Abdur Rahman Khan

It was November 7, 1862. The last Mughal king, Bahadur Shah Zafar, breathed his last away from his home in exile at Yangon in Myanmar.
   The greatest epitaph he composed was inscribed on the grave-stone depicting the pain in the tragic end of his life and the passion for his beloved motherland, where he could not find even two yards of land for his burial.
   The last in the lineage of Mughal emperors who ruled over India for about 300 years, Bahadur Shah Zafar, lost to the treachery of his close and trusted people and the British colonial forces. With it, India too, lost its sovereignty.
   Son of Akbar Shah from his Hindu wife Lalbai, Zafar was placed on the throne in 1837 when he was little over 60 years old. Bahadur Shah Zafar, like his predecessor, was a weak ruler who inherited the throne when the British domination over India was strengthening and the Mughal rule was nearing its end. The British had curtailed the power and privileges of the Mughal rulers to such an extent that by the time of Bahadur Shah Zafar was enthroned, the Mughal rule was confined to the Red Fort. Bahadur Shah Zafar was obliged to live on British pension, while the reins of real power lay in the hands of the East India Company.
   It was at the time of Bahadur Shah that the War of Independence in 1857 began. In Bahadur Shah Zafar, the freedom fighters found the symbol of freedom and therefore nominated him as their Commander-in-Chief. In the initial stages, the freedom fighters became successful, but later on the strong and organized British forces defeated them.
   Bahadur Shah, who had been proclaimed as an emperor of whole of India, was overthrown. He was arrested from Humayun's tomb, in Delhi, where he was hiding with his three sons and a grandson. Captain Hodson killed his sons and the grandson. Bahadur Shah Zafar himself was tried for treachery. He was exiled to Rangoon (now Yangon), Burma (now Myanmar), in 1858 where he lived his last five years and died in 1862 at the age of 87.
   Bahadur Shah Zafar was a devout Sufi. Zafar himself was regarded as a Sufi pir and used to accept murids or pupils. Prior to his accession to the throne, in his youth he made it a point to live and look like a poor scholar and dervish. During the reign of Bahadur Shah Zafar, Urdu poetry flourished and reached its zenith. He himself was a prolific writer and an accomplished calligrapher. He had acquired his poetic taste from his grandfather and father who were also poets. He passed most of his time in the company of poets and writers and was the author of four diwans. Love and mysticism were his favourite subjects that found expression in his poetry. Most of his poetry is full of pain and sorrow owing to the distress and degradation he had to face at the hands of the British. He was a great patron of poetry and literary work and some of the most eminent and famous Urdu poets like Mirza Ghalib, Zauk, Momin and Daagh used to attend the mushairah at his royal court.

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Mohiuddin Babar

A few weeks ago, the Indian Ocean archipelago Maldives seized world attention when its government held an underwater cabinet meeting. The meeting, chaired by the President and attended by almost all the ministers in under-sea diving gear, was intended to draw global attention to the feared impact of climate change which could wipe out the archipelago due to rise in sea level. Maldives is an agglomeration of several hundred islands most of which are just a meter above the sea level.
   Following the stint, the Nepalese cabinet sat at the foothill of the Himalaya and held a meeting. This was also intended to draw global attention to the feared plight of the country due to the reported melting of ice cap atop the Himalayan mountain range. Truly, both these countries have strong reasons to trumpet their worries and fears. According to scientific evidences, the Himalayan ice peak, known as the third pole, is depleting fast. The water run off will cause erosion and may flood the mountain lap. It will also affect agriculture in Nepal and derail tourism, both of which are the mainstay of Nepalese economy.
   The two events above are very timely as they add stimulus to the warm-up preparations for the climate summit due in the Danish capital Copenhagen in December. The global meeting in Copenhagen is significant against the backdrop of climate change fallouts observed in the recent years and more importantly, in view of the failure of the Kyoto Protocol which was supposed to bring some relief in reducing the global warming.
   It is already said and believed that climate change impacts will be borne mostly by the poor and developing countries although they are the least contributors to global warming. It is an irony that countries like Nepal, Maldives, Bangladesh and other impoverished countries have become vulnerable to the changing impacts of climate.
   Bangladesh is one country which is at the forefront of the risks generated by climate change. According to the UN climate change panel and several other international academic and scientific studies, predicted sea level rise will devour twenty per cent of the southern landmass of the country and force over twenty million to turn refugees. Though the President and the Prime Minister have been highlighting the matter in many international forum, it is yet to be seen how much sympathetic consideration is being courted by the world community for adapting measures to check the catastrophe.
   The Copenhagen summit will be a highly significant event and no scope should be missed to attain as much from it. A lawmaker in the British Parliament has recently said that Bangladesh must be saved from the impending plight of climate change. Quite unfortunately, we can not trace any serious discussion in our own parliament on the issue. We need to draw the attention of the global community and force them to realize our worries, our fears and our helplessness. As Maldives and Nepal have done in sensitizing global opinion, our leaders could have organized a meeting in the Sundarbans, the biggest mangrove forest which itself will be the first casualty of the sea level rise.
   babar.mohiuddin@gmail.com

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'Today's context is more perilous than it was in November 1975. A puppet government and a rubber stamp parliament have been installed through managed polls. People have started feeling the pinch...,' said BNP Secretary General Khandaker Delwar Hossain at a discussion organised by the BNP to mark the National Revolution and Solidarity Day at the Institution of Engineers. The party chief, Khaleda Zia was in the audience. He said, the government has turned the country into a safe haven for hegemonic forces. 'Hegemonic and expansionist forces are conspiring against the country in the way they did in 1975,' Delwar said and urged his party activists to guard against the plots.
   'The government is continuing with the move of the military-controlled government to divide BNP into pieces by filing fresh cases and attempting to extract confessions by force from the party leaders in custody. To put the government back on track and to safeguard democracy, all nationalist forces should unite under the leadership of Khaleda Zia,' he said. Delwar accused the government of being engaged in a smear campaign against BNP in a bid to weaken it. 'Conspiracies are continuing against the party founded by Ziaur Rahman. The prime minister herself is lying in the house about the leader of the opposition. They have turned the parliament into a centre of conspiracies...,' he said. Delwar said had the events of November 7 not taken place, the country's independence and sovereignty could not have been protected. The BNP marked the National Revolution and Solidarity Day with a call for restoring the state-level programmes on November 7, including a public holiday. The BNP's programmes began with placing flowers at the grave of the party's founder Ziaur Rahman at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar. The party chairperson Khaleda Zia, along with senior leaders and several thousand activists, placed flowers and offered fateha at Zia's graveside at 11 am on the day.  The party's activists started pouring into Zia Udyan carrying banners and festoons and chanting slogans since morning. The party flag was hoisted at its central office at Naya Paltan and at all local unit offices.

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