bangladesh

"Scholars, journalists, activists, and others have an almost knee-jerk tendency to praise Bangladesh's beginnings as a secular nation and trace its slide into Islamist domination from the 1975 assassination of its founding father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. That praise is warranted - but only to a limited extent, for secularism and any semblance of democratic ideals were in their death throes long before Sheikh Mujib was."

"Cutting through this foreign policy jargon, what has actually happened has been a clear shift in Bangladesh’s international alignment since the coup against Mujib. The Mujib government’s orientation internationally was politically identified with India under Indira Gandhi’s premiership and with the Soviet Union. This alignment dated from the contingencies of the 1971 war and Kissinger’s tilt towards Pakistan. Today the new military regime’s orientation in Dacca is clearly towards the United States, the Islamic bloc as represented by America’s ally Saudi Arabia, and towards China to a degree similar to that of Ayub Khan’s regime in Pakistan during the 1960s, when Pakistan’s relations with Peking were utilized as a counterforce to New Delhi."

"Another Islamist organization, Hefazat-e-Islam, is thought to be a front for JeI, and controls many of the country’s madrassas. Hefazat was one of the prominent groups that said it would carry out jihad and use violence if necessary to ensure that Islam remained the state religion in the Constitution. In 2013, Hefazat called for the prosecution and execution of “atheist bloggers” as part of its 13-point Islamist agenda. The charter included, in part, “banning women from the work force by ending ‘free mixing’ of the sexes, a harsh new blasphemy law similar to Pakistan’s, and the declaration of the beleaguered Ahmadi sect as non-Muslim...’”"

"From now on, we will have our own intelligence wing... If the minorities of the country, the Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, conspire against Islam, we’ll catch them like a baby rat."

"The vernacular teacher in my previous school used to read loudly in class the Meetei language epic love poem 'Khamba Thoibi' by the famous poet Hijam Anganghal though it was not our textbook. The poet attributed the love and relationship between Khamba and Thoibi to the divine relationship between their souls."

"According to him, Prof. James Matisoff, has excluded Meitei language from the Tibeto-Burman group. He is firmly of the opinion that the North-East people of India who speaks various branches of Tibeto-Burman main group migrated from far east. The exception is the Khasis and the Meiteis. According to him, the Meitei language was self-generated and self-organized in the long evolutionary process and the Meitei alphabet is the only of its kind in the world."

"The Meithei language is rich in its history and literature unlike the Nagas or Mizos."

"In fact, during a private conversation recently, Shah talked about how he felt the Manipuri language was more expressive than even Sanskrit. ... When he learnt about the language during BJP’s campaigns in the state earlier, what captivated him was the ever-developing, easy to create process of Manipuri language that has evolved due to the confluence of several languages and yet owns uniqueness in its usage."

"In this family, Manipuri was perhaps the only language which grew under a highly cultured royal patronage and also which had a long written literature."

"The Meitei language or Meiteilon is much more developed and is widely believed to have had its indigenous script which is now sought to be rediscovered."

"With no sister-flower No companion Why are you blooming Looking for whom?. ... . O flower of the olden days Your sweetness still lingers. Pity is your fate, for Your beauty can't reach the royal hearts."

"Chaoba too, in his poem Meetei Kavi gave expression to his profound regret for the lost glory of Manipur which may be compared to 'a gem of purest ray serene', which shone unseen and a flower born to blush unseen'. His love for Manipuri language and literature is articulated in the three lines of great import : Poor is our language This is said only by the ignorant Meetei poet shall emerge. (Meetei Kavi)"

"They are the only Northeast Indian Tibeto-Burman speaking people with a literate tradition that predates the colonial period. Their language, known as Meitei, Meithei or Meitheilon (or, often, as 'Manipuri') shows some lexical resemblances to Kuki-Chin languages and some to Tangkhulic."

"Manikchand expressed his opinion that historical association of the early Meiteis with the Chinese, who where the first literate people on this earth and who invented paper, writing etc., could have induced the Meiteis to enter into the literate civilization centuries ahead of their other brethrens in India."

"The suppression of Meitei language is also a cause for the rise of Meitei nationalism, which PLA represents. It is opposed to the use of the Bengali script."

"The beginning of this old Manipuri literature (as in the case of Newari) may go back to 1500 years, or even 2000 years, from now."

"Manipuri is a very beautiful and expressive language, and the present language also helps us understand and identify other languages, showcasing the long history of our language. Such unique is our language that it can create and produce new words from the present one."

"Among the various Tibeto-Burman languages, the most important, and in literature certainly of much greater importance than Newari, is the Meitei or Manipuri language."

"Even the Nagas residing in the Meitei dominated Manipur converse in such a kaleidoscopic variety of languages and dialects that they resort to the Manipuri language as the standard medium of communication."

"The present Manipuri language evolved out of the traditional Meitei language, the speech of the politically dominant group. Legends, songs and manuscripts found in this language evidently prove a long and sustained existence of it. The Aryans considered their language as a manifestation of the divine voice, so did the Meiteis. The early people of this land were enterprising and at the same time gifted with a fertile mind and sensitive temperament. Equally were they endowed with the keen propensity for expressing their experiences, feelings and noble thoughts. All this helped the growth of a rich language."

"The greatness of Manipuri is thus a reflection of the height of civilisation of its speakers. ... As a speech of a well advanced people, Manipuri has already made notable contributions to the Indian culture and literature."

"Manipuri is not a new language like Kokborok and has a rich literary tradition and a change of script will not be easy to adjust to."

"Meitei, the state language of Manipur, shows significant points of contact with Kachin as well as with Kuki-Naga, though the affinities are prominently with the latter."

"Pettigrew's fascination with Meetei culture went beyond even this. As early as 1896 he had cooperated with Grierson in the section on Manipuri in the latter's multi-volume Linguistic Survey of India. In the early 1920s Grierson, having examined Hodson's version of Numit Kappa in 'old Manipuri' as well as some of Damant's papers, suggested to Pettigrew that he investigate, in cooperation with some Meetei scholars, the archaic Manipuri language and script, since no other Tibeto-Burman language was known to have a literary corpus."

"A language poor they call it, By those who are ignorant. Doubt not, the Meetei poet is coming."

"This language is very rich in morphology and also highly agglutinative in nature. Currently, the language is represented using Bengali script as well as Meetei Mayek."

"This is a common feature of the Manipuri language - a whole sequence of events can be encoded in a single word. But translating the crispness into English while maintaining the rhythm of the dialogue was not easy."

"My language is called poor, Because of ignorance, Meitei poet will come. ("Meetei Kavi")"

"Meithei represents the language of the original settlers in Manipur, and Chin that of the southern migration. In these southern seats the language rapidly developed, partly by its own natural growth and partly owing to contact with the Burmese. The development of Meithei, the language of the Manipuris, has, on the other hand, been slow and independent. The Manipuris are mentioned in the Shan chronicles so early as A.D. 777, and probably owing to the fact that it has in later times developed into a literary language, their form of speech gives the impression of possessing a peculiarly archaic character. Although they have become thoroughly Hinduised, they have not adopted any Aryan tongue; Meithei is the official language of the State, which all other tribes have to use in dealing with their rulers."

"Thadou, Kom, Chiru, Gangte, Lamgang, Anal and Paite are spoken by dwindling numbers of speakers in Manipur, where these communities are being linguistically assimilated to the Meithei speaking majority."

"Manipuri literature is most emphatically an advanced Modern Indian literature, and cannot be described as the backward literature of a so-called Adivasi and primitive people-the Manipuri writers are already in the front line of modern Indian writing and translation."

""Manipuri Language" means Meeteilon written in Meetei Mayek and spoken by the majority of Manipur population: Provided that the concurrent use of Bengali Script and Meetei Mayek shall be allowed in addition to English language, for a period upto 10(ten) years from the date of commencement of this Act."

"The Meitei Lon or Manipuri language is by far the most developed language of the state. For different hill tribes, as the language of one is not easily intelligible to the other, Manipuri serves as the medium of inter-tribal communication."

"The government's acute paranoia contributed to the already existing level of violence against journalists. With at least 250 journalists assaulted or threatened with death, three reporters murdered, 20 newspaper offices or press clubs attacked and 25 journalists detained by the authorities in 12 months, Bangladesh is by far the world's most violent country for journalists. "Not a day goes by without the press reporting an attack or death threat against a journalist," said Nayeemul Islam Khan, a former editor of the daily Ajker Kagoj. This endemic violence against journalists is serious threat to press freedom."

"The most dramatic changes made by the two military rulers were the changes in the Constitution of Bangladesh. These religiously oriented alterations in the Constitution are there to stay. Once Islam has been declared the law of the land, even undemocratically, by military fiat, it can never be repealed, on threat of apostasy."

"After Bangladesh's birth, the first few years the new nation was not recognized as a separate sovereign entity by many of the Arab nations, notably Saudi Arabia which insisted that Bangladesh should adopt an Islamic constitution first"

"The Daily Star, one of Dhaka's more successful and progressive newspapers is a model by any media standards. However, the pressures on journalists and editors in Bangladesh is not unfamiliar to those in Pakistan."

"The government holds power with the help of fundamentalist Islamic groups that are changing Bangladesh s secular character; local Hindus and Christians are fleeing to neighbouring India in the thousands, and the authorities are furious at media reports that Bangladesh is playing host to jihadis from Afghanistan and beyond. Rather than address these concerns, the government has systematically muzzled journalists and Opposition leaders who try to get the story out. Since October, more than 4,000 people have been arrested and 44 have died in custody during a government crackdown supposedly directed at organized crime and euphemistically called Operation Clean Heart."

"The process of using Islam for leadership legitimation purposes gathered momentum during the military regimes of General Ziaur Rahman (1975-1981) and General H.M. Ershad (1982-1990). Zia doctored the Constitution, "scraped secularism from the four state principles [and inserted] Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim (in the name of Allah, the beneficent, the merciful)". The principle of secularism was overturned and replaced by the words, 'Absolute trust and faith in the Almighty Allah shall be the basis of all action' "."

"Bangladesh had emerged as a secular state on the grave of Pakistani religious ideals [but] pro-Pakistanis captured power after the 1975 assassination of Bangladesh's founding father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman [and inserted] discriminatory clause(s) between Muslim and non-Muslim [that were not included] in the original constitution of Bangladesh. ...After the assassination of Bangabandhu, two military rulers. General Ziaur Rahman and General H.M. Ershad removed the roots of the country's secular, non-communal and humane ideals. They changed the constitution to serve a vested quarter and thus eliminated the clause of equal rights for the Hindus, Christians and Buddhists along with Indigenous ethnic communities like Chakma, Marma, Tripura, Maug, Hajong, etc. In the original constitution, which was written in 1972, Article 12 in Part II enshrined 'secularism and freedom of Religion' in the section called Fundamental Principle of State Policy. General Ziaur Rahman's military government totally erased this part of the constitution and that was how the religious and ethnic minority groups became second- class citizens to suffer state discrimination.’"

"Jayanta Kumer: Murad takla jukti dia kata bal, faltu pic dicos kan! Lakapora koira kata bal. (Translation: If you had the courage, you would have explained why you used an awful picture, learn before you speak; during conversation in Facebook)."

"I have mentioned earlier the reason for Delhi's headache regarding Bengali nationalism. They feared that with the establishment of a secular and independent Bangladesh, the wave of this nationalism would reach all Bengali-speaking regions of India, including the states of West Bengal and Tripura, and would also create cracks in the unity of the remaining undivided India...India prefers to have a weak Muslim state as its eastern neighbor—a state towards which the non-Muslim Bengalis of West Bengal or Tripura would feel no affinity or loyalty; rather, they would fear associating with Muslim nationality and Muslim majority, recalling the memories of Pakistani rule. Moreover, although this country would nominally be a Muslim state, it would be almost entirely surrounded by India and fragmented on the basis of religious national unity, making it easy to use this weak country to tilt the balance of power and influence in South Asian politics in India's favor. Additionally, India's big businesses would have the opportunity to establish a monopoly market there without hindrance. It turns out that, despite the differences and hostilities between Delhi and Islamabad regarding Bangladesh's independence, their attitudes towards a secular Bangladesh and secular Bengali nationalism are almost identical."

"The U.S. consul was baffled by “the mystic belief that essentially unarmed masses could triumph in test of wills with martial law government backed by professional army.” Still, Blood admired the Bengali nationalist crowds. Swept up in their effusive mood, he confessed in a cable “a certain lack of objectivity. It is difficult to be completely objective in Dacca in March 1971 when, out of discretion rather than valor, our cars and residences sport black flags and we echo smiling greetings of ‘Joi Bangla’ as we move about the streets.” He enthused, “Daily we lend our ears to the out-pouring of the Bengali dream, a touching admixture of bravado, wishful thinking, idealism, animal cunning, anger, and patriotic fervor. We hear on Radio Dacca and see on Dacca TV the impressive blossoming of Bengali nationalism and we watch the pitiful attempts of students and workers to play at soldiering.”"

"People's priorities and actions are influenced by many different affiliations and associations, not just by their religion. For example, the separation of Bangladesh from Pakistan was connected with loyalty to Bengali language and literature, along with political - including secular - priorities, not with religion, which both wings of undivided Pakistan shared. Muslim Bangladeshis - in Britain or anywhere else - may indeed be proud of their Islamic faith, but that does not obliterate their other affiliations and capacious dignity."

"People's priorities and actions are influenced by many different affiliations and associations, not just by their religion. For example, the separation of Bangladesh from Pakistan was connected with loyalty to Bengali language and literature, along with political - including secular - priorities, not with religion, which both wings of undivided Pakistan shared. Muslim Bangladeshis - in Britain or anywhere else - may indeed be proud of their Islamic faith, but that does not obliterate their other affiliations and capacious dignity."

"Victory in the Liberation War of Bangladesh was possible without the help of the Indian Army. It might have taken more than one or two years. Because the war of Bangladesh was a war of independence of a nation. If any war is for freedom, then it is not possible to stop that war in any way."

"Just as in Egypt, the rise of Islam as a political force and a social trend in Pakistan was not the result of one moment, or even the work of one person—it was a slow build that came in waves and ebbed and flowed. It was sometimes bolstered by weak leaders who used the Islamists to shore up their own legitimacy, like Sadat in Egypt, or even secular, socialist Bhutto, who first introduced the ban on alcohol and instituted Friday as the weekly holiday instead of Sunday. In both Egypt and Pakistan, leaders used religion as a balm after the national trauma of a military defeat. For Pakistan it was the 1971 loss of East Pakistan, today’s Bangladesh. And just as in Egypt before the assassination of Sadat, the relentless work of Islamists in Pakistan had not yet delivered a sea change—they toiled on the margins, and they converted people to their cause one by one. Even when Zia spoke, in the spring of 1978, about his mission to purify the country, Pakistani society was far from being gripped by Islamic fervor. For this to happen it required the incredibly powerful, violent, and moneyed convergence of a number of people and events: Mawdudi’s groundwork over decades, Zia’s rise to power and brutal rule, but also the generous support of Saudi Arabia."

"Maj. Sahrawat seconds this. ‘Only then did we understand why Col Harolikar had insisted on a khukri attack. It instilled abject fear in the enemy and also cut our casualties in the next battle: our attack on the Sagarnal tea estate. When the Pakistanis heard that the Gorkhas were coming, they fled, leaving their posts unoccupied. If it was not war, it would have counted as a comical scene where we were mounting an assault and they were running away instead of putting up a defence. Their will to fight had been completely broken by the Battle of Atgram. We just went and occupied their posts without any resistance,"’ he remembers."

"But when Yahya’s government allowed a World Bank team of seasoned development specialists to tour East Pakistan, their secret report found an “all-pervasive fear.” The infrastructure was devastated, largely because of army campaigns in the big cities and towns. “In all cities visited there are areas that have been razed; and in all districts visited there are villages which have simply ceased to exist.” There were ongoing military strikes, which, even when targeting “Awami Leaguers, students or Hindus,” frightened the whole population. There was a “trail of devastation running from Khulna to Jessore to Kushtia to Pabna, Bogra, Rangpur and Dinajpur.”"

"The Indian government, from Indira Gandhi on down, worked hard to hide an ugly reality from its own people: by an official reckoning, as many as 90 percent of the refugees were Hindus. This skew was the inevitable consequence of Pakistani targeting of Hindus in East Pakistan—what Archer Blood and his staffers had condemned as genocide. The population of East Pakistan was only 16 or 17 percent Hindu, but this minority comprised the overwhelming bulk of the refugees. India secretly recorded that by the middle of June, there were some 5,330,000 Hindus, as against 443,000 Muslims and 150,000 from other groups. Many Indian diplomats believed that the Hindus would be too afraid ever to go back... But the Indian government assiduously hid this stark fact from Indians. “In India we have tried to cover that up,” Swaran Singh candidly told a meeting of Indian diplomats in London, “but we have no hesitation in stating the figure to foreigners.” (Sydney Schanberg and John Kenneth Galbraith, the Kennedy administration’s ambassador to India, separately highlighted the fact in the New York Times.) Singh instructed his staff to distort for their country: “We should avoid making this into an Indo-Pakistan or [[Hindu–Islamic relations|Hindu[-]Muslim conflict]]. We should point out that there are Buddhists and Christians besides the Muslims among the refugees, who had felt the brunt of repression.” In a major speech, Gandhi misleadingly described refugees of “every religious persuasion—Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist and Christian.”... The Indian government feared that the plain truth would splinter its own country between Hindus and Muslims... And Indian officials did not want to provide further ammunition to the irate Hindu nationalists in the Jana Sangh party. From Moscow, D. P. Dhar, India’s ambassador there, decried the Pakistan army’s “preplanned policy of selecting Hindus for butchery,” but, fearing inflammatory politicking from “rightist reactionary Hindu chauvinist parties like Jana Sangh,” he wrote, “We were doing our best not to allow this aspect of the matter to be publicised in India.” ... Rather than basing this accusation primarily on the victimization of Hindus, India tended to focus on the decimation of the Bengalis as a group."