by Baby Shaw 16 June 2023
Subho Basu
Baby Shaw: Many books have already been written on the history of the emergence of Bangladesh. Why did you feel it necessary to write a new book on this topic?
Subho Basu: Thanks for this question. Not a lot has been written about the long history of East Pakistan. Historians have discussed the war in 1971, but what happened earlier has been put in the background. In English, only Badruddin Umar has written a book on the long history of the making of Bangladesh. In many ways, my monograph is the first of its kind.
Baby Shaw: What is the novelty of your book? What is unique about it? While writing this book, have you made any new endeavors that nobody ever made before?
Subho Basu: I have tried to provide agency to local voices and local actors but placed them in the global context of the cold war. Interestingly, I have highlighted not simply the cold war between the US and the Soviet Union but also between China and the Soviet Union and its impact on local politics in Bangladesh. I have also highlighted the interaction between cultural, social, and political-economic factors.
Baby Shaw: One of the commentators of your book, Prof. Ali Riaz, has commented: ‘The popular uprising in the sixties in the then East Pakistan, considered as the foreshadowing of the founding of Bangladesh, had not been analyzed within the global context – until now. Intimation of Revolution not only fills the void but also offers a necessary corrective to the dominant narrative of the history of Bangladesh’. So, what is that dominant narrative, and how have you corrected it in your book?
Subho Basu: The dominant narrative is that India freed Bangladesh, or the Lahore resolution of 1940, which had talked about two states, not one. But Pakistan betrayed Bengal by emphasizing one form. Yet there is more to such a situation. The development in Congo had impacted events in Bangladesh, the Algerian War of Independence, the war in Vietnam, the Cultural Revolution in China, and the Naxalite movement in Bengal.
Baby Shaw: In your book, you wrote that countries began to come out of colonies, and at the same time, many countries established themselves as socialist states. Could you please provide us with a brief account of revolutionary events in the ’50s and ’60s? Among them, which events mainly influenced the Bengalis’ independence movement?
Subho Basu: Certainly! The 1950s and 1960s were characterized by numerous revolutionary events that significantly shaped the time’s social, political, and cultural landscape. Here is a brief account of some of the critical events during this period:
- Civil Rights Movement (1950s-1960s): The Civil Rights Movement in the United States aimed to end racial segregation and discrimination against African Americans. It gained momentum through nonviolent protests, sit-ins, and marches led by prominent figures like Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and Malcolm X. The movement led to landmark legislation, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
- Decolonization: The 1950s and 1960s witnessed a wave of decolonization as former colonies in Africa and Asia fought for independence from European colonial powers. Countries such as India, Ghana, Kenya, Algeria, and others achieved independence, marking a significant shift in global power dynamics.
- Cuban Revolution (1959): Led by Fidel Castro, the Cuban Revolution overthrew the U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista and established a socialist government in Cuba. The revolution profoundly impacted Latin America and sparked tensions between Cuba and the United States, leading to the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
- Vietnam War (1955-1975): The Vietnam War was a protracted conflict between North Vietnam (supported by the Soviet Union and China) and South Vietnam (supported by the United States). It became a focal point of opposition to U.S. involvement, with widespread protests against the war, draft resistance, and the anti-war movement. The war ended in 1975 with Saigon’s fall and Vietnam’s reunification.
- Anti-establishment Movements: The ’50s and ’60s also saw the rise of various countercultural and anti-establishment movements. The Beat Generation, characterized by writers like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, rebelled against mainstream norms. The hippie movement emerged in the 1960s, promoting peace, love, and communal living, often associated with opposition to the Vietnam War.
These are just a few examples of revolutionary events during the 1950s and 1960s. The era was marked by significant social, political, and cultural changes, leaving a lasting impact on subsequent decades. East Pakistan had been influenced in many ways by these movements. The student movement of 1952, the educational activity of 1962, and the workers’ and students’ uprising of 1969 had all been in direct conversation with these movements.
Baby Shaw: Could you please explain in what ways or forms the revolutionary events you mentioned above inspired the people in the sphere of politics and in the sphere of literature, art, films, and music?
Subho Basu: Well, the students observed Africa Day in their radical magazine. Poet Assad Chowdhury has written a poem about Patrice Lumumba to give you an example. Zainal Abedin drew sketches about Palestinian refugee camps, and there are descriptions of visits to China or protest marches against the Vietnam War.
Baby Shaw: You used the term ‘internal colonization’ while explaining how the West Pakistanis exploited the East Pakistanis. Could you please give a brief account of the forms of exploitations inflicted on the latter?
Subho Basu: Certainly! The term “internal colonization” describes a situation where one region or group within a country exploits and dominates another area or group within the same country. In the context of East Pakistan (which later became the independent country of Bangladesh), it refers to the exploitation and marginalization that occurred under the rule of West Pakistan, both politically and economically.
Here are some of the forms of exploitation inflicted on East Pakistanis:
- Political Exploitation: with its dominant position in the country, West Pakistan controlled the central government and held the most vital political positions. East Pakistanis were underrepresented in the central government and faced discrimination in political decision-making. This led to a sense of alienation and marginalization among East Pakistanis.
- Economic Exploitation: East Pakistan was an agrarian region with a predominantly rural population, while West Pakistan was more industrialized and had a more robust economy. Economic policies were often biased towards West Pakistan, neglecting East Pakistan’s development needs. The region’s resources were exploited, and its economic growth was hindered.
- Resource Allocation: East Pakistan contributed significantly to Pakistan’s foreign exchange earnings through its jute exports. However, the benefits from these exports needed to be adequately reinvested in East Pakistan’s development. The region faced disparities in resource allocation, leading to underinvestment in infrastructure, education, healthcare, and other sectors.
- Language Discrimination: The imposition of Urdu as the only national language of Pakistan, disregarding the Bengali language spoken by the majority in East Pakistan, further deepened the sense of marginalization. This sparked protests and a demand for recognition of Bengali as an official language, eventually leading to the Language Movement and further political tensions.
- Military Crackdown: The response to political demands and protests in East Pakistan was often met with brutal force by the West Pakistani authorities. The most notable example was the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, when the Pakistani military launched a violent crackdown, leading to widespread human rights abuses, including killings, mass rape, and forced displacement.
Baby Shaw: In your book you wrote that in a Hindu-dominated atmosphere Muslims were barred from entering the process of the modernization of Bengali culture. What kind of barriers were there in place? Finally, how did the Muslims overcome the obstacles?
Subho Basu: During the colonial period in Bengal, which is now part of present-day Bangladesh and West Bengal in India, various social, political, and cultural dynamics were at play. Bengali literary activity was the crucial hallmark of a newly emerging colonial upper caste salariat class rooted in the layers of intermediate tenure holders in rural East Bengal. Indeed, they could take advantage of the colonial educational system because of their access to surplus land. Many among these late nineteenth century Bengali Hindu writers were imbued with the idea of a regeneration of Hindu society. They uncritically accepted the colonial epistemology of the Aryan Vedic origin of Indian civilization. Most of them perceived Muslim society as trapped in a medieval religious value system. Muslim rulers in India were condemned as tyrannical and bigoted.
The late nineteenth century was also the period when upwardly mobile peasants from the deltaic region of East Bengal took advantage of changes in the global political economy and began to participate in the cultivation of cash crops such as jute. As they became relatively financially independent, these Muslim surplus farmers mounted stiff resistance to the intermediate tenure holders, predominantly composed of high-caste Hindu elites. A new group of intellectuals emerged from their midst. Many among these intelligentsia felt that there persisted a situation of internal colonization in rural east Bengal. Neilesh Bose has recently asserted that the Bengali Muslim intelligentsia developed a literary tradition highlighting their distinctive notion of being both Muslim and Bengali.[1]
Bengal witnessed the emergence of, to quote Hugh McLennan’s Canadian novel, ‘two solitudes.’ There were obvious exceptions to this trend. In the early decades of the twentieth century, Bengali poet Kazi Nazrul Islam transcended the void between two solitudes. He highlighted commonalities among Bengalis in terms of their struggle against colonial rule. He also spoke to the experience of class oppression among peasants and workers across religious lines. In the 1920s and 1930’s, there emerged a movement known as “Emancipation of Intellect” among Bengali Muslims in Dhaka. Pioneered by the Shikha (Flame) group, these writers questioned the given assumptions about tradition among Muslims. Nonetheless, over the course of the 1940’s these experiments with cultural forms and themes underwent a metamorphosis with the evolution of the popular Pakistan movement.
In extant literature it had been argued that the Pakistan movement in Bengal emerged as a peasant utopia. Yet, there existed distinct cultural movements among Muslim middle classes that sought to highlight the demand for Pakistan in cultural terms. In 1942, the East Pakistan Renaissance Society sought to promote Pakistani nationalism in literature and culture. East Pakistan Literary Association, founded in Dhaka in 1943, similarly sought to encourage Pakistani nationalism in the literary sphere in East Bengal. Thus, the global moment of the retreat of European empires in East Bengal was characterized by a euphoria about a pan South Asian Muslim nation. More importantly, religious nationalism permeated the cultural world of Bengali intelligentsia as well. They sought to distinguish themselves as Muslims from overarching Bengali identity.
Borrowing from Fanon’s notion of national liberation struggle as “a panorama on three levels” I argue that Pakistani nationalism in East Bengali literature between 1947 and early 1950’s represented, in a rather qualified sense, an assimilationist stage, as Fanon asserted. While using the word ‘assimilationist’ I do not argue that such a moment was characterized by a uniform surrender to diktats from an ‘outside colonial power.’ Rather, I argue that such moments of political decolonization were pregnant with many possibilities and trends. In the period immediately preceding the independence, the ideology of a pan-Indian Muslim League nationalism based upon two-nation theory resonated with an assertive Bengali Muslim nationalism and could align with Bengali perception of Desh (homeland) as Purba Pakistan. The idea of Pakistan thus became coterminous of two nationalisms at the moment of her birth: Pakistani Muslim nationalism based upon the two-nation theory and rather undefined and inchoate Bengali Muslim nationalist quest for a homeland. In the post-independence period in the newly independent Pakistan, pan-South Asian Muslim nationalism could temporarily subsume within its fold Bengali Muslim nationalism.
However, as soon as the new Pakistani state came into existence there took place a peculiar conflation of Muslim identity with the Urdu language in the Pakistani officialdom. This official attitude also sidelined the history of the Muslim literati’s involvement with Bengali language for nearly 800 years. Among public intellectuals of Bengal this hostility of officials triggered a rethinking about the role of literature and language in the making of a Muslim community in Bengal. Among the Bengali Muslim literati, thus, two kinds of pressures informed and influenced the making of Bengali identity — the internal marginalization by the Hindu landed aristocracy and high caste Sanskritic cultural entrepreneurs influenced the rise of a Muslim nationalist perception. And yet, the Pakistani ruling social coalitions’ rejection of Bengali Muslim cultural claims led to the formation of an overarching Bengali cultural identity encompassing Bengali Hindu writings. These two trends survived among the emerging literati and intellectuals in East Pakistan and left an indelible mark on the making of popular culture and perception of Bengali identity in general. These two trends sometimes converged and sometimes stood in stark opposition.
It was the cultural movement of the 1950s and early 1960s that helped in developing a resistance ‘culture’ in East Pakistan. I borrow the term resistance culture from the works of Selwyn Cudjoe and more importantly, the work of Barbara Harlow. Expanding on Cudjoe, Harlow perceived resistance as a combination of actions that aimed at liberating people from their oppressors over a larger space. For Harlow, ” resistance literature ” became a crucial component of an organized struggle against oppression. It was through literary and cultural work that oppressed people were able to emancipate themselves from the cultural hegemony and domination of oppressors. It is, however, not claimed here that such a resistance in East Pakistan constituted a monolithic, homogenous totality. Neither is it denied that in some ways, such acts of literary and cultural resistance were also partly complicit in the wider statist nationalist project that it sought to resist. As a colonizing power, the military-bureaucratic junta in Pakistan came from a postcolonial society that had also been involved in cultural introspection. Modern Urdu literature contained a vibrant progressive strand that highlighted the everyday struggles of working women and men and questioned divisive religious nationalism. Yet the statist agenda of internal colonization remained separate from dissenting Pakistani Urdu-speaking intellectuals’ inclusive cultural articulations.
Facing state hostility, there took place a critical introspection of Bengali culture in the 1950’s and early 60’s. It symbolized what Fanon recognized as a phase just before the anti-colonial battle. As processes of internal colonization deepened in East Pakistan, radical poets, novelists, singers and playwrights confronted a state-sponsored nationalist ideology that claimed a shared postcolonial religious nationalist identity with the majority of their subjects, but in practice disenfranchised them on the issue of quotidian governance. In the realm of culture, a suspicion of the Bengali language as un-Islamic, because it borrowed its vocabulary from Sanskritic sources, persisted among officials of the state and even among a section of the Bengali literati. Yet as Ngugi Wa Thiong’o claimed in the African context, writing in a mother tongue is the first act towards decolonization, since it involved an inner struggle concerning the articulation of feelings. In East Pakistan, Bengali writers debated among themselves about the nature of the Bengali that could articulate their Muslim-ness, and whether they ought to depart from the literary tradition of Bengali that existed earlier. Ultimately, they prioritized articulating their views in their ‘mother tongue’ and claimed their heritage to nearly a century-old tradition of Bengali writing that had evolved from Rammohan Roy to Kazi Nazrul Islam.
This debate and assertion of rights to articulate in the mother tongue gradually became a cultural movement encompassing poetry, music, paintings and film making. Bengali literati, as elsewhere, in their early moments of nationalist stirring, turned their attention to folk culture for authenticity. This phase involved, per Fanon, the re-narration or re-interpretation of past times and old legends, or a return to folk traditions and cultures of the people, among the literati. Bengali artists looked towards recovering a syncretic tradition of paintings on earthen plates or sora art in rural East Bengal and scroll paintings known as Patua art. The production of Urdu films in Dhaka was gradually complemented by the making of Bengali films. Bengali film makers, when they made movies in Bangla, started tracing their roots in distinctive folk tales that drew upon syncretic Bengali practices. This became part of the language of resistance against the praetorian state sponsored cultural nationalism. It was within this cultural domain that a newly imagined community of a distinctive Bengali Muslim nation was born in the 1960’s and entered into a dialogue with its political articulation. In other words, the conversation between popular discontent on the street and the cultural movement established the parameters of this cultural introspection. In the words of Auritro Majumder, such a dialogue fosters insurgent imaginations. This is the phase that which, following Gramsci, I understand as characterized by a war of position by Bengali cultural activists. Gramsci conceptualized the idea of a “war of position” in the context of liberal democracies, where the authority of the state or political society was firmly rooted in civil society. In liberal democracies, the ruling classes reinforced such control through civil society. For Gramsci, the liberal democratic state thus exercises not dominance but political hegemony whereby power is exercised through consent and coercion.
This led towards the high 60s, during which there was a confident assertion of Bengali cultural processes. Fanon postulated that the final stage of national liberation struggles arrived when full-blown cultural claim occurred among oppressed nationalities. This third phase in East Pakistan was marked by the emergence of national revolutionary literature through which the literati, in unison with the masses at the moment of national liberation, became “the mouthpiece of a new reality in action.” In Gramscian terminology, it was the second phase that a war of maneuver had characterized. The idea of a ‘war of maneuver,’ as Gramsci conceptualizes it, involves physically overwhelming the state’s coercive apparatus. However, the success of this strategy depends on the nature of the state’s hegemony, that is, its position within civil society. By 1970, through a long-drawn cultural struggle, Bengali autonomy activists could build up a hegemonic notion of a democratic Bengali ethnolinguistic state as opposed to Pakistani nationalism’s idea of a unified homeland for South Asian Muslims protected and guided by the praetorian guards.
Baby Shaw: You made an impression that Ayub Khan, through his ‘basic democracy,’ tried to build a kind of inter-class social cohesion or unity. What kind of cohesion or unity was it, if at all? Don’t you think it is just a farce? In this context, let me remind you that the famous Bengali nationalist Maulana Bhasani was fooled into believing it.
Subho Basu: You have misunderstood. I have said Ayub Khan consolidated a class coalition. The military-bureaucratic state engineered a class of West Pakistan-based monopoly capitalists into existence, and this class coalition excluded the middle types, working styles, and marginal peasants from the social alliance. These excluded classes thus participated in the 1969 revolution.
Baby Shaw: Quite understandably, a capitalist class didn’t happen to be built in erstwhile East Pakistan, but in independent Bangladesh, do you think a proper capitalist class has grown so far because the capitalist class in Bangladesh doesn’t demonstrate any bourgeois liberalism? I know your book contains the history until 16 December 1971, but the present always has a bearing on the past. As a historian, you know the mechanism of class formation in the different phases of history.
Subho Basu: Bourgeoisie did not bring democracy anywhere in the world. In the United Kingdom the Chartist movement and the suffragette movement brought democracy.
Baby Shaw: Do you think the bureaucracy in Bangladesh has a bearing on that of erstwhile Pakistan? In a journal article titled ‘Corruption in Bangladesh: Background Causes and Current Scenario’ (https://articlegateway.com/index.php/JLAE/article/view/6002) published on April 23, 2023, the author, N N Tarun Chakravorty has commented that ‘the sense of oppression and deprivation of the East Pakistani bureaucrats that they went through during the Pakistan regime, may be considered a psychological factor for them to indulge in earning illegal money through bribery as soon as they got seated in key positions after the independence of Bangladesh.’ What is your opinion on this comment?
Subho Basu: I agree with him. But the bureaucracy expanded significantly after 1971. It is a different bureaucracy now.
Baby Shaw: May I extend my thanks to you for enlightening us? On behalf of South Asia Journal, I appreciate that you made some time for us in such a busy schedule!
Subho Basu: Thanks a lot for your time. I really appreciate such a thorough engagement with my book.
[1] Neilesh Bose, Recasting the Region: Language, Culture, and Islam in Colonial Bengal. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014.