Dialogue with a Hindu Bigot is impossible
After publication of my article on India-Bangladesh’s roller coaster love-hate relationship (http://www.newsfrombangladesh.net/view.php?hidRecord=264258), I got a letter from someone named A.K. Biswas (who writes his name unpunctuated as Dr.akbiswas from Mayacorp,USA). He likes to present himself as a doctor, although through his letters published in the NFB, he has repeatedly demonstrated that his knowledge of English is skimpy at best. One wonders whether he ever graduated from high school; if he did, he probably did not deserve that degree.
Biswas is a known Hindu bigot, an extremist with foul mouth, big egos, and all hatred for the Muslim people and Islam. He blames Muslims for partition of India, and sees nothing but a scoundrel in Muslim leaders like Suhrawardy who championed for a united Bengal with Hindu leaders like Sarat Bose and Kiran Sarker Roy. Obviously, he is unaware of Suhrawardy-Bose Plan for Bengal that tried to preserve the unity of Bengal. His history starts and ends with Hindu suffering, and has no room for others. Thus, he is oblivious of and totally unconcerned about the Muslim suffering.
In 1946-47 my father, studying at Calcutta University, and residing at the Baker Hostel, had to save his life from Hindu rioters by hiding inside a water tank on the roof of the hostel. Many of his fellow Muslim students were killed by Hindu mobs. Hundreds of thousand acres of precious Muslim land were lost to Hindu India after the partition of 1947. My next door neighbor – the Ispahani family - in Chittagong was one of the biggest losers in such land-grabs by the Indian government and Hindu land-grabbers. Threatened by land-grabbers, his family members and estate managers can’t even go near those properties. My father who cherished doing business in Kolkata had to settle for Chittagong after graduating from Calcutta University. In the face of India’s unfriendly policy with Muslim girls’ institutions, my mother could not complete her education in Calcutta and had to complete hers in the new province of East Pakistan. Hundreds of thousand of Muslims were killed by Hindu mobs in those nasty days of Partition when jubilation turned into massacre. And yet, to a one-eyed narrow-minded Hindu bigot like Biswas such facts on Muslim suffering meant nothing.
Bangladesh had a very bloody birth in 1971 that saw the killing of many innocent people of all religious persuasions and ethnicities. Many of my own classmates, friends and family members were killed during that liberation war. My father was taken by the Pakistan Army in the early days of April, soon after the fall of Chittagong, to be shot. Miraculously, he survived. And then to save his life, for most of the 9-month long period of our liberation struggle, he had to go into hiding. Some of our tenants were taken into prison by the Pakistani Army. My father’s business warehouse was repeated robbed, while his business suffered enormous loss. During that period of our personal tragedy and suffering, we opened our doors to anyone requiring shelter. While we ourselves were living a life of anxiety and fear, we did not hesitate to open our doors to a Hindu family (of professor Hari Shadhan Das) who lived the entire period in our house.
But such information is irrelevant to a Hindu extremist like Biswas. A respectable dialogue with him has proven to be absurd. When one tries to open his minds to the other side of the tragic story, he resorts to name-calling, showing his gutter-self and low-upbringing. So, this time, when I received his letter I was not sure whether to reply or just ignore it. But I ended up making the wrong decision, and wrote him the following letter:
“Thanks for your comments. As you well know the division of India along ethnic and religious lines has not been an easy one for any its people. Much to the ignorance of many people, the Islamic Ulama were against partition - they were actually more secular in matters of politics than secular politicians. That is why one of the greatest Indian scholars, Mowlana A.K. Azad opposed it so vehemently. [You may like to read his interpretation of the Qur'an to see his wisdom and knowledge on Islam and world history.] Even the same Mowdudi and others within the Jamat-e-Islami who are now blamed for problems with Pakistan were no friends for independence of Pakistan. It was the secularist section within the Muslim community (esp. leadership) that opted for partition. They can't be blamed either. They were afraid of the likes of Ballav Bhai Patel and many RSS folks that were not accommodating to the Muslim minority interest. Truly, if India was full of people like Jinnah, a highly secular person (more than anyone including Gandhi and Nehru) - excuse my metaphor here - there would not be a need for a separate Pakistan. This fact is now conveniently forgotten by many Hindus.
As to the post-1971 Bangladesh, as a neutral observer of Bangladesh history (without any party favoritism), I cannot discount the impact the nation felt right from its birth -- from looting of its industrial machines by the Indian Army soon after 16 Dec., '71 to many acts that only widened our gap. Over the years, Bangladeshi people felt that India was taking a big brother-like attitude to its neighbor. Nobody likes that attitude. Living with that attitude is even more difficult. Then there were the terrible effects of the Farakka Barrage, and now Tipaimukh dam, and the daily killings of Bangladeshi farmers inside Bangladesh by BSF around the border -- none of which is making it easy for softening attitude inside Bangladesh towards India. That is why, like many neutral observers of history, I blame India for transforming Bangladeshi people's attitude from positive to a negative one in the post-liberation period towards the Indian government. Such a fair evaluation is unfortunately interpreted by many Hindus, esp. those from India, that Bangladesh is inherently hostile to India and has forgotten the contribution that India had made for its liberation. But that would be a misreading. What Bangladesh does not like is hegemony. It welcomes cooperation on an equal footing, in spite of its smallness of area, population, resources, etc.
I wish India had given much thought as to how her actions foment anger inside Bangladesh. If it cared, I am sure over the years, we could have patched our differences and become good neighbors. That attitude would help govt. to arrest anger within Bangladesh. Is India ready to reflect? How about its intellectual community? How about you? Are you willing to educate your fellow community as to what needs to be done to improve Indian image inside Bangladesh? If you do, that would be the start of a glorious future that we can all feel good about. Let's do our part to make our world a better living place!
As to your comment about how Hindus are being looked at inside Bangladesh by the Muslim majority, it is not true. They are very well placed and none have lost job for any discrimination. I have several Hindu friends that I have maintained friendship for nearly half a century from my kindergarten days. The same goes for many of our generation and later and older ones, too. Unfortunately, some RSS/BJP radicals within the Hindu community have been trying to provide an unkind, unflattering image about Bangladesh - not for the sake of truth but for polarizing one community against another. They would take some small incidents here and there and make a generalized statement to portray a negative image about Bangladesh. If those types of examples are generalized one would find that India is worse off compared to Bangladesh in its record on the minorities.
We need to stop these dividing factors - the religious extremists - on either side. They cannot work without blowing up incidents to polarize each camp. As I see it, Govt. can play an important role in this. E.g., if India wants to improve its image inside Bangladesh, it should note that controlling water of international rivers like the Ganges and Brahmaputra is illegal, killing farmers in the border territory is provocative, let alone being criminal, a domineering attitude on foreign relations and trade is unworkable in a globalized world of ours and only leads to further alienation.”
Well, we can only try to have a rational dialogue with two-legged human beings and not with some animals that are locked in the Darwin’s evolutionary path from making that quantum jump from the lower animal state.
Hoping against hope, I thought that Biswas had evolved into a human being that is capable of having an intelligent dialogue or conversation, but I was absolutely wrong. He attacked me with such a foul language and unspeakable filthy words that is only seen amongst the children of whores. Through his bastardly language once again he has disappointed me.
Biswas is a known Hindu bigot, an extremist with foul mouth, big egos, and all hatred for the Muslim people and Islam. He blames Muslims for partition of India, and sees nothing but a scoundrel in Muslim leaders like Suhrawardy who championed for a united Bengal with Hindu leaders like Sarat Bose and Kiran Sarker Roy. Obviously, he is unaware of Suhrawardy-Bose Plan for Bengal that tried to preserve the unity of Bengal. His history starts and ends with Hindu suffering, and has no room for others. Thus, he is oblivious of and totally unconcerned about the Muslim suffering.
In 1946-47 my father, studying at Calcutta University, and residing at the Baker Hostel, had to save his life from Hindu rioters by hiding inside a water tank on the roof of the hostel. Many of his fellow Muslim students were killed by Hindu mobs. Hundreds of thousand acres of precious Muslim land were lost to Hindu India after the partition of 1947. My next door neighbor – the Ispahani family - in Chittagong was one of the biggest losers in such land-grabs by the Indian government and Hindu land-grabbers. Threatened by land-grabbers, his family members and estate managers can’t even go near those properties. My father who cherished doing business in Kolkata had to settle for Chittagong after graduating from Calcutta University. In the face of India’s unfriendly policy with Muslim girls’ institutions, my mother could not complete her education in Calcutta and had to complete hers in the new province of East Pakistan. Hundreds of thousand of Muslims were killed by Hindu mobs in those nasty days of Partition when jubilation turned into massacre. And yet, to a one-eyed narrow-minded Hindu bigot like Biswas such facts on Muslim suffering meant nothing.
Bangladesh had a very bloody birth in 1971 that saw the killing of many innocent people of all religious persuasions and ethnicities. Many of my own classmates, friends and family members were killed during that liberation war. My father was taken by the Pakistan Army in the early days of April, soon after the fall of Chittagong, to be shot. Miraculously, he survived. And then to save his life, for most of the 9-month long period of our liberation struggle, he had to go into hiding. Some of our tenants were taken into prison by the Pakistani Army. My father’s business warehouse was repeated robbed, while his business suffered enormous loss. During that period of our personal tragedy and suffering, we opened our doors to anyone requiring shelter. While we ourselves were living a life of anxiety and fear, we did not hesitate to open our doors to a Hindu family (of professor Hari Shadhan Das) who lived the entire period in our house.
But such information is irrelevant to a Hindu extremist like Biswas. A respectable dialogue with him has proven to be absurd. When one tries to open his minds to the other side of the tragic story, he resorts to name-calling, showing his gutter-self and low-upbringing. So, this time, when I received his letter I was not sure whether to reply or just ignore it. But I ended up making the wrong decision, and wrote him the following letter:
“Thanks for your comments. As you well know the division of India along ethnic and religious lines has not been an easy one for any its people. Much to the ignorance of many people, the Islamic Ulama were against partition - they were actually more secular in matters of politics than secular politicians. That is why one of the greatest Indian scholars, Mowlana A.K. Azad opposed it so vehemently. [You may like to read his interpretation of the Qur'an to see his wisdom and knowledge on Islam and world history.] Even the same Mowdudi and others within the Jamat-e-Islami who are now blamed for problems with Pakistan were no friends for independence of Pakistan. It was the secularist section within the Muslim community (esp. leadership) that opted for partition. They can't be blamed either. They were afraid of the likes of Ballav Bhai Patel and many RSS folks that were not accommodating to the Muslim minority interest. Truly, if India was full of people like Jinnah, a highly secular person (more than anyone including Gandhi and Nehru) - excuse my metaphor here - there would not be a need for a separate Pakistan. This fact is now conveniently forgotten by many Hindus.
As to the post-1971 Bangladesh, as a neutral observer of Bangladesh history (without any party favoritism), I cannot discount the impact the nation felt right from its birth -- from looting of its industrial machines by the Indian Army soon after 16 Dec., '71 to many acts that only widened our gap. Over the years, Bangladeshi people felt that India was taking a big brother-like attitude to its neighbor. Nobody likes that attitude. Living with that attitude is even more difficult. Then there were the terrible effects of the Farakka Barrage, and now Tipaimukh dam, and the daily killings of Bangladeshi farmers inside Bangladesh by BSF around the border -- none of which is making it easy for softening attitude inside Bangladesh towards India. That is why, like many neutral observers of history, I blame India for transforming Bangladeshi people's attitude from positive to a negative one in the post-liberation period towards the Indian government. Such a fair evaluation is unfortunately interpreted by many Hindus, esp. those from India, that Bangladesh is inherently hostile to India and has forgotten the contribution that India had made for its liberation. But that would be a misreading. What Bangladesh does not like is hegemony. It welcomes cooperation on an equal footing, in spite of its smallness of area, population, resources, etc.
I wish India had given much thought as to how her actions foment anger inside Bangladesh. If it cared, I am sure over the years, we could have patched our differences and become good neighbors. That attitude would help govt. to arrest anger within Bangladesh. Is India ready to reflect? How about its intellectual community? How about you? Are you willing to educate your fellow community as to what needs to be done to improve Indian image inside Bangladesh? If you do, that would be the start of a glorious future that we can all feel good about. Let's do our part to make our world a better living place!
As to your comment about how Hindus are being looked at inside Bangladesh by the Muslim majority, it is not true. They are very well placed and none have lost job for any discrimination. I have several Hindu friends that I have maintained friendship for nearly half a century from my kindergarten days. The same goes for many of our generation and later and older ones, too. Unfortunately, some RSS/BJP radicals within the Hindu community have been trying to provide an unkind, unflattering image about Bangladesh - not for the sake of truth but for polarizing one community against another. They would take some small incidents here and there and make a generalized statement to portray a negative image about Bangladesh. If those types of examples are generalized one would find that India is worse off compared to Bangladesh in its record on the minorities.
We need to stop these dividing factors - the religious extremists - on either side. They cannot work without blowing up incidents to polarize each camp. As I see it, Govt. can play an important role in this. E.g., if India wants to improve its image inside Bangladesh, it should note that controlling water of international rivers like the Ganges and Brahmaputra is illegal, killing farmers in the border territory is provocative, let alone being criminal, a domineering attitude on foreign relations and trade is unworkable in a globalized world of ours and only leads to further alienation.”
Well, we can only try to have a rational dialogue with two-legged human beings and not with some animals that are locked in the Darwin’s evolutionary path from making that quantum jump from the lower animal state.
Hoping against hope, I thought that Biswas had evolved into a human being that is capable of having an intelligent dialogue or conversation, but I was absolutely wrong. He attacked me with such a foul language and unspeakable filthy words that is only seen amongst the children of whores. Through his bastardly language once again he has disappointed me.
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