Mr. Nayar if you are really serious to reunify India, I have a suggestion for you what will enable you to fulfil your dream. Would you agree to return to those Sultanate and Moghul eras when entire India was under Muslim rule and Hindus and Muslims resided together enjoying equal rights? You will voluntarily surrender your part of India to the Muslims? Delhi will be its capital and Muslims will rule whole India. This is the only way of reunifying Akhand Bharat. If you are ready we are also ready. If not, please stop this bogus propaganda of Akhand Bharat).*

Some of the comments of Indian journalist Kuldip Nayar what he made on November 16 (2012) at the launching ceremony of his book ‘Beyond the Lines’ held at Bangla Academy of Dhaka seemed to me as undesirable, unexpected and utopian. By doing so he not only made him controversial, but also deliberately bid to brand the historically resolved issue of partitioning the subcontinent a controversial one. A number of Indians earlier also placed such unreasonable and utopian dream of reunifying the countries of the subcontinent to single entity — Akhand Bharat. Speaking at the ‘Daily Star’ sponsored book launching function he tabled the idea in a detoured way advocating the formation of South Asian Union. He branded the partition of India as fallacious step and suggested the Hindus, Muslims, Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis to raise above their identity to create unified South Asia like that of European Union.

Mr. Nayar you don’t have a face to present such a proposal. You placed this from your mindset of extreme Hinduism. You were the people who instigated the Muslims to opt for a separate homeland. To frustrate Muslim interest you sided with your lord — British government to prolong their rule in India. You played the vital role to crush all the anti-East India Company crusades right from the resistance of Titumir to Sepoy mutiny. You were the surrogates of the British and beneficiaries of British rule and the Muslims had to fight two-pronged adversaries — the British and the local tentacles Hindu beneficiaries.

You didn’t even ready to recognize the zeal of independence of the Muslims to end the British occupation in India. ‘Anushilan Samity’is the glaring example of such heinous communality. You will not get the name of even a single Muslim member in the then Anushilan Samity though the Muslims were the majority in numbers in Bengal. Your so-called Hindu patriots declined to recruit the Muslim youths in the ‘Anushilan Samity’. Our Sayeed Wali Ullah (litterateur) and Muzzafar Ahmad (Marxist leader), who at that time were studying in Noakhali Zilla School, went to Surya Sen to express their willingness to join Anushilan Samity to fight against the British rule. Surya Sen categorically informed them that the Muslims had no avenue to enter the group. However, he said, one would have to swear in front of the image of goddess Kali to be recruited in the group. Both the Muslim youths disappointedly left Surya Sen. Surya Sen and all others in Anushilan Samity proved that the Hindus and Muslims are separate nations with separate belief and goal. It is to be recalled that the goal of Anushilan Samity was to create purely a Hindu dominated India to be ruled according to Hindu culture. Now you can comprehend whose communal behaviour first germinated the seeds of disunion and communality between the two religious communities of the subcontinent.

Can you recall who outwardly under the guise of preserving the territorial integrity of Bengal, but practically out of communality, started agitation against the partition of Bengal in 1905 when the British government in order to improve the socio-economic position of neglected and backward Muslims floated a new province comprising East Bengal and Assam making Dhaka as its capital? Who started non-cooperation movement against the British government demanding the annulment of new province and fuelled communal riot in Bengal against the poor Muslims who were not even aware what the partition of Bengal was?

Most of the Hindus, even the elite ones, seldom accept the Muslims as their neighbours having equal share in every sphere of life, as they treat them as their subservient, better to say slaves. Yet the then Muslim leader Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah to keep India’s unity intact placed 14-point proposal where Muslims would get logical rights and privileges in Hindu-dominated British-free India. But Congress paid no heed to Jinnah’s 14-point. It was Hindu communalism and their denial of equitable rights to the Muslims in British-free unified India compelled Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah to come to this conclusion that the lone solution to end the hatred, malice, exploitation, negligence of the Hindus against the Muslims was the creation of a separate homeland for Muslims partitioning the subcontinent. Still the Muslim leaders Okayed the Cabinet Mission Plan to save India from disintegration.

The Cabinet Mission proposed to retain the unity of India by dividing it into three autonomous units. Both Congress and Muslim League initially welcomed the plan. But astonishing all Congress, due to the obstinacy of Nehru, all on a sudden retreated from its original commitment. As a result the British government had no other option but to divide India. Nehru and his accomplices retreated from the agreed plan as according to them it would benefit the Muslims as they would remain majority in two units: Unit B and C. These historical facts brand whom as communal. Are they Muslims or Hindus? So one doesn’t feel comport hearing the suggestion of the communal Hindus to forget the religious identity of the Muslims who are liberal. And Mr. Nayar your contaminated proposal also originated from your Hindu communal sentiment, as it was the dream of your late communal leaders, like Nehru, who temporarily agreed partition of India.

Mr. Nayar, in 1905 you were desperate and dedicated to preserve the unity of Bengal. Who opposed its unity in 1947 when Hossain Shaid Shawardy, Abul Hashem, Sharat Bose, Kiran Shankar Roy, etc., declared to preserve the unity of Bengal by creating a sovereign independent Bengal outside India and Pakistan? Your Nehru attached a precondition that if India would have to be divided Bengal and Punjab must also be divided so that the portions of Bengal and Punjab that would go to Pakistan could re-merge to India soon after?

Your covert and overt activities against Bangladesh and your latest suggestion justified that you assisted us in 1971 to implement that dream of Nehru to merge East Bengal, now Bangladesh, to India. Your plan was to weaken and crush Muslim power of the region and grab us in course of time, to turn Bangladesh to a flag-oriented vassal state, if you couldn’t swallow it instantly. We frustrated that design. Now you resurrected the same design in a detoured manner. We are sure that it is not your personal agenda. It is an expression of your Hindutva psyche.

Going through the above mentioned suggestion of Kuldip Nayar I recollected the story of seeing the elephant by seven blind men. Mr. Nayar took us, as if, we are blind. You advised us saying, “We will create a unified South Asia like that of European Union rising above our identity of Hindu, Muslim, Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi.”

Let us see first of all how much you have come out of extreme Hindutva mindset. You verbally speak of secularism, but in practice you turned India to an extreme Hindu State. Your behaviour with Indian Muslims, Kashmiris, Sikhs, Buddhists, even with the Dalits-Harijans, above all with the Bangladeshis, since 1971 unequivocally revealed that there are no so much bigoted and extreme communalists around the world as worst as you. Your cruelty of communality magnified thousand times more after 1947 than that of pre-47 British era. If you were really secular, the Architect of the Indian Constitution Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar, a Dalit, would have never converted to Buddhism? He even urged all other Dalits to shun Hinduism. Your communality, anti-Muslim hatred, and the mentality of keeping the Muslims under your feet prompted and compelled the Muslims of the then East Bengal to join Pakistan instead of merging to India.

We became the owner of an independent Bangladesh in 1971 as our forefathers took the judicious decision of joining Pakistan in 1947. We would have lost our existence if in 1947 we would have merged to India instead of joining Pakistan. Under that situation Sheikh Mujib would never have emerged. We wouldn’t have got an independent country named Bangladesh. We would not have got our own prime minister, president, national parliament, Supreme Court. There wouldn’t have so many MPs, ministers, bureaucrats, doctors, engineers, industrialists, poets and litterateurs, journalists, barristers and what not. So many universities, colleges, schools, Madrassas, medical colleges, engineering universities, or thousand types of other organizations, so many mills and factories, wouldn’t have established in this region what is now known as Bangladesh. English Daily Star wouldn’t have surfaced to publish your book or journalist like Mahfuz Anam or Matiur Rahman might not have emerged. Most of us would have become your farm-workers, home-servants, maidservants, day-labourers, boatmen, tailors, mason, carpenters, guards, at best primary school teachers what the Muslims of West Bengal and elsewhere in India now are.

In Bangladesh now many families in rural areas, not to speak of urban ones, have colour TV sets, computers, refrigerators, and mobile phones, even buildings and private cars. Metalled, roads, electricity and gas lines, dish-networks, internet connections spread in the remote rural areas. Nothing of these sorts could be achieved if our forefathers would have merged to India in 1947. Above all, millions of persons like Zainal Abedin wouldn’t have emerged to condemn and thwart your overt and covert designs. The position of our next generations will reverse to the pre-47 era after 65 years if we today join so-called ‘Akhand Bharat’ (Undivided India). All of our achievements will be lost and frustrated and perished to dust.

In this context I opt to quote psychological grief and agonies of a leader of Sarbajonin Jatiya Puja Udjapan Committee what he expressed at a meeting held at Dhakershari Mondhir on August 20, 2004. He moaned saying, we no longer get Muslim servants or maid servants in the houses of the Hindus. Muslims no longer prefer to work in our houses. This unfortunate situation was created after 1947. (Daily Inqilab, August 21, 2004).

Mr. Nayar the above quoted statement and its goal are self-explanatory that exposed the real mindset of the Hindus. In order to reverse the Muslims to the slave-like status of per-partitioned era and remove the feeling of grief of your Bangladeshi representatives, you resurrected or brought forward the theory of South Asian Union, whose ultimate goal is to create an ‘Akhand Bharat’.

The root-cause is that you cannot tolerate or accept our success, prosperity and above all, independence. Your anti-Muslim communal hatred and psyche cannot tolerate our independent identity and happy and prosperous life. According to you why should the descendents of the unlettered rustic Muslim farm-workers and boatmen of East Bengal would have an independent homeland and lead a decent life. To end this you repeatedly imposed and still are imposing tragedies, tempests and miseries one after another on us, so that we cannot stand on our own legs. You are sure if you behave with us like a good neighbour we could supersede Malaysia or Singapore, not to speak of your India.

On the other hand, you apprehend if we are allowed to attain prosperity the deprived, exploited, neglected people of your provinces adjoining Bangladesh, which were never a part of Indian territory, will be inspired and roared for independence out of India. To deter their independence you wage clandestine war against us. Your prime goal is to swallow Bangladesh to reverse us to the status of porters and labourers. And with that end in view you raised the dead issue of ‘Akhand Bharat’.

You can never be a friend of the Muslims. You will never be able to get rid of your pound of anti-Muslim communalism, as using the anti-Muslim sentiment you keep the Hindu nationalistic spirit alive to keep India united. Indians were psychologically divided far earlier. For this reason you let loose your army against your people and chose anti-Muslim bias as an effective panacea to avert further subdivision and fragmentation of India. You will become busy to discover enemy amongst you once anti-Muslim sentiment withers away. Subdivision and fragmentation of India is the lone solution to the malice of your scores of castes and sub-castes, dialects and languages, regional and religious rivalry and strife. For all these reasons, it is a childish utopian dream to reunite the dead ‘Akhand Bharat.

You claimed that you documented historical facts in your autobiography. If you were impartial you would have documented those reasons without bias and partiality that led to the partition of the subcontinent. Write how you killed and still are killing and depriving and deceiving the Indian Muslims for the last 65 years. How many riots have you staged, how many madrassas, mosques and grave yards of the Muslims have you occupied? How many Muslims have been you kept behind the bars in fake charges? Can the Muslims use loudspeakers to call the devotees to the mosques prior to their prayers? Aren’t the Muslims 3rd or 4th grade citizens of India? What is their representation in government jobs? Have you documented all these information in your autobiography? I know you will never to that. You are secular in words, not indeed. You are fanatic communal Hindu, but camouflage your notoriety to deceive the Muslims.

Why don’t you confess that the Muslims are still persecuted, oppressed, wounded even killed daily in India? You were presenting the utopian theory of resurrecting the dead Akhand Bharat before your allies in Dhaka just when anti-Muslim riots were in progress in Assam and Hyderabad (occupied by you). You didn’t mention in your autobiography, what your flatterers in Dhaka branded as so-called encyclopaedia, the demolition of Babri Mosque followed by anti-Muslim riot, military operation on the Sikh shrine, or persecution on the Buddhists or Christians. You didn’t mention those as your design is to hide those cruel misdeeds. Bring to light your black chapters what are preserved in your evil heart. You will never do that.

Let us forget the problems of the Indian Muslims. What is the position of that part of Bengal what is known as West Bengal where 75% of the total population is Hindu? West Bengal was the most prosperous and industrialized State among all others when the British left the subcontinent. Why it is now in a deplorable destitution? Why your late Rajib Gandhi branded Kolkata as dead city? Who now control West Bengal? Who are the owners of the main keys of West Bengal, are they Bengalese or non-Bengalese? Who are the owners of the mills and factories, business organizations and even most of the residential houses there? Why Bengali language withers away from West Bengal. What is the principal language in Kolkata City - Bengali or Hindi? Do the Bengali films get accommodation in cinema halls of Kolkata? Why do the Bengalese migrate to other states in search of job? The reason is that West Bengal is now a colony of New Delhi in the truest term of the term. It is not an independent and sovereign country like Bangladesh.

You should not forget it that we are no longer your slave or unlettered like those of the British-dominated Muslims. We are now qualified enough to face you with equal intellectuality and sagacity. Don’t imagine that by purchasing some politicians, journalists, intellectuals, cultural activists, you have won over Bangladesh. These parasites are not the ultimate deciders of Bangladesh.

Don’t lure us with the glow of Akhand Bharat. Nagas would not have continued their resistance for 65 years if India was an abode of paradise. The Kashmiri kids wouldn’t have attacked the Indian soldiers. The Sikhs wouldn’t have declared independent Khalistan. Despite launching genocide your (Indian) army failed to crush the resistance of the people of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Kashmir, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram,, Nagaland, Punjab, Tripura, etc. Wait to see the roar of the Tamils. You are to wait to see how these regions one after another are slipped away from India. On the basis of what you put forwarded the theory of Akhand Bharat when your India is itself disintegrating. Instead of advocating for reunification of dead India, you simply wait to count to how many pieces India is going to be divided.

It will be a folly if you consider us like those of the Bengalese of West Bengal, who lost their identity. We broke Muslim Pakistan not to become the slaves of the Hindu India. Bangladeshis comprehend your cruelty. They carefully watch how you behave with the Indian Muslims, Dalit-Harijan Hindus, Kashmiris, Sikhs and the people of Assam, Tripura, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, and Arunachal Pradesh. You know how cruel you are. All these factors will lead to the disintegration of India. No prudent and intelligent person can dream the unification of dead Akhand Bharat.

You instanced the European Union. 27 European countries formed an alliance as there is no country named India around them. None of them deprives any country of the water of the international river Danube that touches the territories of 10 counties including Romania (29.0% of basin area), Hungary (11.6%), Serbia (10.2%), Austria (10.0%), Germany (7.0%), Slovakia (5.9%), Bulgaria (5.9%), Croatia (4.4%), Ukraine (3.8%) and Moldova (1.6%). No European country daily kills the people of her neighbouring country, no country erects barbed wire fence along the border of the neighbouring country and hangs the corpse on the barbed-wire fence killing neighbours. No country smuggles arms and explosives, penetrates terrorists to their neighbouring country or creates agents to attack or arson mills and factories to paralyze the economy or blockade water of the international rivers or creates artificial flood by opening gates of damps and barrages during the rainy season to cause agriculture and destroy communication infrastructures and blocks water during the dry season when water becomes essential for agriculture. No country used its intelligence agencies to assassinate the presidents of its neighbouring country.

You don’t have the face of citing the instance of European Union. Your reference to European Union originated from your communal mindset to encage us under your fold. You don’t prefer the unity of the South Asian countries; rather you design to dominate them. You opposed the unity of South Asian countries when Shahid Ziaur Rahman appealed to form a forum of the South Asian countries. In his honest proposal you discovered anti-India bias, better to say you branded it as anti-expansionist alliance. For this reason, despite popular support of all other countries, South Asian alliance couldn’t be floated so long Zia remained alive. After the assassination Ziaur Rahman due to your conspiracy you agreed to form an ineffective SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) according to your blueprint to implement your hegemonic agenda. You crippled SAARC by attaching a precondition that any decision of SAARC must be unanimous. Due to this precondition SAARC cannot adopt any decision beyond your blueprint. As a result, SAARC failed to reach its cherished vision and spirit and became an event of annual picnic of feasts and haunt of gossiping and idle talkers of the South Asian leaders, above all, a trap of recruiting agents. Ascending on SAARC now you not only spread the market of your commodities in the South Asian countries, but also bid to station your troops.

Bangladeshis will no longer trust you. Using some purchased slaves or spreading the hegemonic network of intrigues or through military invasion Bangladesh may be temporarily occupied but in the long run a larger Muslim country will re-emerge with a larger territory centring Bangladesh. So don’t play with fire. Let you remain happy, we have neither greed for nor malice to your happiness. We simply desire and deserve equal and good neighbourly treatment from you. If you refrain from committing nefarious devilry and notoriety against us Bangladesh will make so much progress in 10 years that your people will throng in Bangladesh to change their fortune. To change our luck we need not to chain us with your slavery. Let us simply live in peace.

You suggested help remove the deadlock that obstructs mutual cooperation in South Asian region. Who germinated the seeds of mistrusts and non-cooperation? Is it you or any other else? You are the exponent of all types of evil deeds that engulfed the subcontinent. The devil of arms race, nursing terrorists, disintegrating others’ country, twisting other countries, occupying others’ territory, ascribed on you.

Let you set the example of cooperation. Demolish all the dams and barrages including Farakka, halt the construction of new dam and river interlinking project, remove the barbed-wire fence from the border, stop killing the Bangladeshis in the border area, shun the idea of having corridor through Bangladesh and develop transit facilities connecting all the SAARC countries. We believe in coordinated transit system combining all the SAARC member-countries, not in corridor through Bangladesh.

It is your responsibility to set the example of cooperation, because you follow the policy of non-cooperation in every field. Please calculate the extent of non-cooperation that you have committed. Observe your own face on the mirror. There prevails the ugly cruelty of communalism on the other side of your theory of cooperation and unity. We have detected your character and goal. It is better for you the sooner you leave the utopia of ‘Akhand Bharat’.

Mr. Nayar if you are really serious to reunify India, I have a suggestion for you what will enable you to fulfil your dream. Would you agree to return to those Sultanate and Moghul eras when entire India was under Muslim rule and Hindus and Muslims resided together enjoying equal rights? You will voluntarily surrender your part of India to the Muslims? Delhi will be its capital and Muslims will rule whole India. This is the only way of reunifying Akhand Bharat. If you are ready we are also ready. If not, please stop this bogus propaganda of Akhand Bharat).*

Mohammad Zainal Abedin is a New York-based journalist & researcherEmail: noa@agni.com

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