A
Historic Blunder?
The
Dark Aftermath of my Grandfather's Migration to Kolkata from East
Bengal
Dr.
Amartya Kumar Bhattacharya
BCE
(Hons.) ( Jadavpur ), MTech ( Civil ) ( IIT Kharagpur ), PhD ( Civil
) ( IIT Kharagpur ), Cert.MTERM ( AIT Bangkok ), CEng(I), FIE,
FACCE(I), FISH, FIWRS, FIPHE, FIAH, FAE, MIGS,MIGS – Kolkata
Chapter, MIGS – Chennai Chapter, MISTE, MAHI, MISCA, MIAHS, MISTAM,
MNSFMFP, MIIBE, MICI, MIEES, MITP, MISRS, MISRMTT, MAGGS, MMBSI
Chairman,
MultiSpectra
Consultants,
23,
Biplabi Ambika Chakraborty Sarani, Kolkata – 700029, West Bengal,
INDIA.
E-mail:
dramartyakumar@gmail.com
My
impetus for writing this article came when Dr Sudhir Jain who is the
director of Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, requested me
to write something about the state of India at this moment. I decided
to put some facts straight and write without the hype that certain
misguided Indians indulge in. After writing to Dr. Jain, I decided to
make some facts available to the public.
I
belong to an Indian Buddhist family having my ancestry in the
Chittagong region of East Bengal, now Bangladesh.
To
put matters in perspective, the Pala dynasty of Bengal was the last
Buddhist Dynasty in India. Neither the Arab invasion of Sind nor the
invasions of Mahmud of Ghazni had any effect on Bengal and the Pala
dynasty ruled uninterruptedly until 1162 AD when they were overthrown
by the Hindu Sena dynasty. Muhammad Ghori defeated Prithviraj Chauhan
in 1192 AD. A few years later, one of Muhammad Ghori's generals swept
across the plains of northern India and Lakshmana Sena, the last
ruler of the Sena dynasty, fled without giving a fight on hearing the
Muslim forces approaching. Bengal came under Muslim rule and remained
so until the victory of the British at the Battle of Plassey in 1757
AD. By the time Muslim rule ended in Bengal in 1757 AD, most Bengalis
had converted to Islam due to various reasons. Under Muslim rule, an
influx of Arabic and Persian words into the Bengali language took
place but, crucially, Bengali Muslims and Bengali non-Muslims
continued to speak and write in a common Bengali language with an
Indo-Aryan script except for a few words which are still different
for Bengali Muslims and Bengali non-Muslims. The local dialect of
Bengali in East Bengal is different from the local dialect of Bengali
in West Bengal, but again this is not based on religious lines. For
centuries, Bengali Muslims and Bengali non-Muslims lived side by side
and in harmony, everyone practising his own religion. It is to be
noted that my ancestors lived for centuries under Muslim rule.
My
family has its ancestry in the Chittagong area of East Bengal and has
been practicing Buddhism since ancient times, probably from even
before the birth of Jesus Christ. Since my family was in the extreme
South-east of Bengal, near the border with Burma ( now Myanmar ),
they have retained their Buddhist religion up to this day. My great
great-grandfather Kumar Chandra Bhattacharya was a noted Buddhist
scholar. He divided his time between Chittagong and Rangpur.
My
great-grandfather was Diwan Bahadur Banga Chandra Bhattacharya. He
was the Diwan of Tripura when Tripura was a princely state and was a
close friend of Bengali poet and Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore.
Rabindranath Tagore called him 'Diwan Bahadur ji' as a mark of
respect. My great-grandfather was fluent in Sanskrit, Pali and
Arabic, among other languages A very erudite person, he wrote and
published several books on Buddhism. Among his books, 'Buddhist
Civilisation in Asia' stands out. One of his pioneering thesis was
that the Caspian Sea was named after Mahakashyapa, a direct disciple
of Lord Buddha. Apart from the similarity in names, he based his
thesis on the presence of Kalmyk Buddhists in Kalmykia, a part of
Russia to the north-west of the Caspian Sea. After retiring from the
Tripura Court, he settled in Chittagong where he built a huge
Zamindari house.
My
great-grandfather was an orthodox and puritan Buddhist. He was
uncompromisingly opposed to idolatry. He believed that since the
majority of Bengalis were Muslims, Bengali non-Muslims had their only
future in living in harmony with Bengali Muslims. However, he was
acutely aware of an abnormality in Hindu psychology. He used to say
'Hindus are afraid of Muslims and Hindus suffer from an inferiority
complex. They constantly remember that Muslims defeated them. They
say that one Muslim equals three Hindus.' He also believed that Hindu
icon Swami Vivekananda lacked the intellectual ability to grasp Lord
Buddha's teachings. He dismissed outright Swami Vivekananda's thesis
that Buddhists introduced idolatry and the tantras. He wrote
'Vivekananda was totally wrong. Hinduism introduced idolatry and the
tantras. Mantras can be found even in the Vedas.' It may be mentioned
that my great-grandfather was vehemently opposed to the tantras which
he dismissed as a degenerate cult.
The
attitude of my great-grandfather towards Hinduism bordered on the
hostile. He famously refused to eat from the hands of any Hindu and
employed a Muslim cook to cook his meals. He asked a Muslim gentleman
to teach Arabic and Urdu to my grandfather and his siblings. As a
result, my grandfather also became fluent in Arabic and Urdu.
Unfortunately
for our family, he passed away before 1947. Were he alive, he would
not have taken a decision to migrate to Kolkata on the spur of the
moment. He was not a man to take rash decisions. Gifted with
penetrating insight, an acute sense of justice, level-headedness and
posessing an optimistic and inclusive outlook about the future of
humanity, my great-grandfather could have foreseen that East Pakistan
would last for only 24 years.
My
grandfather, Jitendra Chandra Bhattacharya, was a freedom fighter who
was imprisoned by the British before his Matriculation Examination.
He wrote his examination in prison. He was tortured by the British
every time he was imprisoned by them. Educated under Rabindranath
Tagore at Shantiniketan, he came under the influence of Mahatma
Gandhi whom he met several times. He took my father, a young boy at
that time, to meet Mahatma Gandhi at Barrackpore in the northern
suburbs of Kolkata when Mahatma Gandhi was residing there. My father
recalled that when he bent down to pay his respects to Mahatma
Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi put his hand on my father's head and said in
Hindi 'Beta, sachcha patriot bano' which means 'Son, be a true
patriot.'
My
grandfather founded the House of Labour in East Bengal to encourage
youths towards business and enterprise. Being a businessman, my
grandfather travelled extensively to all parts of undivided India on
business. He stayed at Lahore for two years. He also visited
Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Quetta, Sialkot, Karachi and Hyderabad in Sind.
My father recalled that, as a young boy, my grandfather took him to
Jammu via Sialkot, the normal route in those times. It could not have
escaped my grandfather's notice that the language divide between
Bengali Muslims and non-Bengali Muslims was too great to be bridged
as Bengali Muslims considered Bengali to be their mother tongue and
non-Bengali Muslims considered Urdu to be their mother tongue. This
very fact would lead to the break-up of Pakistan, with an Indian
victory, in 1971.
Surprisingly,
my grandfather failed to factor the language difference between
Bengali Muslims and non-Bengali Muslims in his prediction of the
future of the Indian sub-continent. He failed to realise that any
alliance between Bengali Muslims and non-Bengali Muslims was bound to
be temporary in nature and that a split was inevitable sooner or
later. For a man to travel all over India and not to develop an
incisive judgement of the situation was truly extraordinary. Acting
impulsively, in 1947 he took a decision to abandon East Bengal and
come to Kolkata leaving all his property in East Bengal behind. He
came to Kolkata as a refugee and as a pauper. This caused my family
great hardship at the time. Surely, the ephemeral nature of East
Pakistan should have been obvious to any discerning observer.
Soon
after coming to Kolkata in 1947, my grandfather realised that he had
been chasing a mirage. Strongly disillusioned, he severed all ties
with politics and with the Indian National Congress. Dissatisfied
with the way independent India was going, he used to repeatedly say
'I committed a historic blunder by leaving East Bengal. This is not
the independence I fought for.'
In
1953, my grandfather could garner enough money to build a house in
south Kolkata but his money was exhausted before he could finish the
building. It was left to me to finish the construction of our home,
my father and paternal uncles having added nothing to what my
grandfather had done. Realising and recognising that Independence was
a pyrrhic victory for him, he developed an ailment of the heart. He
passed away in 1959 deeply regretting his hasty decision to migrate
to Kolkata. East Pakistan would last for just 12 more years after his
death giving birth to Bangladesh.
In
hindsight, it is abundantly clear that it was not a correct decision
for my grandfather to migrate to Kolkata. He not only discarded the
material inheritance of his property in Chittagong but also the
intellectual inheritance of the legacy of my great-grandfather.
My
father, Arun Chandra Bhattacharya, now deceased, had much the same
kind of career as I am having. Possessing several degrees,
professional memberships, and a connoisseur of fine arts and
literature, he travelled extensively throughout the world. Amongst
his several achievements, the development of a management institute
stands out. A Rotarian till his demise, he promoted fine arts by
making several donations to deserving organisations. Though my father
fully shared my grandfather's views as regards the state of India, it
was too late for him to reverse my grandfather's mistake.
Uncle
Aziz was a very close friend of my father. He and my father met in
the United States. He had his ancestry in Comilla. He settled in
Dhaka where he built a house in the Bonani area. He visited our home
in Kolkata several times. He used to visit India often for
professional purposes and never failed to drop in on us. I also
visited Dhaka to present a paper at an International Conference and
visited his home. On that occasion, I travelled throughout the length
and breadth of Dhaka and saw everything that Dhaka has to offer. The
friendship between my father and Uncle Aziz percolated to our
extended families. My grandmother, Premlata Bhattacharya, looked upon
Uncle Aziz as her own son. My paternal uncles and their families also
became close friends of Uncle Aziz and his family and extended
family, particularly one of Uncle Aziz's brothers, who was a doctor
of international repute. Uncle Aziz's brother and his family also
visited our house in Kolkata.
On
one particular occasion, during dinner at our home, Uncle Aziz told
my father and my paternal uncles 'Why did your father come to Kolkata
in 1947? Our country is poorer because of your leaving it. Many of us
in Bangladesh feel this way.'
Independent
India has let down its own freedom fighters like my grandfather.
Having achieved its independence way back in 1947, India has failed
to become a developed country. India is still a developing country
and an emerging market. India is rampant with corruption, bribery,
criminality and malpractices. In India, the rich are getting richer
and the poor are getting poorer. The government has failed to give
even the basic necessities to all Indians. If the dictum, 'justice
delayed is justice denied' is to be held as valid, my mother was
denied justice as she received her retirement dues four years after
she had retired. Of the many countries that I have visited in the
world, India is the only country I know of where a government
employee has been threatened with death by a colleague ( who is also
a government employee ) and has been forced to resign and the
government has not done anything whatsoever for the victim. Steeped
in bribery, the immediate bosses of the victim ( all of whom are
government employees ) have supported and are continuing to support
the criminal who happens to have considerable money-power. The victim
is yet to receive a single paisa of even his own money kept in the
custody of the government during his years in government service.
This very recent incident presents a shameful picture of India in
front of the civilised world.
