The New Nation - Internet Edition

M.T. Hussain

Mr. Abdur Rahim's item published in the New Nation on the 1st November (08) was an useful piece recalling back the 1954 election, its fairness, in particular, in then East Pakistan. But I found some points not only missing but also some others contradictory.

Among the missing points that I could identify, first, the three politicians mentioned in the article who happened to stay back in Pakistan (West) following 1971 had not all been of the Muslim League. The lone Muslim Leaguer was (Marhum) Nurul Amin, Tridib Roy, still alive and settled in Islamabad, belonged to no political party as he was the Chakma Raja of the former East Pakistan, and (Marhum) Mahmud Ali had all along been a leftist except in pre 1947 period being in the Assam Muslim Students' League. I mention here their political difference and identity to be put on record in exact, and further that they stayed back in Pakistan following 1971 division not for three different reasons of their own but for a single outlook. I say so with full authority as I happened to know them all and their stance in the concerned matter not before 1971 but afterwards. Among the student leaders, Khaleq Nawaz Khan, who defeated Nurul Amin in the 1954 election from Nandail, there was another who happened to be my close one, not less noteworthy than Nawaz, Matiur Rahman, then in 1954 election a staunch Student Leaguer who campaigned for Nawaz for eleven days at Nandail so much laboriously that he fell gravely ill as soon the election was over, Nawaz won defeating Chief Minister Nurul Amin. This Matiur Rahman (later on done a Doctorate in history in the SOAS, London) of Ahmadpur, Nabinagar did lined up with the post 1971 ideological stance of the three leaders mentioned above although he stayed then in London, but on passing away in 1982, he preferred his mortal remains to be buried in the Islamabad National Grave Yard that was duly done by his family living (Grave No IV-31 well marked in marble stone) then and still now in London. Marhum Nurul Amin remains buried in the precincts of the Mausoleum of the Quaid E Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah being visited everyday by thousands of visitors paying their respects and devotees offering Fateha there coming from home and abroad. Marhum Mahmud Ali of Sunamganj (Bangladesh) also is buried there in the Islamabad National Grave Yard ( d.17 Nov. 2006) just as another renowned Pakistan Observer (Dacca) journalist M. Fazlur Rahman (Pabna-Sujanagar), as well, got his place for final rest there ( Grave No. 111/44) in March 2003.

The matter that seemed to me contradictory is that how could the 'autocratic' Muslim League Government of the then East Pakistan keep the bureaucracy neutral so much so that even the seating Chief Minister of East Pakistan Nurul Amin had been defeated in the 1954 polls?

The matter as that happened in reality proved beyond reasonable doubt that they were the angels who not only adhered to gentle democratic norms but also remained above corruption, nepotism, black money earning through political careers unlike those we have been experiencing here in independent Bangladesh. Thus it could be well presumed in retrospect that the Muslim League Government of East Pakistan in 1954 fell not for their autocratic governance but for the propaganda hype powerfully engineered against them by the fifth columnists from inside and outside to which people fell victims mainly due to ignorance. Just now, I recall the propaganda rhetoric among many cheap items in matters of Shdad Er Behesht (Shahbag Hotel), Dana Kata Parir Bazar (New Market) all such built and provided by the Muslim League Government of Nurul Amin in the then provincial capital Dacca (spelled that way) and now Dhaka.