I don’t think so. What do other people think? My view is based on several factors, one of which is that a large part of Bengal is within India, so the variety of Indian food includes foods from Bengal, which shares common characteristics with many elements of food in Bangladesh. Also, India itself has many […]
Blog
Being critical should be separated from nationalistic hatred
By M Ahmedullah (From a Facebook post on 7 June 2016) There is a danger that when criticising the British Empire for all its crimes – exploitation of people around the world in unprecedented ways; the violent takeover of large tracts of lands around the world; displacement of people from their ancestral lands; genocides of […]
A turning point in my life in 1981
Sharon Prabhakar’s concert at Harrow Leisure Centre disrupted; a torn-up burgundy hunter jacket; a lost earing; a big movie-like action fight on the highway; a night at the Wembley police station. Materials needed for constructing social history come from many sources. They are public records, print and non-print media, oral history and so on. When […]
Problems of history
People study history for many reasons, and I will not try to provide a list in this regard. I want to talk about some problems that arise from history. History is full of wars, conflicts, genocides; rise and decline of power; population movements; growth of knowledge, innovations and discoveries; etc. Those who study history seriously […]
President Zia of Bangladesh
President Zia of Bangladesh was brutally assassinated on 30 May 1981 by members of his military. Not many people in Bangladesh knew much about President Zia before he started to take control of the country in November 1975. At first, he was the deputy chief martial law administrator, then became the chief martial law administrator […]
Pemba, the first conflict grave of the English East India Company
(You may want to read my article in the Muslim News) ‘On December 21, 1608, a strange exchange transpired onboard the Ascension, the flagship of the fourth voyage of the East India Company. This was between the crew and a group of six or eight captives brought on board after the English captured their three […]
Francis Drake (1579) and Henry Middleton (1605)
Two Englishmen in Ternate (You may want to read my article in the Memorients) ‘Ternate is a small, cone-shaped volcanic island in North Maluku (present-day Indonesia), the most important of the several original homes of cloves, the highly sought-after spice. I took a domestic flight from Jakarta to Ternate on 14 September 2018 and stayed […]
The proposed law against hurting religious sentiment in Bangladesh will actually hurt religion
By M Ahmedullah, 20 May 2016 There is a current draft law in Bangladesh prepared to deal with cybercrime. It includes ‘deliberately defaming someone or hurting anyone’s religious sentiment’. It stipulates a sentence of two years imprisonment. Of course, defaming someone innocent by someone who has access to the internet is unacceptable. Only proper evidence-based […]
An assertive multi-culturalism can deal with the xenophobic forces unleashed by the ‘muscular liberalism’ of the Tories
Anti-multi-culturalism in a diverse society is a recipe for conflicts and disasters By M Ahmedullah, 25 June 2016 The relentless attacks on British multi-culturalism by the Tories after coming to power in 2010, to replace it with what they call ‘muscular liberalism’, have unleashed ugly xenophobic forces in the country. The Tories and their supporters […]
Is the idea of the ‘Bengal Renaissance’ misguided and harmful?
During the last several centuries, most societies in the world underwent massive changes and transformations, caused by western colonialism and exploitation; western ideas and literature; western science and technology; and western economic, political and value systems. The colonial masters carefully guided, nurtured and influenced certain changes in the lands and countries they controlled that they […]