THE WASTES OF TIME-REFLECTIONS ON THE DECLINE AND FALL OF EAST PAKISTAN

[Md Akmal]

By Syed Sajjad Husain

CHAPTER I: How I survived on December 20th


Syed Sajjad Husain was born on 14th January 1920, and educated at Dhaka and Nottingham Universities. He began his teaching career in 1944 at the Islamia College, Calcutta and joined the University of Dhaka in 1948 rising to Professor in 1962. He was appointed Vice-Chancellor of Rajshahi University July in 1969 and moved to Dhaka University in July 1971 at the height of the political crisis. He spent two years in jail from 1971 to 1973 after the fall of East Pakistan. From
1975 to 1985 Dr Husain taught at Mecca Ummul-Qura University as a Professor of English, having spent three months in 1975 as a Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge University. Since his retirement in 1985,he had been living quietly at home and had in the course of the last ten years published five books including the present Memoirs. He breathed his last on 12th January, 1995. A more detailed account of the author’s life and career will be found inside the book.


I confess that as I embark upon what is going to be an exploration into my present and past I have no clear idea what I really intend. I certainly do not wish to attempt an autobiography. It is no use concealing from myself at this age- (I shall be fifty four next January 1974) - that nothing in my life deserves the importance of a record such as in my view an autobiography should be. I have been a witness to great events, but in the events which I have observed, mine has been
by and large a passive, unimportant role. Not only do I have an innate horror of the limelight; I feel honestly that I have not on my own initiated or executed any major move in the drama in which I have often found myself entangled, and what could such a person as myself record by way of autobiography which would thrill, enchant, absorb or even deeply interest a reader?
As a matter of fact I am not thinking of any readers at all. How really could I? I write this in prison in 1973 under circumstances which make it extremely improbable that this manuscript would ever reach a publisher who would venture to print what I write. I know that no publisher in my own country would dare touch it. As for publishers abroad, in what was till yesterday the western wing of my country, how could they possibly be interested in such a personal record as
mine, particularly when I cannot lay claim to any degree of political eminence? A historical review of the period which my life covers would be of much greater value and interest to them. But this I am not in my present condition competent to undertake. I do not have the materials I would need for it; I do not have access even to my own diaries. Nor are the few books available in the jail library of much help. On the other hand, to try and reconstruct the past on the basis of
one’s personal, necessarily unreliable memory, would be dangerous. I would stumble at every step, mix up dates and names, give inaccurate information about men and events and mislead where a historical work should enlighten, confuse where such a review should help remove
doubts and obscurities.

Then why write at all? I confess again that the principal reason why, after a good deal of hesitation and vacillation, I have decided to put these reminiscences on record is because I want to occupy myself with a definite task to ward off the periodic attacks of boredom which
are one of the afflictions of prison life. Reading does not always help. For one thing one does not have enough books to read in prison, not books of the right kind, books which could sustain one's interest in a subject over a period of time. Stray novels, a stray volume of history,
some biographies and so on are all that you get. To pursue anyone subject is impossible. If your interest is aroused by a volume on British history, you could not expect to study the subject in depth, the next volume would not be obtainable. Desultory reading, which in the circumstances is impossible to avoid, generates sooner or later a feeling of dissatisfaction, and then the prisoner finds himself once again a prey to that boredom which he dreads. The second reason for venturing to write about my experience is that I hope some day, after the dust of all contemporary controversies has settled, some one might light upon my manuscript and obtain from it a view of the events of me last quarter century different from the usual version which he would probably be familiar with. A faint hope, really, but a hope is after all a hope.
As I look around my cell, Number 2 in the block known as New 20 in the Dhaka Central Jail, I keep wondering even now, nearly two years after I was arrested, how real my surroundings are. I hate
exaggeration but cannot help remarking that there is an air of Kafkaesque unreality in all that has happened since that fateful day in December 1971, when a group of armed gangsters burst into my room by breaking a door open and led me away. They were fully armed and carried modern automatic weapons. Neither myself nor my family could at all have thought of resisting them. But they presumably were under the impression that we would offer resistance. The first words spoken to me were a command that I should hand over whatever arms I had. But I had none.
The date was 19 December, 1971, three days after the surrender of the Pakistan army, and the time about 3.30 in the afternoon. I was in an upstairs room talking to my eldest daughter.

There was all of a sudden a hubbub outside, on the staircase, and I came out to the landing to see what it was all about. I saw a number of armed men arguing with my wife and a cousin of mine, trying to push their way up. I realised in a flash what they wanted and thought for a
moment of going down, but I suppose the instinct of self-preservation led me to withdraw into the room. The moment I had done so my daughter bolted the door and said I was not to go out. I told her that it was no use resisting, and that it would be best for me to give myself up to the gang. She would not listen and started crying and interfering with my efforts to unbolt the door. In the meantime there began a tremendous banging on the other door giving on the roof terrace, and before I could open it they had smashed down one of the wooden panels, and they shouted in a stern voice, "Come out." As I emerged from the room, one of the men seized me by the collar, and dragged me, unresisting, down the staircase and then out of the house into a
jeep waiting outside. I went as I was, waving a farewell to my family, feeling, as I did so, that I would never see them again. A large crowd had collected around the jeep; it consisted mostly of people from our neighborhood; they watched silently as I was pushed into the vehicle and stepped aside as the engine started. The jeep turned. down the by-lane which meets Nazimuddin
Road near the north-eastern corner of the Dhaka Central Jail compound, and moved through Bakhshi Bazar towards the University Campus. As we travelled, I heard my captors asking each other whether I was really the person they thought I was. I assured them that there had been no mistake and said I had no reason for trying to confuse them about my identity. I was feeling somewhat dazed but even then nursed the illusion, faint I confess, that they wanted me for interrogation only. We arrived in a few minutes at the Science Annexe Building, where they all got down, myself with them, and I was led up to a large room on the second floor. Five or six of my captors followed me into it and then the door was bolted from the inside.


The young man who was holding me by the collar suddenly slapped me across the face with tremendous force, identifying himself as a former University student and said that four or five years ago he had saved me from a beating, but that I was an unrepentant swine and
had not mended my ways and therefore deserved now to be shot as a traitor. All this was news to me, but I did not fail to acknowledge my gratitude to him for the kindness which he claimed to have done me, and inquired why I had been seized. A volley of accusations followed. They said I was responsible for the deaths of University teachers and students killed by the Pakistan Army, and that I had even been supplying girls to the soldiers from the women's hall for immoral purposes. I was--dumb-founded. I told them that they might kill me if they wished, but their accusations were all false, and I was prepared to face a trial. They must have thought it useless to engage in further argument with me; for without answering me, they proceeded with their work. I was stripped of my cardigan, shirt, and vest and relieved of my watch, cuff-links and spectacles. They blindfolded me, using my own handkerchief for the purpose, tied my hands together behind my back, and began to beat me with a strap of leather, also hitting me with something hard on the knuckles. After they had exhausted the first flush of their fury on me, everybody left the room excepting one armed guard and this time I heard the door being bolted on the outside. I was feeling parched, and asked for a drink. A cup was brought in and lifted up to my lips, and I drank a little water. When I felt myself really alone with my guard, I asked him to remove the bandage from my eyes so that I could see his face. He seemed to hesitate a little, but finally loosened the bandage. I could now see him, a young man in his early twenties, in lungi, obviously a rustic, now a member of an armed band. I asked him who he was. He introduced himself, if that is the word, as a student from a rural college in Mymensingh district and volunteered the remark that he felt sorry for me.

His voice was not insincere. When asked why they had arrested me, he said he did not know what the charges against me were; he had, on the instructions of his unit commander, joined the group detailed to raid my residence, and did not know anything beyond this. He confessed that the sudden capitulation of the Pakistan army had come as a surprise, the Mukti Bahini having almost given up hope of wining a victory. The young man went on to assure me that he did not think I would be shot straightway; I would be given a chance to answer the charges against me. In any case, he said, he for one would not be able to carry out an order to shoot me. Needless to say, this was far from reassuring. If they had decided to kill me, and of this there could no longer be any doubt, a single conscientious objector like this young man won't be of much help. But it was nevertheless in those dreadful moments some comfort to know that for a spell at least one had for company someone who appeared to possess some human feelings. I spoke to him, uselessly I
knew, about what I had done to save the lives of the University staff at Rajshahi. The only thing he could do was to repeat twice or three times that he won’t have the heart to shoot me.
Some one came in, the bandage on my eyes was tightened, and the new arrivals--- it was actually more than one person-- took over from the young student. They were a sterner lot. When I asked to see their faces, they uttered a blood curdling oath, threatening to put me to
the torture, saying sarcastically that no God that I believed in could save my life. I lapsed into silence and awaited further developments. Time passed. I could feel the hours go by. Some one put the lights on. I could perceive a difference in the gloom. I began wondering what would happen next. Were the executioners waiting for the night to advance? When the noise of traffic outside almost ceased and the time must have been about 11.30 or so, two new men, more authoritative in their gait, entered the chamber, walked up to me, and tied my wrists
with stronger twine, gagged me and led me out, I thought, to be executed. I asked them, when they were busy tying me up, what I had done to deserve this punishment. Their answer was, 'Mr Vice-Chancellor, you have lived too long'. According to them, it was I who master-minded the conspiracy that led to the deaths of Mr Munir Chowdhury and other' University teachers on 14 December; it was I who arranged for the women's hall to be raided in November. My denials were dismissed as lies.


I followed them out into what was obviously the corridor--- I knew the lay-out of the building--- we walked some distance, and then they entered another room. One end of the rope with which I had been tied was secured to something firm, and I was made to sit down on the floor. I had been allowed to sit on a bench in the other room. One of the two men said something to the other, and went out. The man left behind bolted the door, and I heard him spreading a blanket or sheet on a bench and lying down. He was soon asleep snoring. My punishment, I could see now, was to follow the pattern set in totalitarian states, the execution would take place at dawn. Having satisfied themselves that there could be no danger of my being able to escape, my captors proceeded to treat me as a cat treats a captive mouse. The way my guard went to sleep bore ample testimony to their self-assurance and self-confidence. They wanted me, before they
killed me, to experience the refinements of torture which certain knowledge of imminent death can cause a victim. Calmly I awaited my fate. My knuckles hurt; the wrists had been bound so tightly that the rope or twine seemed to cut into the flesh; I could not change at all from one position to another without excruciating pain. There was nothing I could lean against. The floor
struck cold. In my efforts to achieve a comparatively less painful position, I lost track of the pair of loose slippers I had been wearing. I tried sitting cross-legged, then stretched my legs for relief, and again went back to the cross-legged position, varying the posture of my body as frequently as my condition would permit, taking care at the same time not to wake up the fiend guarding me, lest worse torture should follow. The irony of the situation, the sudden reversal of the world I
used to live in, intrigued me. Here was I, captive in the hands of a ferocious gang, awaiting death; even twenty four years ago it had never occurred either to myself or to anyone in my circle that such a thing could happen at all. History is full of strange surprises, and though strange events keep happening off and on, we are always caught unprepared when they happen to ourselves. I had been compelled by air-raids to move on 15 December from the official
residence of the Vice-Chancellor in Ramna to 109 Nazimuddin Road, our house in the old town, and even then, a few hours before the actual surrender of the Pakistani army, in spite of the gloomy forebodings about the future and the sinister rumors that were spreading, we had
continued to nurse the hope, to prove an illusion so tragically, that somehow disaster would be averted. How, we had no idea. But the overthrow of an established State by violence was something quite outside our experience and comprehension. These things happened
elsewhere, in South America or the Middle East; our own homeland, we believed in the depths of our hearts and souls, would be immune from them. As the night grew still, faint echoes reached me occasionally of distant gunfire. Dogs barked somewhere. A lone rickshaw tinkled past
the building where I was being held. I thought of my family, my wife and children, who must fend
for themselves as best as they could in this crisis. I had no property, I did not own a house and had hardly any bank balance. I felt guilty at the realisation that I was leaving my family wholly unprovided for. Was the plea that I had tried to live honestly, not even seeking to earn
extra money at the expense of my normal duties, a sufficient excuse for the lapse of which I now found myself guilty? Whatever consolation I derived from the fact that I could not be charged with
dishonesty, would the fact be of material use to my family? I did what any man in my situation would do: committed them to God’s care. Yet the knowledge that they were utterly helpless in the new dispensation that had just been born, was frightfully mortifying, and continued to haunt me throughout the night. Almost equally painful was the collapse of the ideal that Pakistan represented to me. Even if I survived my present ordeal by a miracle, how could I live in the midst of the debris which the fall of Pakistan had thrown up around me? Physical survival was difficult enough but life in an environment which was going to be hostile, where everything would be a mockery of the beliefs and ideals we cherished, would be equally, if not more of a problem. A man must have something not only to live by but also to live for. What could a person like me live for after the fall of Pakistan? This was no mere rhetoric. Our lives were so bound up with the history of Pakistan, with the ideals which had inspired the movement out of which it had grown, and with the principles which sustained it, no matter what the shortcomings of those called upon to translate them into action, that it was well-nigh impossible to contemplate a life divorced from this background.


I felt utterly forlorn. I remember thinking of E. M. Forster whose philosophy of 'Only Connect' as a solution to the hatreds which divide mankind we had made great play with in class with students.
Foolishly, I now perceived, I too had come to believe that once human beings got to know one another on personal terms, hatreds would cease, animosities abate. But this obviously didn't help in a crisis. My captors who were preparing to execute me were mostly Dhaka University students, to whom I was no stranger. This seemed to have added to their fury against me. All that we used to say about tolerance had not restrained them from beating me up and torturing me. The moments crawled by. Surprisingly in the midst of all this, with the threat of death hanging over me, I caught myself dozing twice, for a fraction of a second each time. My companion snored onhappily. Throughout the night jeeps and cars kept arriving and departing, I suppose with more victims like myself. For I remember the young student who had been with me in the other room had told me that there were many others held as prisoners in this building which had been converted temporarily into a Mukti Bahini camp. There were occasionally sounds of groups of people marching up or down the staircases. Judging by the echoes of their laughter or talk
wafted across to my ears, they were a jubilant crowd engaged in celebrating their victory.
Strangely, despite the fear of imminent death, I did not feel my heart palpitating. The feeling of dryness in my throat which I had experienced on my arrival at this camp now completely disappeared. The only thing that mattered was that I should be able to die a quiet dignified death. I did not believe in heroics, and I saw no point, now that there was no escape, in being hysterical. I sought to draw what comfort and spiritual solace I could from the few verses from scripture which I knew by heart. I wondered what death would be like. I prayed to God to let me die quietly without much suffering. In a few hours from now I would know--if the dead can have knowledge---what mysteries the country from whose bourne no traveller returns held.
Some cocks crowed in the distance and I realised that the night was drawing to a close; my executioners would soon arrive. Sure enough, a jeep could be heard entering the compound of the Science Annexe Building. I felt certain that this signalised the approach of the
dread hour. A man walked noisily up to our room, knocked, and was let in by his companion inside who had been awakened by the knock. They unfastened the rope---one end of which was tied round my wrists--- from the post to which it had been secured and asked me to stand up and follow them. I didn't find my slippers, but without bothering about them moved out with them in my socks. I was guided down the staircase and taken to where the jeep stood waiting. There were other people there. I was pushed into the front seat, but a minute after, asked to get
down. This time I was lifted onto the back of the vehicle and made to squat on the floor, with, it seemed, a number of armed men on either side. The jeep drove off.

I had heard of people being taken by the Mukti Bahini for execution to Gulshan and other outlying areas of the city, and could not judge from the movements of the jeep what was the distance we
travelled before it came to a stop. I was helped to dismount and ordered to stand up. Two fellows exchanged a few words, the gist of which, as far as I understood them, was that further precautions were necessary to prevent me from screaming. The gag in my mouth was tightened. I
now prepared myself for the inevitable shot that would end my life, once more committed my wife and children to God's care, repeated the Kalima-e-Shahadat silently, praying for a quick death.
Some one stabbed me in two or three places on the chest lightly. I felt a spasm of pain; surprisingly it wasn’t as great as I had feared it would be; an instinctive cry of ah! muffled by the gag, escaped me. Almost simultaneously I was dealt a tremendous crippling blow on the spine: slightly to the left of the centre and the whole body from the wrist downwards went numb. I lost all sensation, and must also have lost consciousness immediately. For I cannot recall how I
fell or when I overbalanced or what else happened to me. The next thing I remember was that I was lying flat on my back on what seemed to be a road, with blood trickling down my chest, my
waist and legs completely, so it appeared then, paralysed. I heard myself moaning feebly. I thought my life would ebb away gradually, and I would slowly bleed to death. Every moment I expected the heart to stop beating, the muscles to contract. I decided to keep repeating the
Kalima as long as my consciousness lasted. To my surprise, I soon discovered that I was taking a usually long time to die. Somebody seemed to be kneeling beside me watching. Was he waiting to see whether the blows I had received were enough? Would he deal me another blow as a kind of coup de grace? So strong is man's instinct of self-preservation that it crossed my mind that if I stopped moaning my enemy might leave me alone and I might survive. I stopped whatever sounds I had been trying to utter, and lay as still as I could. Some minutes later I felt that the man who had been watching me had left. I wondered what I should do now. I was not quite sure yet that the crisis was really over, or that my assailants had moved off from the area. Fifteen to twenty minutes passed; I could hear a push-cart being rolled along; a couple of rickshaws seemed to be plying about. The first impression created in my mind was that I had been abandoned on the outskirts of the city near a village. When I could hear sounds more clearly indicative of
human footsteps, I decided to attract the attention of passers-by as best I could rather than allow myself to be overrun by passing vehicles or animals. I pushed the gag in my mouth a little outwards by my tongue and cried: 'Who's there'? Some people came over and remarked, 'Isn't
the fellow dead yet?' I said I wasn't dead, and would they please remove the bandage from my eyes and the gag from my mouth? They appeared to hesitate for a moment and then someone came forward to untie both bandages.

I opened my eyes, and saw that the place where I lay was the square in front of Gulistan Cinema Hall on Jinnah Avenue. The time must have been about 5.15 or 5.30. The avenue, one of the chief
thoroughfares in Dhaka, was deserted except for a few early morning strollers. The bandage from my eyes had been taken off by a youth of about seventeen or eighteen, one of a small group of five or six people present. I asked them to untie my wrists. They wanted to know who
my assailants were. I committed an indiscretion unwittingly by saying that they belonged to the Mukti Bahini. No sooner had I said so than they got frightened, and began to look around. They declined to interfere pleading that if they tried to help me, the Mukti Bahini who, they believed, still lurked somewhere in the neighbourhood, would shoot them. I urged them not to hesitate to help a man who was almost dead, and would perhaps not survive long. The youth came forward again to untie my hands, in spite of the objection of the others, and as he was doing so, they remarked that there was another officer like myself whose body lay on the ground near by. The other person must have heard this; he answered: ‘I am Hasan Zaman’. I realised that we
must have been in the same jeep together and subjected to the same kind of punishment.
I lay near the railed-off enclosure where the famous Dhaka cannon stood mounted on a masonry platform. I caught hold of the railing and brought myself up to a sitting position. The problem was how to remove myself to safety. I asked the spectators whose number kept increasing to get me a rickshaw which could take me home or at least to the Baitul Mukarram Mosque. One
fellow who looked rather aggressive replied that they would do nothing further, that since it was the Mukti Bahini which had punished me, I must have fully deserved the treatment. I thought their attitude might change if I told them who really I was. But the information had a contrary effect on the spokesman. His tone became more aggressive; he began reeling off the lies they had heard from Radio Joy Bangla about how I had collaborated with the Pakistan army in getting some University staff killed and started lecturing me on the disastrous consequences of such collaboration. All I could do was to protest against the falsehoods, but I achieved no effect.

Desperately I myself called a passing rickshaw. But the crowd waved it away. The situation was taking a precarious turn. At this time I sighted a truck-load of Indian soldiers passing through Jinnah Avenue and shouted for help. But I failed to catch their eye, and the truck sped away. Whatever was I going to do? I said to the crowd that they might at least ring up my people at home and ask them to come, and repeated my telephone number. No one responded.Fortunately, some one who vaguely appeared to be a man from our neighbourhood now came to my rescue. He boldly hailed a rickshaw, lifted me into it (I was incapable of moving on my own) and himself jumped in and held me tight, while I clung to the side of the vehicle as best I could. The crowd did not interfere. We moved off. As I was being carried to the rickshaw I had a glimpse of Dr Hasan Zaman standing up by himself and moving in the direction of the Baitul Mukarram Mosque. He had luckily escaped the kind of paralysis which had been my fate.
______________________
The Wastes of Time by Syed Sajjad Husain

 

[integra]

Yup, he's right!

It was indeed the fall of East Pakistan and

the rise of Bangladesh.

 

[Burnz]

Maybe Bangladesh could have joined back Mother India in 1971. Didn't you guys think of that?

 

[untitled]

Maybe Bangladesh could have joined back Mother India in 1971. Didn't you guys think of that?

I think they are happier as they are

 

[eastwatch]

Maybe Bangladesh could have joined back Mother India in 1971. Didn't you guys think of that?

Bangali Muslims were the foremost promoter of one or two muslim majority countries in the sub-Continenet. Lahore Resolution of 1942 speaks of two independent muslim majority States in the NE and NW of India. An independent Bangladesh was the ultimate result of two different struggles by the Bangali Muslims. One before 1947 and the other afterwards.

I do not know the minds of all our people, but, I do not think, there was any one who has desired to be united with a majority Hindu India, where the Bangali muslims were bullied and deprived by their neighbouring Bangali Hindu community for about two Centuries during the British rule. This bullying has finally resulted in the bifurcation of India.

There was no love between these two communities. So, it is a mistake to think any one would have thought of re-uniting with India in 1971. Now, after a long 62 years of independence from India there is no way we will ever re-unite with India.

 

[Md Akmal]

CHAPTER II: I return home a wreck

My family, who had given me up for dead, were of course overjoyed to see me back home. But as I was lifted down from the
rickshaw and carried in, they were alarmed to notice that I was a complete wreck. My chest and back (I had received six stab wounds) were still bleeding. My legs dangled like a couple of attachments not properly fixed. I was laid down on a mattress on the floor, given a warm drink, and covered with a blanket. People rushed in from an around to have a look. Strangers who would never have thought of entering our house, unasked, came in and gazed at me.

In the meantime Indian army officers who had been informed of the abduction the previous evening and had sent out search parties to trace me, arrived on learning that I had got back. The local hospital doctor was sent for; but he began vacillating and came only when he heard of the presence of the Indians. He however declined to bandage my wounds without an X-ray examination, saying that it would be most inadvisable to do anything before the injuries had been X-rayed.The real reason why he hesitated was that he did not want it said of him that he had attended to a person punished by the Mukti Bahini.
His hesitancy did not prove much of a problem, for presently an Indian doctor attached to the Army medical corps arrived, washed and bandaged my wounds, and within half an hour arranged for an ambulance to carry me to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital for treatment.I was put in Cabin No.10, and Cabin No.11, next door, was placed at the disposal of the four Indian soldiers guarding me. They were with me for a week, at the end of which a contingent from the Babupura police outpost took over.

I was in hospital from 20 December until the morning of 30 January when I was removed to the Dhaka Central Jail.
The period I spent in hospital was uneventful except for small incidents. One was my transfer, decided upon at short notice, from
Cabin 10 to Cabin 19 when early in January one of the Bangladesh ministers Khondokar Mushtaque decided, it seems for political
reasons, to retire temporarily in a huff from active politics. The transfer was carried out after 8 P.M. I had not regained the ability to walk; so they put me on a trolley and pushed it out of Cabin 10. A day or two later, an unauthorized group of militant students who wanted a cabin for somebody, forced my guards to vacate their room. From then on, the police party used to camp outside my cabin on the veranda. Of course after the Indian guards left, the presence or absence of the police party made little difference to my safety. Their vigilance was not strict; anybody could walk in without the least obstruction,
and for long periods, every one of the four policemen expected to stand sentinel outside my room would be absent I protested once or twice, but soon realized that protests from a ‘collaborator’ would make things worse. I should add that I had learnt from a newspaper announcement which appeared on 21 December that I had been arrested as a 'collaborator'. There was not a word about the assault: nor was the fact that I was in hospital mentioned. The public must have been under the impression that I was in jail. During the first week I was in great pain. My shoulders, chest, back and the area around the waist, ached; there was a continuous tingling in the soles of my feet- (which persists to this day); and the lower limbs were utterly numb. I could not move my left leg, nor was there much sensation in the left foot. The nights were particularly painful. I had to try and sleep on my back; the legs felt so heavy that I could not turn from one side to another, and if anyone helped me to turn, the pain on the lower side would be unbearable. The wounds on my chest and back, four in front and two in the back, turned out to be not deep and healed in a week. I found that the left knee had been so twisted that although there was technically no fracture, I could not stand erect. But the worst affliction was the damage to the internal organs which rendered micturition a torture.

The agony was sometimes so great as to make me long for an early death. It was nearly three weeks before my knees were firm enough to let me stand erect for brief spells. I had to teach myself to walk in the way toddlers learn to walk, first supported by others, then by myself but with the help of a staff. I was not steady on my legs; to this day this weakness persists, but after daily exercises I learnt to waddle about from one end of my small cabin to the other. I could in about three weeks, walk in this manner to the bathroom without assistance. Occasional incursions by young people, mostly from the Mukti Bahini, drawn by curiosity, were another problem. They would dash past the guards, look at me and leave. It was clear that they were
highly critical of the colleagues who had bungled by not being able to finish me off. The risk was that some of them might take it into their hands to rectify the error. I was obliged to keep the door bolted most of the time.

My wife and children visited me daily in the afternoon. A few relations, one colleague from the University, Dr Azizul Huque and an old acquaintance from the Calcutta Islamia College days, Mr Saidur Rahman, also called. But I could realise that most of my relations were too scared to come. While I was still in Cabin No.10, a hirsute young man came one day to see me, touched my feet in the usual Eastern manner, and introduced himself as a former pupil. I forget his name. He said he had
been detailed to shoot me during the civil war; he had also reconnoitred the area around my residence but had decided on second thoughts to wait until the war was over. He was courteous but firm. Their plan, he stated, was to liquidate all ‘collaborators’, in fact, anybody who could be suspected of having collaborated with West Pakistan over the last twenty-three years, and purge Bangladesh of corruption and treason. I thought it inadvisable to argue, but only pointed out that the programme might prove difficult to carry out. 'We have', the young man replied, 'lost over twenty-thousand people in the
civil war, all members of the Mukti Bahini, and we would have no truck with collaborators '.

The visitor who really gave me a fright was another young man, not so hairy as my pupil, but with blood-shot eyes such as one
associates with frenzied or drunken fanatics. He dashed into my room on two occasions, accompanied by others, on one occasion by some young women, just stared at me, and when asked who they were, said pointing to his companions, ‘These are the people who have freed the country.’ He would not be drawn into further talk. I felt alarmed. On both occasions he dashed out of the room, as he had dashed in, like a gust of wind. That all young people did, not even then, take the same view of
what happened on 16 December, became evident from the conversation of a youth who visited me towards the end of December. He was a stranger, shy, aged about seventeen. He said he had been planning to study English literature in the University, but he was not sure that academic work was any use now. "We have lost our freedom'. When, to test him, I reminded him of the feelings of other young people of his age, he said that with the Indian soldiers all around, he could scarcely believe that the surrender of the Pakistan army had brought Bangladesh independence. 'We have sold ourselves into slavery.' This youth, I must say, was an exception in those days to the generality of young Bengali manhood or womanhood. Indian
propaganda had infected the minds of some of our own relations. They naively swallowed the fantastic lies they heard about me, although they were almost daily in contact with me. A nephew, son of a cousin, came one day to repeat what he had heard about the women’s hall, how girls were supplied to the army from this source, with my knowledge and consent. ‘Of course’, he commented half quizzically, ‘I don't think this can be true of you’. His tone however suggested that he wasn’t prepared to dismiss the story as wholly baseless. I could only express my astonishment at his naiveté. He had studied economics in
the University, and proceeded with great show of scholarship and a flourish of statistics to demonstrate to me how East Pakistan had been fleeced by West Pakistani capitalists.' It has taken a civil war to convince people like you and my father of the truth of our grievances. Now that the yoke of Pakistan has been thrown off, you’ll see Bangladesh growing from strength to strength.' I told him that I would be happy to see peace and tranquillity re-established after the horrors that we had been through but I could not share his shallow optimism. He was disappointed that even the terrible ordeal that I had passed
through had not cured me of my old beliefs. Stories reached me daily of the horrors let loose on Pakistan minded groups by the guerrillas, of vengeance, murder and shootings, of spiralling prices, indiscriminate arrests and of the general breakdown of law and order. No one except persons like ourselves felt dismayed by all this. There was a general tendency to think that a brief
period of anarchy or what looked it, was not unusual after a protracted and bitter civil war, and that the situation would presently right itself. The term 'civil war' was seldom used; the more common appellation for what happened during the nine months from March to December was 'war of liberation'. The Pakistan army was referred to as the army of occupation, and the naive young men who fought against it were freedom fighters. Supporters of the Awami League who had lain low during the conflict now came forward in their thousands to greet the victorious survivors and erect memorials to the dead who were all
described as martyrs. No matter how a young man died during those nine months; no matter what his character and status; no matter whether he was known to be a criminal or a rogue, if his name could be shown to have been associated at any stage with any phase of the ‘war of liberation’, he was a martyr with a claim upon the grateful remembrance of his countrymen. A strange situation, but who would in this country of the insane pretends to wisdom and sanity?

One cheap, and therefore popular, way of demonstrating the new nation’s gratitude to the dead was to change the names of roads, parks, schools, colleges and other institutions overnight without the slightest regard for either tradition or euphony. Such names as Jinnah, Iqbal, Ayub Khan were naturally anathema to the younger generation; they were effaced wherever they occurred and replaced by those of the new heroes. Dhaka University students took the lead in this campaign by renaming Iqbal Hall and Jinnah Hall after Zahurul Huq and Surya Sen. Sgt. Zahurul Huq, a young army officer and one of the accused in
the Agartala Conspiracy case had been killed during the trial. Surya Sen was the name of a terrorist who organised and led a raid on the Chittagong armory back in the thirties; the students were anxious to honour him as one of those whose example they had done their best to emulate during the ‘war of liberation’. Most painful of all for us was the proscription which fell upon the word Islam and its derivatives. The stink of communalism in these terms was considered unendurable. The name of the Islamic Intermediate College, where in the High Madrasah attached to it, I had had my schooling--- a historic institution with nearly a century of tradition behind it, was overnight changed to a horrid monstrosity, ‘Kabi Nazrul College’. Intended to
honour a great literary figure, Qazi Nazrul Islam, this hybrid, compounded of the first part of the name with the definite article of the second attached to it, would shock anyone with the slightest acquaintance with Arabic and Persian; it was a sad reflection on the level of culture among the new elite. Changes of this kind were daily announced. As I read about them, I felt disquieted because, partly, of the manner in which old traditions were being profaned, and partly of the hurry exhibited. How
foolish to imagine that the effacement of a few names could transform the spirit of a people! Significantly, Christian and Hindu names were spared. Notre Dame College, St. Gregory's School, Ramkrishna Mission Institutions were not thought to stink of communalism. The discrimination against Islam was carried to lengths which subsequently drew protests from the Awami League circle itself.

Of the small group of people, apart from my own family, whose loyalty to me during this period remained unaffected by the
change in my fortunes, I was particularly touched by the devotion of a young man whom I had given a job in the University of Rajshahi. His mother used at one time to work in our family as a maid; I had known him as a little child. After he grew up- he was about twenty- I tried to help him in various ways, getting him not only a job but also a wife. But the solicitude he showed in this crisis had been beyond my expectations. Mukhtar rushed down from Rajshahi on hearing of the assault, and spent nearly a month with me nursing me night and day, not caring whether his job lasted. It was on his shoulders- he was a strong, well-built youth-that I used to lean when re-learning to walk. The daily visits of my wife and children sustained me greatly.
We mutually rediscovered each other. To have constant, ocular proof of the attachment of the children, the realisation that they really loved me, not as a matter of duty or because custom demanded it, was---how should I put it? ---no expression that I might use would be equal to the emotion I intend to convey--- let me compromise by saying, soothing to my nerves and spirit and heart. It filled me with emotions which sometimes were a torture. I felt that I had done little to deserve this attachment not only not having laid up enough treasure for them but having many a time in the past been extremely selfish, spending more
on myself than on them. I have never been demonstrative, but even an undemonstrative parent or husband would have done more. My family used to keep itself to itself, seldom mixing with outsiders, not from motives of vanity---we had little to be vain about--- but because we often felt bewildered by the fast-changing ways of the world around us. The result was that my wife and daughters, deprived of whatever protection I afforded them, were now comparable to some carefully nurtured hot-house plants jolted out of their sheltered existence into an environment hostile and unfriendly. How were they going to survive?
What readjustments would they be called upon to make in the pattern of their life? Of the artificialities which society now-a-days favoured, they were innocent; the tricks and stratagems which passed for cleverness and smartness were unknown to them. I felt uneasy, distressed even, when I thought of all this. An elderly relation arrived one day to assure me that an
amnesty would in all likelihood be announced upon the return of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to Dhaka from Pakistan where he was still
held prisoner. (This was in the first week of January) He was a gouty old man, with a weak heart. He wept, not trying to conceal his tears, when he saw me. I was touched. Months afterwards, the same man declined point-blank to append his signature as a witness to a petition to the High Court challenging my detention. Surprising? Was the emotion he displayed early in January then entirely insincere? I would never have suspected the old man of being such a superb play-actor. But these are the surprises and paradoxes of which life seems full. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, hailed all over as the father of the nation, President of the Republic of Bangladesh, was released on 9 January from Rawalpindi and arrived in Dhaka by way of London the following day. The reception accorded him, when the R.A.F. transport plane carrying him touched down at Tejgaon Airport was hysterical. The press estimated the welcoming crowd to have exceeded half a million. From the airport he drove straight to a meeting at the Ramna racecourse, where thousands waited to hear him. I followed the proceedings on a small portable radio set I was using in my cabin. The elation of the cheering crowds, the atmosphere of revelry, the sense of final victory won in the face of stupendous odds were conveyed to me not only by the commentary broadcast but by the sounds, indistinct but insistent, transmitted direct of a large mass of men vociferously celebrating a great event. I strained my ears so as not to miss a syllable of the new President's speech. It filled me with foreboding about the shape of things to come. What I heard was the speech of a victorious party leader who had led his faction to a triumphant conclusion to a struggle, and was determined to teach his rivals a lesson. There was not a word about the expected amnesty. On the contrary he referred pointedly to those who had acted as witnesses in the trial against him in West Pakistan. No general forgiveness; no exhortation to the entire nation to forget the bitterness of strife, to bury the hatchet, and dedicate itself now exclusively to the task of reconstruction. That the Sheikh would repeat his usual grievances against the Pakistan army was understandable and no surprise. But where, I asked myself, was any proof that now he had won after what had been a civil war between federalists and secessionists, he viewed himself as the President of the state, the architect of a new Republic, who, whatever his role in the past, was called upon by circumstances to rise above factional jealousies and divisions and help his people to achieve peace? Even while urging the erstwhile guerrillas to lay down their arms, assured them that the task of routing and mopping up the enemies would be taken over by the regular state forces, an assurance obviously intended to suggest that the enemies would not be forgiven. Particularly sinister was the reference to his trial, already mentioned. If those opposed to the Awami League or the Sheikh himself deserved punishment, few could escape, and as subsequent developments showed, few did. Thousands continued to be arrested and hauled up on trumped-up charges of having obstructed the war of liberation. The Collaborators Order promulgated in January empowered the police to detain anybody it pleased without warrant or specific charge; anybody could get one arrested. All one needed to do was allege that the person incriminated was a collaborator. Swift punishment followed. If the fellow was lucky, he found his way into the Dhaka Central jail. Those not so lucky were straightway liquidated; many were publicly lynched. Lest anyone ever reading these lines should suppose that I have distorted the truth, I would mention that there was in the Sheikh's address an invitation to his people to take up urgently the task of rebuilding their ‘Sonar Bangla’, also a summons to peace, a warning that further lawlessness would be ruinous. But when saying these things, he seemed to exclude from his purview those who had disagreed with him. Am I exaggerating or imagining things? No; apart from the direct reference to the witnesses in his trial, there were hints, rather plain than subtle, that the opponents of the Awami League were to be treated as a class apart. The legislation that followed, the arrests and executions certainly showed that the apprehensions aroused in my mind were far from baseless. I shuddered when I thought of the immediate future. It was very clear that the guerrillas had not yet had their fill of blood. I had serious problems of my own to worry about. A day or two after I was abducted, another, or maybe the same gang again raided our house, this time at two o'clock in the night. I do not know to this day all the details; they have been deliberately kept from me. But I understand that they first rang up my wife saying that they knew she was sheltering other miscreants. The children were truly scared; they were sent away to neighbouring houses before the gang arrived. I am told that my wife had to pacify them by paying them a bribe. The actual size of the sum paid has not been disclosed to me.


This was followed by a raid by a police party who came to arrest my cousin, Mr S. Qamarul Ahsan, politician and writer who had
been staying with us. Apprehending that he would meet with the same fate as myself, he hid himself as best he could. The whole house was turned topsy-turvy, every room searched, even wardrobes ransacked. My cousin was ultimately traced down to a dark pantry where he lay cowering. Immediately afterwards came yet another raid, this time, in search of another cousin, Mr S. Manzurul Ahsan, a member of the Nizam-e-Islam Party. He had gone into hiding. So they arrested his elder brother, Mr S. Fakhrul Ahsan, a lawyer aged about sixty, who had never in his life dabbled in politics. He was let off after questioning. The police believed Mr Fakhrul Ahsan knew Manzur's whereabouts, which was not correct at all. There was an element of
poetic justice in the humiliation suffered by Mr Fakhrul Ahsan. Ever since my arrest, he and his children had been trying to be on the right side of the new law by adopting a positively hostile attitude to my family. One instance, among many, of the way close relations fell apart in the civil war and its aftermath. All these Ahsans’ were my cousins and my wife's brothers. Mr Fakhrul Ahsan was transported to the police station in my car, and while he was returned, the car was not. The fact that it was owned by me provided sufficient justification for its confiscation in the eyes of the police. It took my wife a month and a half and nearly half a dozen petitions to various authorities to get it back. The restoration was facilitated by a fortuitous circumstance. The car had been bought and registered in my wife's name. After Mr Qamarul Ahsan was arrested, there remained no one among our near relations to whom my wife could turn for help or counsel. Of the dangerous unfriendliness of the environment in which we lived in those days, further proof was provided by the attacks, both oblique and direct, which appeared every now and then in the press. 10th January, the day Sheikh Mujibur Rahman reached Dhaka, was singled out by the Dainik Bangla, an influential daily with a wide circulation, for the reproduction in facsimile of a document showing that I had received payment for my trip to Europe in 1971. The intention was patently malicious; it was to draw the attention of thousands on that day, of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman himself, if possible, to my ‘treachery’. I heard a group of Medical College students discussing the document and repeating sarcastic remarks intended for my ears. These incitements to hatred had their effect on the hospital atmosphere. Groups of young people would sometimes hover menacingly about my room, uttering threats. On one occasion, one of the policemen on duty reported that a man, obviously a drunkard. had made an attempt to snatch his rifle away, his avowed purpose being to enter my cabin and shoot me and the children who were with me. He looked really concerned.
______________________

 

[harpoon]

Maybe Bangladesh could have joined back Mother India in 1971. Didn't you guys think of that?

Why should they do that? Indians were liberators not conquerors.

 

[Md Akmal]

CHAPTER III: Betrayal and sycophancy all around

About the middle of January, the intellectuals, teachers, doctors and engineers who had run off to India during the Civil War began returning. Among them were Professor Ali Ahsan, head of the department of Bengali at Chittagong University and Dr A. R. Mallik. Both were my personal friends, the first a cousin who had grown up with me. Neither of course cared to call or to make an inquiry. I had not expected anything of the kind. After all we had been on opposite sides in the Civil War. Professor Ahsan was reported to have attacked me personally in his broadcasts from Calcutta. What hurt me now was the attitude he adopted on his return to Dhaka. One informant said he had, quite without justification,- for no one had approached him---made it clear that he won't lift his little finger to help a 'collaborator' like me out of my present difficulties. This was malicious malignity. Another person who saw me soon after a meeting with him suggestively hinted that I owed my downfall to the counsels of certain friends who had misguided me. The friends named were people who were as close to Mr Ali Ahsan as to myself. Of course, the whole story was a figment of his imagination, and if I had swallowed the bait, those people would be in prison now. Mr. Ali Ahsan's apostasy, the somersault he has turned in his efforts to get on the right side of the new political line, are, though explainable in the light of the changes of 1971, very surprising nevertheless. I last met him at Narayanganj at the house of his brotherin-law, Mr Abdul Ali, early in March 1971 when the drift towards a civil war had become clear. He shared the view that the coming events portended no good for Pakistan, and expressed alarm at the dangers looming ahead. He was known to be a wily, rather unscrupulous, but extremely astute person. He had at one time been the chief organiser of the Congress for Cultural Freedom in Pakistan. Although the Pakistan branch was disbanded when it was discovered that the Congress received payment for its work from the CIA, Mr Ahsan continued to champion causes opposed to left-wing parties in the country. It was he who immediately after the establishment of Pakistan had called for a ban on Tagore. When the climate changed, he tried to retrieve his position by demanding emphatically that the country should adopt Bengali immediately as the medium of instruction in the Universities.

People were aware of these facts, and I too knew that last thing one should expect of Mr Ali Ahsan was consistency. He would shift from one position to another, and could shrewdly guess in advance how the wind blew. But that he would repudiate the whole of his own past, by saying that whatever Pakistan represented was false and insincere was unexpected. At least, in spite of my intimate knowledge of his character, of his lack of scruple, I had not expected it. Yes, I know enough history and psychology to realise that people caught in the kind of crisis that a civil war is, do compromise, avoid reasserting or asserting views apt to get them into trouble, or even lapse into silence. But only turn-coats or opportunists change their principles at every plunge and swoop of the vessels they ride. I do not know the circumstances, which only a few weeks after I met him forced him to flee to India. There could be nothing in his past records which, he need have felt, would attract the wrath of the army. Was then his decision to follow Dr Mallik, his Vice-Chancellor, into exile prompted by a shrewd calculation as to Pakistan's ultimate chances of victory in the conflict?


Dr Mallik, the man who is believed to have persuaded, even forced some of his colleagues to cross over into Agartala with him, was a slightly different proposition. Intellectually, he had always been inclined towards the Awami League school of thought. An exponent of Bengali nationalism, he held that Bengal had had a raw deal from Pakistan. I remember a discussion with him at Karachi towards the end of 1970, before the elections, when after listening to his tirade against the rulers of Pakistan, I asked him point-blank whether he wanted disintegration. His answer was in the negative. I cannot say whether it was sincere or meant only to mislead me. As for his grievances, the fact which he cannot truthfully deny is that he, like thousands of other Bengalis, owed almost everything in his career to Pakistan. But for Pakistan, he would have been destined to end up as a civil servant belonging to the lower echelons, or as a college lecturer. Here was he, a Vice-Chancellor, enjoying a position and a degree of influence far beyond anything he could have dreamt of in an undivided India with Hindus to compete with. But instead of dissuading his friends in the Awami League from pursuing courses detrimental to the country's unity and solidarity, he had actively supported them, and, after the Army crack down, been busily organising the forces against Pakistan on foreign soil. What a fall! What a tragedy! And what blindness! How could he, a student of history, one who had himself written a book on the condition of Indians, particularly Bengali Mussalmans in the nineteenth century, ever imagine that a Bengal under the tutelage of India would afford the people of this region greater privileges and benefits than they enjoyed as part of Pakistan? Dr Mallik was not a man who did not understand politics or economics or whose attitudes need have been determined by slogans or press statements. But what difference did his past background make to his decision eventually? None that I could see or appreciate.

Of a piece with the unfriendliness of Mr Ali Ahsan was the attitude of Dr Muzaffar Ahmad Chowdhury who was appointed Vice-Chancellor of Dhaka University, in the third week of January as far as I remember. The appointment itself was irregular. The formality of terminating my services was considered unnecessary. I didn’t exist as far as they were concerned; here was a true instance of unpersonning in the Orwellian sense. It was announced that Dr Muzaffar Ahmad Chowdhury was taking over from my predecessor, Mr Abu Sayeed Choudhury, who had resigned early in March 1971 before the Army crackdown. I felt amused. Be that as it may, I thought I should write to Dr Chowdhury, an old colleague, a letter of congratulations and did so, requesting him to allow my family to remove from the Vice-Chancellor’s residence all our goods and belongings. We had been forced to evacuate the house in a hurry. Most of our utensils, furniture and crockery were left behind. Most valuable of all to me were the books, the collection of a life-time, perhaps not worth an impressive sum in terms of money, but they were books I had collected over nearly thirty-five years, well-thumbed volumes of emotional interest to the possessor. My letter to Dr Muzaffar Chowdhury was not answered, and when my family tried to contact him on the telephone, he wasn't available. Once my daughters who went to see him personally were turned away. The Vice-Chancellor’s Secretary, a young man who had worked under me also, expressed his helplessness in the matter. The University engineer, who has the responsibility of looking after all official residences, said that nothing could be taken out without an inventory having been made first. The matter dragged on, and it was not until Dr Muzaffar Ahmad Chowdhury was on the point of leaving the University job, about three months later that finally we were allowed to recover some of the things. By this time, a number of articles had mysteriously disappeared. The books which were on the bedroom shelves were not allowed to be inspected or removed by my children who had gone to fetch them.


One evening a police inspector arrived to inquire whether I knew the whereabouts of a gun, said to be the property of the permanent secretary to the Vice-Chancellor, who had fled to India during the troubles. I was taken aback. The fact is that this Secretary, before he left, had deposited a bed-roll with the Vice-Chancellor's care-taker, and inside the roll, unknown to anybody, was a gun. No one told us about the bed-roll, which we had seen once or twice, but never touched or made any enquiries about. After we evacuated the house, the caretaker must have opened the bed-roll on the sly and removed the gun whose existence he alone must have suspected. When the Secretary came back after 16 December the bed-roll was without the gun of course, and the easiest explanation of its disappearance in those difficult days when feelings against 'collaborators' ran high was that I had concealed it. Luckily, for me, the police inspector turned out to be a sensible person who dismissed the story as utterly improbable and had a shrewd suspicion of the truth. His visit to my cabin was a formality intended to furnish confirmation of his own theory. He left after an apology.I thanked God that there were even then a few people left who did not seize upon the chance of implicating a ‘collaborator’ in further trouble. Some other University employees also tried their level best not only to annoy but to create positive difficulties for me. Chief among them was Mr Nuruddin, Registrar. On 17 or 18 December, even before the abduction, I learnt from him on the telephone that he had, without even asking my permission, placed the Vice-Chancellor's residence, hastily evacuated by me on 15 December at the disposal of Indian army officers. The Registrar knew fully well that we had left our things behind; he made no arrangement to have them locked up, or even to have an inventory prepared. He assumed as soon as the Pakistan army surrendered, that my authority as Vice-Chancellor could be flouted with impunity, and when the request for accommodation came from the Indian Army authorities, proceeded without a moment's hesitation to indulge in the first hostile act he could think of. The fact is, there were other residences available, and certainly nothing need have prevented him from ringing me up and asking my consent. No; that would have meant acknowledging my position as Vice-Chancellor at a time when Mr Nuruddin thought I had collapsed. Though personally an Urdu-speaking man, he had for
sometime past identified himself with the anti-Pakistani forces in the University. There were reasons for this. A dismissed officer from the police service without academic qualifications beyond the ordinary Bachelor's degree, he got into the University as a deputy registrar by falsely representing that he had been unjustly treated in the police service and had resigned rather than compromise on matters of principle. When he saw the leftist forces in the ascendant. he lined up with them, with such success that a myth was created by them about his incredible efficiency and integrity. They wanted him groomed for the post of registrar, and when the old registrar retired, he became the obvious choice as successor. But owing to the antipathy of Dr M. O.Ghani, Vice-Chancellor, towards the forces backing Mr Nuruddin, he failed to obtain the post. The man chosen by Dr Ghani to fill the office however proved unsuccessful, and resigned. There was no alternative then but to allow Mr Nuruddin to act as Registrar pending the advertisement of the post anew. It was at this point that I came in. Mr Nuruddin worked under me as acting Registrar, but I knew that I could never expect to command his loyalty. So when the Pakistan army surrendered and Mr Nuruddin thought that I had lost my foundations, the least he could do was to create some annoyances for me. When early in January I sent to the University--- this was before the appointment of any new Vice-Chancellor---for my pay for the month of December, Mr. Nuruddin on his own ordered that I should be paid only for the period up to 19 December.

There was nothing for it but to put up with these signs of disloyalty and enmity. I was in the eyes of persons like Mr Nuruddin the symbol of a discredited past. What else could they do but disown me? That I had miraculously survived the ordeal of 19 December must have been a deep disappointment to them. To have expected anything else from persons like them would have been, for me at least, a betrayal of lessons I learnt from Shakespeare and Dante. Loyalty, consistency, broadmindedness are rare qualities; they are found in exceptional individuals. When we express surprise at someone's disloyalty, we betray our own ignorance of human nature, and do the person concerned both a disservice because we appear to be unnecessarily sarcastic, and tend to mar whatever image he has; honour because by pitching our expectations from him so high we really prove that in our eyes he must have enjoyed the reputation of an angel though incapable of such conduct. News used to trickle in almost daily during January of the return of University teachers who had gone into exile or been in hiding during the Civil War. I have already mentioned Dr Muzaffar Ahmad Chowdhury. Others who returned or surfaced in January included Mr Abdur Razzaq of the Department of Political Science, Dr Sarwar Murshid of the Department of English, Mr Nur Muhammad Miah of the Department of Political Science again, and Dr Ahmad Sharif and Dr Muniruzzaman of the Department of Bengali. My relations with Mr Razzaq had at one time been particularly close. He was several years my senior. When I came up to the University as a young first year student in 1938 Mr Razzaq was already a lecturer. He was then an active Supporter of the Muslim League, a fanatical admirer of the Quaid-e-Azam, or Mr M. A. Jinnah, as he was then known, and there developed between us a bond of sympathy and friendship transcending the teacher-pupil relationship. He soon established himself in our circle as the chief theoretician of the creed of Muslim separatism, a mentor and guide to young Muslim scholars. He could be a charming friend and possessed varied gifts. Excellent at both chess and cards, he won friends easily. His unorthodox ways, his defiance of convention in matters of dress and behaviour even his temperamental indolence, helped earn him admirers. Besides his eclectic tastes as a scholar, the wide range of subjects on which he could hold forth, gave him in our eyes a position not equalled by anyone else. When early in 1940 or 1941 Muslim League minded students decided to establish a fortnightly organ of their own called Pakistan, Mr Razzaq was on the Board of Advisers. He used to write for us occasionally. But more than his writings, we valued his counsel, his moral and intellectual support. When Nazir Ahmad, Manager of the fortnightly was stabbed to death by a Hindu fanatic in 1943, he contributed a moving tribute to his memory to the special issue we published on the occasion. It was after his return from England in 1950 that I began to be aware of a subtle change in his attitude. But I myself left for Europe soon afterwards, returning in October 1952 after my doctoral work: so I had little idea then of the extent and magnitude of the change he had undergone. But as the years passed, we began to drift slowly apart politically, though we remained friends personally. During the Indo-Pakistan war in 1965, Mr Razzq came into my room in the University one day, and tried seriously to convert me to the creed of Bengali nationalism and the cause of secession. He said Pakistan was no longer a working proposition. The selfishness and myopia of the West Pakistani leaders, particularly the Ayub regime, had made it clear that Bengalis and Punjabis could not live together under one polity. The only way out was for the Bengali-speaking people of East Pakistan and India to work for the establishment of a separate independent state. I was surprised and shocked. I remember countering by saying that to sentence Pakistan to death on the basis of Only seventeen years' experience seemed to me a rash and hasty step. Pakistan, I pointed out, had been decided upon as a solution to the Hindu-Muslim problem after two hundred years of bitterness during British rule, not to speak of the antagonism between the two peoples during seven hundred years of Muslim ascendancy in the sub-continent. Assuming, I said, that every argument he had advanced against the Punjabis was correct, assuming also that all his data were accurate, how could one allow a brief span of seventeen years to outweigh the history of two hundred years?

I maintained that I for one should like to give Pakistan a fairer and longer trial before concluding that it had failed. Mr Razzaq was disappointed by my reply. This was the last time we talked with each other seriously. A year and a half later, I discovered one day that he would not speak to me. It is no use concealing that I felt emotionally hurt. I hadn't expected that Mr Razzaq would let our differences on a political issue affect our personal relations. But he did, and I thought I should put up with this as best I could. Hence forward he used to cut me dead whenever we ran into each other, as, working in the same University, we could not avoid doing occasionally. After the army crackdown, I heard that Mr Razzaq had gone into hiding, and when my services as Vice-Chancellor were transferred from Rajshahi to Dhaka in July 1971, he was still absconding. To this day, I feel puzzled when I think of Mr. Razzaq's volte face. How could he have disowned his own early history, forgotten his own research on the subject of Hindu-Muslim relations and had even told me on one occasion that he would prefer to have himself beheaded in a Muslim Theocracy rather than support a United India? Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds. The truth of this Shakespearean saying was demonstrated lately (1973) when a doctorate honoris causa was conferred on Mr Razzaq by Delhi University. The intention was to honour him for his services in connection with the dismemberment of Pakistan. What a strange climax! The other Bangladeshi honoured in the same way at the same ceremony was Mr Zainul Abedin, the artist. Soon after Mr Razzaq surfaced, I heard that my cousin Mr Qamarul Ahsan had been bailed out. That brought me a great sense of relief. There was now at least one grown-up educated male who could be of some use to my family. The other cousin, Mr Manzurul Ahsan, surrendered to the police when fear of assaults by the Mukti Bahini abated a little. The Eid-ul-Azha was drawing near. This was to be the first big festival since my hospitalisation. It was impossible for us to think of festivities, or to contemplate buying clothes or having special food.

But I insisted, in the interests of the children, on some semblance of observance being kept up. I did not want them to be exposed to too great a shock. The youngest one was only eight. Neither she nor the other one who was ten could fully comprehend the nature of the tragedy that had overtaken us. I thought that as long as we could we should try to cushion the shock of it.
Eid day was naturally a particularly gloomy day for me. I had hardly any appetite for pilaff or curries. I thought of my fate and of the fate of thousands of others like me, either killed by the Mukti Bahini or languishing in prison, cut off from their kith and kin. The more I thought about it the greater my sense of desolation. The University and colleges were due to reopen early in February. As the hostels re-filled with boarders returning to Dhaka, the atmosphere in the city grew warmer. I could feel the rise in the temperature from my hospital cabin. Groups of students, long-haired, with thick beards on their chins, some of whom must have been in the Mukti Bahini, now started appearing in the corridors of the Medical College. Their attitude towards me, as far as I judged from their looks, was unfriendly and aggressive. The doctor who had advised me to go downstairs for half-an-hour a day for X-ray treatment rescinded his recommendation on the ground that the risk for me might be too great. I agreed with him. One day---- the date was 29 January--- he stopped in my cabin on his regular beat and said he would like to have a talk with me. When we were alone, he said that now that I could move about a little, he was going to discharge me from the hospital. He had been under great pressure from the authorities to do so but he had resisted it so far on humanitarian grounds. Since it was now clear that I was no longer a bed-ridden patient, he could not justify further delay. Besides, he pointed out, with so many students returning, I would be continually exposed to risk in the Medical College hospital. The last argument was incontrovertible. I finally yielded. But I said, could he wait till next Monday? He was unable to do so and a discharge certificate was issued the same day, and I prepared for my transfer to the Central Jail. The police party said the transfer would be carried out after dark. My wife and children came for a last visit. At nine in the evening however I was informed that the arrangement had fallen through, and that they would take me out of the hospital the following morning.

That night I did not have a wink of sleep. Though technically under arrest since 20 December, I had had so far the usual privileges enjoyed by hospital patients, of which the most precious were the daily visits by my family; my meals except breakfast, used to come from home. Now it would be real prison life, of which I didn't have the vaguest idea. I tossed about in bed trying desperately to shut my mind off, but all kinds of thoughts, buzzed in my head like a swarm of bees, keeping me awake. The temperature in the cabin felt at one time so stiflingly warm that I put the fan on. But it brought no relief. The police sub-inspector from the Ramna police post who was detailed to take me to the Central Jail called on 30 January at eightthirty. I left as I was, not even bothering to shave. The van carrying me had to pass by our house at 109 Nazimuddin Road, and at my request it stopped for a minute before our gate to let me bid my family a final farewell. I left forlorn and desolate as the vehicle resuicle resumed its journey.
___________________

 

[Burnz]

Bangali Muslims were the foremost promoter of one or two muslim majority countries in the sub-Continenet. Lahore Resolution of 1942 speaks of two independent muslim majority States in the NE and NW of India. An independent Bangladesh was the ultimate result of two different struggles by the Bangali Muslims. One before 1947 and the other afterwards.

I do not know the minds of all our people, but, I do not think, there was any one who has desired to be united with a majority Hindu India, where the Bangali muslims were bullied and deprived by their neighbouring Bangali Hindu community for about two Centuries during the British rule. This bullying has finally resulted in the bifurcation of India.

There was no love between these two communities. So, it is a mistake to think any one would have thought of re-uniting with India in 1971. Now, after a long 62 years of independence from India there is no way we will ever re-unite with India.

Were the Muslims of Bengal so Incompetent that despite being half the population of Bengal they could not become Prosperous neither in India. neither in Pakistan and even today Bangladesh is the Most Poor of the Three!

 

[eastwatch]

Were the Muslims of Bengal so Incompetent that despite being half the population of Bengal they could not become Prosperous neither in India. neither in Pakistan and even today Bangladesh is the Most Poor of the Three!

Stick to the topic. Poor we may be but our poverty is not as abject as India's. Certainly, India remains the poorest country in the world, even below the Sub-Saharan Africa.

 

[kobiraaz]

Were the Muslims of Bengal so Incompetent that despite being half the population of Bengal they could not become Prosperous neither in India. neither in Pakistan and even today Bangladesh is the Most Poor of the Three!

well we started our journey from 1971 after a war which destroyed infrastructures of our country... there was not a single bridge or culvert unbroken .... we started from zero!

big loser do not compare with us... Big country like India is not in Bangladesh's league....you have china for that.... per capita income of china was less than india and now ???? oops sorry i forgot... what was the percentage of your people do not use sanitary latrine posted by someone a few days ago?????

 

[harpoon]

Stick to the topic. Poor we may be but our poverty is not as abject as India's. Certainly, India remains the poorest country in the world, even below the Sub-Saharan Africa.

Yeah we are so poor that your countrymen brave BSF bullets to reach here.