Golden Bengal?
When we fail to celebrate the origin of our national anthem, surely we lose a bit of our nationhood. A lament and a protest against BongoBhongo, the anthem is not merely pastoral, evoking a long lost idyll, but also a vivid call for unity to preserve an idea of a Bengali motherland.
The new year is about to usher in two additional anniversaries that lay bare the wages of our division. Two hundred and fifty years ago, along the river banks of the Bhagirathi in the small hamlet of Palashi, the last Nawab of Bengal went down in defeat to a small British contingent, despite outnumbering the foreigners by over sixteen to one.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Mir Jafar's treachery, our disgrace, on that day in June paved the way for the Anglo-Saxon empire, resulting in nearly two centuries of servitude by our forebears, and, it could be argued -- viz. the composition of the occupying forces in Iraq -- a chain of servitude that the world hasn't quite yet been able to extricate itself from.
Next year also marks the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the rebellion by the brave sepoys of the Bengal army, a rebellion that was ultimately squashed with the assistance provided by their own brethren in the Punjab and Madras armies, as well as the subcontinent's many self-serving princes and zamindars.
I bring up these wretched episodes from our people's recent history not because they can explain the current electoral/judicial/constitutional debacle; unlike the case of present day Lebanon and Iraq, our current fissures cannot be attributed to a divide and conquer strategy of a foreign power, as liberation made us, for better or worse, an ethnically homogenous nation of one people.
No, instead of perfidious Albion, the divide and lose strategy currently being followed in our land is entirely of our own making, with greed, avarice and contempt for one's fellow man being the order of the day.
Whatever the historical injustices were that led us to ignore the common weal in the past, here on the eve of the 35th anniversary of Victory Day, we can no longer rely on that convenient bogeyman, viewing ourselves as hapless victims of a foreign hand's Machiavellian machinations. Today's defeat -- and make no mistake that every day that the electoral/judicial/constitutional farce continues, it is Bangladesh that loses -- can be laid at the feet of a perverse political class engaged in an utterly reckless pursuit of a corrupt spoils system.
The lessons of these anniversaries, the first three (BongoBhongo, Palashi, and the Sepoy Rebellion) of division, and the last (Victory Day) of unity, is evident to us all. If we continue on the divide and lose strategy, Amar Shonar Bangla will be replaced by Amar Bhongo Bangla. Is there a "prince among patriots" who will deliver us from the inevitable servitude that, history shows, will follow the current trajectory?
To realize our shonar bangla, we need more Sheik Mujibs, the many unsung heroes of the Mukti Bahini, Muhammad Yunuses; it is only the Mir Jafars that do not share that dream which Rabindranath so eloquently evoked a century ago.
To those of you that have the power today to right the electoral process, restore judicial integrity, and honourably discharge your constitutional duties, we say, you have a choice: Which Bangla are you going to be for?