Awami League’s policies.....................................................S M Hali There is method in the madness, as the Bangladesh ruling AL party, in pursuit of a well planned strategy, is targeting those Bangladeshis who were against the dismemberment of Pakistan in the 1971 war of secession The Awami League (AL) of Bangladesh was founded in 1949 by Bengali nationalist leaders Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani, Yar Mohammad Khan, Shamsul Huq and later Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, who also served as Prime Minister of Pakistan. Originally the AL was created as a counterweight to the Muslim League, which was prevalent in West Pakistan, but later it became the lynchpin in the struggle against the perceived domination of West Pakistan. Despite the fact that Bengalis were in the forefront of the struggle for Pakistan, subsequent policies framed in West Pakistan alienated the Bengalis and ultimately led to the secession of East Pakistan to become Bangladesh in 1971. In 1948, Bengalis became disconcerted because the Bengali script was omitted from newly-minted coins and postage stamps. During the agitation, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah visited Dhaka and declared that Urdu would be the sole official language of Pakistan. This further incensed the feeling of marginalisation, and irate Bengalis took to the streets in protest. Bengalis felt discriminated against because despite being an ethnic majority, they got the short end of the stick in government, industry, bureaucracy and the armed forces. Sheikh Mujib, who was then a student leader, led the revolt, which was quelled using brute force. Feelings of deprivation paved the way for him to lead the AL in a struggle for independence. After the emergence of Bangladesh in 1971, Mujib became its first president but disgruntled members of the armed forces overthrew his government in 1975 and assassinated the father of the Bengali nation along with his family. Only two of Sheikh Mujib’s daughters, Hasina and Rehana survived. Sheikh Hasina found asylum in India while the AL was left in the doldrums. She later returned to Bangladesh to lead the AL, which in 1996 won the general elections, and Sheikh Hasina became Prime Minister. She lost the next elections but she recouped her losses and led her party to electoral victory in 2008 and in 2014, although the latter polls were deemed controversial because most of the opposition parties boycotted them. The camaraderie expressed of late by Bangladeshis and Pakistanis was much to the chagrin of India. Sheikh Hasina, on the other hand, is continuing to criticise Pakistan. There is method in the madness, as the Bangladesh ruling AL party, in pursuit of a well planned strategy, is targeting those Bangladeshis who were against the dismemberment of Pakistan in the 1971 war of secession and supported the Pakistan army. The AL is targeting the Jamaat-e-Islami and has sentenced four of its leaders to death for abetting the Pakistani armed forces during the 1971 crisis. In her latest allegation made during her February 4, 2014 address to the Bangladeshi parliament, Sheikh Hasina declared that fresh investigations would be launched to ascertain whether Hawa Bhaban (her political rival Begum Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s headquarters) was involved in smuggling 10 truckloads of arms for Pakistan. She cast aspersions on Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, as being involved in a plot to destabilise her government. Despite the fact that the Pakistan armed forces were repatriated to Pakistan under a tripartite agreement between Pakistan, Bangladesh and India in 1974, the AL and its leadership are hell bent upon trying 195 Pakistan army officers in an International Criminal Tribunal for alleged crimes of genocide of Bengalis. The AL would be better advised to serve its people and solve their domestic issues rather than inculcating hate. Sheikh Hasina should heed the words of Madeleine L’engle: “Hate hurts the hater more’n the hated.”
Posted on: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 09:06:41 +0000
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