Ekushey 1972
As Coordinator of the refugee relief programme assisting 600,000 Bangladeshis, I was sitting in my OXFAM Refugee Relief Office near Park Circus, Calcutta on 21st February 1972 when I was informed by a...
View ArticleBangladesh’s refugee policies
Bangladesh shares it’s borders with India to the east, west, and north and with Myanmar in the south-east. Off the coast of Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh is the world’s biggest delta, which makes it prone...
View ArticleA genocide and refugees: Ripples in the pond
Ever since the 1971 war, Pakistan has officially denied the accusation of genocide that is at the centre of Bangladesh’s historiography. Pakistani scholars, politicians and columnists often describe...
View ArticleDenying Rohingyas: Not in our name
The image of a Rohingya man pleading to be allowed into Bangladesh from Myanmar with folded hands and a weeping face says it all. But what the image doesn’t say is that the family was refused entry and...
View ArticleRohingyas: No easy answer
Public opinion in Bangladesh, at least the liberal segment of it, has become inflamed by a single, powerful image of the Rohingya refugee crisis: a Rohingya man begging for shelter with clasped hands,...
View ArticleAlaol’s unfortunate children and Bengali nationalistic chivalry
It was 1978. The now-defunct Weekly Bichitra made a cover story titled, “Manush Aite achhe – naaf nodeer baner lahan” (People are coming in like flood on Naaf River). All of a sudden, a group of people...
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