Saturday, August 01, 2020

How is Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah remembered in Bangladesh?

There was a question in quora.com that asked "How is Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah remembered in Bangladesh?". This is how I answered it:

More people remembers his name because of his controversial statements given during the Bengali Language Movement of 1952.

And as for his "so called" liberator role, I really don't think he played a well enough role during the division of 1947. He was part of the team that negotiated and agreed on the borders of the two nations, India and Pakistan. Till date, he remains the only "great" leader to agree to such a weird arrangement.

He agreed to have an Islamic state named "Pakistan", which has two wings--East and West.

However, the eastern and western wing was marooned by the "great India" which decided to sit comfortably between these two wings.

The only logic behind this weird demarcation was having a common religion. Apart from that, nothing else was common between the citizens of Pakistan and Bangladesh (former East Pakistan).

What followed afterwards was a bloody, treacherous and confused 24 years of being Pakistan (read oppressing East Pakistan by all means). Finally, Bangladesh gained independence in 1971, and hereby ending a bloody saga that was planted by Mr. Jinnah back in 1947.

For all these reasons, no one in Bangladesh considers Jinnah as a hero. He is known as the failed architect who gave birth to a dysfunctional country, and created even further chaos by trying to enforce a single language throughout the region which more than 50% of the population didn't even know.

There's not a single, good evidence that suggests he was a great leader for the entire region. He could appreciate and accept the cultural and geographical differences between the two wings, but instead, he tried imposing his own region's nuances on to us.

Also, liberator of the Muslims is a very ill crafted title. The British empire was leaving the Indian Sub Continent only because,

a) They suffered heavy casualties during the WWII and didn't have enough resources to govern India anymore, and
b) The world had changed so much that it was just no longer feasible to continue with colonial rulings.

So, the South Asian Muslims were going to be liberated any way and before leaving, the British, along with a not so prudent team left the people of this area with the mess called "Pakistan", and I consider Jinnah to be one of culprits behind the misery of my countrymen.


Read the original post in quora:

https://www.quora.com/How-is-Quaid-e-Azam-Muhammad-Ali-Jinnah-remembered-in-Bangladesh/answer/%E0%A6%87%E0%A6%B6%E0%A6%A4%E0%A6%BF%E0%A7%9F%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%95-%E0%A6%96%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%A8-Ishtiaque-Khan

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