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Lately an important piece of news
has gone unnoticed by most of the mainstream news
media of Bangladesh. In a recent political campaign,
Rahul Gandhi, a member of the Indian parliament and
son of a former Indian prime minister, the late
Rajiv Gandhi, has solely credited his family for the
division of Pakistan in 1971, which led to the
independence of Bangladesh. While campaigning for a
candidate in the state of Uttar Pradesh, considered
India�s heartland, Mr Gandhi managed to say, �Once
my family decides on something, it doesn�t go back.
Whether it�s about India�s freedom, dividing
Pakistan or taking India to the 21st century.� The
remark clearly implied that it was a family vendetta
against Pakistan that drove the division of the
erstwhile East Pakistan and led to the creation of
Bangladesh. It ignored the systematic genocide of
three million Bengalis by the Pakistani army, the
rape and humiliation of hundreds of thousands of
Bengali women and the cascade of events preceding
1971 such as the language movement of 1952,
six-point based agitation of 1966 and the Bengali
people�s revolt in 1969 against Ayub Khan.
While the incident did not merit any attention
within Bangladesh for reasons that are completely
unknown, condemnation both within India and from
Pakistan was immediate and vociferous. The only
public protest from a Bangladeshi voice was that of
the exiled author Dr Taslima Nasrin who spoke at a
press conference in Bhopal and listed the 1952
killings of Bangladeshis for asking that Bangla be
made a state language and of the mass movement that
began against the country�s Pakistani rulers in
1969. While she did not condemn the casual
callousness with which these remarks were issued,
she could not, because she is a resident of India
and hopes to get Indian citizenship someday, it was
clear that she did not approve of the cynical
attempt by Mr Gandhi to suggest that the sacrifices
of the Bangladeshi people did not mean anything,
that it was his grandmother�s anti-Pakistan vendetta
that actually split the country up.
In the meantime, the exiled Pakistani doctor and
humanist, Dr M Younus Sheikh, who lives in
Switzerland, released an open letter to members of
the Indian parliament, condemning the �foolish and
immature� remarks that Mr Gandhi had issued. Dr
Sheikh has authored articles on the repression in
Bangladesh under Pakistani rule, was one of the
first Pakistanis to protest what he clearly called
�genocide� against Bengalis by the Pakistani army,
and for this as well as several other reasons he was
jailed and sentenced to death under completely
trumped up charges in Pakistan until international
pressure forced the government to release him from
prison and exile him to Switzerland where he lives
today.
Curiously, the response from Dhaka has been
muted, to say the least. The Bangladesh high
commissioner to India would only remark that he was
grateful to India for its support in the struggle
for independence and there was no statement at all
from Dhaka until the writing of this article.
Indeed, in comparison to the angry voices both
within India as well as from Pakistan (albeit for
completely different reasons, because the Pakistani
government now claims that it now has evidence that
the whole struggle in Bangladesh was merely an
Indian inspired secessionist plot) the silence from
Dhaka has been deafening. Few countries are as proud
of their language and, therefore, of their struggle
to form a nation based on the suppression of their
language as Bangladesh, and yet, the attempt by Mr
Gandhi to suggest that the
now well-documented horrors of the struggle for
independence were little more than a task that his
grandmother had decided to take up to gain personal
revenge against Pakistan did not receive a single
note of protest in response.
One must not mix up the issue of acknowledging
India�s generous role and humanitarian effort during
1971 by Bangladesh with the condemnation of Rahul
Gandhi�s infantile remarks. While Bangladesh, as a
nation, does not have any valid reasons to forget
India�s help during our liberation struggle in 1971;
welcoming Rahul Gandhi�s comments by the Bangladesh
government � as it was reported in some Indian
newspapers � would not only be just self-degrading,
it will also be a dishonour to the memory of three
million martyrs of 1971.
Perhaps, it is because of the current political
situation within Bangladesh that this silence
continues, more than two days after the remarks
attracted the flak that they did in the rest of
South Asia. Perhaps, at a time when relations
between the three major nations of South Asia have
been visibly improving, no one in Dhaka would like
to rock the boat. The fact, though, is that neither
the spokespeople in Pakistan nor the segment of the
Indian political and media establishment that
criticised these remarks believes that criticizing
Rahul Gandhi�s ridiculous claims is likely to set
the process of rapprochement back. Criticising a
callous statement that demeans the struggle of an
entire nation and its people to emerge from severe
political repression and hardship to enjoy their
independence as a people does not amount to a
declaration of war. It is unfortunate that no voice
has been raised in Dhaka about these remarks yet.
The silence speaks as poorly about those who choose
not to speak about the remarks as it does about
Rahul Gandhi�s personal callousness.
