Riyad
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Thank you , Bollywood stars.
How stars ‘helped’ bring plight of Bangladeshis to India’s heartland
The Rajesh Khanna connection was shared at a ceremony where the Bangladesh government conferred bravery awards to the families of 12 Indian soldiers who died in the 1971 Liberation War against Pakistan.
ET CONTRIBUTORS|
by Kathakali Nandi
The birth of Bangladesh has a Bollywood connection dating back to the 1970s. Riding on none other than Rajesh Khanna, the biggest star of those days, the plight of a nation’s struggle for Independence made inroads into the heartland of India.
The Rajesh Khanna connection was shared at a ceremony where the Bangladesh government conferred bravery awards to the families of 12 Indian soldiers who died in the 1971 Mukti Yuddha (Liberation War) against Pakistan.
The Bengali-speaking majority of what was then East Pakistan had been demanding a separate state of Bangladesh and their call for freedom became louder after Pakistan started its atrocities in early 1971. India, then led by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, reached out to help with her armed forces and a war ensued for almost nine months.
The Indian Army celebrates December 16, the day on which the war ended, as Vijay Diwas.
Young students from erstwhile East Pakistan were deputed to tour India to convince their Indian peers about the significance of their war. They first encountered a disinterested Indian community. “I was 20, studying in Dhaka University, when the war broke out. I joined the Liberation Army from Agartala in India,” recalled Mahfuz Anam, editor and publisher of Bangladeshi newspaper The Daily Star.
As the cry for Independence in East Pakistan turned louder, Pakistan started influencing Indian Muslims, saying that India was trying to divide the Muslim-dominated country into two parts. Students from East Pakistan were asked by their leaders to travel across India to garner support for their fight and Anam went to central India.
“It was hard to deal with the strong religious sentiment of the people and we devised a strategy to cash in on the hit screen pair of Rajesh Khanna-Sharmila Tagore.
We would screen Khanna’s films for the locals and use the intervals to tell the audience about our fight for freedom and the significance of our movement. We knew people would be forced to listen to us because the rest of the film was yet to be screened,” Anam said.
Anam was part of a Bangladeshi delegation that visited India last week to honour the martyr families at Fort William, the headquarters of the Eastern Command in Kolkata, on Vijay Diwas.
This was the first time that eastern India hosted such an event by the Bangladesh government.
“The Bangladeshi government-inexile was then headquartered at 8 Theatre Road in Kolkata and led by Tajuddin Ahmad. I remember coming to Kolkata to visit the headquarters. Residents of Kolkata welcomed our people and opened up posh localities like Ballygunge and Salt Lake to give them shelter,” Anam said. His father was the founder-secretary of the Awami Muslim League.
Awami Muslim League. Former army chief General Shankar Roy Chowdhury said that since the Eastern Command was already heavily armed to combat the Naxalite movement in eastern India, they were at a strategic advantage to immediately reach out to the Mukti Bahini, the guerrilla force in Bangladesh that operated as the Indian armed force’s undercover agents and provided them with internal intelligence reports.
“We worked as shadow warriors and were referred to as the Mitra Bahini (allied forces) by the Mukti Bahini. Several Bengali-speaking army personnel were put in the same battalions during the war to better coordinate with the Mukti Bahini. These and many other advantages helped India emerge victorious,” General Roy Chowdhury said.
Bangladesh MP Quazi Rosy summed up Bangladesh’s sentiment towards the Indian armed force’s contributions: “We got freedom in exchange for lakhs of martyrs. We helped Rohingyas and gave them food and shelter. But you gave us much more during our struggle for Independence.”
https://economictimes.indiatimes.co...-to-indias-heartland/articleshow/67200199.cms
How stars ‘helped’ bring plight of Bangladeshis to India’s heartland
The Rajesh Khanna connection was shared at a ceremony where the Bangladesh government conferred bravery awards to the families of 12 Indian soldiers who died in the 1971 Liberation War against Pakistan.
ET CONTRIBUTORS|
by Kathakali Nandi
The birth of Bangladesh has a Bollywood connection dating back to the 1970s. Riding on none other than Rajesh Khanna, the biggest star of those days, the plight of a nation’s struggle for Independence made inroads into the heartland of India.
The Rajesh Khanna connection was shared at a ceremony where the Bangladesh government conferred bravery awards to the families of 12 Indian soldiers who died in the 1971 Mukti Yuddha (Liberation War) against Pakistan.
The Bengali-speaking majority of what was then East Pakistan had been demanding a separate state of Bangladesh and their call for freedom became louder after Pakistan started its atrocities in early 1971. India, then led by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, reached out to help with her armed forces and a war ensued for almost nine months.
The Indian Army celebrates December 16, the day on which the war ended, as Vijay Diwas.
Young students from erstwhile East Pakistan were deputed to tour India to convince their Indian peers about the significance of their war. They first encountered a disinterested Indian community. “I was 20, studying in Dhaka University, when the war broke out. I joined the Liberation Army from Agartala in India,” recalled Mahfuz Anam, editor and publisher of Bangladeshi newspaper The Daily Star.
As the cry for Independence in East Pakistan turned louder, Pakistan started influencing Indian Muslims, saying that India was trying to divide the Muslim-dominated country into two parts. Students from East Pakistan were asked by their leaders to travel across India to garner support for their fight and Anam went to central India.
“It was hard to deal with the strong religious sentiment of the people and we devised a strategy to cash in on the hit screen pair of Rajesh Khanna-Sharmila Tagore.
We would screen Khanna’s films for the locals and use the intervals to tell the audience about our fight for freedom and the significance of our movement. We knew people would be forced to listen to us because the rest of the film was yet to be screened,” Anam said.
Anam was part of a Bangladeshi delegation that visited India last week to honour the martyr families at Fort William, the headquarters of the Eastern Command in Kolkata, on Vijay Diwas.
This was the first time that eastern India hosted such an event by the Bangladesh government.
“The Bangladeshi government-inexile was then headquartered at 8 Theatre Road in Kolkata and led by Tajuddin Ahmad. I remember coming to Kolkata to visit the headquarters. Residents of Kolkata welcomed our people and opened up posh localities like Ballygunge and Salt Lake to give them shelter,” Anam said. His father was the founder-secretary of the Awami Muslim League.
Awami Muslim League. Former army chief General Shankar Roy Chowdhury said that since the Eastern Command was already heavily armed to combat the Naxalite movement in eastern India, they were at a strategic advantage to immediately reach out to the Mukti Bahini, the guerrilla force in Bangladesh that operated as the Indian armed force’s undercover agents and provided them with internal intelligence reports.
“We worked as shadow warriors and were referred to as the Mitra Bahini (allied forces) by the Mukti Bahini. Several Bengali-speaking army personnel were put in the same battalions during the war to better coordinate with the Mukti Bahini. These and many other advantages helped India emerge victorious,” General Roy Chowdhury said.
Bangladesh MP Quazi Rosy summed up Bangladesh’s sentiment towards the Indian armed force’s contributions: “We got freedom in exchange for lakhs of martyrs. We helped Rohingyas and gave them food and shelter. But you gave us much more during our struggle for Independence.”
https://economictimes.indiatimes.co...-to-indias-heartland/articleshow/67200199.cms
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