South Asia Citizens Web

Where is the multicultural and multi-religious Bangladesh we grew up in?

In India, we have a tradition of creating pantheons in which the Preservers as well as the Destroyers are equally great, and so it is the case with the myriad freedom fighters of India (a pantheon in itself) who are conferred equal Greatness / Godship and sung songs of, portraits hung of, and saluted everywhere. This appeal to a particular Great Man that matches our extremist ideology is what has allowed people to justify anything and everything and call it Greatness. No wonder, Kashmiri and Khalistani terrorists, Sanghi terrorists, and Maoists claim the same ’greatness’.

Letter by veteran communists Irfan Habib and Sayera Habib to CPI(M) says " . . . The primary object of our Party should, therefore, surely be to isolate the BJP as far as possible, and form a broad united front with all other democratic forces so as to foil the BJP’s plan of gaining control over the states still outside its orbit, and finally, to secure its defeat at the parliamentary elections due in 2019."

We write this in anguish at another alarming spiral of violence in Kashmir, when a discredited old playbook has yet again been deployed to wreak havoc with civilian life.

Bastar division, comprising seven districts, in the state of Chhattisgarh, is one of the most militarized zones in India, owing to the conflict between the State and the CPI (Maoist).