From: unitedhindufront@googlegroups.com
Date: Fri, 09 Sep 2011 17:54:44 +0000
Subject: {UnitedHinduFront} Digest for
unitedhindufront@googlegroups.com - 2 Messages in 2 Topics
To: Digest Recipients <unitedhindufront@googlegroups.com>
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Today's Topic Summary
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Group: unitedhindufront@googlegroups.com
Url: http://groups.google.com/group/unitedhindufront/topics
- Excellent article on Teesta water by Sunanda K Datta Ray [1 Update]
http://groups.google.com/group/unitedhindufront/t/c6676ffb5781f90
- We are passing through a great ordeal today...What is the
Solution?-- Swami Ramdev [1 Update]
http://groups.google.com/group/unitedhindufront/t/f95454f4e3f32830
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Topic: Excellent article on Teesta water by Sunanda K Datta Ray
Url: http://groups.google.com/group/unitedhindufront/t/c6676ffb5781f90
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From: "Sandhya Jain " <sandhya206@bol.net.in>
Date: Sep 09 11:48AM +0530
Url: http://groups.google.com/group/unitedhindufront/msg/251be55b40e5d567
http://www.dailypioneer.com/home/online-channel/362-edit/4868-a-complex-identity.html
A complex identity
Thursday, 08 September 2011 23:47
Sunanda k datta-ray
Dhaka no longer sees itself as a mofussil town compared to Kolkata.
There are many reasons why India and Bangladesh matter to each other.
There are also many reasons why West Bengal and Bangladesh matter to
each other. But beyond the logic of these equations, anything to do
with West Bengal has repercussions in Bangladesh. Had Ms Mamata
Banerjee attended the Dhaka summit, she would have stolen the thunder
of both Prime Ministers. Her absence was a slap in the face that
Bangladesh's Foreign Secretary, Mr Mijarul Qayes, described as "not
acceptable".
If roles were reversed, West Bengal's reaction would probably have
been more muted because Kolkata is less sensitive about Dhaka. The
only uncut umbilical chord this side of the border is among a
diminishing tribe of elderly refugees. But when upper class
Bangladeshis are dismissive of Kolkata's traffic or West Bengal's
economics, they are responding, perhaps unconsciously, to an era when
Dhaka was a mofussil township and the districts that now comprise
Bangladesh Kolkata's agricultural hinterland. Kolkata, the metropole,
was the cynosure of all Bengali eyes.
Efforts to match it were evident even in East Pakistan. Visitors were
told that the Shahbag Hotel, then the only one in Dhaka with some
international pretensions, was "like Calcutta's Grand". The Dacca Club
in Ramna was compared to the Calcutta Club. The modest Eden Building
was held up as the equivalent of Writers' Buildings until the
architectural glory of Dhaka's 'Second Capital'. As Mr Kamal Hossain,
the only surviving member of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's Cabinet, said in
his Sarat Chandra Bose Memorial lecture in Kolkata recently, East
Pakistan saw the emergence of an incipient middle class in those
years.
That middle class is now a self-confident elite. Bangladesh boasts a
seven per cent growth rate. As a major exporter of readymades
(accounting for more than $18 billion or over 80 per cent of total
exports of $23 billion), it is plugged into the high end of Western
markets. With the 1971 diaspora prospering, Dhaka feels it competes
with the metropole.
Ms Banerjee's petulant last-minute refusal to go rankles all the more
with Bangladeshis because Sheikh Hasina Wajed had taken the trouble to
call and congratulate her as soon as the West Bengal Assembly election
results were announced. The Dhaka daily, New Age, accused the Prime
Minister of "undermin(ing) her status and office" by telephoning the
"Chief Minister-elect of an Indian State".
Official chagrin — expressed by Mr Qayes who summoned India's High
Commissioner to the Foreign Ministry and told him that cancellation of
the Teesta treaty "at the last minute" was "very frustrating" — is
understandable. It can't be explained only by Bangladesh's need for
the river's water. Nor are Bangladeshis unmindful of West Bengal's
legitimite requirements. But as Mahfuz Anam, editor of the respected
Daily Star, pointed out, the Teesta treaty has been on the anvil since
Sheikh Hasina Wajed visited New Delhi in January 2010. There was ample
time for Indians to sort out their differences. The failure to do so
suggests incompetence in New Delhi and Kolkata. Even if Bangladeshis
blame New Delhi more for the bungling, they can't help feeling
publicly snubbed by the Chief Minister of a State with which they
claim a special affinity. Ms Banerjee's recalcitrance has made Sheikha
Hasina Wajed even more vulnerable to Opposition attacks. Thanks to our
"drama queen" — as the paper, Prothom Alo, calls Ms Banerjee — Begum
Khaleda Zia is already on the warpath.
Taslima Nasreen, and her book, Lajja, supposedly a true account of
Hindu life in Bangladesh, may not have become such a bone of
contention if it hadn't been for this close connection involving
history, communalism, economics and politics. Substantive reasons for
the linkage include West Bengal's 2,216-km border with Bangladesh
accounting for more than half the entire 4,095-km India-Bangladesh
border. Moreover, 45 per cent of the total bilateral trade of $4
billion passes through the Petrapole-Benapole crossing 175 km
north-west of Kolkata. It's only through West Bengal that Bangladesh
can trade with Nepal and Bhutan, as it wants to.
Even the local term (chitmahal) for the nearly 200 enclaves in each
other's territory, which have been a source of controversy since
independence, recalls the common past. The rajas of Cooch Behar (now
in West Bengal) and Rangpur (now in Bangladesh) — reckless gamblers
both — discharged their debts when playing cards or chess for high
stakes with chits signing away scraps of territory. Nothing came of
the 1974 treaty on exchanging these chitmahals or at least providing
easy access to their inhabitants because of West Bengal's
possessiveness.
Mr Hossain claimed in his lecture that people on either side of the
Bengal border are held together by a common thread of ideals and
courage that is ingrained in the Bengali psyche. "The world may
change" he declared, "but Bengal won't as long as the ideals of
Netaji, Sheikh Mujib and Sarat Chandra Bose survive". An Internet
account of his lecture in honour of the man who fought to prevent
Bengal being partitioned in 1947 prompted the acerbic comment, "Both
Bengals are united by the many millions of illegal Bangladeshis who
have infiltrated India, and made a Bangladesh out of major parts of
West Bengal." Bearing him out, the Bengali historian, Dr Amalendu De,
says, "There is a virtual East Bengal in West Bengal."
A United Nations review agrees that Bangladeshis are flooding West
Bengal. Concern Universal, an international NGO working in 12
countries, including Bangladesh, estimates that 50 Bangladeshis cross
into India every day. Migration has reduced the Hindu population there
from 22 per cent in 1951 to today's seven per cent. But today's
migrants are Muslim, accounting for population growth in the border
districts of Malda, Murshidabad, Nadia, North and South 24-Parganas in
excess of the State's overall rate. Bangladeshis also trickle into
Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram (whose Chief Ministers
accompanied Mr Manmohan Singh) but language and lifestyle make West
Bengal the first choice.
A Bangladeshi tycoon was fond of recalling how driving to Kolkata for
the weekend, he gave his driver a thousand rupees to spend before
himself checking into the Oberoi Grand. About to start the return
journey, his driver returned the money with the explanation, "Sir,
there's nothing worth buying in Kolkata!"
The mofussil had overtaken the metropole. It's a pity no one advised
Ms Banerjee of this complex and the need, therefore, to be extra
careful with the soaring pride of achievement.
-------- sunandadr@yahoo.co.in
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Topic: We are passing through a great ordeal today...What is the
Solution?-- Swami Ramdev
Url: http://groups.google.com/group/unitedhindufront/t/f95454f4e3f32830
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From: swami jyoti <swamijyoti2@gmail.com>
Date: Sep 08 10:27PM -0400
Url: http://groups.google.com/group/unitedhindufront/msg/6e08952a99e8064b
*We are passing through a great ordeal today...What is the Solution?-- Swami
Ramdev*<http://vivekajyoti.blogspot.com/2011/09/we-are-passing-through-great-ordeal.html>
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