Crafted by History

Going through Crafted by History:  An Interpretive Review of the Emergence of Bangladesh was a perplexing experience in view of the jacket's claim that it is "an unconventional interpretive review of the struggle for democratic rights in the history of Bangladesh" as well as the author's declaration in the Preface that it "is a modest attempt to assess the impact of the newly won freedom of Bangladesh on its own people, and its outlook as a nation-state, towards the world at large and its neighbours in particular."  In his defense it must be said that he subconsciously alluded to "modest" in acknowledging that he is neither an academic nor a historiographer.  Hemayetuddin Ahmed was a journalist and a Director General in the External Publicity Wing of Bangladesh's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, among a few other jobs.  This slim volume was published several years after his passing away, and, in spite of failing strictly to do justice to its title, is not at all a bad read.

Created by History is neither a holistic, nor an in-depth, study of Bangladesh down the millennia, and its author's interpretive review is not much of a revelation either.  Others have written along those same lines, although usually with a different emphasis on the subject matters, and a number of the interpretations are similar to those of Ahmed, albeit with more profound investigation and analysis.  The book is a sketchy history of Bangladesh from ancient times to that of its emergence as a sovereign independent nation-state, and not much beyond, written in a lucid style.  I must confess that when I read the book's title, I had anticipated a work something along the lines, if not necessarily the consummate mastery, of Howard Zinn's Mary's contrary lamb view of American history, A People's History of the United States (1980).  Zinn has been acknowledged in the United States as being one of its towering intellectuals of the twentieth century, and the perspective reversal content of A People's History has been neatly captured by The New York Times Book Review:  "The book bears the same relation to traditional texts as photographic negative does to a print:  the areas of darkness and light have been reversed."

Crafted by History is hardly a perspective reversal; it is a rapid progression from a story of Bengal in ancient times, cultural fusion in this part of South Asia, Muslim conquest of, and East India Company and British Crown rule in, Bengal, to the end of Pakistan and the emergence of Bangladesh.  Relying on historical determinism, and risking possible challenges to the use of this method, Ahmed is convinced that Bangladesh's birth "happened by an unending historical process, produced by dialectics and dynamics of the social and economic forces through the ancient and medieval periods, added to, perhaps, by a bit of providential help."  His reliance on the course of history leads him to establish a linear progression that eventually inculcated a sense of identity "to an isolated community of rift-ridden Bengali Muslims to break away from Pakistan, a country the Bengalis once largely helped to build."  Both the points made here have been studied in detail by several scholars, including the significant, even decisive, contribution that the Bengalis made towards Pakistan's (counting, Jinnah's rueful description of a "moth-eaten" variety) creation.  The Bengalis justifiably expected more from the new country; they got less.

Ahmed posits, and this view could be subject to disputation from a timeline context, that the Bengali Muslims had an "ancient yearning for a separate identity…based on the linguistic, literary and cultural heritage which transcended various racial and religious barriers.  Mixing and mingling across the racial and religious divides…made them a cohesive homogenous group."  The reader could be forgiven for wondering who exactly the author was referring to:  Bengali Muslims or Bengalis in general.  Especially confusing is how mixing across the religious divide made the Bengali Muslims a "cohesive homogenous group".  It would seem to indicate that the Bengali Muslims felt themselves to be separate from the Hindus, and that would contradict his later assertion that the two religious communities lived in general harmony down the ages. 

There are other confusing/contradictory statements on the same issue. Talking about a spate of rebellions from the ones led by Titumir, Haji Shariatullah, and Karam Shah to the Tebhaga movement, Ahmed believes that, in these instances, the "Bengal Muslims rose primarily against the Hindus as well as the colonial government which patronized them."  And, lo and behold, he follows immediately in the next paragraph with the assertion that, "These movements were not religious.  They were national."  And, yet, with the creation of Pakistan, in the next paragraph he declares that, the Bengali Muslims "found no end to their exploitation.  Instead of Hindus, now, it was the Punjabis and Mohajirs (refugees)' domination."  One could expect a degree of consistency in the writing.

The author reflects on Winston Churchill's choice of Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten (really a matter of noblesse oblige!) to replace the sagacious Field Marshal Archibald Wavell as the (last) Viceroy of India and how that appointment (Mountbatten kowtowed to practically all of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's wishes) tangentially had the effect of depriving Sylhet of the whole province of Assam.  Once Pakistan was created, Ahmed reiterates the view that the Punjabi-dominated civil-military hierarchy failed at nation-building by brushing aside the need for democracy, rule of law, equal rights, and other modern concepts on the ground that they were "perceived to be repugnant to the principles of Islam."  Was it really that, essentially paying lip service to Islam, since very few of the civil-military higher-ups of that time had little more than a passing acquaintance with the practice of their religion?  Or, was it something else, as Ahmed turns to later on in the book, that of establishing their ascendancy in the political and economic life of the country, largely at the expense of the Bengalis? 

That Islam was only a convenient excuse to be used by the West Pakistani military, bureaucracy, and political leaders for their exploitative purpose is amply illustrated by Ahmed in the context of the trumped-up Agartala Conspiracy case, aimed primarily at suppressing the growing pervasive influence of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman over the Bengalis in general.  Following his release from jail in February 1969 in the face of popular agitation, he attended the failed Round Table Conference in Rawalpindi.  Significantly, as the author states, "in the Round Table Conference, Islam was never mentioned, and no leader ever said Islam was at stake…."  Interestingly, at the Conference itself, Bangabandhu circuitously exposed his own false incarceration and trial in the Agartala Conspiracy case.  In spite of his massive popularity among the Bengalis, he still could declare at the Conference that the Awami League was a party of freedom fighters for Pakistan, that its founder, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, was among the founders of Pakistan, and that the Six-Point Charter was meant to benefit all Pakistanis by providing for complete political, economic, and social justice, and was meant to preserve and strengthen the country.  Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was in his heart a constitutionalist and a big-hearted person looking out for the people's welfare.

Eventually, Ahmed settles on Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah (not a Bengali), the first independent Sultan of Bengal, as having sown the seeds of freedom some 600 years before 1971 by running a secular government encouraging Bengali art, architecture, literature and culture.  And, when Bangladesh became independent "with a new secular profile", Ahmed  comments with a choice selection of words:  "What the people of Bangladesh failed to do themselves in two millennia of the Brahmins' and Buddhists' pre-eminence to give the Bengal Muslims a separate identity, the Pakistan army junta did it for them in two weeks of heavy-handed 'Operation Searchlight'…."

There are a couple of errors in the book.  The national and provincial elections of Pakistan took place in 1970, and not in 1969.  And, the years from the third century B.C. to the third century A.D. add up to six hundred years, and not a thousand.  Crafted by History will not guide the reader through any in-depth analysis of events leading up to the birth of Bangladesh or unearth new evidence, but just might cause one to pause and reflect on a piece of information contained within it that he/she might want to explore further.  This book will provide a kaleidoscope of the history of Bengal, specifically that of Bangladesh.

The reviewer is a Faculty member at Independent University, Bangladesh.