Re: Did Bengalis leave marks of their Culture on West Pakistan?
If this is 100% true about Wajed, then it is 200% true for Banerjee. Pakistanis are not aware of, Banerjee as yet.
As for Urdu-hating thing, the urdu-bengali conflict would be even more serious if it ever rose in our bengal than Bangladesh ever had :)
some people who observed the situation in East Pakistan are of the view that Urdu controversy was used to meet the bigger agenda. But, the way Urdu speaking population in Bangladesh is now limited to camps (Biharis) says that Bengalis loathed a language which was being imposed on them.
Re: Did Bengalis leave marks of their Culture on West Pakistan?
some people who observed the situation in East Pakistan are of the view that Urdu controversy was used to meet the bigger agenda. But, the way Urdu speaking population in Bangladesh is now limited to camps (Biharis) says that Bengalis loathed a language which was being imposed on them.
It was wrong to impose language, Islam might be unifying proposition, but acceptance of diversity is the right way. Urdu is not arabic that bengali muslims should try to learn anyway. Hindi faced the same resistance, India declared Hindi as official language and recongized every Indian language as scheduled language following ancient Hindu way of assimilation, so in Indian parliament anyone can speak any of scheduled language :)
Biharis being loathed is natural reaction, Biharis sided with Pakistani during 1971, for ethnic bengalis they are traitors. Just like Pandits are traitors to Kashmir according to ethnic muslims in Kashmir.
Re: Did Bengalis leave marks of their Culture on West Pakistan?
Bengalis were not in touch with Arabic or Persian literature for long time and big names in Bengali literature were always Hindus. Accordingly, there was very limited Islamic literature available in Bengali. If Islamic literature was translated into Bengali as was done in UP and Hyderabad, the detachment with Urdu didn’t reach this level.
Pakistan government definitely didn’t tackle the situation against Urdu properly. It was only university students who were agitating in Urdu. Common men, farmers, labour class were not aware of the situation, as their children were studying Bengali in schools and there was no restriction to this by government. Even Pakistan government didn’t take any action against the students (4 students only) who tried to create riot during speech of Quaid e Azam in March 1948. One of such students was appointed as Federal Secretary in 1970 by Yahya Khan.
Bengali was promoted in government universities. Bengali writers were given equal representation in Pakistan writers guild forum. Bengali Academy was established under the patronage of Pakistan government. February 21 was declared as public holiday in East Pakistan to commemorate killing of those students who were agitating for Bengali. Shaheed Minar in memory of those students were built using government funds.
All this leniency should have brought some positive goodwill, but the result is before the world.
Professor Dr Syed Sajjad Hussain ( ex Vice Chancellor of Dhaka University and Raj Shahi University) covered all these aspects in his book ‘The Wastes of Time’. The last 4-5 chapters deal with language controversy in detail.
Re: Did Bengalis leave marks of their Culture on West Pakistan?
Persian has no significance for Bengali just like it has no significance for Indonesians, Arabic might hold value as language of holy koran, like sanskrit has for a hindu, but no hindu in south considers his mother tongue lesser than sanskrit. Bangla has very strong literary tradition. the bengali intellectual thought had been the primary engine India's political and reformist movement in post 1857 period. And by any measure, bengali literature is no less than urdu literature, they had too much to hold as heritage. Secondly though majority of bengali thought is by hindus, it is essentialy a bengali thought than strictly religious ones, Kazi Nasrul Islam is as popular as Rabindranath in term of revolutonary literature. Even from strictly politico-religious point of view, muslim league's first government was in Bengal. So something went horribly wrong, may be language was just a medium of broader discrimination at political level.
Re: Did Bengalis leave marks of their Culture on West Pakistan?
There was definitely political discrimination, but things were portrayed out of proportion in Bengal. Sheikh Mujeeb's six points contained demand fro separate currency and separate army for Bengal, which are features of separate state. These points were presented in 1966, which shows that they had already decided for opting separate state, but then all the blame was given to Pak army and politicians of west Pakistan.
Re: Did Bengalis leave marks of their Culture on West Pakistan?
There was definitely political discrimination, but things were portrayed out of proportion in Bengal. Sheikh Mujeeb's six points contained demand fro separate currency and separate army for Bengal, which are features of separate state. These points were presented in 1966, which shows that they had already decided for opting separate state, but then all the blame was given to Pak army and politicians of west Pakistan.
Winners write the history, If bengalis fail to acknowledge their mistakes, they are definately going to repeat it. No doubt, Mujib's six points were actually of seperation from concept of Pakistan, probably these were political concept to leverage more political power for bengalis, like intial demand of Pakistan, which was supposedly politcal arguement to leverage out more for muslims from united India. Infact if Mujib would have got prime ministership, possibly there wouldn't have been any bangladesh, just like, had Jinnah been given premiership of India (like mahatma wanted) there might have been no partition at all. Mostly poltical ambition of leaders get intertwined with national decisions :)
Re: Did Bengalis leave marks of their Culture on West Pakistan?
There was definitely political discrimination, but things were portrayed out of proportion in Bengal. Sheikh Mujeeb's six points contained demand fro separate currency and separate army for Bengal, which are features of separate state. These points were presented in 1966, which shows that they had already decided for opting separate state, but then all the blame was given to Pak army and politicians of west Pakistan.
In hindsight, East and West should have been created as two separate states from start.
At least there would not have been the bloodshed in 1971.
Looks like everything was done in such a rush at the end ( 1947 - the original time-frame for partition was 1948 ? ) that not enough time and thought was put into the future nation-building, just like how Kashmiris didn't get the time/opportunity to decide their future.
I saw in some TV discussion that an Indian general had acknowledged that the Indian army was preparing for the break-up of Pakistan for about a year and Mukti Bahini militant/terror training camps were operating in India for about a year before December 1971.
Whereas the greedy Pakistani leadership was playing its own game or was clueless (much like today).
Winners write the history, If bengalis fail to acknowledge their mistakes, they are definately going to repeat it. No doubt, Mujib's six points were actually of seperation from concept of Pakistan, probably these were political concept to leverage more political power for bengalis, like intial demand of Pakistan, which was supposedly politcal arguement to leverage out more for muslims from united India. Infact if Mujib would have got prime ministership, possibly there wouldn't have been any bangladesh, just like, had Jinnah been given premiership of India (like mahatma wanted) there might have been no partition at all. Mostly poltical ambition of leaders get intertwined with national decisions :)
Jinnah would have settled for premiership of India ? Interesting question.
Re: Did Bengalis leave marks of their Culture on West Pakistan?
MQ, interestingly, on the topic, saw a Dunya TV show 'Yaad karti hai Dunya' on Waheed Muraad, one interviewee said that Waheed's movies were equally popular in West and East Pakistan.
Re: Did Bengalis leave marks of their Culture on West Pakistan?
MQ, interestingly, on the topic, saw a Dunya TV show 'Yaad karti hai Dunya' on Waheed Muraad, one interviewee said that Waheed's movies were equally popular in West and East Pakistan.
so was Madam Noorjehan. Ali Sufiyan Afaqi (who was once director of movies like Kaneez and now writes Filmi Alif Leela in Sarguzasht) wrote about Noorjehan's visit to Dhaka and the appreciation and love she got from bengali public there. Faiz Saheb ne aise hi to 'Hum ke thehre ajnabi, itni madaraton ke baad' nahin likhi. Razia Faseeh Ahmed's novel 'Sadiyon ki Zanjeer' written in perspective of Bengal's situation during 1960s to 1970s shows that public was connected instead of all political problems. My phuppi told that she cried a lot when they heard about separation of east Pakistan and no one had dinner that night.
Re: Did Bengalis leave marks of their Culture on West Pakistan?
What is Sarguzasht ?
When did she visit East Pak ?
Also, I am curious, was there any exchange of TV programmes between the wings ( even though there wasn't much time between the introduction of TV in Pak 64 and 71 ) ?
Re: Did Bengalis leave marks of their Culture on West Pakistan?
Things as they stand today, Hasina Wajid does not have to do anything with Pakistan. Its strange if they feel uncomfortable with what Pakistan does. The other parallel we have in the region is that Pakistan feels uncomfortable with Afghanistan improving relations with India (although this should not be of any concern to us). They are an independent country and should be allowed to pursue their foreign policy goals as per their wishes.
The caveat is that from refugees to drugs to trade, Afghanistan does affect Pakistan. How does bangladesh and pakistan affect each other? I still remember an area of school we had in Pakistan that was called bangladesh because it wasn't connected like the other areas.
Pakistan and bangladesh also don't have an "unsettled border" or, in this case, bangladesh would be mad about the radcliffe line because they were here first if we supplant the situation here.
Re: Did Bengalis leave marks of their Culture on West Pakistan?
As far as contribution of Bengalis is concerned, they did contributed in arts and music of Pakistan. Actors like Nadeem, Shabna, Rehman, etc... Singers like Aalamgir, Runa Laila and who can forget melodies of Robin Gosh in Pakistan. But from our side it was mostly hate and contempt that was gifted to Bengalis.
Bhai Sahab, Nadeem is not Bengali, though he married a Bengali.
Nadeem is Urdu speaking person from Karachi.
Re: Did Bengalis leave marks of their Culture on West Pakistan?
Jinnah would have settled for premiership of India ? Interesting question.
Gandhi's idea was even more radical, he wanted Muslim legue to run government with Jinnah as prime-minister, what harm could Jinnah would have done. Nehru was against this, he saw it as political threat to himself as well as political threat to Indian unity in long term, as it can give rise to right wing hindu nationalism which could have been much bigger threat. Since interim government of India wasn't working, Nehru let go of Pakistan, more than Jinnah, it was congress that made Pakistan :)
Re: Did Bengalis leave marks of their Culture on West Pakistan?
sarguzasht is monthly digest, which contains some informative articles besides that Khwateen Digest type stuff.
Madam Noorjehan visited Dhaka in 1950s and had conversation of Madam with cycle rikshawalas (that was probably not present in any part of West Pakistan).
I don’t think PTV had transmission in East Pakistan. Radio Pakistan did have. After 1965 War, government put a restriction on some poetry that goes against Pakistani nationalism. That was soon in news as ‘Tagore is banned on Radio Pakistan’
Re: Did Bengalis leave marks of their Culture on West Pakistan?
Thank you for sharing all your fascinating information, muqawwee123, this is one of the parts of our history which has always interested me. I'm always trying to find as much as info from all sides as possible.
Re: Did Bengalis leave marks of their Culture on West Pakistan?
Thank you for sharing all your fascinating information, muqawwee123, this is one of the parts of our history which has always interested me. I'm always trying to find as much as info from all sides as possible.
You can read Witness to surrender by Siddiq Salik
Urdu translation is also available.... Miany dhaka dobtay dekah....
Re: Did Bengalis leave marks of their Culture on West Pakistan?
I believe TV was on in East Pak at the same time as West Pak or Bengali shows were being prepared for East Pak.
Also, I wonder what Radio Pak was reporting within East Pak during the days of agitation.
Media could have fooled the West Pakistanis but what was it presenting in East Pak.
