Off with his head

The brouhaha surrounding AK Khandaker’s assertion in his recently published memoir that Sheikh Mujib concluded his historic March 7 speech with the statement “Joy Bangla! Joy Pakistan!” is a sign of the times, a fine illustration of the chill wind that blows through the country today, silencing conversation and stifling debate.

I have no idea whether Khandaker’s assertion is correct or not. I was not there and I am no historian, but from what I have read, there appears to be reasonably persuasive evidence both in support of and against his contention, and thus far no definitive proof has been proffered by either side that I am aware of.

However, the point of interest to me is not so much whether or not Sheikh Mujib uttered those words on March 7, but the question: Even if he did, so what?

The secondary point of interest to me in this whole sorry affair is the depressing spectacle of so many of the party faithful falling over themselves to excommunicate Khandaker for his ideological deviancy in a ritualistic two-minutes-of-hate style hysteria.

Let’s take the first point first.

Does it really matter whether Sheikh Mujib said “Joy Pakistan” at the conclusion of the March 7 speech?

Let us assume, arguendo, that he did say those words: Does their utterance in any way diminish him or diminish the centrality of the speech to the history of the Liberation movement and the run up to the War of Independence?

To ask the question is to answer it.

It has long been understood and acknowledged by thoughtful commentators that the March 7 speech was a masterpiece of inspiration and diplomacy, clearly preparing the population and laying the groundwork for the struggle to come, but at the same time deliberately and delicately falling short of a full call for independence, so as to retain the moral high ground and not afford the Pakistani army any excuse or justification for the genocidal crackdown that was to ensue.

Unfortunately, it is part and parcel of the new dispensation that all such nuance has been lost in the mythology and hagiography surrounding the moment and the man that has become the official history of the Liberation War. Any questioning of the orthodox historical account is viewed as heresy.

Which brings us to the defenestration of AK Khandaker, a hero of the Liberation War and AL cabinet member in the not too distant past. It doesn’t matter who you are or what your credentials might be, it seems. Any deviation from the party line, and the party faithful are lined up around the block to denounce you and demand that you be silenced.

Indeed, one gets the impression that careful note is being taken of those who do not denounce loud enough and that it will be held against them in future. Thus, even those who might agree with Khandaker’s assertion or might agree that it does not matter, one way or the other, will hold their tongues and say nothing, lest they be suspected of disloyalty.

This is where we have come to.

Attentive readers will note that throughout this piece I have referred to Sheikh Mujib, without the honorific appellations of Bangabandhu or Father of the Nation, even though I have used them both freely in the past, and fully believe that he is deserving of both titles.

The reason I do so is conscientious objection to how, in this day and age, the deviation-sniffers take note of irrelevancies such as whether one refers to our first president as Bangabandhu or not, and label or pigeon-hole a writer accordingly.

There is no one who hopes for advancement or favour under the current dispensation who would dare not use the honorific, and therein hangs a tale.

I grew up in a household that unquestioningly (though not uncritically) venerated and still venerates the Sheikh, and I never doubted the man’s greatness nor his centrality in Bangladesh’s history. He is without question the founding father of the nation, and without him there would be no independent Bangladesh.

But the current tendency among the sycophants that fawn around the country’s citadels of power, to peddle a single, flattened, orthodox account of the history of the nation and the independence movement, and to castigate as disloyal and dishonorable anyone who offers any kind of differing perspective, is a deeply worrisome development

The fact that even deviation from the official phraseology – to say nothing of the official facts – is today considered a thought-crime is a pretty chilling realisation, and does neither the memory of Sheikh Mujib nor that of our war of liberation any honour at all.