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Bangabandhu and ‘New China’

Published : Tuesday, 17 March, 2020 at 12:00 AM  Count : 3485
Fakrul Alam
Fakrul Alam

Fakrul Alam

Today is the birth centenary of the Father of Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. And so it is fitting that he who dreamt of, and led the way to our independence should also inspire us to think of forging east-east or south-south interconnections of value through his writings - for they are legacies that can guide us into the future through their transformational attributes. I am thinking in particular of two of his prison books in this regard. The first is 'The Unfinished Memoirs', written between 1967 and 1969, when the thought of independence was rooting firmly in his mind; this text was published decades after his death in 2012.
The second one is 'Amar Dekha Noya Chin', written even earlier in 1954, and to be published in English translation soon; its provisional English title is New China. The first book is based on the draft of an unfinished autobiography where Bangabandhu spends around 11 pages of the nearly 300 page book describing a trip he had taken as a member of the Pakistani delegation to Beijing, or as it was called then, Peking, between 2-12 October, 1952.
The second and the earlier manuscript were written during a stint in prison in 1954. In the recently published Bengali version it has 63 pages of narrative of the trip to China and 34 pages of reflections on the differences between the "New China" that he saw and the moribund state of Pakistan that he and his people had inherited, and was feeling hemmed in, because of anti-people administrators and politicians.
What I propose to do now is more or less ignore the narratives in both versions and concentrate briefly on the positives that Bangabandhu felt could be learnt from the Chinese experiment in nation-building going on. For us in Bangladesh at this time, this will be food for thought when we contemplate afterwards on how we can learn from each other in the south in the wake of decolonization as we face renewed threats in a new imperium from neo-imperial hegemonic strategies surfacing in various guises.
Reading these books, and thinking about the possibilities of non-aligned meets like the one Bangabandhu had attended in 1952, I am reminded of the spirit of the Bandung Nonaligned Conference of 1955, whose spirit has been  said to inspire later meets and perhaps has influenced what is now known as the Beijing Consensus or the Chinese model. That model, could offer an alternative to prescriptions imposed from the north through a south-south alliance countering neoliberal worldviews. Certainly, in the sections on "New China" in these two prison manuscripts, the young Mujib is stirred by the possibilities of a model of development and of friendships and alliances that would enable countries from non-aligned parts of the world to counter domineering western ones.

Even in the brief 11 page account of his 10 day trip to China in Unfinished Memoirs, Bangabandhu's anti-colonial mentality and admiration for the resolve of the Chinese "to build their country anew" and showcase its exuberance  "at throwing off the foreign yoke" is  everywhere obvious. It can be seen with hindsight that the Peace Conference, where "338 delegates�from thirty-seven countries" had come together, foreshadows the Bandung Conference. Bangabandhu seemed to be quite taken by the camaraderie on display, and the readiness of even the Indian and the Pakistani delegates to come together, despite the bitter 1947 division of the subcontinent.

Whether in Beijing or in Shanghai or Hangzhou, Bangabandhu reports with great enthusiasm on the "new China" being built based on "a whole new way of thinking" (236). What he could see in the Chinese was that "their eyes lighted up with ideas and hopes of a new world" (ibid). Clearly, there were lessons to be learnt in all this for Pakistan, the country that Bangabandhu had worked for as a Muslim Leaguer in pre-partition Calcutta and campaigned for in East Bengal. Clearly, too, he was anti-capitalist and socialist in his outlook and was already imbibing the kind of spirit that could and should be the mantra of south-south relationship.

Bangabandhu being greeted by Mao Tse Tung , Chairman of People’s Republic of China, during his visit to Beijing in 1957

Bangabandhu being greeted by Mao Tse Tung , Chairman of People’s Republic of China, during his visit to Beijing in 1957

To quote him, "People from newly liberated countries had an obligation to come together for world peace�It was vital to build public opinion in favour of world peace" (237).
In 'Amar Dekha Noya Chin' one can see Bangabandhu not only reporting on the Peace Conference that he had participated in but also seeing admiringly a country being transformed. It is apparent throughout the narrative that he began as a sceptic; throughout it we find him asking probing and leading questions whenever he is taken to a factory or a farm or a university. We see him talking to ordinary people such as factory workers and rickshaw pullers as well as government officials. Sometimes he even plays the devil's advocate, so to speak, for he is bent on learning the truth, and on amassing insights that he would find of use for his own country. By the time he finishes, however, he concludes, and I quote from my draft translation, "The truth is-here is a new country, new people, and new modes of behaviour. It appears that there is newness in the air, everywhere".

'Amar Dekha Noya Chin' is thus a valuable document for those of us who would like to find alternative modes of development that would allow countries of the global south to be free of the clutches of neoliberalism and the far-flung net empire has cast over the world. What appeals to Bangabandhu is a country where leaders and workers sit down to work out policies for factories and farms, where women are part of the workforce and have daycares for their children so that they do not have to worry about them.

What attract him are strategies being implemented to weed out corruption and minimize unemployment, and developmental policies that work by involving the people. What he finds of interest are practices where small/cottage industries are not neglected because large industrial units are being set up, policies where land is being redistributed and used optimally, and a world where begging and opium addiction is already almost a thing of the past. As he sees these signs, he is continuously reminded of the way things are in Pakistan, where feudal mindsets dominate and religion is used to privilege a group and empower religious divines.
Contrary to reports he had read before coming to China, he sees tolerance for Muslims and is impressed by the frugal ways followed by leaders like Mao. The constant question that underscores his questioning of the Chinese and his attempts to evaluate the extent and the usefulness of the experiment going on in China is always-could we transform ourselves this way?

For us at this time, then, what is important is looking at the prospects of becoming part of the "global south" through constitutive efforts of the people of the south. We must learn from the best practices of southern nations, and think of southern alternatives to the routes propagated by neoliberalism, even though we must not forsake the best practices of the global north in the process.

And if it is pointed out at this time that the Chinese themselves have abandoned the route that they had followed when Bangabandhu wrote about them so eloquently, and if Mao himself became a cult figure and almost a godhead later. We can try to figure out why that was the case and why the route Bangabandhu had admired had been abandoned by an increasingly totalitarian government and another road taken towards absolutism.

The writer is academician and translator of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman�s autobiography �The Unfinished Memoirs�


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