Post by tand on Feb 19, 2013 5:03:34 GMT -5
None can deny the historical failure of the two nation theory that culminated in the bloody partition of 1947. The episode of the events in Bangladesh between March 25 and December 16, 1971 that epitomized the human spirit as well as man's abundant capacity to be brutal to fellow men exposes the fragile and artificial nature of this ideology. In East Pakistan which was later renamed to Bangladesh, there was a strong perception that Bengalis were the second-class citizens of Pakistan, and that the ruling elite in West Pakistan would not give them their rightful share. Economic underdevelopment, increasing poverty and unemployment existed alongside the denial of basic democratic and human rights. Combined with the economic, political, social and cultural dominance of the ruling elite of West Pakistan, this gave rise to the nationalist sentiments and mood among the masses of East Pakistan.
As the movement surged forward,a grotesque brutality was unleashed by the Pakistani Army . It was assisted by the vigilantes of violent communal forces - ‘Al-badr’ and ‘Al- Shams’ subsidiaries of Jamaat-e-Islami and known as razakars in perpetuating this mass genocide of the Bengali people. But the movement defied this tyranny and the armed struggle led by the left wing of the JSD(Jatiyo Samajtantrik Dal), Proletariat Party of East Bengal (Purba Bangla Sarbohara Party), Mukti Bahini began to liberate more and more areas from the clutches of the state. After a nine-month war of liberation in which nearly three million people died and tens of millions were raped/tortured, BANGLADESH APPEARED ON the world map as an independent country on December 16, 1971.
After liberation ,despite several efforts, the failure of the left wing to carry out the enormous task of transforming the movement to a socialist direction and several military Coup d'état in a country battered by economic underdevelopment, increasing poverty and unemployment put the country in a chaos. The advent of globalization has aggravated the situation. On one hand , there is a huge economic disparity being created by the globalization . On the other hand , the fundamentalist forces headed by Jamat-E-Islami are trying to divert people's discontent, on the basis of an inflammatory propaganda and hate campaign by dividing the working class and peasantry based on their Hindu/Muslim religious identities, that went virtually uncontested for decades.
This situation can be compared with modern India , where at the level of the superstructure, decadent feudalism is nurtured by capitalist degeneration. This odious alliance produces a situation where growing criminalization of the society, coexists and grows in the company of caste and communal feelings, which are exploited by the ruling classes for their political-electoral purposes. In the pursuit of this objective of the ruling class , all the leading war criminal-suspects who had fled Bangladesh after the liberation war and lost citizenship rights, were invited to return, which they did. Even Golam Azam, leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami and widely regarded to be the principal war criminal among all local collaborators of the Pakistan army, was allowed to return to Bangladesh. Instead of facing arrest and charges, Azam was allowed to quietly begin re-organizing his party. Overtly communal political parties, which opposed the independence of Bangladesh and backed the Pakistani military in its genocidal campaign in 1971, were all made legal again, with opportunities to "win" seats in the national parliament. Although comparable with Nazi holocaust, there has been no sincere attempt to investigate the war crimes of 1971 by any government of Bangladesh. Unlike the survivors of Nazi holocaust, justice has eluded the people of Bangladesh for 42 long years.
This has given rise to a festering resentment among a youthful population super-charged by social media . The youth believes the war criminals and communal forces headed by Jamat-E-Islami must be tried to give the families of the liberation war martyrs a sense of closure . Public fury at the impunity many war criminals have enjoyed in the last 42 years grew further when Abdul Qader Mollah, nicknamed the "Butcher of Mirpur" for his crimes and a Islamist politician found guilty this month of crimes including massacres, torture and rapes during Bangladesh's bloody war of independence from Pakistan in 1971, flashed a "V" for victory sign when he came out of the courtroom. Out of thousands of war criminals, he was one of a few who have ever been tried before the court in this 42 long years .
He was given a life sentence instead of capital punishment. This raised a furor among the mass and a group called the Blogger and Online Activist Network came out first calling people to the streets to demand proper prosecution of thousands of war criminals , most of whom are enjoying impunity. This gave birth to a mass furor so strong that a crowd estimated to be hundreds of thousands strong has been camped on the streets for 10 days demanding the execution of all the war criminals. The movement quickly spread from one city to the other. Needless to say , communal Islamist forces headed by Jamat-E-Islami is trying to resist this mass-movement by all possible heinous means - from inflammatory propaganda and hate campaign to murder of the activists and even by beheading one of the activist bloggers named Rajib aka ''Thaba Baba''.
In essence the movement is spontaneous in nature having its own limitations. Lack of organizational skills and concrete direction might put an abrupt end to the movement. There might be controversies also regarding the demand of capital punishment. But we need to analyze the current movement of Bangladesh on the context of current historical epoch in the sub-continent. Similar to how RSS,VHP or BJP operates in India , communal forces in Bangladesh have long been trying to divide the mass across religious lines .
Now the current movement has been able to integrate workers,farmers and intelligentsia cutting across the religious lines to a common platform to resist fundamentalist communal forces. Same is the need in India when the fanatic Hindu communal forces are on the rise in the form of RSS,VHP,BJP etc. that depend on their Islamic counterparts for the survival. The struggles of the toiling sections who want to improve their livelihood and move towards genuine liberty and dignity are today disrupted and diverted into channels of communal strife and tensions. Unless these struggles are strengthened and the communal menace defeated, the advance towards human liberation itself gets thwarted.
It is on the context of this secular aspiration of the Sahbag Movement in Bangladesh , instead of all its limitations and all its chances to get used by mainstream political organizations such as Awami League and BNP, demands solidarity from all the progressive forces around the world because it has the potential to mobilize the mass to a radical ideology where the demand to ban every political institution connected with any religious entity , can lead the mass to refute religious fundamentalist influence over polity which aspiration is yet to find a highway in India.
Its to affirm our stand that though we respect the emotions of the people of Bangladesh but we are against death penalty by state anywhere. Death penalty does not bring justice but vengeance and as we are looking forward, this ongoing movement is not about vengeance but to progress beyond it ; its about the collectivism to rise up, to build up a society free from every injustice and all fundamentalist tendencies whereas death penalty can not be a solution as it implies that these 'war criminals' are alien to our system. It was the ruler's way to punish the freedom fighters (Muktijoddha) and to suppress the demand for liberation ; so the solution has to be found into the very structure of the society,its culture and economy and by developing an alternative of it. It has to be based on the agenda not only to punish the mass murders but to eliminate the religious fundamentalism and superiority of the aggressors which is still trying to swallow the whole society in form of imperialism and neo-colonialism. We hope that the movement of Shahbag will not teach the chapters of revenge to the coming generations but will aspire them to be resilient and to struggle for a society where there will remain no question of vengeance.
Its our hope that this movement will not curb itself only into an anti-Jamat movement but will apprehend itself to show the threads of the entire repressive system ; which will not demand death of only some puppets who massacred thousands but will lead the mass to identify the strings which are pulling these puppets and will demand death of the present exploitative structure.
Despite all of these , we are thankful to all progressive democratic people of Bangladesh for giving us aspiration. We salute these people who are fighting at Shahbag and elsewhere in Bangladesh, day and night against the injustice and hereby express our comradely gratitude to all the martyrs who have sacrificed their lives to build an independent, democratic, peaceful, non-aligned, progressive Bangladesh free from the domination of US imperialism and Indian Expansionism.
(solidarity draft prepared by Anirban Gangopadhyay & Ananyo Mukherjee; your view and comment is needed)
As the movement surged forward,a grotesque brutality was unleashed by the Pakistani Army . It was assisted by the vigilantes of violent communal forces - ‘Al-badr’ and ‘Al- Shams’ subsidiaries of Jamaat-e-Islami and known as razakars in perpetuating this mass genocide of the Bengali people. But the movement defied this tyranny and the armed struggle led by the left wing of the JSD(Jatiyo Samajtantrik Dal), Proletariat Party of East Bengal (Purba Bangla Sarbohara Party), Mukti Bahini began to liberate more and more areas from the clutches of the state. After a nine-month war of liberation in which nearly three million people died and tens of millions were raped/tortured, BANGLADESH APPEARED ON the world map as an independent country on December 16, 1971.
After liberation ,despite several efforts, the failure of the left wing to carry out the enormous task of transforming the movement to a socialist direction and several military Coup d'état in a country battered by economic underdevelopment, increasing poverty and unemployment put the country in a chaos. The advent of globalization has aggravated the situation. On one hand , there is a huge economic disparity being created by the globalization . On the other hand , the fundamentalist forces headed by Jamat-E-Islami are trying to divert people's discontent, on the basis of an inflammatory propaganda and hate campaign by dividing the working class and peasantry based on their Hindu/Muslim religious identities, that went virtually uncontested for decades.
This situation can be compared with modern India , where at the level of the superstructure, decadent feudalism is nurtured by capitalist degeneration. This odious alliance produces a situation where growing criminalization of the society, coexists and grows in the company of caste and communal feelings, which are exploited by the ruling classes for their political-electoral purposes. In the pursuit of this objective of the ruling class , all the leading war criminal-suspects who had fled Bangladesh after the liberation war and lost citizenship rights, were invited to return, which they did. Even Golam Azam, leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami and widely regarded to be the principal war criminal among all local collaborators of the Pakistan army, was allowed to return to Bangladesh. Instead of facing arrest and charges, Azam was allowed to quietly begin re-organizing his party. Overtly communal political parties, which opposed the independence of Bangladesh and backed the Pakistani military in its genocidal campaign in 1971, were all made legal again, with opportunities to "win" seats in the national parliament. Although comparable with Nazi holocaust, there has been no sincere attempt to investigate the war crimes of 1971 by any government of Bangladesh. Unlike the survivors of Nazi holocaust, justice has eluded the people of Bangladesh for 42 long years.
This has given rise to a festering resentment among a youthful population super-charged by social media . The youth believes the war criminals and communal forces headed by Jamat-E-Islami must be tried to give the families of the liberation war martyrs a sense of closure . Public fury at the impunity many war criminals have enjoyed in the last 42 years grew further when Abdul Qader Mollah, nicknamed the "Butcher of Mirpur" for his crimes and a Islamist politician found guilty this month of crimes including massacres, torture and rapes during Bangladesh's bloody war of independence from Pakistan in 1971, flashed a "V" for victory sign when he came out of the courtroom. Out of thousands of war criminals, he was one of a few who have ever been tried before the court in this 42 long years .
He was given a life sentence instead of capital punishment. This raised a furor among the mass and a group called the Blogger and Online Activist Network came out first calling people to the streets to demand proper prosecution of thousands of war criminals , most of whom are enjoying impunity. This gave birth to a mass furor so strong that a crowd estimated to be hundreds of thousands strong has been camped on the streets for 10 days demanding the execution of all the war criminals. The movement quickly spread from one city to the other. Needless to say , communal Islamist forces headed by Jamat-E-Islami is trying to resist this mass-movement by all possible heinous means - from inflammatory propaganda and hate campaign to murder of the activists and even by beheading one of the activist bloggers named Rajib aka ''Thaba Baba''.
In essence the movement is spontaneous in nature having its own limitations. Lack of organizational skills and concrete direction might put an abrupt end to the movement. There might be controversies also regarding the demand of capital punishment. But we need to analyze the current movement of Bangladesh on the context of current historical epoch in the sub-continent. Similar to how RSS,VHP or BJP operates in India , communal forces in Bangladesh have long been trying to divide the mass across religious lines .
Now the current movement has been able to integrate workers,farmers and intelligentsia cutting across the religious lines to a common platform to resist fundamentalist communal forces. Same is the need in India when the fanatic Hindu communal forces are on the rise in the form of RSS,VHP,BJP etc. that depend on their Islamic counterparts for the survival. The struggles of the toiling sections who want to improve their livelihood and move towards genuine liberty and dignity are today disrupted and diverted into channels of communal strife and tensions. Unless these struggles are strengthened and the communal menace defeated, the advance towards human liberation itself gets thwarted.
It is on the context of this secular aspiration of the Sahbag Movement in Bangladesh , instead of all its limitations and all its chances to get used by mainstream political organizations such as Awami League and BNP, demands solidarity from all the progressive forces around the world because it has the potential to mobilize the mass to a radical ideology where the demand to ban every political institution connected with any religious entity , can lead the mass to refute religious fundamentalist influence over polity which aspiration is yet to find a highway in India.
Its to affirm our stand that though we respect the emotions of the people of Bangladesh but we are against death penalty by state anywhere. Death penalty does not bring justice but vengeance and as we are looking forward, this ongoing movement is not about vengeance but to progress beyond it ; its about the collectivism to rise up, to build up a society free from every injustice and all fundamentalist tendencies whereas death penalty can not be a solution as it implies that these 'war criminals' are alien to our system. It was the ruler's way to punish the freedom fighters (Muktijoddha) and to suppress the demand for liberation ; so the solution has to be found into the very structure of the society,its culture and economy and by developing an alternative of it. It has to be based on the agenda not only to punish the mass murders but to eliminate the religious fundamentalism and superiority of the aggressors which is still trying to swallow the whole society in form of imperialism and neo-colonialism. We hope that the movement of Shahbag will not teach the chapters of revenge to the coming generations but will aspire them to be resilient and to struggle for a society where there will remain no question of vengeance.
Its our hope that this movement will not curb itself only into an anti-Jamat movement but will apprehend itself to show the threads of the entire repressive system ; which will not demand death of only some puppets who massacred thousands but will lead the mass to identify the strings which are pulling these puppets and will demand death of the present exploitative structure.
Despite all of these , we are thankful to all progressive democratic people of Bangladesh for giving us aspiration. We salute these people who are fighting at Shahbag and elsewhere in Bangladesh, day and night against the injustice and hereby express our comradely gratitude to all the martyrs who have sacrificed their lives to build an independent, democratic, peaceful, non-aligned, progressive Bangladesh free from the domination of US imperialism and Indian Expansionism.
(solidarity draft prepared by Anirban Gangopadhyay & Ananyo Mukherjee; your view and comment is needed)