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The dead two nation theory remains an obsession for some

19 December 2008

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Editorial, New Age, December 18, 2008

The birth of Bangladesh put ‘two-nation theory’ to rest

THE fact that the Jamaat-e-Islami amir Matiur Rahman Nizami chose December 16, when we commemorate the nation’s victory in its long-drawn struggle for independence in 1971, to assert that the ‘two-nation theory’, as propagated by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, is still relevant for Bangladesh is in itself quite disturbing. The religion-based partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947-48, in line with the ‘two-nation theory’ may have been in that particular juncture of history. (Interestingly, when Pakistan became an eventuality, Jinnah envisaged it rooted in secular-democratic principles.) By the same token, given the saga of extreme hardship—political, economic, social and cultural—of the people of the erstwhile East Pakistan and their brazen exploitation by the West Pakistan-based ruling elite in the name of Islamic brotherhood, the emergence of a collective effort to protect the Bengali culture, and its subsequent graduation into a full-pledged nationalist movement based on language and culture, was also inevitable. The movement eventually led to an armed struggle by the people for independence and culminated in the emergence of a nation-state. December 16, 1971, therefore, marked not only the birth of Bangladesh but also the death of the two-nation theory in our part of the world.

Hence, any claim that the theory is relevant for Bangladesh could and should be dismissed as rambling of a delusional ideologue. However, Nizami is no delusional ideologue but the chief of a political organisation that actively opposed the emergence of the nation-state that we call the People’s Republic of Bangladesh; our concern lies there. The panegyric that he unreeled on Jinnah and the ‘two-nation theory’ appears to us a recantation to revive the spectre of the pre-1971 religion-based Pakistan. It is very likely that the Jamaat chief may be trying to squeeze out a place for the two-nation theory in the prevailing political discourse. Whatever the case may be, such an assertion is affront to the hundreds of thousands of people who have laid down their lives to wrestle the country free from the clutches of religion-based politics practised by the West Pakistani ruling elite and to see it built on secular-democratic principles, doubly so because the assertion came on our Victory Day. Crucially still, it could also touch off uneasy feeling, if not sheer panic, among the ethnic and religious minority communities in Bangladesh.

For all its intents and purposes, Jamaat is a politico-ideological alter ego of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which wants to see the emergence and growth of a Hindu India. It is because of its relentless pursuit of Hindutva ideology that millions of Muslims and people of other faiths suffer from a sense of insecurity. However, secular democratic resistance too is there in India. The ‘two-nation theory’ may have been thrown into the garbage bin of history but its loyalists are very much alive, which makes it imperative that the politically conscious and democratically oriented sections of society remain ever vigilant. Democracy remains a better political dispensation because it engenders diversity of opinion, of religion, of ethnicity and what have you. We should, therefore, make sure we do not let the obsession with the past of a few blight the vision for future of many.