Famed Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir has, essentially, given a “dhoka” (betrayal) to the world through his decision to return the award given to his father by the Bangladeshi government -- because of certain baseless reasons -- in an apparent bid to make himself appear a hero to his country of Pakistan amid the ever-worsening ties between Dhaka and Islamabad.
I have written before that Pakistani rulers, or at least its military power, were angry when their former “slaves,” Bangladeshis, basically flipped them off over the SAARC Summit in Islamabad, which had to be cancelled indefinitely.
Pakistan retaliated by boycotting the IPU conference in Dhaka, but failed to stop it from taking place.
The great betrayal
Mir says he accepted the award because he believed it would help Dhaka-Islamabad ties, which has deterioted under the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh, and how the award was a dhoka in itself to begin with.
Let us recall some of the instances in which Mr Mir had dhoka’d the world into becoming a hero to the current rulers of Pakistan:
He did not mention the current Pakistani government’s role whenever Bangladesh executed a 1971 war criminal, its diplomats being caught patronising Islamist extremists in Bangladesh, and even falsely expelling a Bangladeshi diplomat in Islamabad in retaliation -- not to mention the government’s undiplomatic hob-nobbing with the local opposition, BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami, a move tantamount to poking its nose into another country’s diplomatic affairs.
The award was a gesture of goodwill and gratitude to individuals for their role during the Liberation War and has nothing to do with politics. Sadly, Mir failed to understand said gesture
Pakistan has tried to belittle Bangladesh in front of the Commonwealth by trying to push the organisation into condemning Dhaka for executing war criminals under the pretense of caring about human rights.
Mir, who had asked his government to apologise for the genocide it had carried out in Bangladesh in 1971, has now mysteriously forgotten that, had Pakistan regretted and apologised to Bangladesh for its atrocities, bilateral ties between the two nations could have been entirely different, espeically under Sheikh Hasina whose Awami League party led the war from our side.
It is natural for Pakistan -- after allegedly backing the assassination of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975 -- to have found regimes which represented the country’s unusual interest in Bangladesh, as well as giving it a free hand to open yet another anti-India front.
Traitors among us
We cannot forget how a Pakistani army officer’s death was grieved by Khaleda Zia’s BNP in the national parliament -- much to our utter surprise and shame. Needless to say, the officer was a member of the Pakistani troops which carried out the genocide in 1971.
Islamabad, witnessing growing India-Bangladesh relations, is now furious that its hold on this country has waned, as they have been side-lined regionally and, in some aspects, internationally.
The declaration of March 25 as National Genocide Day, the day Pakistan launched its attack on unarmed Bangalis at the start of the Liberation War, has brought the issue under the international spotlight.
Something that the BNP-Jamaat government would never have done, but, under Sheikh Hasina, has not only been accomplished but continues to be a hot-button topic seeing how she is the daughter of our founding father.
Sheikh Hasina listens to her people, but Pakistani leaders do not listen to theirs, who want warm ties through brotherly gestures like seeking apology, at first, and then paint freedom fighters, such as my own father, as “gardars” (traitors).
Mir now must ask the ghost of his great father, the late Wasim Mir, if his decision to return his rightfully-earned award was a good move.
The award was a gesture of goodwill and gratitude to individuals for their role during the Liberation War and has nothing to do with politics.
Sadly, Mir has failed to understand said gesture and, instead, read the wrong things between the lines in an effort to belittle her leadership.
I urge Mir, please, come to your senses and do not let yourself be used by your nation’s ruling party and military.
Nadeem Qadir is the Press Minister of Bangladesh High Commission in London.