|
50 years and the tryst with destiny
Abed Chaudhury
“Long years ago we made a tryst with
destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly
or in full measure but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight
hour when the world sleeps India will awake to life and freedom”.
Thus said Jawharlal Nehru on the eve
of 15th August that saw the decolonization of the Indian subcontinent,
giving rise to two states India and Pakistan. What was known as India then
was divided, thus the redemption described by Nehru was not whole, but still
substantial. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakisten spoke from
Karachi. He was somber and lamented a moth-eaten Pakistan. I am not sure
what happened in Dhaka on that day but I am sure there was widespread
jubilation for many and sadness for others. It was an auspicious moment in
the history of the world, one sadly tainted by rampant spilling of blood,
for in the Punjab and Bengal there was widespread communal riots that saw
Hindus and Muslims killing each other. It was a moment that was not perfect
but nonetheless a watershed event for all of us who live in South Asia
today. As that approaches let us be sombre and recapitulate for a moment the
events that shaped us into what we are today.
We the Bengalis brought the doom. 190
years earlier on 23rd June, 1757, the Nabob of Bengal was defeated at the
Battle of Palassy by the English merchants and their local collaborators
thus beginning the colonial rule which was to subjugate South Asians for
almost two centuries. The twenty years old Nabab, Siraj-ud-Dowla was
murdered on the 4th of July. In words of capitulation that brought centuries
of servitude for all of us, the new nabab, Jaffar Ali Khan, also known as
Mir Jafar signed the treaty, which said, inter alia, the following :
“1. The enemies of the English are my
enemies whether Europeans or others.
2. Whatever goods and factories
belonging to the French in the provinces of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa shall
be delivered to the English
3. To indemnify the Company for their
losses by the capture of Calcutta I will give One Crore of Rupees
...”
In this 190 years much happened that
changed us all forever. In 1757 Bengal was comparable to just about any
place in the world. Major John Corneille a man who was in Bengal during the
battle of Palassy wrote about the cities of Murshidabad, Patna and Dhaka
“....They were much superior in point of trade and riches to any other of
the European nations......”. The budding nation was subjugated, and kept
under utter servitude while the rest of the world prospered. We were
shackled with an alien culture, language, mode of behaviour, thinking, and
when we did everything possible to ape our masters we were rewarded with
titles. In 1757 Bengalis, Hindus and Muslims together, for with Mir Jafar
there was Jagath Seth and others, were tainted with the sin of betrayal that
eventually enslaved the whole subcontinent.
During these long years as enslaved
people we often turned against each other, frequently egged on by our
colonial masters. But we also fought as one people, such as in 1857. The
haunting songs of Khudiram, the ghazals of Bahadur Shah Zafar, heroic tales
of Titumir, and Surjo Sen are all part of our past, our cultural legacy.
Sadly we also learnt to hate ourselves, started to describe our own
languages as “vernacular”, and for too long rejected the local and adopted
the foreign. That mental habit of dividing people based on their western
education has been permanently etched all South Asians, irrespective of
their language and religion; it is a form of a mental tattoo that
differentiates us from other people. The greatest tragedy of our subjugation
is that the English have moulded us all into something that we shouldn’t be.
I will not dwell on the Hindu Muslim
problem and the necessity of dividing India. Nor do I want to go into our
dis-enchantment and eventual war of independence with Pakistan. Each one of
us has a point of view on that. It doesn’t matter any more, the historical
reality is that there now exists three independent countries, each with its
unique identity and national aspirations. Let us not be divided by the
problems of that recent history. As the 14th/15th August approaches let us
acknowledge our common heritage and history, and let us think of building
bridges of shared destiny. Not to suffocate, threaten or engulf each other,
but to enhance each other.
Let us all, Indians Pakistanis and
Bangladeshis, together be sombre and observe the 14th/15th August as days of
decolonization from the British rule. Let us not forget the thousands who
struggled and perished, starting from Siraj-ud-Dowla. Let us forget
controversies and remember the deeds of Sher-E-Bangla Fazlul Haque, Shubhash
Chandra Bose, Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy, and C.R. Das. And yes, let us
remember and educate us and our children on M.K. Gandhi and Muhammad Ali
Jinnah too. No matter how much recent tragedies threaten our vision let us
remember that we are an ancient people with a proud history that dates back
centuries. Let us teach our children the grand sweep of that history, and
not just the dramatic saga of our recent times.
Many years ago we all made a tryst
with destiny. Let us now, even belatedly, redeem that pledge. |
||