Author: CulturalUniverse

Why was Bangladesh created and what kind of Bangladesh was dreamt of by those who fought for and supported the efforts for independence during the liberation war? There is currently a deep confusion about the reason why Bangladesh was created and what kind of Bangladesh was envisaged by the supporters of independence. I think the […]

These two young children were being helped by Barrister Shajahan’s project for street children in Dhaka. I do not remember the exact name of the project, but he once told me how, to win the trust of the street children, he would dress up scruffy and hang around on the streets where the street children […]

I have two minds on this, based on short and long term issues. I know how the initial welcome of Bihari Muslims after the partition of India in 1947 turned, later, into hate against them and the marginalisation of the community. They have been living in a nightmare situation ever since without a place they […]

I have worked in many major inner-city regeneration programmes in the UK, including on the Greenwich Waterfront Strategy and Stratford City Challenge during the early 1990s, and subsequently in Ealing, Bedford and Brent. I also worked in the development of the unsuccessful Woolwich/Plumstead City Challenge bid in 1992. It was an intensive and insightful learning […]

As we talk about decolonising knowledge and make efforts in this regard, we should be clear about what needs to be done. There is a possible and most probably danger that we will replace euro-centric history with another centric history Euro-centric history There is an increasing realisation, and rightly so, about what’s wrong with euro-centric […]

We are entering December 2020, the month 50 years ago in 1970 when Pakistan held a free and fair general election covering both wings of the country after about twelve years of military dictatorship. The result of the election and what happened next set a motion in place and, by the following December in 1971, […]

74 YEARS OF PARTITION | The Evolution of the relationship between Pakistan, India and Bangladesh After listening to the discussion in the on the above I was prompted to reflect on the topic and write something on the topic. Some elements of the developing imaginations of the Hindu nationalists in India during the 19th and […]

I spent four days in Aceh, Indonesia, in July 2018. I took a Citilink flight from Medan (North Sumatra), and the journey was going to take about 70 minutes with the arrival time scheduled for 1.40 pm. However, just before mid-way, the captain announced that there was a technical problem which necessitated the plane’s return […]

During mid-April each year, two or three days preceding and culminating in the Bengali New Year, the three districts of the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh – Rangamati, Bandarban and Khagrachari – become a place of colourful festivities. Boisabi is a collective name given to the festivals that take place in the Hill Tracts, coined […]

This annual carnival takes place during February in the city of Oruro, which is known as the folklore capital of Bolivia, situated about 226 kilometres from the country’s capital city, La Paz. It is the most popular festive event in Bolivia and one of the greatest festivals in the world, with more than 2,000 years […]