Bangladeshis are passengers on a boat in which the rudder has been missing for a long time; right from the inception of the nation. Meantime, Deshis of 2 generations developed several concepts as to where we were and where we are going. The generation who were in their early adulthood during the freedom fight era has seen the war and is still alive and has a view that has been overshadowed by the concept the younger generation who were teen agers during the war or perhaps born after 1971. The later generation has been indoctrinated by the media, text books and other aggressive means. Awami League is blessed by the artists and the press that feels strongly about their doctrine of the freedom fight and has succeeded greatly indoctrinating the post-independence crowd. Besides Awami League cadres, this group also contains the communists and socialists of the earlier era. Basically they are secular minded and mean well despite their doctrines have collided with the rest of the population. This gap has been reinforced by the help of artists of the other Bengal. Similarly the Bangladeshi religious parties have been bolstered by the Muslim parties in West Bengal who have dictated terms to Mamata Banerjee in not cooperating with the Awami League government; no matter what. No Teesta and no Seet mahal deals.
The sturdy boat which Bangladesh was in 1969 through 1971 lost its rudder right after independence. Too many boastful claimants of the freedom fight during this era created havoc for the rulers of the newly formed state. The rudder was broken and cast off and in its place they hoisted several sails of their choice. The red sail is the largest and therefore, it is propelling the boat when there is a lot of wind and taking the boat in a direction that many passengers did not intend to go. When the wind subsided, the other passengers hoisted the green sail. The boat started veering to an entirely different direction. Other multi colored sails have very little effect on the boat’s speed or the direction.
What Bangladesh needs is fixing its rudder rather than making a bigger sail. Instead of unleashing the artists with their creative national anthems, we need real patriots who care to steer this vessel with a good rudder. People of both green and red sails feel the rudder is irrelevant. They strongly feel their wind force fed sails can steer the boat to the right direction. Both have been proven wrong. Time has come to fix the rudder.
Time has come for the people to stop and think. They should settle for several smaller sails and a new rudder. A nation is a combination of a rudder to control the direction, few sails to be used to give speed to the vessel and a good Captain (Kandari) to give command to the crew.
A homogenous nation like Bangladesh is like a solid boat that can and should withstand rigors of the storms. But a few bad apples amongst the crew have spoiled the sound navigational capability of this boat. Time has come to fix the management of the boat as the boat is solid. It’s the Kandari (Captain) and the crew who needs fixing.
A very accurate and incisive writing indeed! Thanks to the writer. To add to the content of his writing, I as an eyewitness and albeit a very small participant also in the liberation war, would say that the baby named Bangladesh was born with congenital diseases. Just like the present day formalin mixed fruits, Bangladesh got ‘formalin’ into her veins just before a few days of her birth. Someone got hold of the fruit of our liberation war when it was at the point of fall from its nipple. And then many things un-thought of and unexpected got into the blood circulation. So it not only lost its rudder as you said but it started with a cocktail of principles and ideas not of people’s choice but something else. And that’s why we see ‘socialism’ as one of its basic principles whereas socialism was on the wane, if not dead, even in its own birthplace. We see ‘secularism’ in our constitution whereas over 85% of the population is pious Muslims who have been holding Islam fast for centuries in all hazards. If we compare other ‘secular’ countries, many of them have peace-loving people of different faiths but in our closest neighboring one, communal riots are very frequent. On the other hand in many self-proclaimed religious countries such as Britain, Germany, Norway, Denmark etc in Europe, communal violence is rare. Even the US Presidents take oath putting their hand on the Bible and their coins bears ‘In God We Trust’. But look here in Bangladesh. Islam as state religion has set many so-called ‘antels’ on fire. Truth is if you ask them where does Islam stand on the way to justice, equity and fair play to all, none will be able to provide a logical answer. And all these have been possible, as you said, through the craftiness and cunning of a section of ‘antels’ with ulterior motives. They have very carefully kept our new generation from the real history of independence of this subcontinent. And we know how dangerous thing a little learning is. And this is Bangladesh who is being run by ‘dangerous things’..