বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (প্রথম খণ্ড)/৯
| শিরোনাম | সূত্র | তারিখ |
| স্বাধীন সার্বভৌম বাংলাদেশের পক্ষে বংগীয় প্রাদেশিক মুসলিম লীগের সম্পাদক জনাব আবুল হাশিমের প্রেস বিজ্ঞপ্তি | মর্নিং নিউজ, ২৯শে এপ্রিল ১৯৪৭। সূত্র: শীলা সেন, মুসলিম পলিটিক্স ইন বেঙ্গল পৃষ্ঠা-২৮১ |
২৯শে এপ্রিল, ১৯৪৭ |
B. The Press Statement of Abul Hashim, Secretary, Bengal Provincial Muslim League, Calcutta, 29 April 1947.
Time has come when truth must be told. Surrendering to vulgar thinking for cheap popularity and opportunist leadership is intellectual prostitution. Only around 1905 Bengal was the thought-leader of India and successfully challenges the might of the then British Government. It is a pity that Bengal today is intellectually bankrupt and is begging and borrowing thought and guidance from alien heroes. I wonder what has happened to the Hindus of Bengal who produced men like Surendranath Banerjee, Rabindranath Tagore, Ashutosh Mukherjee, Chittaranjan Das and Subhash Chandra Bose.
The present revolutionary thinking of India owes its birth to Bengal. True revolution does not lie in internecine killing but in creating revolution in thinking and feeling Bengal must shake off her inferiority complex and defeatist mentality, revert to her past traditions, rise again to the heights of her genuine and mould her destiny. Sentiments and emotions have no place in serious thinking. Temporary insanity should not be allowed to influence our future decisions.
Bengal today is standing at the cross roads-one leading to freedom and glory and the other to eternal bondage and abounding disgrace. Bengal must make a decision here and now. There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the floods leads on to fortune. Opportunity once lost may come no more.
Cent per cent alien capital, both Indian and Anglo-American, exploiting Bengal is invested in West Bengal. The growing socialist tendencies amongst us have created fears of expropriation in the minds of our alien exploiters. They have the prudence to visualize difficulties in a free and united Bengal. It is in the interest of the alien capital that Bengal should be divided, crippled and incapacitated so that neither part thereof may have strength enough to resist it in future.
From the nature of the communal disturbances in Bengal I am of the opinion that these are being engineered and encouraged by Anglo-Indian wested interests and their Indian allies. In the ordinary course of business, respectable and reliable parties find it difficult to secure license for fire arms. But immense quantities of dangerous weapons of British and American origin, left over in India, are being lavishly distributed among the Hindu and Muslim hooligans, conscious and unconscious agents of the partition of Bengal. A big gun of Bengal, who has developed an obnoxious craze for the Premiership of Bengal, once remarked to me that since he has no future and his everything was past, he has thus justified his opportunism. Fossils of Bengal may find immediate gain in her partition but what has happened to her youth, whose entire destiny lies in the future? Are the going to barter away their future for the benefit of handful of careerists placed at a position of vantage by circumstances?
Partition of Bengal bears no analogy to the partition of India. The lamentable perversion in thinking which suggests that the movement for the partition of Bengal is convenient counterblast to Pakistan arises out of a colossal ignorance of the contents and implications of the Lahore Resolution to which and which alone and not this or that interpretation thereof, Muslims of India owe allegiance. That resolution never contemplated the creation of any 'Akhand' Muslim State or any artificial Muslim majority either by forcible importation of alien elements as is being done in Palestine or by any mass transference of population as was done between Turkey and Greece.
It rarely demanded complete sovereignty for those countries which are known to the world as Muslim majority countries and by implication demands complete sovereignty and self determination of all the nations and countries of India. It gives Bengal and other cultural units of India complete sovereignty while keeping open the possibility of creating an international (sic) purely on a voluntary basis for the benefit of all.
Pakistan never postulates that in Bengal or the Punjab Muslims shall be the ruling race and others reduced to the status of a subject nation. Quaid-e-Azam after the failure of Jinnah Gandhi talks at Bombay had declared in clear and unequivocal terms that free Pakistan states shall be governed and administered by the will and consent of the entire people on the basis of universal adult suffrage. I will like to add by system of joint electorate if the minorities do not demand separate electorate for their own protection.
In the absence of outstanding leadership the country is being rack rented by vulgar fortune hunters. Youths of Bengal, both Hindu and Muslim, must unite, liberate their country from the shackles of extraneous influence and make a bid for regaining Bengal's lost prestige and an honourable place in the future comity of nations, both of India and the world. Let the youths of Bengal build their character from their past traditions and derive inspirations for their present struggle from the glories of the future.
Hindus and Muslims of Bengal, preserving their respective entities, had by their joint efforts, in perfect harmony with the nature and climatic influence of their soil, developed a wonderful common culture and tradition which compare favorably with the contribution of any nation of the world in the evolution of man.
In the free state of Bengal, Hindus and Muslims as such shall have no right exclusively reserved for them except the right of Muslims to govern their society according to their own “shariat" and the right of the Hindus to govern their own society according to their “Sastras". These rights give the Muslims their spiritual need for Pakistan and the Hindus a real homeland for the free development of their own ideology and material realization of their particular outlook on life. It is unthinkable that in free Bengal, the Hindus of Bengal who constitute nearly half of its population will be denied their legitimate share in administration and in the enjoyment of her material resources. Hindu-Muslim population of Bengal is almost balanced. Neither community is in a position to dominate the other. If Bengal is permitted to harness all her resources for the exclusive service of the children of her soil, both Hindus and Muslims shall be happy and prosperous for many a century to come.
But in a divided Bengal, West Bengal is bound to be treated as far-flung province, possibly colony, of alien Indian imperialism. However high they may pitch their expectation on partition, it is crystal clear to me that the Hindus of Bengal shall be reduced to the status of daily wage-earner of an alien capitalism.
It will be a tragic mistake to visualize the future in the context of the vicious present bondage and slavery. Hindus of Bengal have developed a suspicious complex from 10 years of one party Muslim Ministry in Bengal. But it must be told to all fairness that neither the Bengal nor the All India Muslim League ever stood in the-pray of coalition with the real representatives of the Hindus of Bengal. The Muslim League party in the Legislature made persistent efforts to affect such a coalition but failed in the attempt due to the interference of the Congress High Command. Mr. Suhrawardy before the formation of his ministry made honest efforts to secure the co-operation of the Congress.
I distinctly remember that Mr. Gandhi in course of his talks with us at 40, Theater Road, on the eve of his departure for Noakhali, had said “I am not enamored of coalition. I believe in one party government. Therefore, I do not insist on coalition in Bengal." I might mention here that Bengal was then the only place which had a Muslim ministry. Any coalition here would have envisaged coalition ministries in the rest of India. Thus Hindu-Bengal was left in the lurch as were Muslim League elsewhere.
Hindus and Muslims of Bengal left to themselves and freed from the menace of Indianism can settle their affairs peacefully and happily. Unfortunately, the paramount interests of Muslim parliamentarians have always been in shuffling the ministry like a pack of cards. They could hardly concentrate on any policy and programme good, bad or indifferent.
I am unfortunate inasmuch as I fail to appreciate what is there in the wretched ministry under the Act of 1935. Since, reasonably or otherwise there is a suspicion on the part of the Hindus against them, it is now up to Muslims to clear the deck and convince them, not merely by sermons and press statements but by action that they do not mean to be unfair to them. The present unrest perverse thinking and suicidal moves constitute a disease of the social organism. Intense patriotism for the creation of a united and sovereign Bengal having all the attributes of an independent country is the remedy and not partition.
Mr. C. R. Das is dead. Let his spirit help us in moulding our glorious future. Let the Hindus and Muslims of Bengal agree to his formula of 50:50 enjoyments of political power and economic privileges. I again appeal to the youths of Bengal in the name of her past traditions and glorious future to unite, make a determined effort to dismiss all reactionary thinking and save Bengal from the impending calamity.