Noakhali - Noakhali ----- Foreword by Publisher Tapan Kumar Ghosh
BangaLakshmi
Foreword
Noakhali, Noakhali! Alas! You were the victim of the experiment for
Pakistan. Rather the first successful experiment for gaining Pakistan.
The first experiment was Kolkata, but that was a failure. Then you
were selected for the next round. We failed to save you from demons.
All of us failed —
The revolutionaries failed, the Marxists failed, the secularists
failed, even the Hindutvaists failed. Over all theories and practices,
the experiment for Pakistan was done successfully.
The demons failed in Kolkata. Then they selected you. Far from
Kolkata, among the lush greeneries of rural Bengal, far away — so that
your screams, your pains fail to reach Delhi, or even Kolkata. But why
you? Have you ever asked anyone? At the confluence of Padma and
Meghna, you are lying peacefully. Why did they choose you? A student
of history, if he sees history through his own eyes may give you the
answer. There were only 18% Hindus at Noakhali. The rest were non
Hindus. That is why you were the guinea pig of Rahmat Ali, Iqbal and
Jinnah. For them the land they live is not the mother, only assets to
be divided or raped. That is why they wanted to divide their mother.
They put in action the Theory of Division of the Mother. The shameless
Communists, who have been thrown in the dustbin of history, hailed
this theory.
Today you are there. Padma and Meghna are there. But is there any
temple? Is there any housewife in Noakhali who prays to Bhagwan? Can
you hear the conch shells blowing?
Holi, Durgapuja has stopped there and we have taken as marks of
advancement (?). In the name of development and non-violence we have
sacrificed the entire East Bengal, Punjab, Baluchistan, N.W.F.P. and
the Sindhu (Indus). The Sindhu, where man had heard the first
recitation of Vedas, now only hears the sound of Azaan. The voice of
secularism can be heard thousands of miles away from Sindhu, at the
banks of Ganga. Our secularism had failed to save Sindhu. We failed to
save Padma. But have we learned the lesson? But we still wear the
coloured glasses. These glasses look good, but it does not show the
correct way, does not give a clear vision. It only shows the path to
an ever deepening chasm.
But still we have not learned the lesson. Proof? Kashmir is the proof.
Burning, bloodied Kashmir. The white snow on 'heaven on earth' is not
white any more, it is red. Red because of blood. Because we have not
learned we are about to lose Jhelum like we lost Sindhu. We have not
learned, that is why two and a half lakhs of Hindus are now refugees
in their own land. Next? Will it be Ganga ? Yamuna? Godavari or
Cauvery? Yamuna had given shelter to those whom Padma had failed to
keep. Ganga had taken those whom Sindhu had been unable to protect.
Yamuna had called those whom Jhelum had to send away. But what if
Yamuna, Ganga and Godavari all go?
But now we have to learn the lesson. The teachers can be Jhelum, Padma
and Sindhu. But Jhelum and Sindhu are far away. A few students of
Bengal — NO —divided Bengal, of West Bengal are ready to hear from
Padma. But Padma, you tried to speak once before through the voice of
Shyama Prasad. Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee had tried to tell the
world, to show the blind leaders of Hindustan, who had shouted till he
was hoarse and bleeding — to tell the truth, to tell your story. But
we Bengalis were deaf, we kept our eyes closed. The result of that has
been paid dearly by the previous generation and we are still paying it
today.
But today we want to hear from you Noakhali. We want to learn from
you. We want to know about the terror days of '46 and '47. Those days
that had been kept away from us by the intellectuals, artists, writers
and the internationally famed people. They have not let us seen your
tears.
Tamas had been written on the division of Punjab. But there is no
Tamas on the division of Bengal. For many people the tearful time of
Bengal is still in darkness. We want to bring light to this darkness,
to show the people the true incidents of the misfortunes of Noakhali.
We want to tell the people about what had actually happened. History
is being lost because there is no written history and the eyewitnesses
are dying. That is why we are hurrying. We want to save history from
being lost. We want to keep it for our next generation, so that they
will know what had happened and not repeat the mistakes again. They
will provide the theories. We will save the facts for them.
Noakhali Noakhali is written to educate the GenerationX about the
misfortune of Bengal. The blessings of the readers will give us the
needed push to write the Tamas of Bengal.
Kolkata
14th August
2008
Tapan Kumar Ghosh
Publisher
http://www.eastbengal.org/noakhali.pdf
--
Mouli Ghosh
Bengal Voice Communications
www.bengalvoice.com