Dr. A Qayyum Khan talks to Devjani Bodepudi to dissect the history and realities of Bangladesh, in the context of Bangladesh’s Victory Day and the release of his first book, A Bittersweet Victory, A Freedom Fighter’s Tale.
Tell me why you picked the title of your book? A Bittersweet Victory– you have mentioned before, a betrayal of ideals – could you elaborate?
As the story unfolds, you will see that those who are actually in this Prime Minister or Presidential government, everybody who sort of made it happen when Mujib(Mujibhir Rehman) went into prison, and all of those people, after Bangladesh were liberated, and they were all sidelined, including military leaders and political leaders including the provisional Prime Minister, Tajuddin Ahmed, back in the time actually left the Cabinet in 1973 or ’74. And Bangladesh; the cronies – I talk about the cronies, I talk about the youth leaderships who had Mujib’s years, were not interested in the ideals of liberation. They were interested in enriching themselves, enhancing their powers, their cautery, and I think the country went into -you know- within three years, you know, we had a terrible famine, and estimates of death from the famine we don’t know, definitely but it exceeds a million, and could be as high as three million, in fact, was a huge trauma. I mean it is the story of how we fought the Pakistanis. The upper middle class, they protected themselves, they were traumatized, but villagers; they were the ones who were dying; they were the ones who were fighting and then they were dying in the famine. That’s the bitter sweetness. The betrayal of ideals; the book ends on that note.
You joined the Mukti Bahini as a young, inexperienced fighter. What was the catalyst for you, in choosing to join the movement?
One thing about growing up in East Pakistan is that you have the sense of deprivation. Deprivation in the sense, I didn’t understand economic deprivation that much but consciously the political deprivation, the lack of opportunity, you’re almost living in an apartheid state. There were West Pakistanis and then we were the short, dark Bengalis and for me the feeling of being a second-class citizen was very overwhelming and of course it was not that Bengalis were silent. Bengalis were protesting against it and you get caught up in that. I think 25th March night, the violence that an army was unleashed on its own population and I try to not go too much into it but being united and living in Calcutta when tanks roll out and they shoot anybody in the street and unarmed people; shanties being tossed by flame throwers and people are trying to get out of being mowed down by machine guns, so what do you do? I mean obviously the whole idea was to intimidate you and you did feel the fear but you can only live in fear for so long. And for me, I’ve had a nervous breakdown after that but then I recovered from it. Then the realization; I am going to do something about it.
One of the key moments in the book is when you first caught a glimpse of the first version of the Bangladeshi flag. Describe how you felt; what went through your mind?
It is written in the book that we were all watching a cricket match and what, is now the Bangabandhu Stadium, was the Dhaka stadium and it was Pakistan vs MCC. For the first time, two Bengalis were included in the Pakistani team. Before that one or two East Pakistanis did play for Pakistan but they were Urdu speaking Pakistani. The fellow who played, was our contemporary in Dhaka University. We went to see him bat but he was very nervous. He scored 1 in each innings and it was a terrible disappointment but even then! So, 1st of March, while we were watching the cricket match, in the 12 o’clock news, it was announced that the National Assembly was just elected by a landslide victory. It was not going to sit; it was supposed to sit in Dhaka. And immediately the whole stadium exploded and people just tore down from the galleries, tore down the barbed wire and ran into the grounds, set canopies on fire. This is near an area called Motijheel, which is a big commercial area and at that time, it was the only commercial area. There was a hotel there called Hotel Purbani, where Mujib (Mujibhir Rehman) was holding a meeting. It was told in the morning that the Awami League was holding a meeting at Purbani, the Awami League working committee, its extended central committee – about 150 members and Mujib was presiding over that meeting. So everybody went to Purbani, to Mujib, “what are we gonna do?” So I also went there. From the stadium to Purbani is just about 300m. So we all went there, we were waiting there. And in Purbani, the first sight was that of students burning the Pakistani flag. They first burned the Pakistani flag! We had been taught that you can’t disrespect your flag since we were young. That was “we’ve gone this far” and then all of a sudden come students with a flag. It’s a green flag with a red sun with the map of Bangladesh in the middle and I said in my book, I felt pride but I also felt fear. From that day onwards, everybody in Dhaka, every house in Dhaka put up the Bangladesh flag. In two days every home, shanties, doesn’t matter, somebody put up a bamboo pole and a Bangladeshi flag going up there. Ever since the election results, there was this apprehension that Mujib will not be allowed to form a government so we all really had an apprehension about it. And if Mujib was not allowed to form a government, the anti would be upped; we knew that.
The idea of language triggered this war of independence…
The idea of language was the first expression of Bengali Nationalism. That was ’48. In ’48, Jinnah made the announcement and for three years, in ’52, police actually fired and killed people. In ’54, in the provincial elections; that was the first provincial election only in East Bengal; the province was called East Bengal then; which later became East Pakistan; still very fresh from the creation of Pakistan. Pakistan was created as a confederation of independent states. So the first election in ’54, which was called the United Front of East Bengal, but that government was not allowed to function. Within three to four months, the government was dismissed by the President and then in ’58, Ayyub Khan declared Marshall Law and the real discrimination you saw during Ayyub Khan’s rule. Ayyub Khan, in 1968, when I am sort of coming of age, I just finished my secondary school certificate exam, Ayyub decided to celebrate his decade in power and he termed the decade as the ‘Decade of Development’. For people in East Pakistan, this decade became a decade of deprivation. So I think, it started off as language but as years went on, there were other grievances as well. And language was what triggered it.
How do you reconcile with the globalisation and domination of English? Especially in post-colonial nation like ours?
I don’t think we have a quarrel with English. We don’t have a quarrel with Urdu either. The University of Dhaka has a very vibrant department of Urdu and Persian. People in Bangladesh still study Urdu, still get Master’s degree in Persian, some people do doctorates. So it’s not that; it’s how the state used language to discriminate.
Also, the idea of nation and democracy…given the fact that Sheikh Hasina’s government is in power today as a result of a controversial election which were boycotted by mostly all opposition parties. What is the role that the BNP is playing as the opposition today?
BNP has problems. I think the two major political parties are very family centric. The problem with BNP is that Khaleda’s (Khalida Zia) eldest son, Tarique Rahman is sort of the successor to his mother and he has been convicted of corruption charges and he has been convicted and has been sent to jail. He lives in London; his mother lives in Dhaka. Tarique also represents the young thugs of the BNP. Our political culture has become ‘andoloner gonotontro’ [A culture of protest]. Shobkichu raastaay hoy [Everything happens out on the streets]. Andolon korar lok nei BNP te ekhon. Karon [There is nobody to protest now because…] Tarique is in London, he controls everything and I don’t think he and his mother agree on everything. So you are right. January 5th election is very, very controversial. More than half the BNP today in the assembly has not had an opponent during the election. I think BNP also made a mistake; I think if BNP went to the elections even if some people said they would have won, some people say even if they hadn’t have won they would have been a very strong parliamentary party but having said that, it is also true that Khaleda was a leader of the opposition in the parliament in the previous tenure of the government and for the entire period, Khaleda boycotted the parliament. She boycotted the parliament and Hasina (Sheikh Hasina) had a two-thirds majority and she passed a constitutional amendment and she did not participate in that debate which she should have. She did not participate in the debate and I don’t know why; I think the duality of the central leadership; the son and the mother. I think BNP did some terrible mistakes and a lot of people say that was a last nail on the BNP coffin. If it was the last nail, I don’t know. The coffin seems it is getting ready to go under.
Do you see any other opposition taking the place of the BNP? Is there any other viable option?
That is the confusing part. I think the people have grievances; there will be opposition. There has to be opposition and there will be opposition. Unfortunately, this is my worst fear that the only people who seem to be organized, prepared to oppose the Awami League are the Islamists. The Islamists have many faces. The Jamaat-e-Islam today cannot be registered as a political party in Bangladesh because the Jamaat’s constitution – first of all you have to accept the liberation of Bangladesh; Jamaat does not. But the Islamists have another front as well. A front that is perhaps emerging from the Madrasas called Hefazat-e-Islam. That emerged about two to three years ago and although they have had a couple of rallies in Dhaka and elsewhere and their rallies have been very, very large because through the madrasas and through the network of maulabis, they were able to get; not that they are politically active, but they are sympathetic to their cause. Hasina, how she has handled Hefazat, it’s very non-transparent and I think a lot of money has changed hands in the process. If secular forces; secular democratic forces; there are secular, democratic forces in Bangladesh outside the Awami but they have lost their voice. If they come up, get organised then the only people, this time it seems; it may change in the future; but at this time; to oppose the Awami League is the Islamists. Recently the former chairman of the Jamaat-e-Islam, who in ’71 was a huge collaborator and responsible for the killing of many, many innocent people, including the intellectuals of Dhaka; he was convicted in war crimes tribunal but then he was an old man, in his 90s. He was given the death sentence; commuted to a life term; he died in jail. The Jamaat actually thinks that is the politics in Bangladesh; piggy-backing on the BNP. Jamaat’s Ghulam Azam’s son made a statement that “the BNP cannot win an election without us” and that the BNP did not even give out a condolence announcement when his father died, who was a war criminal. He lashed out at the BNP and then he, of course, modified himself. But I wouldn’t say there is a split between the alliance of Jamaat and BNP because if the BNP, all by itself, may not be able to win the elections. Khaleda is going around the country addressing public meetings and if you watch the videos of those public meetings, you see that every placard is a Jamaat placard. I think there is abhorrence for Jamaat but when Jamaat launches a candidate under the guidance of BNP, there is acceptance. Seems like the last nail in BNP’s coffin but they have a lifeline in Jamaat. That’s not the subject of my book though and I am not a political commentator. These are my views. I am not a politician. I have written a book on the Liberation War. Contemporary politics is not my forte.
First of all, there is a lot of affinity, culturally, with Bengali speaking people in India. Whenever we have visitors from West Bengal, if you ever come to Dhaka, I would host you. Many Bangladeshis do that and vice-versa. We are very, very grateful to the help that India gave us in ’71. But Mujib and Indira Gandhi; they have been gone for so long; and land border agreement, the water share agreement, they had signed it; it was never implemented. So there is a feeling in Bangladesh that India treats Bangladesh; that India is the big brother and we are the small brother and we have to follow her dictates. There have been some cases for instance, businesses, many small entrepreneurs in Bangladesh feels that if there were not, what we call non-tariff barriers, if these non-tariff barriers did not exist, our geography tells you that we have to have economic relationship with our neighbor. There is no way we can. If these non-tariff barriers did not exist, both sides of the border would prosper and it is again the big brother, big business interest getting in the way. Very sensitive and I am also very depressed about that- at the border killings; the BSF killings. I am not understanding that there are no firings in the Western border of India, why should BSF fire on people; even if they are illegally trying to cross with cattle or whatever or smuggling, you don’t need to shoot at them.
And also the electrified fences which are creating more and more hostility…
These things are not good. The realities are…I have heard in some seminars and talk shows where the revived interest in C R Das. And why C R Das? Because a lot of people have said that C R Das was alive, Bengal wouldn’t have been divided. When the British left, India would have been an Independent state. Those ideas are creeping back into the debate but Bangladesh believes it is not getting a fair deal from India.
You see, it is a lack of confidence, if you were to describe it in one phrase and confidence is lacking mainly that we can live peacefully. I mean, you know, this whole firing is all cattle demarking. Indian cows, being taken to Bangladesh was blocked; it was a religious issue, and a lot of time, the BSF see it as a religious issue but look, there are Indian businessmen selling cows to Bangladesh. That’s the reality. If we want more beef, we can import beef from other countries as well. It just happens that India is the cheapest source of beef. Okay? It just happens India is the cheapest source of beef. India prohibits the exportation of beef. We get beef elsewhere but you don’t have to die because you smuggle a cow.
How do you see Bangladesh in comparison to Pakistan, since gaining independence? Two very different nations, possibly with two very different ideals.
I think we started off all right. I think where we; I think socio-economically we started off in a state where we were in dire straits. We had a famine in ’74. That’s the bottom that we reached. After a traumatic experience of a revolutionary war, and there is no Bangladeshi family, not in the immediate nuclear family but in the extended family, where you don’t know someone who was killed in ’71. So imagine the trauma of that experience. That followed the famine. But we’ve come out of that and I think Bangladesh’s, I think the economy has grown, we are today a large exporter of textiles, probably the second or third largest, where we don’t grow cotton. Our workers send a lot of money back into the country. I think this, what we call Human Development Index to measure to see, I think Bangladeshi women are more empowered than Indian women. I am not talking about middle class women; I am talking about rural women; am talking about people who are at the bottom of the ladder. I think that has brought a lot of good, social changes. You know, this survey done by economists in UNDP show that we have done better with public sanitation, health, child mortality, so these are the things. We have also lost a few things. What we have lost: our constitution says- we have four pillars in our constitution. The four pillars are secularism, democracy, nationalism and socialism. We have done nothing about these four things. We have no progress in the four pillars, specially the pillars of democracy, secularism, socialism; some social justice. We’ve done nothing. Our economy today is crony capitalism. The rich are making a lot of money and they are not bringing in that money to the country. They are buying homes in North America; they are buying homes in Europe. The rich have wealth to invest and the crony capitalism continues.
What are your views on the Shahbag protests? Can capital punishment be defended, in any context?
Personally, I am against capital punishment but Bangladesh does have capital punishment, and that’s a fact. People are being sentenced to death and are being executed. So, if others are going to face the death penalty, you cannot bring this argument here. This is not an argument about capital punishment. That’s not the way I see it. I also think it is not accurate to say that the Awami League, it’s not plausible for them in the delay of these trials. So the story is not really black and white. The story is much greyer than one would imagine. The Shahbag movement, when it started, was a spontaneous movement. But very soon, the Awami League took control of that and today all those Shahbag wallas and the Awami League don’t see eye to eye.
What is your vision for the future of Bangladesh? Where do you realistically see her going?
To a great extent, we need to get out of this crony capitalism. We need to have nationalist institutions. And if we cannot, if we fail to do that, then we are going to be a very chaotic society. We need to institutionalize our democracy; we need to institutionalize social justice. Social justice means that the rich people will have to pay taxes.
They don’t at the moment?
I don’t think that any taxpayer in Bangladesh pays the correct taxes. And it’s actually with my professional work, I work with the National Board of Revenue, and I’ve seen the numbers. And so the richest people in Bangladesh paid lesser tax than what I paid. That tells you the story. But the tax collector maybe doesn’t want to collect the full tax, because he is able to take it to his pocket so he is the one making the deal. So I think we need to get out of the chaos. We need to get out of this chaos because 160 million people in a country that is 54,000 sq miles is very dense. I think our farmers are doing a wonderful job. Since 1971 we have more than trebled our agricultural output. Our agricultural output has more than trebled and today there are very large areas of Bangladesh where you get four crops a year. And that has happened but the tragedy is, half of the produce, especially vegetables and fruits that Bangladesh produces, rots, because we don’t have cold storage plants and it is fundamental. If businessmen won’t do it, the government needs to do it. These investments are not taking place. And I think poor people, they work very hard to earn whatever they earn; I think they should have a bigger share of the pie.
This is my personal opinion and I don’t belong to a political party so I don’t need to throw a party line but at the same time, it makes me vulnerable too.
I think if Bangladesh can get out of the crony-ism, there is a lot of talented people in Bangladesh, especially amongst the young and they need to get the opportunity. I think the system that we have now; these bright kids are getting very disheartened. Today, street politics mean, if you’re a politician, you’re a thug. So the thugs are taking control of the country.
Thank you very much for joining me, today, Dr Qayyum. It was a pleasure talking to you.
Thank you.
