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One by one, those who had taken him into their social fold, started to leave Jessore, leaving a vacuum in his life that caused anguish like a festering wound. For the first time, he came to have close friends, sharing many things in common and over a period of years, two in the case of some, three in the case of others. Only Partha and his family still remained in Jessore, when he left for Faridpur where his father was transferred as Additional S.P.
   He remembers the morning when he and his family left in a big police van very early in the morning. Darkness of night was dissolving slowly, as does black ink in water, creating mist-like hue. Buildings and trees, opposite to their house, stood like silhouettes, making their appearance in soft focus with only the outline etched in the receding dark. There was no movement anywhere and no noise excepting the chirping of birds, getting ready for their daily scavenging. The silence was eerie and to him appeared oppressive. He was not only leaving behind a town where he and his family lived almost three years, for him the longest residence in a place yet. He was also leaving behind the experience of his relationship and acquaintance with boys and girls of another religion that he did not have earlier. Being so vivid in his mind, this experience could not yet be consigned to the past to be recalled as memory. One does not call yesterday’s experience as memory proper. To become memory, events, places and relationships have to lose some of their graphic details and their atmosphere of proximity. It is only through the lens of time that memories emerge in soft focus, as the buildings and trees in that early morning did. The lack of details and vividness lend memory the bitter-sweet quality of nostalgia. In that early morning haze, when he and his family left Jessore after a sojourn of three years, the immediate past had not yet become memory. Even his friends, who had left Jessore for Calcutta and elsewhere, did not become memory yet because their departures were so recent. He could conjure up in imagination their faces, voices and movements in their quotidian existence with such ease that they became corporeal at the time and place of that mental act. Time and tide would have to flow past for quite sometime before his friends would become memory.
   But in that early morning, before the break of sunlight, as he and his family were about to leave Jessore, the germination of memory about his friends began. It is not only the distance of time that is necessary for memory to take shape, half in concrete, half in abstraction. Physical separation from a place can hasten that process. Memory thus becomes a product of both time and place. One can also say, displacement gives a certain poignancy to memory which time alone cannot lend.
   As he boarded the police van he suddenly saw several figures standing in the shadowy verandah of Partha’s house. Gradually, the silhouette-like figures became broadly recognizable. There was his friend Partha and his two sisters, Latikadi and Shefali, standing close to each other, as people do when in shock or grief. He could not see their faces but could imagine the expression from his own. There was no time to go towards them and say goodbye. He had done that the previous evening, knowing that they would be leaving very early in the morning when people would be still in bed. The sight of Partha almost made him cry. Tears welled up in his eyes, which made it more difficult for him to look at them. Of all his friends in Jessore, Partha became the closest and there developed a relationship between them which was more than more ordinary friendship. If there is such a thing as calf-love, that was it. At their age they were on the cusp between boyhood and adolescence. Erotic feelings or sensuality did not appear, either in body or in mind, at that stage. If his relationship with Partha was a kind of love, it was without any physical craving. But he wanted to be in his company, as much as was possible, as if they were twins. While many of the activities pursued among his friends in Jessore were in groups, he went to cinema almost invariably with Partha. There was a chemistry between them that was both mysterious and beautiful. He felt guilty as he looked at the verandah where Partha stood with his sisters, because it was he who was leaving first. He knew Partha, too, would leave Jessore soon. But he was still there and it was he who had severed their relation.
   The inert police van was standing like a primordial creature suddenly trembled, sending clanging sound that reverberated in the silence of the morning, Soon it moved forward with a lurch and gathered speed. Partha and his sisters were left behind. However much he craned his neck and squinted his eyes, he could not catch a glimpse of any of them. Many years later he went to their house in station road and enquired from the man who had opened the door, about the where-about of Partha and his family. It was in mid 1980’s and by then the place had changed beyond recognition. The house of Partha’s family, which was one-storied, had been rebuilt into a two-storied one. But the verandah, where they spent many hours on many afternoons, was still there. The man looked at him suspiciously and told that he did not know any one by that name. His curiosity and enthusiasms dashed to the ground, making him somewhat sad. He did not blame the man, who was perhaps the present owner of the house. The man could be telling the truth when he expressed his ignorance about Partha’s family. Most probably, he bought the house from a ‘Bihari refugee’, who had earlier bought the house from Partha’s family. Perhaps there was no financial transaction at all and it was all a matter of occupying an abandoned place. Since 1947, when India was divided into two countries, India and Pakistan, there have been so much of demographic change and so many cases of displacements of people, the number of real estate that changed owners or residents must be mind-boggling, he thought. Every time those involuntary changes took place, twice in his life time, hundreds of thousands paid prices through suffering, loss and deaths, for the politics that made those changes inevitable.
   Seen in the perspective of displacement of people, their suffering and the chronic feeling of insecurity of the Muslims in India and occasional feeling of uncertainty among Hindus in Bangladesh, the partition in 1947 cannot but appear as an act of selfishness of the few who decided on behalf of many. True, both the Congress Party and Muslim League leaders had the masses behind them when they decided to carve up the sub-continent. But the masses were worked up to a communal frenzy by them and did not realize the consequences that awaited many of them. The blame for the great blunder done is given to different personalities, depending on who is making the judgement with hindsight. But that all three parties, viz British Government, the Congress party and the Muslim League were responsible for the great tragedy that followed the partition and echoed far into the future, is beyond any shadow of doubt. The British should not have been in such a hurry to leave the colony that was the jewel in the crown of the British Empire, before a consensus was reached for keeping India united. The Congress should have been more broad minded, and generous being the party of the majority, and accepted the Cabinet plan. Their worst fear that the grouping of provinces under the Plan and the provision for their constituting separate states after ten years might turn out to be real was not averted by the rejection of the Plan. In an ironic twist, it led to the partition of the sub-continent, which they objected to all through Moulana Abul Kalam Azad in his memoirs held Nehru responsible for his obstinacy and uncompromising attitude, particularly in respect of the Cabinet Plan. The Muslim League should not have lost patience and go for ‘Direct Action’, which precipitated the decision to divide India. It could have continued negotiating on the basis of the Cabinet Plan which it had accepted earlier. By accepting the Plan, it had already earned respect and admiration of the British Govt. and could trust on the latter’s sincerity. After all, Jinnah, too, had said that the Lahore Resolution for a separate homeland for the Indian Muslims was a bargaining chip.
   Whatever were their expectations about the future, the three protagonists did not realize or foresee the bloody consequences of their decision. They thought in terms of ‘nations’ and communities and not in terms of individuals or families refugees like Moulavi Allah Rakha and hundreds of thousands like him did not enter into the calculation of Mr. Jinnah. Nor did Partha and other Hindus who left their hearths and homes and went to India as refugees had any place in the ‘tryst with history” that Nehru waxed so lyrically. If they did, he would still have found Partha and his family in their ancestral home in station road, Jessore. And Moulavi Allah Rakha would have no reason to flee from his ancestral village in Mungheer, Biher.
   The tragedy of the partition is that now there is no or very little way of locating Partha and Allah Rakha, in space and time, as representative of those who were displaced. If they are alive, their mind cannot be much better than the character in Manto’s short story “Toba Tek Sing”. Like skeletons in graves, their lives can be recalled in bits and pieces, only in memory, by those who had fleeting acquaintance with them by accident. He is one of them still alive, to tell the tale, as it were. But before long these personal remembrances of the past will pass into oblivion. Only number and statistics will remain.

While the grenade blasts at the Awami League (AL) rally on August 21 that killed as many as 20 AL workers and hurt 200 more are still alive in the minds of the country’s people, another such dastardly grenade attack on the AL meeting at Baidderbazar of Habiganj district has taken place, killing five AL activists, including former finance minister Shah AMS Kibria, MP, and injuring over 100 others. These unscrupulous and bestial acts are, no doubt, intended to weaken the process of institutionalisation of the values that would lead to democratic governance in Bangladesh. The grenade attack on the AL meeting on January 27 was barbaric and savage. And these acts of violence on political meetings/rallies or civil society members one after another while the country is overcoming age long economic inertia through reforms and is in the struggle to brace itself for the competitive quota free world, are coordinated, well thought out and heinous. Let the truth be told that violence as a political tool is nothing new in Bangladesh. Unfortunate, but true is the fact that these are happening while Bangladesh has embarked on a journey on the path of democracy and while it has achieved a sustaining 5.5 per cent GDP growth.
   This time also, all people irrespective of political shades and opinions have expressed their condemnation and abhorrence of the grenade carnage in Habiganj. The world leaders as well as the diplomats joined the citizens of Bangladesh to condemn the dastardly attack.
   The government has already formally sought help from the international agencies to investigate the grenade attack. Talking to newsmen, Foreign Minister M. Morshed Khan said that already help and cooperation of the International Police Organization (Interpol), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Scotland Yards (SY) had been sought and they had responded positively. It is reported that officials from the organizations are expected to reach Dhaka on February 1. Two Interpol members have already arrived in Dhaka.
   However, in our “criminalised politics” some political parties have professional killer groups and cadres. Quite a few party high-ups themselves are said to rear gangsters and operatives. Whenever the party high ups hold any rally or meeting anywhere, they are surrounded by these killer groups and operatives. In this situation it is very difficult for any stranger to get at them. However, it is believed that the radicals are extremely daring about doing anything anywhere. Whichever elements are behind the attack, there is no doubt that these acts of violence are the consequences of our criminalised politics. Hereditary politics is also further giving birth to political terrorism to a great extent in our country.
   Sadly, bomb blasts and grenade lobbing have become a frequent event in Bangladesh. But no clue to these incidents was found in the past. The tragedy of 27 January also remains without any clue, as yet. It may be remembered that the present government as well as its predecessor came to power with firm pledges to wipe out terrorism from the country. Surprisingly, none of the cases of bomb blasts and grenade attacks have had a charge sheet submitted to the court by the police, despite the occurrence of as many as 18 major bomb blasts and grenade attacks across the country in recent years, killing 148 people and injuring hundreds of others.
   The investigation of the rest of the cases has made no progress as yet. Such a failure of both the previous and present governments to deal firmly with the earlier incidents of bomb blasts and grenade attacks seems to have further emboldened these fiends to go on with these violent acts. Every sensible citizen now fears about where Bangladesh is heading, as one by one bomb and grenade blast incidents are taking place with impunity. The ambassadors of the European Union in Dhaka have also observed that a failure to investigate previous grenade and bomb attacks has created an anarchic situation encouraging the continuation of such incidents. They expressed their observation in joint statement issued on January 28.
   According to various media reports, both western and our national, Islamic fundamentalism is on the rise in Bangladesh dangerously. In recent times, more fatwas (religious edicts) are emanating from the foaming mouths of Islamic fanatics. They are wildly calling for changing the political system from democracy to Sha’ria-based governance. Soon the entire nation could be radicalised. The ominous signs are already unravelling. Ms. Eliza Griswold, the reporter of The New York Times (a widely respected newspaper in the world), painted a very grim picture of Bangladesh in her very damaging write-up on January 23, 2005, in its magazine section, in which she boldly proclaimed that Bangladesh is becoming a ‘hotbed’ of Islamic fundamentalism.
   All these investigative reports done by reputed reporters have put Bangladesh on the radar screen of the Bush administration. That is precisely why Richard Boucher of the US State Department has expressed the administration’s concern over grenade attacks on public meeting. He said, “The failure to bring to justice the perpetrators of acts of political violence fosters an intimidating climate of insecurity and impunity that encourages further attacks.” The US State Department also urged all Bangladeshis to exercise “maximum restraint and, even in these difficult circumstances, to pursue their political objectives and their search for justice in a peaceful and lawful manner”.
   But despite the clear evidence of creeping fundamentalism over the past decade, successive governments, including the current one, seem either unable or unwilling to tackle the problem. Both AL leader Sheikh Hasina and BNP Chief Khaleda Zia remain busily engaged in blaming each other for violence and terrorism. But neither party seems to link the violence to a growing fundamentalist threat and so fails to address the root causes. The situation is such that if the BNP today deserts the Jamaat, the AL is readily awaiting the fish with crisp offers. So, the opposition party (AL) is also equally responsible for the rise of the fanatics in politics.
    Logical analysis suggests that the BNP men cannot have any interest in doing such violence as they are comfortably in power. Naturally, the ruling BNP cannot afford to destabilise its own government. Rather, these one by one horrific incidents have thrown the government into a state of deep embarrassment and huge economic loss. BNP Chairperson and Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia in her earnestness has allowed the FBI and Interpol as before to probe into the incident. She intended to find out the real culprits of 8/21 tragedy, but these agencies could not succeed. So, it is absurd to think that the BNP had caused the incidents. The AL president and Leader of the Opposition Sheikh Hasina has claimed, as usual, that the ruling BNP is behind the attacks, of course without substantiating the allegations. She also demanded immediate resignation of the government of Khaleda Zia every time and her party is out to oust this government.
   It is learnt from media reports that the terrorists, who carried out last year’s grenade attacks on the AL rally at B.B. Avenue, Dhaka, and on the British High Commissioner to Bangladesh, Anwar Chowdhury, in Sylhet, used the same Arges brand grenade on the AL rally at Baidderbazar in Habiganj. After inspecting the spot and examining the pieces of evidence, a bomb squad of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) identified the grenade. It reveals that an organised gang of terrorists has been launching the grenade attacks one after the other, and at least half a dozen of the country’s intelligence agencies have miserably failed to nab a single perpetrator even with the help of Interpol and FBI experts. It is now for the government, if it means to assert control over the country under the authority vested by the people, to take appropriate steps to wipe out political terrorism from the country.
   In view of the whole thing, one must say that it has become imperative on the part of the government to find out the truth behind these heinous grenade attacks on AL rallies and the government should be fully sincere in identifying those responsible for the last incident and capture the real perpetrators. We think that the government should have a strong will and commitment to eliminate political terrorism from the country without pointing finger to the opposition leaders. The government owes it to the people of the country to take real deterrent measures to put a stop to terrorism. The opposition leaders should also extend their all out cooperation for finding out the truth giving up the blame game. We are still optimistic that the nation and national interest will be kept above personal and partisan political interests. And now it is time that all pro-independence forces and political parties got together, brushing aside all minor ideological differences, to safeguard the country from the machinations of the terrorists whoever they might be.
   For feedback: msaifulh2003@yahoo.com

A few weeks ago I tried to explain the logic of Bush-style Social Security privatisation: it is, in effect, as if your financial adviser told you that you wouldn’t have enough money when you retire — but you shouldn’t save more. Instead, you should borrow a lot of money, buy stocks and hope for capital gains.
   Before President Bush’s big speech, a background briefing by a “senior administration official” made it clear that the plan calls for exactly the “borrow, speculate and hope” strategy I described — not just for the system as a whole, but for each individual.
   Here’s the money quote: “In return for the opportunity to get the benefits from the personal account, the person forgoes a certain amount of benefits from the traditional system. Now, the way that election is structured, the person comes out ahead if their personal account exceeds a 3 per cent rate of return” — after inflation — “which is the rate of return that the trust fund bonds receive. So, basically, the net effect on an individual’s benefits would be zero if his personal account earned a 3 per cent rate of return.”
   Translation: If you put part of your payroll taxes into a personal account, your future benefits will be reduced by an amount equivalent to the amount you would have had to repay if you had borrowed the money at a real interest rate of 3 per cent.
   Peter Orszag of the Brookings Institution got it exactly right, “It’s not a nest egg. It’s a loan.”
   For years, privatisers — including Mr Bush — have claimed that people would do better with private accounts than with traditional Social Security even if they played it safe and invested in US government bonds (which yield 3 per cent after inflation).
   But the official at the briefing made it clear that his boss was fibbing: if you invested your private account in government bonds, you would face benefit cuts equal in value to your investment, so you would be no better off than under the current system.
   The only way to get ahead would be to invest in risky assets like stocks, and hope for higher yields. But if the investment went wrong and you earned less than 3 per cent after inflation, your benefit cuts would leave you poorer than if you had never opened that private account.
   So people are expected to take a loan from the government and use it to buy stocks, and if that turns out to have been a mistake — well, too bad.
   Experts usually tell people to plan for their retirement by investing in a mix of stocks and bonds. They disapprove strongly of speculation on margin: borrowing to buy stocks. Yet Mr Bush wants tens of millions of Americans to do exactly that.
   Meanwhile, what does any of this have to do with the ostensible purpose of the whole thing: saving Social Security?
   Here’s the senior official again, “In a long-term sense, the personal accounts would have a net neutral effect on the fiscal situation of Social Security.” The government would have to borrow huge sums up front to create the personal accounts — $4.5 trillion in the first two decades — but it would supposedly make up for all that borrowing with offsetting cuts in account holders’ benefits many decades later.
   Colour me sceptical, will retirees with private accounts that performed badly really be forced to repay their loans in full? Even if they are, private accounts will at best have a “net neutral effect” — that is, they will do nothing to improve Social Security’s finances. Mr Bush says the system faces a crisis; what does he propose to do about it?
   The answer, presumably, is that his plan will also involve major benefit cuts over and above those associated with private accounts. And it’s true that you can improve Social Security’s finances with privatisation, as long as you also slash benefits — just as you can kill a flock of sheep with witchcraft, provided you also feed them arsenic. (Thanks, M. Voltaire.)
   Do you believe that we should replace America’s most successful government programme with a system in which workers engage in speculation that no financial adviser would recommend? Do you believe that we should do this even though it will do nothing to improve the programme’s finances? If so, George Bush has a deal for you.
   The New York Times/The Asian Age