and fascist  leaders and cadres of Indian BJP/RSS or Hitler's Nazi Party.  Another Ph.D thesis from the Cambridge University by an Indian scholar, Medha Kudaisiya (an Indian Hindu scholar), in 1994 has proven with documents how many big Hindu industrialists like Birla and Dalmiya were instrumental in dividing the subcontinent in the 1940s.  They wanted to get rid of East Bengal and what is now Pakistan for economic reasons.  This thesis is going to be published by the Oxford University next year.  All these new works are re-evaluating Jinnah and he is being portrayed as the hero not the villain as he appears to be in Attenborough's fictitious movie,Gandhi and scores of other writings..

What Jinnah's successors (?) like Bhutto and Yahya Khan did to us is altogether a different thing and needs different analyses.  Are you aware of the facts that Jinnah even agreed to the United Bengal move taken by Abul Hashim, Sarat Bose, Suhrawardy and Kiran Shankar Ray on the eve of the Partition in 1947?  Please see Abul Mansur Ahmed's ( one of the founders of the Awami League) book, Amar Dekha Rajnitir Panchash Bachhar.

Now whether a person should be called a saint or not is again, a matter of opinion.

With kind regards and warm wishes,

Taj I Hashmi


News From Bangladesh
October 15, 1997

A Fresh Look at the Pages of History: M.A. Jinnah’s Legacy
(A Rejoinder)
By Taj I Hashmi

It was a bit amusing and surprising to find out the reproduction of Larry Collins's and Dominique Lapierre's obnoxious, vulgar, obscurantist and ahistorical work, Freedom at Midnight, in Dr. Jaffor Ullah's commentary on M.A. Jinnah (Oct 14), written as a rebuttal to my rejoinder to his earlier piece on Jinnah.  I wrote the earlier rejoinder assuming that Dr. Jaffor Ullah had misinformed many readers simply out of his innocence or ignorance about the subject.  After going through his latest piece on our "history" I simply shudder with horror to find out that he has taken "Freedom at Midnight" as a serious academic exercise in history.  To put it mildly, Freedom at Midnight is nothing but "printed toilet paper"-- one who prefers printed ones to the plain ones (and has the money to waste) may find it useful.

Now to turn to Dr. Jaffor Ullah's assertion that since Jinnah and "his cohorts" did not go to jail during the colonial period unlike Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, and Azad, they must not be exalted to high position by anybody (I think, this is what he implies).  If spending some time in a British prison is the main credential of a politician, then not only Jinnah but Fazlul Haq, Suhrawardy and many other Bengali leaders should be simply dumped in the rubbish bin of history.  I would like to point out that since the Indian subcontinent did not attain independence through violent means, unlike Indonesia, Vietnam and Algeria, serving or not serving a prison term or two during the British period by our politicians did not make any difference to the history of the struggle.  The subcontinent did not become independent because of lack of space in the prisons.

Now to turn to Dr. Jaffor Ullah's assertion, based on that dirty and overused "printed toilet paper,” manufactured by Collins and Lapierre Company, I would simply request him to read some history books (leaving his main source in the Men's room).  Here I would like to admit one of my omissions.  In my rejoinder I asserted that Jinnah started wearing the Sherwani and cap from 1937 onward.  In fact, he started wearing Sherwani and cap as the President of the All-India Muslim League in the 1920s.  I just "re-discovered" another photo of Jinnah with his sister, wearing Sherwani and cap, taken in the late 1920s and reproduced in K.H. Khurshid (Jinnah's Private Secretary and later President of Azad Kashmir), Memories of Jinnah, University Press Ltd, Dhaka, 1990 (between pp.44 and 45).  Please verify it.  In this picture both Jinnah and her sister look much younger than what they looked in the 1940s.  The same book (between pp.68 and 69) has another such photo, Jinnah in Sherwani and cap, with Qazi Isa, taken at Quetta in 1943.  Many other books contain such photos of Jinnah in the 1930s and 1940s as well.

Again, another trivia-- did Jinnah visit East Bengal before 1948?  Yes, most definitely yes.  If you don't have access to history books, ask some one who is in his eighties and lives in Dhaka, Faridpur, Rajshahi, Sirajganj, Natore, Mymensingh or Chittagong.  You will get the answer.

It is, again, not correct that Bangladesh movement started in 1948 after Jinnah's ill-advised and irresponsible comment on Urdu as the state language had been made in Curzon Hall.  See Badruddin Umar's seminal work on Bhasha Andolone to get the real picture.  By the way, are you aware of the fact that Malaya (later called Bahasa Indonesia) was a minority language, spoken mainly in Sumatra (and Malaya), was adopted as Indonesia's founding fathers, Sukarno and Hatta for various reasons?  Fact is always stranger than fiction and history is sometimes very bitter than sweet, dreamy folk-tales and gossip.

Suhrawardy was a "disciple" of Subhas Bose.  So what?

Subhas Bose and his brother Sarat Bose also admired Jinnah.  Do you know that Jinnah even agreed to the formation of Greater Bengal in 1947?  (See Abul Mansur Ahmed's Rajnitir Panchash Bachhar).  Abul Mansur Ahmed was one of the founders of Awami League.  Suhrawardy had always been a follower of Jinnah.  What happened to Suhrawardy after 1947 was another story.  Nazimuddin and Liaquat Ali did not like him.  Most definitely Fatima Jinnah was chosen as the presidential candidate because she was revered both in East and West Pakistan.

Pakistan was not imposed on Bengali Muslims by northwest Indian Muslims.  Muslim masses wanted Pakistan.  I wrote my Ph.D thesis on the subject.  Please see my book, "Pakistan as a Peasant Utopia" (Westview Press, Boulder, San Francisco, Oxford, 1992) or Peasant Utopia (UPL, Dhaka, 1995).  For further information on our history and legacies of Jinnah, Fazlul Haq, Suhrawardy, and others one should see Stanley Wolpert, Jinnah, Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman, Akbar S. Ahmad, Jinnah, MAH Ispahani, Qaid-i-Azam Jinnah as I Knew Him, Shaista Ikramullah, From Purdah to Parliament etc.

Last but not least, I would request Dr. Jaffor Ullah (whose other writings on Bangladesh politics, corruption in our society etc. are very interesting), not to masquerade as a historian.  It is a dangerous game as one could mislead thousands of Amitech's newsreaders.


News From Bangladesh
October 26, 1997

Readers’ Opinion

Jinnah: Power Hungry, Corrupt And Hypocritical?
Ahmed Ziauddin
Brussels, Belgium.
Zia@kubrussel.ac.be

In response to Dr. Jaffor Ullah's feature "A flesh look at the pages of history" in Amitech's 5 October, 1997 edition, Dr. Taj Hashmi has come up with a rejoinder (Amitech 12 October, 1997), to point out some innocent errors, to use his words, in Dr. Ullah's piece.  Dr. Ullah already has given his reply (Amitech 14 October, 1997).

While pointing out factual errors, Dr. Hashmi also made some additional remarks about Jinnah.  He wrote, "Jinnah was not a power hungry, corrupt and hypocritical leader. His record is cleaner than that of Gandhi and in comparison to Nehru and some other Congress leaders, he was simply a saint."  I do not know what Dr. Hashmi had in mind while writing that Jinnah was not corrupt and hypocritical, because corruption and hypocrisy has different meaning to different people.  But whether Jinnah was "power hungry" or not has numerous historical records.

Without going into the details of why Jinnah joined the Muslim League’s bandwagon at the time when he did etc., I like to draw Dr. Hashmi's attention to what Jinnah did after Pakistan's independence and request his learned opinion.

When the time came, Jinnah opted to become the Governor General of Pakistan instead of Prime Minister because, under the Constitution, Governor General could give instructions to the Prime Minister.  Jinnah, after becoming Governor General, not only appointed the Prime Minister but himself chose and appointed all the members of the Cabinet.

He was the President of Muslim League, and did not relinquish party presidentship even after becoming the Governor General.  Thus, Jinnah accumulated all power in him as the leader of the party, head of the administration and the State, a virtual dictator.

He even assumed authority to take care of the government's Kashmir and Frontier Departments.

As a Governor General, he caused Legislative Assembly to endorse these additional powers.  He even presided over Cabinet meetings, unprecedented in parliamentary democracy.  He often, without the knowledge of the Prime Minister, instructed the Provincial Governors, Ministers and Departmental Secretaries.  Parliamentary norms were not applicable to Jinnah.

In fact, the way Jinnah ran the administration, though briefly, he established the precedent to concentrate all powers in one hand and hold a number of positions by a single person, the tendency that gave birth to military autocracy in Pakistan.
 


News From Bangladesh
October 28, 1997

Readers’ Opinion

Allegations in "Facts are Sacred" by' Khan Abdul Wali Khan
N. Datta
ndatta@aol.com

Allow me to commend Dr. A.H. Jaffor Ullah for a very interesting article (see publication of 5th October). Hashmi's rejoinder on 12th October and Dr. Ullah's reply on 14th October were just as interesting.

Leadership implies power as well as responsibility. You cannot be a leader if you do not acquire power.  So, it is not a crime for Jinnah to want to come into power.  But it is the sense of responsibility in exercising the power that separates a good leader from a bad leader.  Hitler had power but he lacked all sense of responsibility.

Jinnah was in many senses a very modem man.  He had once aspired to be a Shakespearean actor.  Like Nehru, he was probably an agnostic, at least in his early life.  By all accounts, he had a sharp legal mind (though he lacked the world vision that Nehru had).  But Jinnah may not have been always as principled as is being made out by Hashmi.  Dr. A.H. Jaffor Ullah, for example, could have quoted from "Facts are Sacred" by Khan Abdul Wali Khan (son of Frontier Gandhi) to show how Jinnah had been secretly communicating with Lord Linlithgow, the Viceroy, and Lord Zetland, the secretary of state for India, over the 1930s to come to an understanding that would be mutually beneficial for Jinnah and the British rulers against their common enemy.  I have not read the book but I have read reviews of it.

Dr. Ullah has made a very interesting point.  Leaders like Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad repeatedly spent time in British jails.  Messrs. Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan did not.

Khan Abdul Wall Khan's "Facts are Sacred" tells us why.

Wall Khan's source is declassified documents from India Office Library in London.  The tenure of secrecy for most such documents is 50 years.  Jinnah's letters to the Viceroy and the Secretary of State for India were written in the 1930s and were declassified over the 1980s.  Right now, the 1947 documents are in the Process of getting declassified.

Wall Khan has been criticised in Pakistan for the book.  But no one, not even the government, has dared to sue him for libel or to prosecute him for blasphemy.  This gives credence to his book.  After all, Pakistan is a nation where an Ahmadiya may be sent to jail merely for calling himself a Muslim and his place of worship can be demolished if he calls it a masjid, all in accordance with the laws of the land!!  Wall Khan would have been in very deep trouble if it could be shown that his book is not factual.

"Divide and Rule" is a time-honoured tradition.  All imperial powers resort to it.  The British were no exception.  Sometimes it was overt.  During the Round Table Conference, for example, die-hard imperialists always claimed, for obvious reasons, that Gandhi did not represent the India of the Princes, the Muslims, the "untouchables", the Sikhs and so on.  Churchill always argued that the British were needed in India to ensure justice and to keep peace among warring factions split by religion, caste, language etc.

But many a British scheming was covert.  50 Years is the tenure of secrecy of some of the documents that are being declassified by the India Office Library in London.  So, right now, it is in the process of declassifying the 1947 documents.  But over the years, we have seen many a declassified document that makes no bones of the British effort to create a communal divide.  Wali Khan's allegations are based on these declassified documents from the India Office Library in London.  "Facts are Sacred" quotes copiously from these documents.


News From Bangladesh

October 26, 1997
Readers’ Opinion

Joining the Jinnah Debate
Jamal Hasan
jhasan@acc.fau.edu

The recent debate between Dr. Jaffor Ullah and Mr. Hashmi drew my attention.

Mr. Hashmi revealed his ignorance when he termed Jinnah a saint.  During the tumultuous days of QUIT INDIA movement, Jinnah’s secret liaison with the British rulers had exposed enough of his so-called saintliness.

The largely illiterate Muslim peasants, who constituted the majority in East Bengal, definitely had grievances against the discriminatory treatment from Brahmins and Hindu Zamindars.  A.K. Fazlul Huq realized that and became the champion of their cause.  He turned into a strong force in the Pakistan movement.  But his idea of Pakistan was nothing like the Muslim mercantile class backed idea of Jinnah.  History showed how quickly Sher-e Bangla became disenchanted with the outcome alter 1947.

Hashmi wanted to prove Jinnah's innocence in the language controversy when he asserted that Jinnah did not speak Urdu.  In fact, it does not matter what his mother tongue was.  He represented an influential coterie of Urdu lovers in Pakistan, which is still in power in that country.

Moreover, Jinnah's open support for a language, which had no relevance to the people of an important constituency, exposed his insensitivity to the feeling of East Bengalis.  It did not bring him any nearer to the title of sainthood.

Of course, we may look back to the different phases of history and hypothesize that if Jinnah were alive, he would have been more humane than any Pakistani general would because he would have been the most liberal of the lot.  But who knows that if he could have survived the aftermath of the ongoing palace intrigues that was part and parcel of the newly emerged country of Pakistan.


News From Bangladesh
October 28, 2000

A Fresh Look at the Pages of History: The Two Inspiring Leaders
A.H. Jaffor Ullah
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

The people of Indian subcontinent should be thankful to the western state of Gujarat.  The state can lay its claim to be the ancestral home of both M.K. Gandhi and M.A. Jinnah, the two charismatic leaders of this century.  While Gandhi was born in 1869 at Porbandar under Kathiawar district, Jinnah was born seven years later in Karachi, as written in most reference books.  However, I have seen in one older reference book citing Bombay as his birthplace (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1955, Volume 13, page 69).  His family originated from a Gujarati Khoja stock.  Khoja’s are Muslim Gujaratis belonging to ‘Bania’ class and are mostly from Kathiawar peninsula.  [A retired scientist at my research center who was a teenager during the partition and who grew up as a boy in Surat district of Gujarat confirmed me about Jinnah’s Gujarati origin.   I also found several references for Jinnah being born in a Khoja family.]   So, Jinnah aficionados should take a kind note of this information and not portray him as a Sindhi origin or a bona fide Kur-wa-chi-walla.  Jinnah’s father, however, ran a business in Karachi where young Jinnah lived in his formative years.

Like Gandhi, Jinnah may have been a tri-lingual person.  While Gandhi spoke Kathiawar dialect of Gujarati in home, Hindi in public places and English in courts and offices, Jinnah similarly spoke perhaps some dialect of Gujarati that Khoja people use in home for their day-to-day lives, Urdu in schools and English in courts and official businesses.  Both of these leaders were exceedingly intelligent person and had an extremely focused mind.  In my judgment all the similarities end here.

Gandhi and Jinnah were very different persons.  Their upbringings were different too.  One grew up in the semi-rural areas of Kathiawar, while the other was a city dweller.  One come from a devout Hindu family. Whereas, the other came from a very liberal Muslim stock.  Historians specializing in Jinnah never spoke of any religious influence on him or his family.  To understand Jinnah we have to know Khoja and their origin.  Khojas are a minority sect of Indian Muslim believed to be converted to the Islamic faith in western India in 14th century by the Persian Pir Sadr Ud Din.  Some of them became members of Nizari Ismaili sect of the Shiah.  These converts are also called Aga Khanis.  The city of Kur-wa-chi (English Karachi) in Sindh had always been home to many Aga Khanis.  It is quite possible that Jinnah’s family belonged to Aga Khani sect.  If any reader can dig up references favoring Jinnah being a Sunni Muslim, please let us all know that.  Throughout history Khojas especially Aga Khanis are known to be very open and secular people.  We will see some reflection of that in Jinnah’s life.  Moreover, because of their adherence to non-orthodox faith they have done quite well in the field of trades and businesses.  Some Aga Khans (leader of Nizari Ismailis) themselves have married European women in this century.  Jinnah himself married a non-Muslim girl, half his age, from Parsee (Zoroastrian) faith.  Had he been an orthodox Muslim marrying a  ‘Kafir’ girl would be out of question.  Thus, to Judge Jinnah we simply have to look into his personal life.  In contrast, Gandhi married a Hindu girl at an early age.  Gandhi remained loyal to his wife through thick and thin.  Jinnah was not all that lucky in his conjugal life.  His wife ran away from him for whatever reasons; never to be reunited Jinnah led a widower life after his estranged wife died of morphine overdose.  These are not my words.  Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre wrote in detail in their book "Freedom at Midnight."

M.K. Gandhi had one goal when he returned from South Africa.  That is after joining the Congress party in 1914 he worked for "Swaraj" or self rule.  All his attention was focused to rid India of British.  M.A. Jinnah joined Congress Party in 1906 to work side by side with other leaders of the party.  In 1913 he joined the Muslim League when the League extended its platform to include "Swaraj."  For a long time Jinnah advocated Hindu-Muslim unity in the cause of Indian nationalism.  He felt the necessity of constitutional safeguards to give a sense of security to the minority.  After becoming the president of Muslim League in 1916 which he never relinquished till his demise in 1948, he proposed a scheme of constitutional reform.  The famous "Lucknow Pact," which provided for separate Muslim electorates and weighted representation for Muslim minorities, is essentially an extension of Jinnah’s original scheme.

It is an enigma as to why Jinnah strongly disapproved Gandhi’s "Ashohojog Andolon" (1919-22) even though he and the League conceptually agreed to "Swaraj" only six years ago.  Why then this sudden change of heart?  It is one thing to criticize Congress Party for taking the nation to the path of  "Non-Cooperation Movement," but it’s an extreme case, I surmise,  for Jinnah and the League to break entente with Hindu dominated Congress Party.

The other action of Jinnah that puzzles me is his decision to withdraw from politics in 1932.  He just returned from the first Round Table Conference (autumn of 1931).  He stayed in London for two long years and then resumed his leadership in 1934.  During this time he came in contact with Rahmat Ali, a Cambridge graduate student.  It is an irony that Jinnah had to take a hiatus from politics only to meet the man who had a vision for Muslim India.  Rahmat Ali tried to persuade Jinnah to fight for a separate homeland for Indian Muslims.  He coined the term Pakistan first time ever.  Rahmat Ali’s Pakistan did not include Bengal where Muslims were the majority.  You see, there is no letter "B" in Pakistan.  Besides, the Muslim Leaders of  Northwest India never paid much attention to Bengal.  By 1930s they all but forgot an obscure fact about their own party, the Muslim League.  Dhaka’s Nawab Salimullah had called a meeting in his house in 1906 to organize a "Political Association  ... to protect and advance the political rights and interests of Mussalmans of India."  Quite a few Muslim leaders including Aga Khan of Karachi came to this important meeting.  Jinnah never showed up at  Salimullah’s house for this meeting.  You see, Quaid-e-Azam perhaps thought this newfangled party from the East will achieve nothing more than few seats in the constituent assembly.  Moreover, the British is a formidable force to fight and the mighty Indian Congress Party of the Western India is the appropriate place for him.  So much for Jinnah’s political acumen at the time!

While Jinnah was changing his stance as regards Swaraj and amity towards Congress Party, Gandhi was working solely for Swaraj and his Satyagraha movement all this time.  Parenthetically I would like to mention one more fact.  Gandhi abandoned his English dress quite sometime before plunging into his Satyagraha movement.  On the contrary, Jinnah was photographed in a suit and tie as late as June 1947.  Jinnah liked everything about the West, Oyster, wine,  etc. among other things, and disdained common people.  Gandhi on other hand mingled with common folks and dressed in the fashion of most ordinary people.

Under the new "Government of India Act of 1935" a first election ever was held throughout India.  The election results stunned both the British and Jinnah.  The Congress Party had won an absolute majority of seats in five provinces (The United Province, the Central Province, Bihar, Orissa, and Madras).  The Congress Party was also able to form ministries in Assam and Northwest Frontier Province.  Only in Punjab, Sind, and Bengal, did Congress elude the dominance.  The Muslim League being a new party was only able to run in about 150 of the 482 constituencies reserved for Muslims.  It won only 109 seats.  Not a single province was captured by the League.  Jinnah was probably thinking of Rahmat Ali and his message -- "Got to have Pakistan."  From this defeat probably came the "Rebel Yell"-  the Urdu phrase "Larke Lenge Pakistan."

Jinnah never publicly admired Gandhi, the undisputed leader of the Congress party.  Was he jealous of ever popular Gandhi?

The rallying cry for Pakistan (Narae Takbir, Allahu-Akbar) was now reverberating throughout Muslim India.  By 1940 most Muslim intellectuals in India believed in the two-nation theory of Jinnah (or is it Rahmat Ali?).  It was very clever of the Muslim League to have an East Bengali by the name Fazlul Haq to propose a resolution to call for independent homeland for Indian Muslims.  His oratory at the meeting netted him the title "Sher-e-Bangla" or Tiger of Bengal.  Fazlul Haq and other East Bengali leaders hardly knew at the time the true nature of Jinnah’s would be Pakistan.  Suffice it to say that these Bengali leaders were readily disenchanted as early as in 1948 realizing the dubious prospect for East Pakistanis under the grip of expatriated Muslims leaders from Northwest part of India.

Let me get back to the main theme of my essay, i.e., the character of Jinnah and Gandhi.  In 1946 when it was all but clear that India will be divided into two nations terrible communal riots erupted in Northern India, notably in Punjab and Bengal.  Gandhi came to East Bengal and stayed in Noakhali to ease tension.  There were no policemen or army with Gandhi to quell the riot.  Where was Jinnah then?  He was not certainly seen in Punjab preaching non-violence.  This is not out of his character, altogether.  He never cared for the common people.

Lord Mountbatten, the last viceroy of India, took all his papers to England after serving the position of the first Governor General of India.  All his papers, altogether 2,400 boxes, are now being donated to the University of Southampton.  Hopefully one of these days these papers will be available to researchers and history buffs alike.  Why Jinnah and other Muslim League leaders never joined the "Quit India" movement of Gandhi and never went to jail for a single day?  The answer probably is buried among the heaps of papers in one of those boxes.  The truth will come out one of these days.

I would like to close this article by asking one question – why Jinnah could not persuade his only child, Wadia, to join him in Pakistan.  Jinnah may have convinced millions of Biharis, Urdu speaking Uttar Pradeshis, and Punjabis to make that long journey to the "promised land."  But the daughter knew her father.  Wadia was still in India as late as 1973 probably laughing her heart out at the creation of Sonar Bangla by carving a piece from Jinnah’s Pakistan.  Aunt Fatima Jinnah followed her illustrious brother making that famous short trip in August 1947, in an aircraft provided by the viceroy.  She also became disenchanted by the behaviors of the "boys from the barracks" in 1958.  Right before her eyes Ayub Khan butchered Jinnah’s Muslim League and carved a party for himself.  How did Fatima react to this heinous act of Ayub Khan?  Nevertheless, she tried unsuccessfully to unseat Ayub Khan in early 1965.

After the fiftieth anniversary of the independence of India and Pakistan there is a renewed interest among the occidentals to know the history of the creation of these two great nations of the South Asia.  The early history of Bangladesh (formerly, East Pakistan) is certainly interwoven with the history of creation of Pakistan.  It is important for us (the Bangladeshis) to know the events of those bygone days.  We certainly would like to know the single most important leader of that era from the perspective of minority population.  After the partition, however, Pakistani historians tried their best to portray M.A. Jinnah as an ideal Muslim.  I have found contradiction in so many attributes of Jinnah that even in my sophomoric days I shook my head with utter disbelieves.  Fortunate for me I had my parents, uncles, school teachers, and elderly neighbors to illuminate me.  Through their teachings and later reading biographies by both our people and outsiders, I learned that the history of Pakistan and Jinnah as chronicled by Pakistani historians is nothing short of a charade.  I felt it necessary to write -- what I perceived to be a credible tale – in this column I dubbed, A fresh look at the pages of history.


News From Bangladesh

October 29, 1997
Readers’ Opinion

Further Comments On Jinnah

Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997

Dr. Syed Ahmed
Red Deer, Canada
sahmed@rdc.ab.ca

I read with interest Mr. Ziauddin Ahmed's comments on Jinnah.  It is very interesting to note that while criticizing Jinnah, he focused on the very short period of his leadership after the creation of Pakistan without appreciating the immense difficulties that a nascent state and its leaders had to undergo.  Yes, Pakistan did not live up to its expectations, as far as Bangladesh is concerned, it turned out to be a dismal experience.  But for that and the subsequent misdeeds of Pak generals, you should not blame it all on Jinnah.  While criticizing a historical figure like Jinnah who undisputably shaped the destiny of a big segment of the people of the Indian subcontinent, one should be more balanced in the approach.  Yes, Jinnah was a human being, and he had his shortcomings and may have shown some autocratic tendencies at that time (again that can be explained by many factors, such that only he and his personal physician knew that he was gravely ill and had a short time to live and in his zealotry to make sure that the country starts on a strong and stable footing before his death, he may have overdone it).

However, the majority of the nationalistic leaders of the third world countries, like Soekarno, Nasser, showed the same tendencies and you can write a whole thesis why democracy in the western style did not develop in those countries.  In the same way, the formation of Baksal, shutting down the newspapers, killing of leftists leaders like Siraj Shikdar without trial, etc. in the post-liberation days does not, in any way negate or reduce the historical role that Sheikh Mujib played in the movement for autonomy and the subsequent creation of Bangladesh.  Of course, I agree with Mr. Ahmed' s comments that Bangladesh has every right to pursue the war criminals and if necessary, I think, should seek international assistance to bring them to justice.  Pakistan should formally apologize for its actions in 1971.  That will probably close a tragic chapter of our history, although it will never bring back those whom we lost.  But that was the price of freedom that we paid and should be a constant reminder to our self-seeking and self-dealing leaders and politicians (with some honourable exceptions) who are playing 'fire' with the nation and never learnt anything from history. Instead, they should engage in constructive nation-building instead of trying to destroy each other and the nation with them.  Thank you for giving an opportunity to voice my opinion.


News From Bangladesh

November 1, 1997
Readers’ Opinion

Jinnah
M. Ahsan Akhtar Hasin
Asian Institute of Technology,
Bangkok, Thailand.
Hasin@ait.ac.th

I read the comments of Dr. Taj I Hashmi regarding Mr. Jinnah. His comments are sometimes ridiculous.

1) He termed the book, referenced by Dr. Jaffor Ullah as printed toilet paper.  And asked him (Dr. J. Ullah) to read his book and another book.  My question is: How do I know which book is a printed toilet paper? (i.e., the book referenced by Dr. Jaffor, or by you?).  Please let me know as I have known idea about a good book.

2) Dr. Hashmi said, somewhere in his article,"… President of Azad Kashmir…"   The Pakistanis used to use this word in their news: Occupied Kashmir (that part in India), and Azad Kashmir (that part in Pakistan). Since I have no idea why the part in Pakistan is "Azad," may I request Dr. Hashmi to make it clear to me why you and Pakistan Govt. and its news media term it as "Azad" ?

I apologize for the above questions, if these hurt your preconceived idea and belief.


News From Bangladesh

November 1, 1997
Readers’ Opinion

Further Comments on Jinnah
Taj Hashmi
Singapore
tajmahal@pacific.net.sg

Before making further comments on Mr. Ziauddin's comments on my earlier piece on Jinnah, I would like to apologise for using some phrases like "Printed Toilet Paper" with reference to Lapierre's book, Freedom at Midnight.  I am extremely sorry for using such abusive language out of sheer anger and disgust at those Western writers who take liberty to write anything they fancy out of prejudice against Muslims, Asians and the Third World in general.  I again apologise to all readers of the AMITECH page, especially Dr. Jaffor Ullah for my unrestrained language.

Now, to turn to Mr. Ziauddin's assertion that Jinnah behaved like a dictator after becoming the Governor-General of Pakistan as he presided over the cabinet, sacked provincial ministries and appointed cabinet ministers headed by Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, I would simply assert that his acts most definitely did not violate the constitutional provisions as stipulated in the Govt. of India Act, 1935.

I think the learned reviewer is not aware of the fact that Pakistan did not have a constitution up to1956 and till then the country was run in accordance with the 1935 Act where the Governor-General and provincial governors had almost dictatorial power and constitutional authority.

Last but not least, another reader who thinks that I have shown my ignorance (which implies that I am ignorant vis-à-vis Jinnah's role during the Quit India movement in 1942), I would humbly suggest that by the 1940s, for the average Indian Muslim and the Muslim League it was the Congress Party, not the British government, which was their main rival, adversary or enemy.

I again apologise if I have hurt anybody's feelings, etc.


News From Bangladesh

November 3, 1997
Readers’ Opinion

Looking at History without Learning
Mahmud Farooque
The Institute of Public Policy
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA, USA.
mfarooqu@gmu.edu

You feel that there must be a point to all this.  Four-five of Amitech's best minds cannot be hurling intellectual jabs without a reason.  A rejoinder to an article, a response to a rejoinder, a response to a response, a rejoinder to a rejoinder, the chain keeps growing.  You keep telling yourself that there's got to be a lesson in it somewhere.  The more you try to read into this, the less you find.  Photographs of Jinnah keep on popping up, as do quotes from history books, debates about saintliness of a mortal being, or books that are just as good as printed toilet paper.

For a nation that seldom settles disputes in a civilized manner, intelligent debates are always a welcome change. I am particularly reminded of the Federalist papers.  One in which Madison, Hamilton and Jefferson's concerns over the US constitution produced one of the most important works in the history of political thought.  It wasn't simply a clever defense of a constitutional charter, but an exposition of timeless truth about the quagmire of constitutional governance.

What, then, is missing here?  Lack of scholars?  Absence of a captive audience?  Shortage of intellectual works?  Perseverance of individuals?

Or is it an irrepressible obsession with the truth?  Or is it just an obsession?  Obsession of having the last word?

If there are any lessons to be learned here, it is simply this. As a nation, we titillate at the opportunity of digging up the past.  We feel that glory days are always behind us.  If only some culprit in the likes of Clive or Jinnah didn't ruin it, we would all be fine.

I was born in 1965. I hear all these talk about being suppressed since 1975.  You open up the first page of the fifth-five-year plan and read how the "vested interest" prevented us from implementing the dream of a certain leader.  About how in the last twenty two years the country had been on a "plan holiday."  I remember being to this party of twenty two years ago.  It didn't seem happy even for a ten-year-old.

Once again, I find myself quoting this line from the comic strip pogo, "I have met our enemy, and it is us."

Bangladesh have always been too small a country to hold the ego of its intelligentsia, be it political or academic.  The obsession with revising history is to create the room for one, at the expense of all others.  So we look at history, not to learn from it, but to somehow carve out our own face in it.

There is no question in my mind that we need to look at history, not only for its intellectual merit, but also for its learning value.  Without learning, history is nothing more than cheap fiction.

I am reminded of a story of this man who would lose his memory every night when he went to sleep.  But before going to bed, he would write down all the intricate details of what had happened during the day.  In the morning when he would wake up, this piece of paper would make no sense to him.  So he would tear up the page from the diary and start over.  Every single day would be the beginning of a new life for him.  At the end, he would have nothing but a diary whose pages have been all torn out.


News From Bangladesh
November 3, 1997

Readers' Opinion

Jinnah, Gandhi and the Pre-Partition Politics in the Indian Subcontinent
Syed Ahmed
Red Deer, Canada
sahmed@rdc.ab.ca

Dr. Jaffor Ullah has provided an interesting account of the lives of two great leaders of the subcontinent, Gandhi and Jinnah.  I wish he will be more balanced in his comparison of the two great political leaders of the subcontinent.  To quote him directly, "... but it's an extreme case, I surmise, for Jinnah and the League to break entente with Hindu dominated congress."  If congress was Hindu dominated, as Dr. Jaffor Ullah himself recognized, why should Muslim league or Jinnah be a part of it?  There were leaders like B. P. Patel and others who were not willing8 to yield the minimum concessions to the Muslims.  Muslims, as Jinnah and other Muslim leaders realized, would be reduced to a permanent minority in an Hindu dominated India.  It is very unfortunate and sad, but the reality was Muslims from every walk of life got disenchanted with the Hindus everywhere.  Disenchantment with the Hindus was a part of reality of those times.

Jinnah's marriage was a mixed one and like all other marriages it had its own challenges.  His only daughter deserted him.

What does it prove?  The struggle for an independent homeland occupied his energy and his personal and family life suffered.  Is it too much of an enigma?  Many great world leaders had very unhappy personal lives (The brilliant Canadian leader Pierre Trudeau is just one of the many examples).  Can you be sure that our children will always support all our values and share our ideals?  Gandhi was lucky to have a wife who was equally committed to his cause.  Dr. Jaffor Ullah said that Jinnah never admired Gandhi.  Gandhi was a leader of a rival political party, why should Jinnah publicly admire Gandhi?  It also shows that Jinnah was not a hypocrite, he will not say or do things just to please people unless he believed in it.  Did Gandhi ever admire Jinnah or any other Muslim league leader?  I like to know.

Dr. Jaffor Ullah, although I like your other writings on Bangladesh political and social issues, I can't help thinking that you have a hidden agenda in your treatise on Jinnah and Gandhi.  You juxtaposed Jinnah’s political role with his personal life and provided a one-sided account of his activities in British India. Somehow you want to prove that Jinnah's political life was not clean or he conspired with the British (To avoid the jail or to further his own ambitions! you did not say it, but it seems to be implicit in your and Mr.
Ziauddin Ahmed's writings).  Whatever it is, please try to study and judge the British colonial history in the first half of the century as it happened then, from the perspective of the people of that time, not what you think what should have happened and not to prove or disprove your preconceived notions about Jinnah.  Try not to overlook how the other major players played politics at that time.  Gandhi was not all the congress!  I do not find anything wrong about your admiring Gandhi.  Personally I felt proud, after watching the Gandhi film, to be a person from the subcontinent where Gandhi lived.  I had the opportunity of having some great Hindu teachers and friends in Bangladesh.  But it was the reality of the situation in the pre-partition days that forced the Muslims of India to seek a separate homeland under the leadership of strong-willed and non-compromising Jinnah.  Jinnah's capacity for skillful negotiations with the Congress and the British rulers was legendary.  Jinnah was not supported just by the illiterate Muslim- peasants of Bengal (that leaves people like my grandfather and million other educated Muslims out of the scene), as mentioned by Mr. Jamal Hasan. It is an irony that one critique held widely by the leftist movement was that Pakistan was created to cater to the needs of twenty-two and other capitalist families.  I am now hearing that Jinnah was supported by the illiterate masses who were somehow 'duped' by Jinnah and other Muslim League leaders.  I think that is too much for someone who knows a little bit 'history' of those times!


News From Bangladesh

November 8, 1997
Commentary

A Fresh Look at the Pages of History: The Jinnah Debate
Dr. M. Rashiduzzaman

I have been following the debate over Mr. M.A. Jinnah and I wonder if Dr. Jaffor Ullah is a trained historiographer, who can throw fresh light on this important leader in particular and the South Asian political history in general, or is he simply expressing his wishes for a historical enlightenment.  To my mind, Dr. Jaffor Ullah has exceeded the limits of an innocent intellectual inquest, since he has been imposing his own perceptions and untenable conceptualizations, evidently drawn upon personal anecdotes and a book called Freedom at Midnight, which Dr. Taj I Hashmi, described as the "toilet paper" of history.  Dr. Hashmi has apologized for using that particular characterization; however, his angry reaction to the tabloid history that deliberately distorts the Muslim narratives and Muslim leaders is understandable.  Did Dr. Jaffor Ullah read Stanley Walport's Jinnah of Pakistan (Oxford, 1984) and Ayesha Jalal's The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the demand for Pakistan, (Cambridge), two critically acclaimed publications on the subject?  Did he read the authoritative biographies on Gandhi and other important leaders of India and Pakistan who were Jinnah's contemporaries?

Dr. Jaffor Ullah's numerous observations stem from the misconceptions and half-baked information about the sub-continent's history, politics and leading personalities.  Although Gandhi and numerous Congress leaders switched to "Swedeshi" dress in public, it was by no means universal among the Hindu as well as Muslim leaders of British India who continued to occupy important positions after independence.  Two main breeds of politicians were much in evidence during the Raj, and the first couple of decades of free India and Pakistan.  First, it was the Jinnah type (both Hindu and Muslim) who preferred Western dress and practiced constitutional politics through the quasi-parliamentary institutions available at that time.  Secondly, the emulators of Gandhi who eschewed the European life style used agitational politics against the British.  At the height of the nationalist movements during the inter-War years and also later, each of those groups believed that it was working for independence in its own ways.  The third dimension of the Indian independence movement was the anti-British terrorism, which neither Gandhi nor Jinnah overtly supported. After the collapse of the Khilafat and non-co-operation movement followed by deep communal strains, the Muslims (and many of their leaders including Fazlul Huq and others) refrained from the agitational politics and followed the constitutional routes, except those who went with Gandhi's Congress.  The Muslims did not return to populist agitations until the Pakistan movement was launched in the 1940's.  Whatever conclusion we may draw about Jinnah or any other leader of the time under review cannot ignore those realities of history.

I have read that Jinnah first donned his lamb wool (Jinnah) cap and black sherwani in October 1937, but Dr. Hashmi has cited some other dates and occasions as well for his change in attire.  It is not uncommon among the politicians to switch dress and make symbolic gestures in their life style to play to the sentiments of the people.  Politician, as he was, Jinnah was no exception.  According to some of their biographers, J. Nehru's father, Motilal and Jinnah, both outstanding lawyers, were good friends and shared the same tastes of European dress, food and drinks.  Motilal reportedly maintained three kitchen establishments, one Hindu, one Mughlai and one European.  It was rumored that when he (Motilal) was jailed during the Gandhi-led non- cooperation movement, the British governor of the U.P., his personal friend, secretly sent him wine in his jail cell.  Though immaculately dressed in the native clothes, Nehru himself was very much like an English man in values and tastes.

Even if Jinnah did not visit Bangladesh before 1948 (there are some evidences that he actually did), his Muslim League was gaining ground in Bengal, and the overwhelming popularity of that party was established when it had won 439 out of 494 Muslim seats in the 1946 elections.

It is a travesty of truth to suggest that the non-Bengalis imposed Pakistan on Bangladesh.  Indeed, the Muslim League's electoral performance was less than impressive in most areas of what is now Pakistan; the only Muslim-majority province where the League had a convincing victory was Bengal.

Occasionally, Jinnah demonstrated his domineering tendencies which none of his close associates dared to question.  Though his tenure as the Pakistani Governor General was short lived, he is often accused of setting up the wrong "Viceregal tradition" which had overshadowed the Prime Minister and cabinet, and since then parliamentary institutions did not really flourish in Pakistan.  However, to imply that he was deliberately dishonest is preposterous, and not even his political foes questioned Jinnah's personal integrity while monumental disagreements persisted.  If Jinnah wanted high positions under the British Raj, he could have easily become a minister or a member of the Viceroy's Executive Council many times over since the early part of this century.

As a member of the Central Legislature, Jinnah was a formidable parliamentarian, his incisive criticism of the British earned him admiration from his fellow politicians.

Dr. Hashmi is a historian and a reputable scholar on the subject and I agree with most of his analysis and historical descriptions, so far.  Dr. Nibir Datta is broadly correct that the Lucknow Pact (1916) was not entirely satisfactory to the Muslims of Bengal; the same was also true of the Muslims of the Punjab who were not excited about the deal. To the best of my understanding, Mr. Fazlul Huq was not yet the undisputed Muslim leader of Bengal but undoubtedly a rising one and a very able one who was a negotiator of that agreement.  The Bengali Muslim press was critical of the terms of the Lucknow Pact.  Judged by the standards of 1990's, the Bengali Muslims, with their numerical advantage, would have been better off with the general electorate instead of a separate franchise. Was it really so, then?

Although the Muslims were a majority in Bengal as a whole province, their demographic strength was not true of all the districts.  The Muslim community, socio-economically backward as it was, would have, failed to successfully compete in a joint electorate where the Hindu politicians, backed by their superior education, professions and wealth, had better chances of winning the poll.  Voting rights, in those days, also depended on property and other qualifications, which disqualified many Muslims to vote.  Communal electorate, supported by the Muslims in British India, was more a case of real politick than an expression of religious fanaticism; it was a kind of affirmative action, Indian style!  Keeping separate electorate in West Pakistan after 1947 and denying East Pakistan one person, one vote, of course, remained unacceptable policies which caused great disenchantment between the two wings of Pakistan.

From the beginning of Bangladesh, the government, the student leaders, the universities and the bureaucrats went after such petty pursuits of changing the nomenclatures of all colleges, schools, student residences, parks, roads etc. named after Jinnah.  His insistence that only Urdu would be the state language of Pakistan has been reified by the Bengali nationalists as the beginning of Bangladesh struggle.  No doubt that Jinnah's "Urdu alone" statement in 1948 exemplified his insensitivity to the Bengali sentiments for their language status but that was not the beginning of Bangladeshi secession, according to available historical evidences. Whatever Dr. Jaffor Ullah and a few others have said or implied about the founder-leader of Pakistan was a continuation of a negative passion aroused against Jinnah in post-independent Bangladesh.  Dr. Syed Ahmed's suspicion (November 3) of Dr. Jaffor Ullah’s "hidden agenda" behind such implied tarnishing of Jinnah deserves further thought to clear the "smog" over our history.

Critical thinking has been missing from the new stream of Bangladesh history that has been conjured and disseminated by the nationalists, liberal intellectuals, politicians and the politically motivated, historical writers.  All of Jinnah's actions may not be condoned as we sit on judgment today.  But that is not the real issue.  Dr. Jaffor Ullah and others masquerading as historians are only a symptom of the larger Bangladeshi confrontation with their past to provide a new teleology of Bengali nationalism which excludes everything that does not fit into their epistemology.  But neither historical characters nor events of the past exactly fit into the linear logic and description of the nationalist patriots in most countries.  Increasingly, the Bengali nationalists and their cohorts have used history to suit their political imagination, and what many individuals (Dr. Jaffor Ullah included) claimed fell short of a critical umpiring by dispassionate historians.

Soon after Bangladesh independence, the Bengali nationalists' prime target was the history challenging theory that there were two nations in the sub-continent, one Hindu and the other Muslim, propounded by Jinnah (including H.S. Suhrawardy, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and others) and millions who wanted a Muslim homeland in India.  Several post-independent Bangladeshi historians claimed that the Hindu-Muslim differences in Bengal were banal, which did not justify a partition on religious lines.  Most Bangladeshi critics of Jinnah ignored the fact that the partition of Bengal (and of India) was as much the outcome of the two-nation theory of the Muslims as it was the result of Hindu unwillingness to accept the prospect of an undivided Bengal ruled by the Muslim majority.  Dr. Joya Chatterjee, a brilliant historian recently confirmed in her book that it was more the well entrenched Hindu communalism, which led to the partition of Bengal in 1947 ( see her Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932-47, Cambridge, 1994).  Many Bangladeshis seem to ignore that reality and an unyielding mood of historical arbitrariness dominates the intellectual establishments where the past is being judged and reconstructed by the painful separation of Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971.  Dr. Jaffor Ullah's denigration of Jinnah deserves to be analyzed in that background.  Unfortunate as it is, both reading and writing of history became a partisan avocation in Bangladesh.  The clash of histories has replaced ideologies as the new fault lines of politics there, and there is no end in sight to the political abuse of history in that country!

Dr. M. Rashiduzzaman writes from Glassboro, New Jersey, USA.  His e-mail is: rashiduzzaman@mars.Rowan.edu


News From Bangladesh

November 8, 1997
Feature

Pre-partition Bengal Muslims and M.A. Jinnah, the Key Player
of Pakistan Movement
Jamal Hasan

It has been more than fifty years since the two-nation theory was first floated as a concept for nation building in the Indian subcontinent.  M.A. Jinnah is universally recognized as the main proponent of that theory.  Even today, the Quaid-e-Azam (literally 'Great Leader" ) of the Pakistani nation remains a subject of intense debate in Bangladesh which broke away from M.A. Jinnah's promised land, Pakistan, in 1971.

The two-nation theory is the basis for Pakistan's nationhood.  But, fifty years after its founding, more and more Pakistani political thinkers seem to be turning away from the theory propounded by their Founding Father.  Their disillusionment is a consequence of the birth of Bangladesh in 1971 and, more importantly, of the rise of Bangladesh-type nationalistic fervor among the different linguistic groups within the country.  The Mohajirs in Karachi, for example, are beginning to care more for Urdu Desh than for the "Land of the Pure" that had brought them to the city in 1947.

Paradoxically, there has been a revival of admiration for the "Great Leader' among some Bangladeshis even though even a simple analysis of history can quickly demonstrate that he contributed very little to the national identity for Bangladeshis and their valiant struggle for emancipation.

An interesting parallel can be drawn between the prevailing attitude in Pakistan and in Bangladesh.  A typical Pakistani no longer hesitates to downplay the two-nation theory.  Nevertheless, he continues to glorify M.A. Jinnah who remains a veritable icon in Pakistan.  The Pakistani will not attempt any objective analysis of Jinnah the "saint" who remains "untouchable" in any political discourse within Pakistan.  The Bangladeshi admirer of Jinnah no longer supports the two-nation theory for obvious reasons.  But, nevertheless, he glorifies M.A. Jinnah as the ultimate savior of all Muslims of the subcontinent including Bengal's.

The liberation struggle of Bangladesh is not an aberration of history.  People always act heroically when they find themselves thrown from the frying pan into the fire.  It is easy to discern a continuity in the political evolution of the Bengali Muslims from pre-partition times to post-partition times.  There is a stark similarity in the negative factors that led to political upheavals in both pre-partition and post-partition Bengal.  The tyranny of the Hindu zamindars and the less than promising prospects of the emerging Bengali Muslim middle class fueled the politics of pre- partition Bengal.  The rise of Sher-e-Bangla's Krishak Praja Party, and later, the growing strength of the Muslim League's Pakistan Movement were natural outgrowths of the situation.  But the Bengali Muslim middle class quickly found out that they had been consigned to play second fiddle even in the post-partition era.  Within a mere six years of the inception of Pakistan the Bengalis rejected the Muslim League for good when they inflicted a humiliating wipeout of the party in the 1954 elections for the provincial assembly.  Sher- e-Bangla once again emerged as the people's choice.

M.A. Jinnah's role needs to be assessed in the perspective of the Muslims of Bengal. Bengal Muslims, like their coreligionists from the rest of the subcontinent, were, by 1946, wholeheartedly supporting the Pakistan Movement.  Nonetheless, it should have been apparent to any astute observer of history that political evolution for Muslim Bengal would, in the long term, diverge from that of Muslims in the rest of the subcontinent.

The Lucknow Pact of 1916 was a precursor of this divergence.  Jinnah had successfully negotiated for separate Muslim electorate and weightage for Muslims in the Hindu majority provinces in exchange for weightage for the Hindu minority in Bengal.  Sher-e-Bangla A.K. Fazlul Huq, as the unquestioned leader of the Bengali Muslim peasantry, could immediately sense the pitfalls of the Lucknow Pact.  The Sher-e-Bangla realized that his constituency has been put at a disadvantage vis-à-vis the predominantly Hindu Zaminders of his province.  It is a pity that Hussein Shaheed Suhrawardy failed to share Sher-e-Bangla’s reservations on the Lucknow Pact.

The Lucknow Pact was denounced by a large section of Muslims in Bengal.  The followers of the late Nawab of Dacca (now Dhaka) and Mymensingh's Nawab Ali Chowdhury were among the opponents of the Pact.  They had correctly sensed that the interests of the Muslims of Bengal had been sacrificed to reach an agreement with Hindus at the all-India level.  The Lucknow Pact left Bengali Muslims with only 40 percent of the elected seats in the Legislative Council even though they constituted 52.6 percent of the population. The episode was the first serious conflict between Bengali Muslims' political rights and Jinnah's objective. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the last.

A.K.Fazlul Huq challenged Jinnah at a time when Jinnah was engaged in a show of authority over all the provincial branches of the Muslim League in a bid to demonstrate to the British Government his absolute hold over Muslim politics.  Jinnah showed extraordinary skill in shrewd political maneuvering.  By September of 1941, the Sher-e-Bangla had decided to quit the Muslim League with his followers.  Fazlul Huq was forced to tender resignation of his ministry in December of 1941 when a majority of the Muslim League ministers deserted him.  Jinnah expelled Fazlul Huq from the League "for his treacherous betrayal of the League organization and the Mussalman generally."  History repeats itself!  Seventeen years later the Pakistani dictator Ayub Khan would take away the Sher-e-Bangla's civil rights and denounce the Bengali leader "for being involved in anti-Pakistan activities."

Within a few months of introducing the Lahore Resolution (which dearly sought the formation of sovereign Muslim states in the subcontinent) in March 1940, Fazlul Huq started speaking in terms of harmonious and even growth of Hindus and Muslims for the good of Bengal, because he felt that uneven growth of the two communities was at the root of all disagreements and bitterness in the province.  He was concerned that reactionary parties were taking advantage of this situation.

The Sher-e-Bangla's bitter experience with the Muslim League in the years 1937-41 convinced him that the policies followed by the League leadership in all India politics would go against Muslim interests in Bengal. In a letter to the Statesman of Calcutta, Fazlul Huq wrote, "We depend upon Quaid-i-Azam to modify the Pakistan idea so as to enable Muslims of Bengal also to assert their self-determination along with Muslims of other provinces and also members of other communities in all the provinces."  History says that Sher-e-Bangla's dream was not fulfilled in Jinnah's Pakistan.

In April of 1946, M.A. Jinnah called a convention of Muslim League legislators of the Central and Provincial Assemblies in Delhi.  At the convention, upon Jinnah's insistence, Hussein Shaheed Suhrawardy moved the resolution which changed the word "States" into "State" and thereby the demand for a single Pakistan state was voiced by the elected Muslim representatives.  Jinnah had never been able to identify with the hopes and aspirations of the Muslims of Bengal.  It is regrettable that the Muslim leaders in Bengal failed to grasp that accepting Jinnah's leadership was not in the best interests of the Bengali Muslims.  They failed to cope with the demands of partition and succumbed to Jinnah's dictates.  At no time, was this failure more evident than when they failed to resist a substantial change in the Lahore Resolution by the substitution of "State" for "States."

The contradictions in Muslim League politics in Bengal grew more acute when Jinnah nominated Jogendranath Mandal, a Scheduled Caste leader to the Interim Government ignoring the Bengal and Assam League leaders.  Suhrawardy had never quite grasped, till it was too late, why Nawab Syed Ali Chowdhury, Abdur Rahim and Sher-e-Bangla Fazlul Huq had fought against the All-Indian Muslim League leadership. This left the Bengali Muslims without an effective leadership.  When the majority of Bengal Hindus demanded partition of the province and the British were ready to act on it, Jinnah did not bother to fight on behalf of the Bengal’s Muslims.

Jinnah was quite unperturbed by the signs that India was gradually getting polarized along religious lines.  He announced that the League would organize a Direct Action Day on August 16, 1946.  A correspondent asked him whether it would be violent or non-violent.

"I am not prepared to discuss ethics," replied the "Great Leader" curtly.

Hussein Shaheed Suhrawardy, unlike Sher-e-Bangla Fazlul Huq, was totally committed to Jinnah's leadership.  Inevitably, Suhrawardy, the Premier of Bengal, had to do Jinnah's bidding on Direct Action Day (16th August, 1946).  The day was declared a holiday by the administration.  A large section of the Calcutta police was encouraged to take leave on the Direct Action Day.  Many non-Bengali Muslims joined forces to demonstrate on the city streets.  Passions ran high.  A riot broke out.  The infamous Calcutta riot had a devastating-fallout as riots followed in quick succession in Noakhali and in Bihar.  It convinced many that India had only two options - partition or perpetual riots.

In 1972, in an interview with a historian in Dhaka, late Abul Mansur Ahmed was critical of Suhrawardy's role in the events that led to the riot on Direct Action Day.  It is ironic that despite Suhrawardy's unquestioning loyalty to Jinnah in the pre-partition days, he would be dubbed an outcast and a subversive element by Jinnah’s successors in independent Pakistan.  Suhrawardy actively fought for the rights of Bengali Pakistanis.  Consequently, he was not only termed a "traitor" but was also viewed as a "threat to the integrity of Pakistan" by the rulers of newly emerged Pakistan.

On June 9, 1947, the Council of the All India Muslim League in New Delhi accepted, as a compromise solution, the British Government plan for partition of the Punjab and Bengal.  A section of Dhaka university students sent a wire to M.A. Jinnah.  The "Great Leader" was warned that if he accepted the plan for partitioning Bengal, Muslims of the province would consider him a "traitor" and would be forced to continue their straggle for achieving "true Pakistan."  But the warning was of no avail.  The Muslims of Bengal had clearly missed the bus.

The Bengali Muslims had joined the Pakistan movement in the hope of achieving freedom from minority control.  Ironically they found themselves under the yoke of a new minority at the inception of Pakistan. Jinnah’s Pakistan brought on cultural subjugation, political domination and economic exploitation by the West Pakistan minority.  Two of their significant leaders, Hussein Shaheed Suhrawardy and Sher-e-Bangla A.K. Fazlul Huq fell victims to political persecution.

In the final analysis, 1947 was merely a brief interlude during the long and arduous struggle for self-determination.  Independence is never handed over on a silver platter.  It cannot be won by the political maneuverings of a clever lawyer.  Bengali Muslims had to make immense sacrifices after 1947 before they finally achieved freedom in 1971.

Mr. Jamal Hasan writes from USA. His e-mail is: jhasan@acc.fau.edu


News From Bangladesh

November 10, 1997

Commentary

It is not Jinnah, it is us - the People of Bangladesh
Sukhamaya Bain

"A nation creates leaders, a leader does not create a nation" is not an original statement of mine.  It is a quote from a political philosopher whose name, I must regret, I can not recall at this time.  But I am a firm believer of it.

For instance, can anybody tell me, who was the big leader that made the people of Japan industrious, and the country prosperous?  We blame Hasina, Khaleda, Ershad, Zia and the big Bangabandhu for a lot of the problems of Bangladesh.  But if we look at ourselves in the mirror and ask "as a nation, did we deserve leaders like these?"  I bet the answer would be yes.

Dr. Jaffor Ullah's "a fresh look at the pages of history" in the News from Bangladesh (October 5, 1997) began a very educational debate in the Amitech Internet forum.  Some people contend that we do not need to dig dirt from our past.  Sure we do not.  Dr. Taj Hashmi's apology to Dr. Ullah and to the readers (News from Bangladesh, November 1) for his "unrestrained language" was refreshing enough for me to refrain from criticizing his language.

But a history professor like Dr. Hashmi using adjectives like "saint" for Jinnah (News from Bangladesh, October 12) surely suggests that we do have a lot to learn.  While he is totally wrong here, Dr. Hashmi is probably a more logical version of the Bangladeshi psyche.

Sugar-coating Jinnah or Pakistan, calling Jinnah "Quaid-e-Azam," was not just in the past, it is very much with us today allowing his birthday celebration by Bangladeshis in Bangladesh, tolerating flying of Pakistani flag by Bangladeshis in Bangladesh, etc., only reinforce the fact that we are as uneducated as our forefathers had been.  Being eager to find common heritage with Pakistan after all the atrocities of 1971, with no apology or compensation from that end, is indicative of the fact that the foolishness was not just in the past, it is very much with us today.

Let me tell a short story.  When I was admitted to Dhaka University in the 1970s, I had no place to stay in Dhaka.  I had to find a dormitory room to share with resident students.  At one point, a student political party declared that they would put extra beds in rooms to help students like me who were not residents yet. My naive understanding was that they would do that in rooms that were occupied by their workers.  To my surprise, they forced a bed for me in a room occupied by two innocent students without their prior knowledge or consent.  Did the political group help me?  Sure.  Was I grateful to them?  Of course, but not up to the point of being an active supporter.  I probably would have been, if I knew that those two students were approached with respect, and their consent earned prior to the move.  Instead, I sincerely apologized to the two residents, and expressed my willingness to move out.  They were kind enough to keep me.  We had a mutually respectable roommateship.

The creation of Pakistan in 1947 most definitely helped most Muslims of Bangladesh in the short term.  It even helped me.  If it was not for Pakistan's discriminatory acts, my parents probably would not have cared as much for high academic achievements for their children.  I probably would be doing all right, but it is safe to say that I would not be teaching at US universities.

Obviously, the creation of Pakistan uprooted millions of Hindus and Muslims alike of the Indian sub-continent.  Heartbreaking stories of broken families and friendships abound.  The Hindu-Muslim divide of the sub-continent has gotten a more permanent status by the creation and Islamization of the western and eastern parts.  It is only a fool's dream that the three countries could be friends while the Hindu-Muslim two nation theory remains the code of conduct in any of the three.  In the long run the two nation theory is a setback for all the people of the sub-continent.  The world is becoming more and more just and civilized. Hatred and discriminations based upon race, religion, gender, etc. are going away; in some places fast, in some places not so fast.  The fortunate reality of the global village is that human bergs will come together, not divide, will be friends, not foes.

Just because you have been helped by someone does not make that person a saint.  You have to consider the reasons why he did so, you do have to see how many innocent people were hurt in the process.  The person who wants to be your friend by creating and sustaining hatred in your mind is certainly not up to being your friend.  Today he hates someone else, tomorrow he will have no problem hating you if that serves his purpose.

Let me ask a question about Jinnah.  When Gandhi was trying to save his motherland from disintegration by making the undeserving proposition that Jinnah would be the first prime minister of India, what was Jinnah's response?  He wanted assurance from Congress, more specifically from Nehru and Patel.  If Nehru and Patel agreed with Gandhi, would there be a Pakistan now?  If the answer is no, was not Jinnah up to only power for himself?  Look at him after he got Pakistan.  What a father of nation, trying to impose the language of only eight percent of the population on the whole country!  And most of those eight percent did not hive much love for their birthplace, they did not mind leaving behind their motherland for good to be rulers.

I do not agree with Dr. Ullah that the protest against Urdu as the national language, as declared by Jinnah in 1948, was the "declaration of the independence of Bangladesh" by any means.  I would characterize that event as the seed of the breakdown of Pakistan, caused not by the Bangalees but by the selfish ruling class that Jinnah represented.  The people and the leaders of East Bengal loved Pakistan too much to declare the independence of Bangladesh so easily.  They had to have their backs on the wall with no dignified choice in 1971 to do that.

I also do not think that Pakistan was imposed on East Bengal by anyone from the western pan of the sub-continent.  While people like Netaji Subhash Bose and Masterda Surya Sen deserve our utmost respect and appreciation for their patriotism and sacrifice, the overwhelming facts were that for the most part the independence of India and its partition were the acts of the British on their terms.  They had the final say in everything.  Gandhi, the mysterious Mahatma; Nehru, the inadequate; and Jinnah, the villain; all probably were pawns in that game.

Our forefathers had a short-sighted psyche, which blocked their vision, and they could not see that when cooking of Pakistan began in London in 1933, East Bengal with more Muslims than any other part of the sub-continent was not part of the plan.  The western brothers for whom our forefathers had so much of love were talking about Muslims, leaving out the largest population of Muslims!

Hundred years back there were indeed creatures that used to call themselves Hindus, and would not touch even the shadows of the so-called untouchables and Muslims.  The world is lot more civilized now, and it will continue to improve.  But after so much of obvious decline in the nonsensical religious and casuist untouchability and hatred from and among the Hindus everywhere, we still can not get over the psyche of a common and eternal enemy.  That is why politics of hatred wins votes, evidently a lot of votes, in Bangladesh.  We do not see that we are falling behind.  We do not see that this uneducated and short-sighted psyche is detrimental to peace and prosperity in our country.

Sukhamaya Bain writes from New Orleans, USA. His email address is sb@xula.edu


News From Bangladesh
November 15, 1997

Readers’ Opinion

Partition-Myth and Reality by Asghar Ali Engineer
Dr. M. Rashiduzzaman
rashiduzzaman@mars.rowan,edu

Thank you for acknowledging my correspondence and publishing my commentary.

I feel that Amitech is doing an excellent job by providing a forum for such interesting issues.  Here below, I am writing a letter appreciating a remarkable article (Partition-Myth and Reality) by Asghar Ali Engineer on November 6.

I wish to draw your attention to Mr. Asghar Ali Engineer's interesting article on the controversial Partition of India.  He is possibly the best qualified among the persons debating such issues like Jinnah, creation of Pakistan and the Hindu-Muslims questions leading to the division of the sub-continent along religious lines. Well versed scholar on Muslim history as he is, Mr. Engineer rightly points out that it was rather the educated elites (on both sides), not the orthodox Islamic Ulema, whose actions created Pakistan.  My understanding is that Rahmat Ali's "Pakistan" did not get any significant attention from Jinnah and most Muslim leaders for years since the idea was first articulated.

More incisively, Mr. Engineer points out that it was the failure of politics and the politicians that led to the ultimate split in 1947.  Both in post-partitioned India and Pakistan, most historians and the educated middle class generally forgot that the Cabinet Mission Plan (a de facto Confederation) was the last endeavor to save India from a division.  You also confirm that Jinnah supported that idea until messed up by Nehru’s speech.

H.S. Suhrawardy's deal with Sarat Bose to save Bengal from the split also met the same failure as the Cabinet Mission Plan.  While many "opinions" prevail about what happened, an objective historiography of those two momentous Hindu-Muslim undertakings is yet to come, although there are a few interesting discussions on the subject.

Does he exonerate the Muslims from the often one sided blame for their "communalism" causing the Partition, and the continued existence of three separate sovereign states (two are predominantly Muslim) in what was once British India?  A hypothetical gesture: will a confederation like that of the Cabinet Mission Plan work now or in the near future?  One thing missing in his article is the analysis of Bengal politics culminating in the 1947 division.  Does Bangladesh negate the old "two nation theory" lock, stock and barrel?  Will Mr. Engineer throw some light on the subject?  Hope he will oblige!


News From Bangladesh
November 15, 1997

Readers’ Opinion

Why Paki Lover now!!!
Gias Ahmed
gias.ahmed@kista.stockholm,se

I do not know why in the column of Internet suddenly Bangalees around the world became Pakistani lover!!!  Don't you think that is enough for us.  We should be ashamed of ourselves.


News From Bangladesh
November 19, 1997

Editorial

More on the Lucknow Pact (1916)
M. Rashiduzzaman

This is with reference to my Editorial/Commentary (... The Jinnah Debate) posted on 11/8/97.  Both Mr. Nibir Datta and Mr. Jamal Hasan are correct that the Lucknow Pact gave the Bengali Muslims only 40% of the elected seats in the legislative councils although they were 52% of the population in Bengal, and that the deal had been criticized.  But I disagree with the exclusive assumption that it was deliberately designed to victimize the Bengali Muslims, and that the accord was an unmitigating disaster for them.  Analyzing the objectives, circumstances and impact of the agreement that I hinted at my earlier piece, I feel that it was not a total loss for the Muslims of Bengal.  And I make the following arguments in support of my contention:

The Lucknow Pact had two key objectives: first, to reach an all-India rapprochement between the Hindus and the Muslims through the Congress-League alliance and, secondly, to prepare the ground for the impending Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms better known as the Government of India Act, 1919 which introduced, for the first time, more powerful legislative institutions in the provinces.  Were those two objectives fulfilled?  During the British Raj, the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League, the prominent Hindu and Muslim leaders, the smaller groups and the lesser leaders oscillated between a more unified Indian nationalism, on the one hand, and the communal considerations on the other.  Both the Muslim League and the Congress "gravitated to each other" through the Lucknow Pact, and the accomplished Hindu-Muslim agreement undoubtedly facilitated the working of the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms in the provinces, for whatever they were worth in those days.  The alliance that bridged the gulf between the League and the Congress, and offered a modicum of communal harmony earned admiration not only for Jinnah but also for the other actors who thrashed out the accord.  Expectations were raised that the emerging lawyer-politicians could work out inter-communal peace through negotiations and mutual give and take.  Sadly though, the communal harmony did not last for long as Hindu-Muslim riots were spreading throughout the country including Bengal.  In 1926 alone, there were 40 communal riots in Calcutta killing nearly 200 and injuring 1600 persons.

However, the Bengali Muslims derived some tangible benefits from the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms, which used the Lucknow Pact's constitutional agreements between the two main religious communities. Nawab Nawab Ali Choudhury, a critic of the Lucknow Pact became a provincial minister when the new reforms were introduced.  A new breed of Muslim politicians, flourishing through the legislative bodies contributed to the political development in the future years.  Inadequate though the reforms were, they imparted an experience in parliamentary politics and provided a platform for ventilating grievances.  Leaders in the caliber of Fazlul Huq matured themselves by the quasi-parliamentary politics of the inter-War years. Huq became minister of education in the Bengal government in 1924 and rendered great services advancing education among the Bengali Muslims.  The Muslim ministers and the legislators promoted land reforms, more jobs, schools and colleges and better economic opportunities for the Muslim community.  [Fazlul Huq's celebrated land/debt reforms made their debut in the Bengal Legislative Council during that period.] Many among the educated Muslim middle class in Bangladesh today may trace their parents and grand parents who became government officials, lawyers, doctors, teachers, engineers and professionals, possibly under the patronage of the Muslim politicians of the 1920's and 1930's.  We may belittle them today but they were not inconsequential those days!

Ironically, among the original opponents of the Lucknow Pact were also the right wing leaders from the Hindus as well as the Muslims.  In the U.P., it was the Hindu Sabah (forerunners of the Hindu Mahasabah) who fought the agreement's "unfair" treatment of the Hindus there.  The conservative Muslim groups and leaders with a sense of separate nationalism disliked the very concept of the Congress-League alliance, and they attacked the terms of the rapprochement.  Muslim Hitaisi and Mohammadi, two prominent Muslim newspapers were critical about that agreement.  If my memory does not fail my sources, the resistance was more visible in those (Bengal) districts where the Muslims enjoyed greater demographic strength.  Fazlul Huq and Fazli Husain (Punjab), supporters of the Congress-League entente in principle, were unhappy with the deal but both worked under Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms.

Most Muslim leaders were reluctant to surrender the separate electorate no matter what they had said in public.  Before the introduction of the communal electorate in 1909, the Bengali Muslims constituted nearly 52% of the Bengali population but only 5% of the elected representatives were Muslim.  At least, the Lucknow Pact, and the separate electorate offered them more than that!

Marked by traditional loyalties, crushed by poverty and feudalism, haunted by communalism and truncated by the leadership rivalries, the Bengali Muslims, leaders and masses alike, were not a monolithic community. In a bid to make an all-India settlement, the Bengali Muslims sacrificed some, but they had also won some!

Mr. Nibir Datta and Mr. Jamal Hasan seem to perceive Bangladeshi (Bengali) past only by victimological narratives; unfortunately, such history is selective, exclusionary and incomplete.
---------------------------
Dr. M. Rashiduzzaman’s e-mail is: rashiduzzaman@mars.rowan.edu


News From Bangladesh
November 19, 1997
Editorial

Partition-Myth and Reality: Some Comments
Hashmi Taj Ul-Islam

It is heartening that even a renowned scholar of Asghar Ali Engineer’s stature (Director, Institute of Islamic Studies, Bombay) has started taking interest in Amitech's debates over Jinnah and the Partition (or has someone posted the piece to Amitech?).   I found Engineer's commentary quite refreshing and glad that he has also pointed out how Nehru and other Congress leaders are held responsible for the Partition by various historians.

However, I have some minor points of disagreement with Engineer.  Like many other non-Bengali scholars he has also missed the most important point that without Bengali Muslims' wholehearted support during 1937-1947, there would have been no Pakistan.  Although the Pakistan movement was spearheaded by north-western Indian Muslim leaders, it was Bengal which provided the most powerful, durable and reliable platform for Muslim League from its inception in 1906 till the attainment of Pakistan in 1947.  (Incidentally, Muslim League was formed in Dhaka in 1906 at what is today the Madhur Canteen in Dhaka University.) Consequently any discussion or analysis of the Partition without bringing Bengal in the picture, as you know, is like staging Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.

I think, the next big tragedy besides the Partition was the way Bengal was sidelined and ignored by those who are now running 'Punjabistan' in the name of Pakistan.

I don’t think Engineer is fight in generalizing that ulama throughout India opposed the Partition.  Although Maulana Madani and several other Maulanas of the Deoband Madrassa and those belonging to the Jamiat-ul-Ulama-i-Hind along with Maulana Maududi of the Jamaat-i-Islami opposed Pakistan (Maududi and Co. always went against the people’s wish as it is evident from their role in 1947 and 1971), the bulk of the ulama in Bengal and many in the UP and Bihar favoured Pakistan.  Most Bengali ulama also worked for the attainment of Pakistan in the 1940s.  Unlike north western India, Bengali ulama belonged to the petty-bourgeois classes having close affinity with the peasantry and dependence on the Ashraf and Jotedar-Talukdar classes for sustenance. The bulk of the peasantry (Muslim) and Ashraf-Jotedar classes wanted to get rid of the Hindu Zamindar-Bhadralok-Mahajan (moneylender) domination.  Consequently the Bengali Muslim triumvirate, Ashraf-Ulama-Jotedar, was confronting the Hindu triumvirate, Zamindar-Bhadralok-Mahajan, throughout the British period.  It is noteworthy that pro-Congress ulama and Muslim intellectuals and politicians became very unpopular among Bengali Muslims.  Maulana Azad, a Pan-Islamist leader (Jinnah was dead against Pan-Islamism) and Congress president in the 1940s, became so unpopular among Bengali Muslims for his anti-Pakistan stand that he was no longer accepted as the Imam to lead Eid prayers in Calcutta in 1946-47 by Calcutta Muslims.

Although Engineer is correct that Muslim minority provinces in India spearheaded the Pakistan movement as Muslim elite's-landed, professional and business- wanted to get rid of the Hindu majority domination, in Bengal the majority (Muslim) was scared of the dominant Hindu minority.  In UP, Bihar and CP it was an elite conflict that worked as the main steering force behind the separatist movement while in Bengal it was a class movement.  Pakistan movement in Bengal was a mass-based lower class movement against exploitation.  That was why even the Communist Party of India at one stage lent support to Pakistan movement.

The tragic part of the story is that non-Bengali Muslim elites exploited the class sentiment of Bengali Muslims against their common enemy in such a way that Muslim Zamindars and exploiters were portrayed as benevolent friends of the masses while the Hindu Zamindars and Bhadralok were targeted as the only class enemies of the masses.  Bengali Muslim masses were so charged up by the Pakistan fever that after Fazlul Huq had joined hands with Hindu Mahasabha leader Syama Prasad Mookerjee and formed a coalition government (out of sheer love of power) in 1941, he was received with black flags and rotten eggs at Barisal Steamer Ghat by Bengali Muslims in 1942.  Yusuf Ali Chaudhuri (Mohon Mia) and Abdus Salam Khan (Badsha Mia) of Faridpur called Fazlul Huq "Mirjafar".

There is no point in only blaming Nehru and Sardar Patel for the Partition, Gandhi had his share as well.  Had Gandhi behaved with the great Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and not played a dirty role in his removal (resignation) as Congress President in 1939,the fate of India and Bengal would have been much better.  Had Nehru kept his word, I mean, had he continued his support for the Cabinet Mission Plan in 1946, there would have been no Direct Action Day (16 Aug, 1946) and no killings in Calcutta, Noakhali and Bihar and eventually, no Pakistan.

Now, to turn to Dr. Jaffor Ullah and Dr. Bain, I don't want to give fillip to more controversy and futile debate as it seems, both of them are charged with emotion while their arguments are devoid of facts.

I don't think we have anything to achieve after 50 years of the Partition by putting the 'blame for all our problems and misery on Jinnah's or someone else's shoulders.  I think, after 26 years of independence, Bangladesh should have achieved at least something one could be proud of.  The Jamuna Bridge, I read somewhere, is showing up cracks-whom to blame?  Korean Engineers or our "Kismet", to paraphrase Dr. Ullah?

I have no where suggested that only PhDs in history know history.  Prof. Ajoy Roy of Physics (Dhaka University) and Prof. Abdul Halim (Mathematician) are better historians than many of us trained in the discipline.

I agree with Dr. Bain ("It is not Jinnah, it is us...") that it is atrocious to "find common heritage with Pakistan after all the atrocities of 1971".  I think, Pakistan for the Bangladeshis should only exist in their history books, which for them ceased to exist on the night of 25 March, 1971.  I firmly believe that raising Pakistani flag on the soil of Bangladesh by Bangladeshis is nothing but a seditious act.

Now, to turn to the question, Why did I then portray Jinnah as a "saint"?

I would request everybody to re-read my article (12 October '97).  I simply wrote:" His [Jinnah's] record is cleaner than that of Gandhi and in comparison to Nehru and some other Congress leaders, he was simply a saint".  When men like M. N. Roy portrayed Gandhi as the "Medieval Fascist" and R.P.  Dutt and scores of other Indian scholars don't have any respect for Gandhi, Nehru, Patel and others, why can't I have that liberty of undermining someone and glorifying others?  How can I forget that Gandhi promoted his friend's son, Nehru, and dumped Subhas Bose, the Lion of India?  How can I forget (and forgive Nehru) that Nehru promoted his daughter, Indira (the arrogant), to become Congress president in 1959 and on her advice sacked the democratically elected Communist Party government of E.M.S. Namboodiripad in Kerala in 1959?  Was Nehru much different from Ghulam Muhammad who sacked Fazlul Huq government in East Bengal in 1954?

Does not Jinnah appear to be a saint in comparison to Gandhi and Nehru?

I fully agree with Dr. Bain that the creation of Pakistan uprooted millions of Hindus and Muslims of the subcontinent.  I also feel that Bengali Hindus and Bihari-UP Muslims are the worst victims of the Partition and Punjabi Muslims are the main beneficiaries of the tragedy.

I am sure Dr. Bain has no evidence to prove that Jinnah accepted Gandhi's offer to become the Prime Minister of India and wanted guarantee from Nehru and Patel.  It is another fairy tale, not history.

I think Dr. Bain is very unkind to UP-Bihari Muslims who migrated to Pakistan because they "did not have much love for their birth place".  What an analysis!?  Please be sensible before you make an assertion.  What do you think the expropriated Hindu refugees from East Bengal, now living on footpaths of Calcutta and slums of Bongaon, would tell you if you ask them: "Do you love your birth place?"  I am sure that you have listened to the song by S.D. Burman which depicts the plight of Bengali Hindu refugees: "Shei  je dinguli, Banshi bajanor dinguli…Shuni takdum takdum baje abaje bhanga dhole .... Oi parere dhole baje ar ti pare tar shara, Majh khane boi thoi thoi thoi nayan jaler dhara"?

I wish I could agree with Dr. Bain that "hundred years back there were indeed creature that used to call themselves Hindus, and would not touch even the shadows of the so-called untouchables and Muslims"! Please come back to your senses.  Are BJP, Jan Sangh, RSS and other Hindu rightist organizations not very much alive today in 1997, not only in UP, Bihar, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Delhi but also in Calcutta?  Do you know how difficult it is for a Muslim to get a rented accommodation in Calcutta in a Hindu suburb?  Do you know how difficult it is for a Muslim to get a good job in India?  Yes, India had Muslim presidents, cricket captains, ministers, air force chief and simultaneously at least 500 Muslims get killed annually, in secular India.  This does not mean that Hindus are in heaven in Bangladesh.  They are treated as second or third class citizens in Bangladesh as are Muslims and "Untouchables" treated in India.  So, to call a spade a spade, one should be honest enough to accept the reality, that is both Hindus and Muslims are not yet free from racial and communal prejudice.  I came across a Brahmin historian in Bangladesh who did not take his packet-lunch (Biryani cooked in a Muslim shop) under the same roof at the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh along with a Namasudra scholar.

He went to the verandah and on my asking the reason told me: "Bhai ki korbo, shastrer birudhdhe to jete pari na."  He had no problem in eating food Cooked by Muslims but he could not interdine with a Shudra. And Dr. Bain is telling us that that prejudice existed there "hundred years back"!

If Hindus have become that liberal, then how would you explain the Babri Mosque episode and the annual killings of Muslims and Harijans?  By the way, Dr. Bain, have you seen the movie Bandit Queen and read about Phulan Devi?
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Mr. Hashmi Taj Ul-Islam writes from Singapore.  His e-mail is: hishashm@leonis.nus.sg


News From Bangladesh

Commentary

December 31, 1997

The Year 1997: Never a Dull Moment!
Jaffor Ullah

What a year the 1997 was!  Collectively speaking, we started a quiet revolution in the pages of Amitech.  I have nothing but kind words for Amitech folks.  You guys deserve nothing but praises from us, the readers, for allowing this gentle revolution to take place.

The 'News from Bangladesh' (NFB) was primarily an Internet daily newspaper in the beginning of 1997. However, everything started to change from the March of 1997. The guest editorials started to adorn the pages of NFB at a slow but steady pace.  Soon, more writers started to contribute articles.  In a matter of months, the Amitech forum was buzzing with the sound of new tunes.  We witnessed how quickly the forum changed its character.  More writers showed up as the year progressed.  By May 1997, the editor decided to include a separate new column calling it "Readers' Opinion."  By far this was the best move by the Amitech folks.  Life was never the same after establishing this popular column.   Readers flock in herds to this web site in ever increasing number.  The astounding phenomenon was that readers with every possible hue came and passes their unbridled remarks in this column.  On a personal note, I took a lot of verbal thrashing from some unkind readers.  But then, I said, "What the heck! Its just the beginning." And the beginning it was.

We had several controversies in Amitech forum in 1997.  First came the great debate of Awami Leaguers Vs BNPers.  That debate soon took a different turn and the Amitech forum became a tribunal for Razakars of all hues.  The next big controversy was ignited by Prof. Bain, my fellow New Orleanean, who wrote an article labeling the BNP as "Bangladesh Nonsense Party."  Of course, we already had a mini debate on Hindu-Muslim disunity in Bangladesh prior to the "Bangladesh Nonsense Party" debate again hosted by Prof. Bain.  The good thing about these debates was while they enriched our mind there were no clear-cut winners or losers.  On a personal note, I must mention here that in the dull summer months while crisscrossing this great nation we call America, I wrote some travelogues sampling the opinions of Bengali expatriates.  The Amitech forum gave me an impetus to interview quite a few Bengalis in the West Coast of the US.  I most certainly will cherish these moments.

How can I sum up the year 1997 without mentioning the great Jinnah debate?  It was I who wrote an article in October to discuss the impact of Mr. Jinnah’s maiden voyage to East Pakistan in 1948.  Since then we did cover a lot of ground encompassing Jinnah's personal life, Lucknow Pact and a whole slew of other related matters.  It was educational, to say the least.

The off-shoot of Jinnah debate was, of course, "the Intellectual Collaborator Debate."  Mr. Jamal Hasan started the debate in earnest by writing an article critiquing the role of one self-proclaimed "intellectual" of the great nation of East Pakistan (or is it Bangladesh?).  The debate suffered a premature death at the hands of the editor-in-chief of News from Bangladesh.  The debate, however, was resurrected from the ashes and since then transferred to the 'Society-Culture-Bangladesh' forum of the Newsgroups part of the Internet.  As of last count, that debate is progressing rather well.

I must, in all candor say that there were some excellent articles published in the pages of NFB.  It is always refreshing to read Mahmud Farooque's and Ahmed Ziauddin's pieces.  Quite a few readers wrote excellent pieces on Hartal as our venerable political mistresses perform them religiously in our great ancestral homeland.  In this regard, I must mention that some of the participants only saw the "light" from the perspective of the great party BNP.

The enactment of CHT peace treaty brought quite a few partisan mails coated with "venom" to the doorsteps of Amitech.  Now we have to wait and see how the readers react to Ms. Taslima Nasreen's lecture given to the Harvard Forum.

Who decides what is being published in the Amitech forum?

Surprisingly, the answer is simple.  It is the readers who decide what goes into the pages of NFB.  Let us all write sensible articles for Bangladesh.  That is the common thread that binds us all.  We may differ from time to time on certain issues, but let us not forget for a moment that we love the soil that nurtured us all.  Indeed, we carry a big debt on our shoulder.  Sooner or later, we have to repay the debt with all accrued interest.  Why not repay the debt sooner?  The young country of Bangladesh is restive and getting ready to cross the "bridge" to next millennium.  Let us all help prepare our motherland for this journey.  The journey should be well planned.  Help prepare the "Road Map" for this eventful journey.  Be a part of the history. Let us welcome the new year and hope 1998 will bring more to the NFB than meets the eye.
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A.H.  Jaffor Ullah writes from New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.  His e-mail address is:  jhankar@bellsouth.net


§ The End of NFB Jinnah Debate §


 

To Read the Transcripts of Intellectual Collaborator Debate:

NFB
Newsgroup Part One

Newsgroup Part Two

Newsgroup Part Three