Syed Badrul Ahsan Loses It In the Wake of Mrs. Hasina's Arrest

This is getting embarrassingly easy. In his latest pronouncements from the Heights of Editorial Eloquence, Mr. Ahsan has sacrificed truth, perspective and unbiased judgement on the Altar of Hyperobolic Partisanship.

Of the many people he compares Sheikh Hasina to, let me pick out three:

1) Aug San Suu Kyi, two simple points:

Non-violence. Compared with this, this and this.

Real fearlessness. After all, it was Suu Kyi who said:

"It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it."

Hasina participated in elections under Ershad. Does that show fearlessness, if a Moudud or a Mushahid's collusion with autocratic regimes show cowardice? But Mr. Ahsan no doubt suffers from selective amnesia. I urge you all not to show him this particular blog that is so critical of him since that might result in the worst form of cognitive dissonance possible.

2) Nelson Mandela. Excuse me while I take a laughing fit break.

3) Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Astounding.

On what grounds?

Because she had ALL her people's welfare at heart? (Whatever his mistakes with the CHT, Sheikh Shaheb never made minority religious groups uncomfortable.)

Because she was such a democrat whose credentials never shone brighter than when he said: "Jodi keu najjyo kotha boley, amra shonkhaye beshi thaakleo, shei najjyo kotha meney nebo?"

Because she never came to understandings with people who had opposed Bangladesh's independence?

Give me ONE meaningful criteria, Mr. Ahsan, by which Sheikh Hasina's career is fit to be compared to that of Sheikh Mujib's. Just ONE meaningful criteria.

From the moment I heard about the crying lawyer, I knew that a large emotional shock had befallen Awami League supporters everywhere. This is entirely understandable and my sympathies are with them. Over the last 20 or so years, these political parties have increasingly come to resemble personality cults, with rituals that are better suited for American Guru Culture than the political culture of Mujib and Tajuddin. Hasina = Awami League is embedded within their psychology, so needless to say this has come as a shock to many. The same happened for BNP supporters when Tareq Zia was taken in, and might become even more acute if Mrs. Zia is arrested.

So out of sympathy let me advise Mr. Ahsan to stop making a fool of himself. If he does want to see Mrs. Hasina out, he should support the legal battle instead of making ludicrous comparisons between the Awami League "Guru" and other more notable figures that do not stand up to the cold light of logic, but make sense only in the minds of the "shishyas".

(Readers may notice that I've put in a new label, "Badruliana" to collect all my "Syed Badrul Ahsan" stories. To prevent any confusion, let me say that I have nothing against the man personally, but love using him as an example of "blind followers"/"partisan"/"biased" types. Why him in particular? Maybe because I admire his writing skills, which are immaculate, and wish that his pen could be put to the service of the nation rather than to a political party. Alas, the pen is only as strong as the brain behind it, and the brain is devoted only for one party. Other than that I really have no reason to use him as an example. "Badruliana" may as well be called "AL fallacy", but it just sounds funnier. No personal insult is intended.)

The Sound of Me Pulling Out My Hair One at a Time Because People Partisan Hacks Live Down to My Expectations

AAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

As requested by my loyal(?), patient readers, a critique/list in no order whatsoever. (For the handful of readers who have visited since this post was up, there's an update on #7):

1. From his writings, it seems to me that SBA is an intelligent man and therefore it pains me to see him involved in what is essentially the politics of whose-picture-is-on-the-wall, which I thought would be beneath him. What's worse, he's simply indulging in politics by crying out "history": a false position. If he seriously thinks that "history" is dictated from the top by governments, debates about history are settled by picture-hanging or that hanging a picture is NOT about today's politics but rather about consensus on past history, he is seriously mistaken. Since I don't believe him to be a fool, I must believe him to be a partisan.

2. Let me first state that I agree with him wholeheartedly: there is no equal to Mujib in Bangladesh's history. The man is unique. I don't think I need to prove my genuine respect for Mujib after writing generally favourably about him on this blog for the past few months. But let me say this: as long as Mujib remains the most potent AL symbol rather than the most important historical figure AND as long as AL remains a viable party within the system, there is no separating him from current politics. We blame Khaleda Zia for desecrating his memory (someone from BNP should seriously have rebuked her for her birthday shenanigans), but we should also blame the AL (if not in equal measure) for trying to capitalise on it instead of leaving him for the historians.

3. Having said all that, let me begin dissecting. I am all for accurate history, but my historical understanding is more in terms of systemic movements rather than important individuals. Making over-reaching statements about Mujib's greatness does not exactly serve the goal of accuracy. Case in point:

When you think back on the long, concerted story of the growth of Bengali nationalism, you realise only too well that Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was the man behind it all.

and

To argue again and again that Mujib is the single most important individual in the growth and sustenance of the Bengali nationalist movement would be to state, repeatedly, the obvious. To suggest, however, that there are other men who must be permitted to share that glory with him runs counter to political morality.

Now what if I were to say that he rode the wave of that nationalism rather than instigate it and that is why we call him (rightly) Bongobondhu? If you were to tell me that a single man was behind the "growth and sustenance" of what was essentially a new mass consciousness for the Bangalis east of Benapole, I'd have to say that he must have been a mind-controlling wizard of some sort. Since he was clearly human and not a wizard, I'll have to say that he was simply a great leader when the time came, but giving him credit for the GROWTH of "Bengali nationalism" is too much.

4. "Bengali nationalism" - I had no idea that the "Bengalis" of West Bengal were also part of this new-found consciousess. Did Mujib want them to achieve independence/autonomy from Delhi too? As soon as you hear him say this, you know he's a partisan hack. And if you look through the archives (too lazy to link right now), you will find me using him as an example of why Bengali nationalism is simply a partisan term with no real-world meaning for anyone except hallucinating dinosaurs like him. (I also advocate that we save "Bangladeshi nationalism" from the partisan/chauvinistic/bigoted hands of the BNP).

5. He uses different measuring sticks to measure Suhrawardy and Bhashani. Suhrawary was not pro-Bangali and his loyalties were more to what SBA calls "Pakistan", but what I'd call the Punjabi-Urdu-speakers' alliance. Bhashani on the other hand, he concludes, was too pro-Bangali-autonomy:

A good deal has been made of Bhashani's role in the making of Bangladesh. There certainly were fireworks in his personality. When he told us, three days before the general elections of December 1970, that East Pakistan should declare itself an independent country, quite a few people felt exuberance re-igniting their spirits.

But sit back and reflect on whether or not Bhashani's precipitate move was a dangerous form of adventurism.

Basically, damn you if you do, damn you if you don't. The only way not to be damned is if you've declared your goal for autonomy on the 7th (or 25th night in written form: take your pick, I'm least interested). Surprise surprise, guess who's done that? Now I can say that Sheikh Shaheb made a mistake not announcing it sooner before the Pakistani military build-up. If he had, maybe we could have had less loss of life. But he did what he did, and I have no criticisms based on what didn't happen rather than what did. Unlike SBA who criticises Bhashani because he may have precipitated a crisis but didn't! Real historians deal with what happened, rather than judge people on counterfactuals.

6. Nothing is more ridiculous, more deceptive than his ramblings about Sher-e-Bangla A.K. Fazlul Huq:

Huq moved the Pakistan Resolution in 1940; and when he took charge as chief minister of East Bengal in 1954, at the head of a Jugto Front administration, he did so not as a Bengali nationalist but as part of a team engaged in the noble, necessary job of sending the communal Muslim League dispensation packing.


Huq later became Pakistan's interior minister, before taking charge as governor of East Pakistan. Nothing in his entire career suggests that he dreamed of a sovereign Bangladesh supplanting East Pakistan someday. Must it be our job to give him a place he did not work for, and would surely not have wanted? To convince ourselves that Huq was a forerunner of Bengali political freedom would be launching a grave assault on his political beliefs.

If guilt by association is a problem, then let it be remembered that Sheikh Shaheb was a Muslim Leaguer too at one point (check out Wiki or simply ask the next hardcore AL-er you meet). That does not "implicate" him, but shows that he had his hand on the people's pulse as he did almost to the end of his life. If it doesn't implicate him, it doesn't implicate Fazlul Huq. Moreover, the Lahore Resolution he moved called for two autonomous states on two sides of the subcontinent, not the state of Pakistan as it was born in 1947. For that little piece of deception - in which he tries to prove the greatness of Mujib by misleading his audience about the nature of the Resolution - SBA has pretty much earned my eternal disdain. Surely Mujib deserves more honest defenders than this!

And yeah, Sheikh Shaheb too once served as a minister in an East Pakistan government. Oh the horrors!

7. Take this particular gem about Bhashani:

Reflect, too, on the political position he began to adopt soon after liberation, when the leftist in him suddenly began to spot the beauty of rightwing politics.

His advocacy of a Muslim Bangla was a clear assault on the secular statehood of Bangladesh. His criticism of the Mujib government followed by his acceptance of Baksal, followed by his obvious relief at the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman are quirky as well as disturbing episodes in Bangladesh's history.

Ummm... was BAKSAL not a u-turn for Mujib? Rather than hold the creation of BAKSAL against Mujib, he holds Bhashani culpable for supporting it! SBA's categories of left and right are laughably based on the binary of religion/secularism (which I don't think he understands at all), rather than on the binaries of inclusive/exclusive or on private property/state-control. I'm yet to be convinced that the religion binary is the most important. Fact: no one on the political spectrum trumpeted about "democracy" at that point, simply misguided notions of "left-right-Islamic". *Shakes head at the Decade of Dinosaurs*

Update: Take a look at the circular logic he uses: it was Mujib/Tajuddin/AL's vision of a secular Bangladesh that Bhashani contested. In SBA's argument, this opposition to Mujib makes Bhashani less than Mujib. So we when we ask, "Why is Sheikh Shaheb the greatest?" SBA's answer is, "Because the ones who opposed him were not as great as he is". "How do we know that the others are lesser?" SBA's answer is, "Because they opposed him". "How does that make them lesser than he was?", SBA's implication, "Well, you have to be to oppose the greatest. After all, Sheikh Shaheb never opposed himself."

Wonderful logic. Stephen Colbert's gut rests easy with SBA's balmy words. Remember, you've got more nerve endings in your gut than anywhere else!

8. I'm not even going to say anything about his complete lack of review of Zia's legacy (arguably more pervasive to post-Independence Bangladesh than Bhashani's or Huq's). It speaks volumes about the audience he is writing for, one that sees Bhashani/Huq as having more of an impact (positive/negative) than Zia. For all his flaws, Zia remains the Deng Xiaopeng to Mujib's Mao in our (Generation 71) consciousness *. Good luck fighting that battle Mr. Ahsan! And no I don't think that Zia's picture should be put up in any government building either, simply because it's another political symbol rather than a historical tribute.

9. The only place I agree with him comes too late and offers too little:

If you have no place for Tajuddin Ahmad, Syed Nazrul Islam, M. Mansur Ali and A.H.M. Quamruzzaman in your assessment of national history, everything else you do is rendered meaningless

The enormous gaps in his narrative are ok, but the enormous gaps in others' narratives are not. Even when I agree with him, I can't stand it.

Lastly, let me just say this. His is as biased a view of history as those of the new party or Qureshi. What's worse is that his is biased in favour of an existing political party. If there's one thing about him that does not indicate that he has been stuck in Awami League circles for too long, let me know. If he's a bit more honest and admits that he is simply pushing that version of history that aligns with a certain power centre, then I'll have a bit more respect for him. However, I find it hard to respect anyone whose views of history (an academic matter) is shaped by power. It's a hard struggle for many people to separate history from power. SBA isn't even trying.

The Many Fallacies of Syed Badrul Ahsan

I know, I know. I'm squeezing this lemon bitter. This man is one part of all that is wrong with his generation. He's blatantly partisan without even knowing it. He represents the liberal part, and I'll highlight the more conservative part soon enough.

Take his tribute to Jahanara Imam, in which he manages to insert this little gem:

"When you reflect on the life that Jahanara Imam went through, you will have cause to recall the glamour that once defined her being. It was glamour that did not come with the glitter one associates with it. It was indeed a pattern of living, which once was emblematic of the urbanity and sophistication that came easily to Bengalis in the days when nationalism began to dig increasingly deeper roots in their consciousness."

Ah yes, the URBANity of Bangali nationalism! Shows exactly the hidden assumption he operates under, namely that the urban middle class essentially represents the entire nation. That is why we can get rid of rickshas from our roads and evict slum dwellers from wastelands and patronise madrasha students as being unpatriotic. All in the name of improving, beautifying and building this Bangali nation because we, the middle class, are the nation. Read Syed Badrul Ahsan's writings carefully and this is the hidden assumption you will find everywhere! A true product of his time.

But that was minor by itself. The rest of the writing was good, so I overlooked it. The next day there followed this editorial, where he criticises the performance of the Foreign Office since Dr. Kamal's "glory days" and advocates for the appointment of diplomats drawn from fields other than diplomacy:

"They did poorly, not because they did not know their job but because they worked in the mistaken, pretty selfish belief that they were there to serve a partisan government rather than an entire country. There are, thus, the pitfalls associated with sending men and women from outside the foreign service abroad.

On balance, though, it is always people from academia, journalism and politics who make a bigger impression on the outside world than do those who have professionally been trained to speak for their country abroad."

Marvellous. Simply marvellous. Yes, that is what we need to do to overcome the very partisanship he criticises. MORE personal appointments from outside the BCS, not better trained diplomats. I mean, when we let politicians bring in people from outside the Foreign Office to head embassies, SURELY they are not going to appoint someone PARTISAN! Perish the thought.

There are no figures, no statistics, not even a proposed indicator on how we should measure the success of our embassies. These things would have been of immense value, but alas they are utterly less glamorous than advocating for "journalists" and poets like Pablo Neruda to be appointed. And let's face it, glamour and image are everything in diplomacy. A good knowledge of the WTO or IMF or other international treaties... mehhh, that's all for these "partisan" professional diplomats.

And by the way, Neruda's loyalties seem to have lain more with Stalin than with Chile.

Bangali vs. Bangladeshi nationalism

In an earlier post, I had referred to the debate about Bangali vs. Bangladeshi nationalism. Syed Badrul Ahsan writing in today's Daily Star recounts how it all started:

The first, tentative steps toward a formalisation of historical mutilation came when the journalist Khondokar Abdul Hamid told a surprised Ekushey crowd at the Bangla Academy in February 1976 (the country had conveniently been placed under a state of martial law) that "Bangladeshi nationalism" would serve as the underpinning of the state. The only brave soul at that gathering was Professor Kabir Chowdhury. It was he who spoke, however briefly, of the role of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in Bangladesh's history

Now, Mr. Ahsan's writings have never fallen far from the partisan tree. Which is highly infuriating since his writings betray him now and then to be a man capable of original thought, not simply seeing our history through partisan eyes (which, ironically and correctly, is what he accuses his opponents of doing).

Let us dissect the above quote. " "Bangladeshi nationalism" would serve as the underpinning of the state": to this day, I have not come across a single reason why the Bangali nationalism based on ethno-linguistic differences should underpin a state that does not encompass a large group of Bangalis, and moreover includes non-Bangalis within its borders.

Nor have I come across any reason why a territorial definition of nationalism - which Bangladeshi nationalism purports to be even though some of its supporters give it a religious-communal hue - should not underpin a territorial state.

The very next sentence lauds the renowned Professor Kabir Chowdhury's remembrance of Mujib's vital role in Bangladeshi history. Other than BNP's appropriated version of Bangladeshi nationalism (and how many people really BELIEVE in that?), who else denies this? Is it impossible to believe both in Bangladesh as a territorial state and in Mujib as the leader who led us to it? What kind of a Bangladeshi nationalism would we have that did not include his vital role in our history? The BNP's version of course. But why give any importance to what the political parties say about history when you know it's untrue? And why battle one political party's line with another's?

More importantly, Mr. Ahsan never tells us why we need Bangali nationalism to recognise Mujib as the founding father of the state. I don't recall him calling on all Bangalis, East and West of Benapole, to unite. Yes, yes, I know "Bangladeshi nationalism" is the BNP's term, but is it not time we saw the merits of the term - in my mind, the territorial nature of our nation regardless of religion, race or gender - and corrected the demerits, namely the erasure of Mujib from our history? Thus, and only thus, can we appropriate the term from the BNP and make it ours, the people's. (And in a similar way, it would be nice to appropriate Mujib from being "head of the Awami League" or "Jatir Jonok" to being plain, simple and dignified "Bongobondhu", ours, the people's once again!) But in trying to fight for Mujib with Bangali nationalism in hand is throwing out the baby with the bathwater!

But of course Mr. Ahsan does not do this, even as he purports to educate the new generation. For the last five years, to our great shame, our PM would celebrate her (fake) birthday on the day Mujib was killed. And what does Mr. Ahsan offer to absolve us of that shame? More of the same I'm afraid: one historical fallacy for another. To paraphrase T.S. Eliot, whom Mr. Ahsan himself likes to quote now and then, the choice we seem to have is between pyre and pyre.

(PS. My non-use of the term "Bongobondhu" when referring to Mujib is deliberate. I believe that titles simply obscure a man's greatness. Nothing is more fitting than one's own name.)