Abhijit Bhattacharyya | Language row led to a new nation 49 yrs ago
Published : Dec 16, 2020, 9:05 am IST
Updated : Dec 16, 2020, 9:05 am IST
Jinnah’s toxic temper, mixed with arrogance, sowed the seeds of irreversible Bengali nationalism in the world’s most fertile soil
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The world knows that Bangladesh is South Asia’s youngest nation state, but few people and particularly those born well after the cataclysmic events surrounding its birth, who are now in their 20s, 30s and 40s are fully aware of the torturous processes over a long period of time that led to the creation of arguably one of the few linguistic nation states through blood, sweat, toil and tears? The experience of living through the tumultuous 24 years (1947-1971), between when India attained freedom from British rule and the December day 49 years ago when Dhaka (then Dacca) became “the free capital of a free country” in Indira Gandhi’s ringing phrase in the Lok Sabha are hard to fatho
Bangladesh: Confrontation Escalates Over Mujibur Rahman StatueÂ
At the heart of the conflict between Islamist and the Awami League is a disagreement over whether the statues are un-Islamic and anti-Shariat or works of sculpture .
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Photo: Flickr/Adam Jones CC BY-SA 2.0
A statue of Bangladesh’s founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was found defaced in the country’s western city of Kushtia on December 5, sparking possibilities of violence in an escalating confrontation between Islamist radicals and the ruling Awami League and its secularist allies.
The Islamist radicals oppose the installation of Mujib statues that the Awami League and other secularist groups are installing in various parts of Bangladesh to honour the country’s great leader in his centenary year. They say statues and idols are ‘un-Islamic and anti-Shariat’ but the Awamis argue these are ‘works of sculpture’, many of which exist even in front of mosques elsewhere in Islamic