by KHONDAKAR ASHRAF HOSSAIN
Nowhere has literature been so much entangled with the political history of a land as it has been in Bangladesh. The people of Bangladesh had to fight for self-determination; that political struggle against colonial exploitation by Pakistan was over in 1971. But soon another monster raised its head, a hydra-headed monster with multifarious tentacles, the worst of which were religious fanaticism and communal hatred. After the killing of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on August 15, 1975, fundamentalist forces came to power with the help of the anti-liberation forces both inside and outside Bangladesh. A new fight started, which was more bloody and devastating, because this time the enemies were more covert and guileful and more relentless and brutal. Bangladesh has experienced some terrible carnage since 1975, particularly in the nineties. Mass killings through bomb attacks on religious and cultural venues, on Bangali New Year celebrations, in cinema halls and mosques have been witnessed by us. Following the demolition of the Babri mosque, there were riots, forcing many Hindus to flee across the border. Bands of fundamentalist thugs appeared in the northern districts of the country and went on a killing spree. Members of minor religious sects like the Ahmadiyas were persecuted: bombs hurled into their mosque in Khulna killed dozens of people. Bangladesh turned into a virtual killing field and figured on the international media as a potentially dangerous tract of land.
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More tragic is the case of Dr. Humayun Azad, a famous poet, novelist, essayist and linguist of great repute. Although Taslima Nasrin could avert physical assault in Bangladesh by going into hiding, Humayun Azad could not. He infuriated the bigots by writing scathing satires on the fundamentalist mullahs and by propagating atheistic ideas. The author of seventy books, Azad started his career as a poet. Then he moved into linguistic research and finally got immense popularity by writing columns in newspapers. Religious fanatics (later identified as members of the terrorist outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh) tried to assassinate him on February 27, 2004, on his way home from a book fair. The terrorists mercilessly hacked at his neck and face with machetes. Although he survived the attack, he died later that year in Munich, Germany. Some say the trauma of the killing attempt contributed to his sudden death in August 2004. Humayun Azad created a lot of dissatisfaction among the fundamentalists by writing Naari, a Bengali version of Simone du Beauvoir’s Second Sex. In response to their protests, the then government of Bangladesh banned the book. But the more immediate cause of the assassination attempt was the publication of a devastating novel named, Pak Saar Zamin Saad Baad, in which he satirized with extreme vehemence the activities of the collaborators of the Pakistani army during the liberation war in 1971.
The Daily Star for more
(Thanks to Harsh Kapoor of SACW)