Prof Nuzhat Choudhury, daughter of Dr Abdul Alim Chaudhury, one of the martyred intellectuals during the 1971 Liberation War, has said that she will not forget the basic essence of Bangladesh birth while looking forward.
“I have to look back to look forward,” she said at a Dhaka Tribune organized seminar styled “Setting the agenda: What will the next 5 years bring?”.
Former state minister Md Shahriar Alam MP; Shama Obaid, organizing secretary of BNP, Prof Dr Imtiaz Ahmed, professor of international relations at Dhaka University, and Dr Manisha Chakraborty, central committee member of a left-leaning political party Bangladesh Samajtantrik Dal (BaSaD), were also in the panel, moderated by Dhaka Tribune Editor Zafar Sobhan. The embassy of Norway supported the event.
Prof Nuzhat Choudhury mentioned the 1971 Liberation War, the fateful night of August 15 in 1971 when the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was killed, and the August 21, 2004 grenade attack on the then opposition leader, now Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina.
She said the basic essence of the Liberation War was to have a “democratic society, free and fair society, also a secular society”.
“Our very fabric of secularism is being eroded every second. It is like a fire that is burning underneath your building and you don't know,” she said.
“The rise of fundamentalism has reached such a level that I fear for my country, for my country's future.”
Her father Dr Alim Chaudhury was the then top ophthalmologist.
He was dragged from his home and then brutally tortured and martyred along with thousand other intellectuals on December 14, just two days before the final victory in 1971.
“So, when we talk about the future of a country or when we talk about looking ahead, when we talk about reaching point B from point A, I always have to look back and look at point A,” she said as the anti-liberation forces like Jamaat-e-Islam are still active in Bangladesh politics.
“Bangladesh paid a very high price for the country, for a sovereign country, but not only for freedom, freedom of people from being dominated by other powers, foreign powers, freedom to speak their own mind, freedom to decide their own future.”
She agreed with the points of raising the health budget and solving the problem of corruption raised by other speakers.
However, Prof Nuzhat said: “No matter how much budget there is, no matter how much voice the people have, one fine morning in a developed Bangladesh, you find there is a Taliban uprising. So, is that the future we want to see after, say, 20 years, 15 years?”
She acknowledged the present government’s efforts to try war criminals and said the government is trying hard to keep “it a secular country balance between the Muslim identity and also a progressive nation.”
“There is no contradiction between being a Bengali progressive and very good Muslim,” she said.
“In the Jamaat-e-Islami, they have known killers in them. I know my father's killer. I know their names. But when we want to try them, even big political parties are against us,” she said, as the main opposition BNP is the ally of Jamaat-e-Islami.
“We have waited four decades to have justice. These things matter. I don't want a Taliban Afghanistan. Afghanistan was a very developed progressive country in the 70s. Where is it now?
“We want a democracy where everybody can speak, but where everybody respects each other. It is not dominated by fundamentalists. It's not dominated by one specific religious ideology,” Prof Nuzhat said.
“When we talk about the stability of the country, when we talk about democracy of the country, in the name of democracy, do we allow space to those people who killed us, who did not want Bangladesh? It needs to be answered,” she continued.
“If somebody wants to use Islam for political gain, it is a fundamentally extremist party. So, do you compromise with that?
“We must understand that for a democracy to flourish, religion and the state governance needs to be separated,” she said.
“Rise of fundamentalism is a big issue for me and by policing you can't control it. This government has obviously taken care of the war criminals trial process and it is going on. We demand that it should go on until the last of the criminals are tried.
“But basic fabric in education, in our mental build up, in our dress, in our culture, the changes that I see worries me. And it has nothing to do with whether you have representation in the parliament or not,” she said.
She also spoke against money laundering and the way the money is being siphoned out of the country by the elite class.
“It is the poor people who are farming and also their boys are going, their girls are going to foreign countries and they're doing their best to give remittance to this country. And it is the upper class, the elite class who are sending their money to foreign banks.”
She also spoke about the persistent interference in the politics from the foreign powers and as a civil society member she said “that really makes us angry.”