There are all those disturbing moments when we are persuaded into
believing that we are fast turning into a nation with a declining sense
of history. And that is pretty amazing, considering that history has
always been the foundation of our societal existence, that through
making history at the crossroads of our nationhood we have gone ahead to
meet the future.
Are we a nation which remembers its history well, if at all it does? We keep harking back to history, but we seem to be ignoring the tangible signs of history all around us. And, then, of course, are all those instances when we go into a careful obliteration of history. There are all those disturbing moments when we are persuaded into believing that we are fast turning into a nation with a declining sense of history. And that is pretty amazing, considering that history has always been the foundation of our societal existence, that through making history at the crossroads of our nationhood we have gone ahead to meet the future. Think of all the disturbing things that were done at Mahasthangarh some years ago. Ancient walls dating from Mauryan times were torn down as part of a joint Bangladesh-France excavation project. You see, when a wall is pulled down, unless it is the Berlin Wall, it is a significant segment of history that is brought down. You cannot live without history. But remember too Robert Frost's lament: "Something there is that does not love a wall." Recall, if you will, all the important spots around us which once played a critical role in the making of Bangladesh's modern history. The old Ganobhaban, once known as President's House, beside Ramna Park in the nation's capital, ought to have been preserved in the way it was used till 1973, when Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman made use of it as his office. Until he moved to the new Ganobhaban (which was originally meant to serve as a hostel for members of Pakistan's national assembly) in Sher-e-Banglanagar, the Father of the Nation operated as prime minister from the old Ganobhaban.
Since 1973, this Ganobhaban has been utilized for multifarious purposes with no one even suggesting that it be kept as it used to be for reasons of history. The Ganobhaban was the residence of vice president Syed Nazrul Islam until the bloody coup d'etat of August 1975. At one point, it was turned into the Foreign Affairs Training Academy. The Ganobhaban story is poignant: during the critical political negotiations involving Bangabandhu, Z A Bhutto and Yahya Khan in March 1971, it was the Ganobhaban which was the venue for the talks. General Yahya Khan stayed here and then fled from there on the evening of March 25. Back in 1961, it was this house where queen Elizabeth II and prince Philip stayed, per courtesy of president Ayub Khan, during their visit to East Pakistan. And yes, there are other structures and places which are part of our history. One is the Central Shaheed Minar in commemoration of the tragedy of February 1952. Burdwan House, home of the East Bengal chief minister in the 1950s, today houses the Bangla Academy. Bangabandhu's residence on Road 32 in Dhanmondi is a museum, which speaks of the tragically glorious life of Bangladesh's founder. But there are other sites that ought to have been preserved as well. Tajuddin Ahmed's home in Dhanmondi, symbol of Bengali nationalism in so many ways, does not exist anymore. That is sad. It is today a high-rise, with little of its original look preserved. Tajuddin Ahmed is one of the greatest men in our history. Should his home have then disappeared in such silence? A comforting bit of news is that the cell at the Dhaka cantonment where Bangabandhu was imprisoned during the course of the Agartala case has been preserved. And the government has done a most commendable job by transforming the cell in Dhaka Central Jail, now shifted to Kashimpur, where the four national leaders --- Syed Nazrul Islam,Tajuddin Ahmed, M Mansoor Ali and AHM Quamruzzaman --- were murdered in November 1975 in a museum. It could have done something similar with the Darbar Hall of the former Bangladesh Rifles, where a mutiny in February 2009 took the lives of 74 people, including 57 army officers. The hall should have been preserved for posterity as a symbol of the bestiality that all too often has led to the making of unmitigated tragedy in this country. Another hall could have been built to serve the purposes of the renamed force (it is now Border Guard Bangladesh), with the old one, dripping with sad memories, being kept intact. The cannon dating back to the period of Mir Jumla, now at Osmany Udyan, ought not to have been removed from where it used to be in Gulistan. Much that is of import in history loses a good deal of its meaning when it is trifled with, in any form. The university residences where Jyotirmoy Guha Thakurta and Gobindra Chandra Dev were shot by the Pakistanis deserve preservation in the interest of national history. The Kali Mandir at the Race Course (Suhrawardy Udyan today) destroyed by the Pakistan occupation army in March 1971 ought to have been rebuilt long ago. Memory against forgetting, did you say?r Syed Badrul Ahsan is Associate Editor, The Daily Observer
