By Sikander Hayat
Since Hasina Wajid has come to power in Bangladesh, relations with Pakistan are steadily going downhill. Pakistan has no borders with Bangladesh, there is no water or land issue and there is no reason for the Bangladeshis to keep hating Pakistan. A different generation of Pakistanis was responsible for the separation of Bangladesh and whatever took place in 1971. If a country wants better relations with another country, she will do that despite any issues and if a country wants to pick a fight than again it does not need a reason.
Currently, Hasina Wajid's government is trying to rake up dirt at every possible moment. Here are some of the issues which this government is using to make sure that they always use Pakistan as a safe whipping boy:
1. War reparations2. Apology for civil war in East Pakistan3. Division of assets4. Opposing Pakistan at the WTO 5. Treason trial against those who supported the united Pakistan ( East & West)
One can understand that background of Hasina Wajid does play a role in her hatred for Pakistan. She is after all the daughter of Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rehman who was murdered by Bangladeshi army officers after separation from Pakistan. She needs to understand that whatever wrong her family has suffered is not the fault of Pakistan. Pakistan cannot be held responsible for her father's treatment at the hand of his own army and sooner she realises that it will be better for her own country.
In Pakistan, nobody cares what Bangladesh is demanding as their hands are full. Pakistan has bigger fish to fry in the form of United States of America, NATO, India & Afghanistan and in all this Bangladesh's concerns rank very low.
In my view, Bangladesh should stop using Pakistan as an excuse for their problems and grow forward as a nation full of pride in the future, not looking back and blaming Pakistan.
I understand your view but if Bangladesh's concerns are ranked very low, then why does it matter if the head of state, as a corrupt as she is, hates Pakistan.
ReplyDeleteTo an Indian who grew up in the 1970s and ‘80s, the sights of Dhaka, seem to belong to a past that Indian metropolises have mostly outgrown: exuberantly battered buses, unpainted buildings, pavement book vendors with faded posters of Rabindranath Tagore and Karl Marx as well as The Rolling Stones, and pitch darkness on the unlit streets and squares where rural migrants congregate in the evenings. The countryside still feels closer here than in Kolkata or Mumbai.
ReplyDeleteIn recent years, Bangladeshis have suffered the brutality of security forces and massive environmental destruction. For months now, the news from the world’s seventh-most-populous country has been dominated by the fractiousness of the country’s main leaders, the trial of men suspected of war crimes during Bangladesh’s war of liberation in 1971, and the slavery-like conditions of the country’s garment industry.
I arrived in Dhaka during one of the many recent strikes called by the opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, against the ruling Awami League. The shutdowns, imposed through force, seemed economically ruinous, damaging small businesses the most; they resolved nothing. At first glance, Bangladesh seemed, like many countries in its neighbourhood, to be struggling to find a way forward.