Profound lessons of history

December 16 marks two big tragedies for our nation: the Fall of Dhaka and the indiscriminate killing of innocent children and staffers in an armed attack on the Army Public School Peshawar. To this day, the memories of these two darkest days shock us to the core of our souls. On Dec 16, 2014, six terrorists of the TTP mercilessly mowed down 138 innocent schoolchildren and 18 staffers at the APS leaving the entire nation stunned. That act of brutality remains etched in our collective memory. Those whose near and dear ones were martyred in the massacre now await the outcome of a judicial commission constituted in October 2018. A 14-point National Action Plan was formulated after the APC massacre. Outgoing Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa has rightly observed nothing substantive has been done in this regard.

On this day in 1971, the Fall of Dhaka happened, and Bangladesh came into being.  We need some soul-searching to understand why Bengali Muslims who fought shoulder to shoulder with the people of those regions which now constitute Pakistan for a separate Muslim homeland chose to carve a different path. The majority of Bangladeshis remain staunch Muslims after the creation of Bangladesh as they had been in East Pakistan. The enemies only took advantage of lack of prudence on our own part. Somehow or the other the Bengalis, who constituted the majority population in united Pakistan, felt that they were not getting an equitable share in the state of Pakistan. Their perception may or may not be true, the fact remains that they carved out a separate country based on ethnic and linguistic identity. But we continue to harp on the theme that non-Bengalis committed excesses against Bengalis in 1971 and after the creation of Bangladesh, Bengalis settled the score with non-Bengalis. Herein lies the danger of a single story.

There is not one truth; there are multiple truths. One individual has multiple identities. Besides being a Muslim, a Bangladeshi is a Bangladesh national, a speaker of Bangla language, a lover of Nazrul Geet, a male, a believer in democracy or otherwise and so on. Now we should proceed on a prudent course because everyone gains from it.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 17^th, 2019.

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