A wish on Victory Day -The Asian Age

Just before the Victory Day this year we saw reports of Pakistan trying to interfere in Bangladesh's elections to oust Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to install its best friend the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). This is sad. This is unacceptable. Thus my wish on this 2018 Victory Day is to make my dear Bangladesh free from pro-Pakistanis.

It is a shame that BNP has remained Pakistan's best friend and serving its master to do everything to destroy the basics of this country as envisaged by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. He wanted a secular Bangladesh.

That was damaged by General Ziaur Rahman and General H.M. Ershad. We had to live through it and saw the rise of war criminals under their patronage. Then it was Zia's widow Khaleda Zia who not only chose the party of war criminals --- Jamaat-e-Islam - not only her ally to win the 2001 elections, but chose two top war criminals as full cabinet ministers.

The step not only confirmed that she and her Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) were patronising the war criminals or in other words Pakistani agents. The other fact, which myself experienced, is the sidelining the War of Independence by mistreating freedom fighters or the families of those who were martyred.

A breath of fresh air came in 1996 when Sheikh Hasina came to power for the first time and her Awami League after 22 years. The respect for the war, the freedom fighters and families of the martyrs returned.

She hosted a reception in the gardens of the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban and gave all of them a symbolic medal of the war. I have treasured it since then. My mother and brother were elated and prayed that she lived long to rule Bangladesh.

That wish did not materialise and in a carefully manipulated elections, Khaleda Zia returned to power to give more powers to the anti-Bangladesh and pro-Pakistani elements. The Pakistan High Commission became a hub of their activities. As a journalist for Agence France-Presse (AFP) I too was invited once.

I quickly left as it was nothing but a get-together of war criminals with Golam Azam, the Jamaat chief, present. He was being personally taken care by the High Commissioner himself. The latest news of BNP's acting chief Tarique Rahman and senior leader Mosharraf Hossain hobnobbing with the ISI is reflective of their allegiance to Pakistan. Thus many international media houses refer to the BNP as pro-Pakistani and anti-India.

What kind of politics is that? Being friendly with those who killed three million people during the war and their soldiers raping more than 200,000 women.  That was supposed to be a plan similar to Hitler to have a generation of mixed Pakistani-Bengalis so that Islamabad could always control them. On the other hand, they never stopped using the anti-India card and labelling the Awami League as pro-Indians.

But it was India which stood by us during the war. Even now, New Delhi has invested some nine billion dollars in helping Bangladesh as Sheikh Hasina not only remembers with gratitude the Indian support, but used her diplomacy to use that friendship for the development of Bangladesh. India acknowledges that and in the South Block they salute her leadership.

It is Sheikh Hasina who has taken Pakistan to task several times for interfering in Bangladesh's internal affairs, while Khaleda Zia and her BNP brought a condolence motion in the parliament to mourn the death of a Pakistani army officer who was also one of those who killed freedom fighters or Bengalis in general.

Thus on this Victory Day ahead of crucial 30 December 2018 general elections, I want that Bangladesh is made free from war criminals and pro-Pakistani elements. Long live the Bangladedsh earned with the blood of three million martyrs, which includes my father.

The writer is Roving Editor of
The Asian Age.