Interview: Shashwata Bhattacharya

Material development alone cannot help sustain the key spirit of state

Shashwta Bhattacharya
Prothom Alo

Communal violence recently broke out in the country centring incidents at a Cumilla puja mandap. As a sequel to the violence, miscreants attacked a Hindu-dominated area in Pirganj upazila of Rangpur and vandalised, looted and set houses on fire on Sunday night. Prothom Alo talked to Shashwata Bhattacharya, a cultural organiser in Rangpur, college teacher and researcher on Rabindranath Tagore.

Q :

Why the recurrence of communal violence in the country?

This is the first time the people of Hindu community in Bangladesh could not complete celebrating their biggest religious festival, Durga Puja, unhindered. This is not only a shameful, unfortunate and condemnable incident for the Hindu community people, rather for all people with conscience.

We are continuously losing the ground to say proudly that this is a country imbued with the spirit of Liberation War. I have become speechless out of shame reading media reports and seeing photos and videos of what is happening in Bangladesh for one week. I know this feeling is worthless (to those who committed the crimes). Still, as a conscious person I must think about why such incidents are recurring. The attackers are creating issues and scope for the attacks. It’s as if the same drama of vandalisation, arson attack, looting and rape is being staged time and again.

Q :

Is the culture of impunity responsible for this?

The deployment of security forces, compensating the victims, rebuilding the damaged house after the incidents -- all of these are as usual material solutions. But we have never seen any initiative to resolve the psychological damages. The emotional value that is built over the time centering a house, furniture, utensils -- these are invaluable. Steps to wipe the tears of victims by throwing them in the dark recess of culture of impunity is nothing but a farcical step. The number of these incidents could somewhat decreased if all the previous incidents were tried, if all the actual miscreants were brought to justice.

Q :

What do you think of attack and violence in Pirganj, Rangpur?

The excuses that were used to attack (the Hindu para) in Pirganj of Rangpur on 17 October, exactly same excuses were used to carry out an attack in Thakur Para of Rangpur a few years ago. When the attack is carried out at another place in Rangpur in the same way, it increases our concerns. We must think where is the end, what’s waiting at the end? Surely we will not see anything except darkness if it continues this way. But those who believe in the spirit of Liberation War, those who think a secular state is our main goal, those people can in no way accept the vaunting of extreme communal forces in Bangladesh.

The people of different cultural organisations and people with conscience must come forward to take Bangladesh to the path of noncommunal spirit. It is not possible to sustain the main spirit of the state with the material development only ignoring the psychological development.

* The interview, originally published in the online edition of Prothom Alo, has been rewritten in English by Shameem Reza