A dominant Jamaat will make Bangladesh look more like Pakistan, a joyless prospect citizens are rejecting loudly
By?Salil Tripathi?in Live Mint?First Published:?Wed, Feb 27 2013
Bangladesh?s quest for closure threatens to morph into the paralysing dysfunctionality that has characterized its politics. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
One of the truly significant aspects about the emotional upsurge at Shahbag in Dhaka?the hundreds of thousands of candles, the portrait of Jahanara Imam who lost her son in the liberation war in 1971 and fought for the rest of her life seeking justice?is that an overwhelmingly large number of the demonstrators are under the age of 40. Most were not born when Bangladesh emerged from its blood-soaked birth. Their fight is outwardly for an even harsher punishment (meaning death) for Abdul Kader Mullah, the Jamaat-i-Islami leader who foolishly flashed a victory sign when he was sentenced to life in prison for complicity in war crimes, and others against whom verdicts are awaited. But more fundamentally, they are trying to regain history, to assert their identity. Too often has the promise of Bangla nationalism been stolen, its national aspiration challenged, its spirit of unity based on language?irrespective of faith?reviled, its past rewritten, and the generation that fought for independence betrayed. Now it is time to reclaim the past. Continue reading “Crowds and justice at Shahbag”