THE BIG DATA ; DATABASE STATE TO SURVEILLANCE STATE

SOURCE:http://www.rediff.com/news/column/database-state-to-surveillance-state/20170131.htm



                THE BIG DATA.


             DATA BASE STATE 
                                 TO 
         SURVEILLANCE STATE
                                 By
                      Gopal Krishna  

January 31, 2017 10:46 IST

UID/Aadhaar-based surveillance does not 

end with the collection of fingerprints and 

iris scan, it goes quite beyond it and poses a 

lethal threat to the idea of India, says Gopal 

Krishna.

Illustration: Dominic Xavier

                                                         𝐆𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐚𝐜𝐚
[ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWjlUj7Czlk ]

  [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIyJ7gBDyJ0 ]

While responding to a request for an urgent hearing in the matter of 'biometric information' based e-identity and 12-digit biometric unique identification (UID)/Aadhaar number-related projects, when the Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar-headed three judge bench asked, 'Surveillance to what. Is it a big deal?' the beneficial owners of the World Bank Group in general and the International Monetary Fund in particular must have patted their backs in satisfaction.

The arrival of a presumptuous Surveillance State is linked to the emergence of a Database State. In Discipline and Punish: The Birth of Prison, 

 [ https://monoskop.org/images/4/43/Foucault_Michel_Discipline_and_Punish_The_Birth_of_the_Prison_1977_1995.pdf ]   

Michel Foucault observed that surveillance is based on a system of permanent registration. It is a decisive economic operator.

A chapter titled 'On the Map: Making Surveillance Work' under the section 'Revolutions in the International Monetary System' in the book, Silent Revolution: The International Monetary Fund 1979-1989 corroborates Foucault's contention. [https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/history/2001/chapter1.pdf ]  

This book was published by the IMF in 2001.

The chapter deals with the principles and procedures of surveillance.

It admits that 'Surveillance, a central pillar of IMF activities and responsibilities in the modern era, is not an easy concept to grasp.'

It will have us accept that only the heads of public institutions can grasp and communicate the meaning of 'surveillance.'

The IMF commiserates with lesser mortals, stating that it knows that 'surveillance' does sound terrible. This is understandable.

But it does not sound terrible to the three 

judge bench.

Jacob A Frenkel, an IMF official, is quoted in the book as 

arguing that this word

'surveillance' should be made to sound benign.

It 'should give way to concepts of cooperation, partnership, and consultation; of bringing on board the rest of the world’s considerations.'

This publication states, 'In practice, surveillance has encapsulated all of the above notions, but at its best it has been motivated by and has itself promoted a spirit of international cooperation.'

This publication informs that the first official use of the term came in June 1974. The IMF was concerned that 'Few, if any countries, however, were prepared to be subjected to surveillance in that strong sense. The 1980s therefore became a decade of experimentation, in which the staff and management of the Fund constantly probed and prodded to see how far they could go in persuading countries to respond positively to Fund analysis and advice.'

This concern of the IMF is deeply touching. But the IMF's efforts did yield results and by the mid-1990s, a 'silent revolution' had happened in countries like India, it infers.

By 2013, citizens of at least 35 countries and their heads came to know exactly what 'surveillance' means due to disclosures by Wikileaks, Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras.

It sounded terrible to them.

Both the US National Security Agency and the World Bank Group have a different and benevolent sounding meaning in mind.

'Even among IMF staff,' the publication admits, 'those questions did not yield uniform answers.'

This incomprehension among them is understandable because it admittedly 

                                means

'close observation especially of a suspected person.'

Heads of financial institutions, the US president and the Indian prime minister 

appear to be busy getting this 

dictionary 

meaning of 'surveillance' changed

through their powers of persuasion, peer pressure and advertising to avoid confusion that still exists despite relentless and sincere efforts at least since 1974.

Public institutions seem to have been taken for a 

ride.

'If surveillance was to have any substance,' the IMF publication states, 'the Fund would have to develop that influence: Through the power of persuasion (Fund management and staff to country authorities), through peer pressure (country to country in the forum of the Fund), and through publicity (Fund to the public).'

'The relative merit of each of these channels was always the subject of much debate. Was publicity appropriate, or would it conflict with and even nullify the benefits of persuasion and peer pressure?'

The publication uses the word 'Fund' to refer to the IMF.

'Did surveillance mean that the IMF was expected to be a financial Interpol, seeking out and punishing errant behaviour, or should its role be more that of a faithful confidant of those entrusted with implementing macroeconomic policies around the world?' the IMF asks itself.

Have most public institutions in India become a 'faithful confidant' of the World Bank Group?

There is a revelation in the publication that the IMF is concerned with the 'viability of military spending' as well.

The IMF took a formal position on the role of military spending in national economic policy in October 1991.

At that time, its executive directors concluded that, 'As military expenditure can have an important bearing on a member's fiscal policy and external position, information about such expenditure may be necessary to permit a full and internally consistent assessment of the member's economic position and policies.'

If this is not an exercise in surveillance, which admittedly sounds 'terrible', what else is it?

Earlier, on April 23, 2010, the World Bank launched its eTransform Initiative by signing a memorandum of understanding with France and South Korea besides transnational companies like L-1 Identity Solutions, IBM, Gemalto, Pfizer and others.

The World Bank is currently funding 14 projects related to e-government and e-ID around the world.

The Supreme Court judges may have 
missed watching Gattaca,     [ Look on top] a 1997 film written and directed by AndrewNiccol which dwells on a genetic registry database that uses biometrics to classify 'valids' and 'in-valids.'

If the 12-digit biometric UID/Aadhaar number-based surveillance is not abandoned the way it has been abandoned in China, Australia, the Philippines, the US, the UK and other countries, 

the  Indian courts will soon be dealing 

with 'valid' and 'invalid' Indians.

The emergence of such architecture poses a lethal threat to the very idea of India.

Referring to the incident of surveillance of his mobile phones, in an article titled  My Call Detail Records and A Citizen's Right to Privacy (external link)

published in Gujarati, Hindi, Urdu and English, Arun Jaitley, then the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, wrote, 'This incident throws up another legitimate fear. We are now entering the era of the Adhaar number. The government has recently made the existence of the Adhaar number as a condition precedent for undertaking several activities; from registering marriages to execution of property documents. Will those who encroach upon the affairs of others be able to get access to bank accounts and other important details by breaking into the system? If this ever becomes possible the consequences would be far messier.'

It is clear that once lawmakers become part of the government, they become enlightened about the benefits of surveillance.

It is relevant to reiterate in this context that Nandan Nilekani, the then chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India, was given the ID Limelight Award at the ID World International Congress 2010 in Milan, Italy, wherein Safran Morpho (of the Safran group) was a key sponsor of the ID Congress.

Its subsidiary, Sagem Morpho Security Pvt Ltd, had been awarded a contract for the purchase of biometric authentication devices on February 2, 2011, by UIDAI.

Coincidentally, in 2009, a similar award was given to the head of Pakistan's National Database Registration Authority which successfully implemented a UID/Aadhaar-like project, which has been shared with authorities in the US as per cables (external link) leaked by Wikileaks.

Is it a coincidence that Morpho sponsored the award to the chairman, UIDAI, and the former got a contract from the latter?

It may also be noted that UIDAI awarded contracts to three companies -- Satyam Computer Services Ltd (Mahindra Satyam), as part of a 'Morpho-led consortium', L-1 Identity Solutions Operating Company and Accenture Services Pvt Ltd of US for the 'implementation of biometric solution for UIDAI' on July 30, 2010.

Following the Central Information Commission's intervention in the matter of application filed by Colonel Mathew Thomas, an octogenarian defence scientist, and submissions by the author on his behalf, UIDAI shared its contract agreement with French and US biometric technology companies, but crucial pages are missing from the contract agreement after the CIC heard the matter on September 10, 2013.

When this was pointed out to the new information commissioner, he ordered the registrar, CIC, to check compliance by UIDAI's earlier order.

The registrar then informed that the new information commissioner has allowed UIDAI to furnish limited financial information.

In effect, he changed the earlier order of the CIC without the authority to do so.

The writ petition (civil) No 9143/2014 in this regard is pending in the Delhi high court. The next date of hearing has been fixed for February 21, 2017.

In the meanwhile, J Satyanarayana's appointment as part-time UIDAI chairman on September 6, 2016, does not inspire even an iota of confidence.

On pages 46-47, the report by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology that examined the work of the department of electronics and information technology (DeitY), ministry of communications and information technology, asked about the surveillance by the US National Security Agency. J Satyanarayana, as secretary, DeitY, formally communicated that India has no problem if they conduct surveillance for metadata, in fact it is acceptable and tolerable but 'incursion into the content will not be tolerated and is not tolerable.'

Notably, the ministry of electronics and information technology, which was formed by giving the status of a ministry to DeitY, has been misleading state governments, the media and citizens.

The idea of UID was incubated in this very department.

The old maxim, If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear, has been given a very public burial. This has been thoroughly debunked.

Notably, this myth is attributed to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. Database State, a report from the UK, states: 'In October 2007, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (Department) lost two discs containing a copy of the entire child benefit database.'

Only blind faith in a Utopian State can persuade people to think that they have nothing to fear after trusting their personal sensitive information to a Database State.

If an UID/Aadhaar-enabled Biometric Attendance System is indeed a 'digital equivalent' of an 'age-old attendance register,' why did the National Human Rights Commission object to a radio collar which can also be argued by sophists to be a 'digital equivalent'?

Notably, the Union ministry of external affairs agreed with the NHRC's assessment.

The Union minister of external affairs informed Parliament that some 18 students were detained and released in the US with radio monitoring devices on their ankles, pending completion of investigations for possible involvement in irregularities.

'We have also strongly protested the radio collars as unacceptable, which should be removed immediately.'

If the 'digital equivalent' means biometric equivalent as well, then radio collar and DNA-based identity and attendance will also be deemed equivalent to 'age-old attendance register.'

It is quite evident that such claims are deeply misleading.

Giorgio Agamben, the 74-year-old Italian philosopher who has been teaching at the University of Venice and New York University, predicted in 2004 that the 'bio-political tattooing' is the precursor to what would later turn into a normal identity registration of a good citizen.

It provides a continuity between the world of the Nazi concentration camp and contemporary democracy.

It paves the way for a genocidal liberal 

order.

Biometrics 'concerns the enrollment and filing away of the most private and incommunicable aspect of subjectivity,' which consequents into the capture of the human body by the authorities for good.

Till now such assault on the private human body was an 

exception, now it is becoming the norm.

Surveillance has been used as a tool to shape the relationship between the citizen and the State.

Both identification and surveillance have co-existed since time immemorial, but it is now assuming frightening architecture with the marriage of statistics of biological characteristics, and biometric technology with digital sculpture.

The reference to 'such other biological attributes' in Section 2 (g) of Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016, and the definition of 'biometrics' under the Information Technology (Reasonable security practices and procedures and sensitive personal data or information) Rules, 2011 under section 87 read with section 43A of Information Technology Act, 2000 underlines that it includes 'the technologies that measure and analyse human body characteristics, such as "fingerprints", "eye retinas and irises", "voice patterns", "facial patterns", "hand measurements" and "DNA" for authentication purposes.'

It is abundantly clear that the plan of UID/Aadhaar-based surveillance does not end with the collection of fingerprints and iris scan, it goes quite beyond it.

According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, surveillance means 'close observation, especially of a suspected person'.

So far the Supreme Court has not had the occasion to examine the most glaring aspect of cyber biometric surveillance, which entails close observation of all the present and future Indians indiscriminately as suspects.

Notably, colonial powers had suspect 

identification offices in Egypt and India after the

 development of biometric identification by Sir Francis 

Galton, an English eugenicist who supported 

slavery.

In the book Imprint of Raj: How Fingerprinting was born in Colonial India, Chandak Sengoopta (2003) reveals how biometric identification technique was fine-tuned by the Bengal police.

Eugenics and slavery have long been abandoned, the scientific claims of biometrics too have been found to be dubious (external link) by reputed institutions.

If surveillance is not a big deal, why is 

Edward Snowden in Moscow since June 23, 2013?

Why is Australian journalist Julian Assange in Ecuadorian embassy in London since July 19, 2012?

And why was Chelsea Elizabeth Manning (formerly Bradley Edward Manning) sentenced to 35 years imprisonment in August 2013?

If surveillance is indeed such an innocent act, then why is the entire US establishment paranoid about surveillance from Russia?

Isn't the word 'surveillance' being 

made to sound benign as desired by 

the IMF?

Gopal Krishna is member, Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties, and appeared before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance that examined and trashed the UID/Aadhaar Bill, 2010.

He is editor, www.toxicswatch.org

SOURCE:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericrmeyer/2015/02/09/oil-and-gas-china-takes-a-shortcut/#730a6fc92d40





CHINA BURMA ECONOMIC CORRIDOR 

                            [CBEC ]

With Oil And Gas Pipelines, China Takes A Shortcut Through Myanmar

                                        By

                                Eric Meyer ,

   On the 29th of January, China opened, with little 
fanfare, a new oil link through Myanmar. Despite its 
low profile, this project has clearly been a huge 
undertaking, both technologically and politically.  

This 2,400km long pipeline runs through some of the most rugged areas on the planet, marked by jagged hills and ridges and dense jungle. On top of that, two stretches of the pipeline traverse two of Southeast Asia’s political hotspots, the Rakhine and Shan 
Stateswhich retain semi-autonomous armies that have only just recently been nominally pacified.

The new route however, has one invaluable advantage in eyes of Chinese leaders:  it bypasses the Malacca straits, whose infamous waters are infested with pirates. A 300,000 ton super tanker recently discharged its oil at the new deepwater port located on Maday Island—the first time this had happened—marking the start of new pipeline’s operation.  That oil will now flow to Kunming, the capital of the southeast Chinese province of Yunnan, which borders Myanmar. The pipeline shortens the distance the oil will have to travel by sea to reach China by 700 miles.  It also cuts by 30% the time this liquid black gold will take to get to the Middle Kingdom.

\\\

(Image: Shwe Gas Movement)

Avoiding the Malacca detour had the other, even more invaluable advantage in the eyes of the Chinese leadership.  With 80% of all imported hydrocarbons to China going through the Malacca sea-route, China is vulnerable to having its overseas energy supplies blockaded by the American 6^th Fleet during a Sino-U.S. geopolitical crisis.  The Burmese pipeline diminishes that risk, as the oil and natural gas will no long have to pass through the Malacca Straits chokepoint.

Parallel to the oil pipeline of Maday, another link has been functioning since October last, from the sea port of Kyaukpyu, which is dedicated to methane.  
This pipeline has already transported to China four 
billion cubic meters of methane from both Burmese 
and Middle Eastern (Qatari) sources.

The $2.5 billion invested into the pipeline have been 
entirely covered by the giant state-owned oil company, China National Petroleum Company (CNPC), which owns this key infrastructure. But the project has not gained acceptance from all of the concerned parties.  The Burmese locals have resented what they see as  inadequate  compensation for the expropriation of farmers affected by the building of the pipeline.  They also resent the fact that almost all of these riches associated with the project are heading to China through their territory, depriving Myanmar of any gains from this potentially valuable development tool. Others lament the limited effort to protect the environment during the pipeline’s construction.  



But all of these hard feelings disappeared once China promised to hand over a total of 53 billion dollars in royalties in 30 years to the government of Myanmar.  And the local Myanmar armed factions were pacified by $25 million in schooling and other social development projects.

Some 10% of the gas is supposed to stay in Burma, but none of the oil, as the refining facility will be built in Kunming, at the end of the line, with a capacity of 10 million of tons of crude oil.

The project is concluded, but this does not mean that the local Burmese opinion is happy about such Chinese infrastructure building or about Myanmar’s collaboration on such undertakings with its giant neighbour?


Accusations of resource plundering are still rife. In 2011, another giant Chinese project was temporarily put on ice for now by massive social protests.  That project was the huge Myitsone dam, whose power output (100 billion of KW/h per year) was to go entirely Yunnan. Its fate is not yet entirely decided, but in a hint of things to come, up to 45.000 villagers have been relocated.

Another even bigger behemoth project is now in the works, a railway line is being discussed, which 
will follow the route taken by the pipelines. This project has a price tag of $20 billion dollars and would allow China to more easily import Burma’s precious wood and all sorts of other commodities, 
while also facilitating the flow of Chinese workers to the coast. As of now, no decision has been taken, but given Beijing’s leverage, the construction of the new railroad seems to be foregone conclusion.

The Cancer Of 1971 Unfortunately, the war is not yet over.

SOURCE:
http://www.eurasiareview.com/30012017-the-cancer-of-1971-still-consumes-bangladesh-oped/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+eurasiareview%2FVsnE+%28Eurasia+Review%29

The Cancer Of 1971 Still               Consumes Bangladesh

                                By

                      Bhaskar Roy 

Unfortunately, the war is not yet over.

Location of Bangladesh. Source: CIA World Factbook.

                                               BY SAAG 

JANUARY 30, 2017

I would be morally remiss if in my article on Bangladesh (my first article on the country this year-2017) I did not revisit the torture and trauma the Bengali people suffered in their struggle for freedom from Pakistan. The Liberation War was fought on the plank of ethno-cultural independence and secularism. 

Unfortunately, that war is not yet over.

In 1947, when India was divided by the British on the demands of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan was formed (West Pakistan in the West and East Pakistan in the east) on the basis of religious (Muslim) majority areas.

The Bengalis of East Pakistan soon discovered that their language, culture and diversity were under threat from the dominant western wing. And thus started the long arduous and “bloody” struggle for a Bengali identity that ultimately led to independence. The resistance to the imposition of Urdu started in the 1950s, by both Hindu and Muslim Bengalis who shared the deep bonds of language, ethnicity and culture.

In their long struggle for independence of Bangladesh, the following dates are of critical importance:

February 21, 1952 – Language Movement Day

March 25, 1971 – Operation Searchlight Martyred Intellectuals Day

December 14, 1971 –December 16, 1971 – Surrender by Pakistani Forces

August 15, 1975 – Assassination of Bangabandhu, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman

November, 1975 to December, 1975 – Coups Counter Coups and trials by ‘Kangaroo courts’ of liberation fighters later brutally assassinated by Zia-ur-Rehman

1952 was the watershed moment for Bengali aspiration. The call was to oppose the imposition of Urdu, an alien language which brought with it the subtle infiltration of an alien culture. On February 21 of that year several protestors in a peaceful anti-Urdu demonstration were killed in police firing. Bangladesh observes this day as Language Movement Day. February 21 has been recognised by UNESCO (1999) as International Mother Language Day in a tribute to the Bengali language movement and the linguistic rights of people all over the world. (The government of Bangladesh must be credited for this).

In 1970, the Awami League won the Pakistani general elections. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, its leader of the Awami League should have become the prime minister of Pakistan. But that did not happen; instead he was arrested and imprisoned and the elections rescinded.

Responding to widespread protests in Bengal, the Pakistani army of Gen. Yahya Khan launched ‘Operation Searchlight’ on March 25, 1971 – it was a planned military operation to wipe out the Bengali nationalist movement. The Pakistani army perpetrated a reign of terror, ably assisted by their local henchmen, mostly members of the right-wing fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami. The massacre continued till the Pak army surrendered to joint Bangladesh-India command on December 16, 1971. Over 90 thousand Pakistani military personnel, including officers and other ranks surrendered to the Indian army, which had to give them protection, otherwise they would have been torn to bits by the Bengali people. The surrendered Pakistani personal were brought to India and later repatriated to Pakistan.

‘Operation Searchlight’ had a much larger agenda. The West Pakistani generals realized the impossibility of retaining East Pakistan, and therefore adopted a scorched earth policy. Their aim was to leave the newly independent country maimed and destroyed. More than 3 million people were massacred and over 3 thousand women raped. The economy was destroyed. On December 14, Bengali intellectuals both Hindu and Muslim were rounded up and brutally murdered by the Jamaatis who had formed killer organisations called Al Badr and Al Shams, under the generic nomenclature of Razakars. Intellectuals are the backbone of a nation and eliminating them would set the nation back by a generation or two. Hindus were a specific target, the aim being to kill as many as possible and drive the rest to India. Millions of refugees, both Hindu and Muslim, poured into India. Many did not return.

The story did not end with liberation. On August 15, 1975, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was assassinated with his entire family, including his 10 year old son, Sheikh Russell.

Only two of his daughters Sheikh Hasina and Sheikh Rehana survived, because they were living in West Germany then.

The group of army officers who killed Bangabandhu and his family and others close to him, were not alone. Turncoat Awami League leaders, the Pakistanis and the Americans were part of the conspiracy. It was a personal act of revenge for Henry Kissinger, (U.S. National Security Advisor under President Nixon) who was rabidly pro-Pakistani, pro-dictatorship and anti-democracy in countries that the Americans wanted to control.

The era of betrayal had begun. It divided the nation and remains a festering wound to this day.

Major Zia-ur-Rehman, highly decorated “freedom fighter” was, perhaps, the biggest betrayer of liberation. Soon after Sheikh Mujib’s assassination four national leaders of Bangladesh were also killed. The date August 15, 1975 has another significance. It is India’s Independence Day and India had supported Sk Mujib and the liberation fighters. What better way would there be for the anti-liberation forces to “thumb their nose” at India?

Several Bangladeshi friends have remarked to this writer that they had expected Indian tanks to roll down the Jessore Road to Dhaka, to help Bangladesh to consolidate its independence. And they were dismayed when that did not happen.

Information available now suggests that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had overstretched herself in 1971; global dynamics had shifted and India would have been labelled an aggressor in the UN Security Council.

Returning to Zia-ur-Rehman. He seized power in a coup in November 1975. He quickly moved to annul the collaborators (Special Tribunal) order of January 1972, released all convicted and under trials for their role in collaborating with the Pakistani army. Zia reinstituted the banned Jamaat-e-Islami party for a support base and floated his own party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which had many anti-liberation elements.

Zia strengthened the political assassination culture, executing hundreds through closed door trials. Judicial assassination of Col. Abu Taher, a highly decorated freedom fighter (who had helped free Zia after his arrest post Sheikh Mujib assassination) was a sickeningly brutal act. Abu Taher, a Bangladeshi patriot with a vision for a modern and progressive country was completely opposed to Zia’s blueprint of making Bangladesh a protectorate of Pakistan.

And the young army officers who killed Sk. Mujib and his family were not free radicals out to save Bangladesh, but part of a large conspiracy to sabotage liberation and secularism. Many of them were sent on diplomatic assignments by Zia, to keep them out of harm’s way.

Ultimately Zia was killed in an attempted coup. 

Historians have a sacred responsibility to delve much deeper into Zia-ur-Rehman. His abhorrent role still remains a riddle to be solved by Bangladesh’s educated to take the liberation forward.

Decades of military rule and rise of religious extremists have harassed Bangladesh. In the past 4 years on more, reasonable secularist voices dared to come out in the open to claim their space, but some of them, as we know, were brutally murdered by extremists.

Today, vote-bank politics seems to have shrunk the space for free independent thinking and secularism. This is a dangerous trajectory for the nation.

Recently, the Bangla Academy attempted to impose a two year ban on the publishing house “Srabon Prokashoni” till public outrage forced the Academy to step back. The reason, according to Bangladeshi media, was that the owner of this publishing house Robin Ahsan expressed solidarity with writers and activists defending the right to free speech, life and liberty (Dhaka Tribune, January 3, 2017).

Several of these activists including atheists were assassinated by religious extremists like the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB). This organisation is known to be linked to the Al Qaida. Investigating into these incidents have been tardy. Regrettably, government entities have warned free thinkers not to provoke those opposed to secularism and freedom of speech.

Sadly, news now comes that 17 topics which dealt with educating school children on various neutral topics including one on Hinduism and another of a travelogue to north India, have been deleted in school text books. It is believed that the government has succumbed to the demands of Hifazat-e-Islam, a Madrassa based organisation that believes in a purely Islamic Bangladesh. The organisation believes that these topics are pro-atheism and anti-Islam.

In 2013, Hifazat-e-Islam held huge rallies in the capital city of Dhaka demanding an anti-blasphemy law and changes to text books.

In recent months attacks on Hindu temples and Hindus have sharply increased. This brings back the spectre of 1971 when Hindus and their places of worship were similarly attacked but on a much larger scale. In the bloodshed of India’s partition in 1947 a huge Hindu migration from Bangladesh (than East Pakistan) took place. The next large scale migration of Hindu population occurred in 1971 during the war of liberation.

Even now, Hindus who can afford it, trickle into India. But many Hindus still feel strongly that Bangladesh has always been their home from an astral times and want to remain there.

The textbook rewriting many become an incremental step towards provoking more Hindu migration. This will change the characteristic and secular credentials of Bangladesh and rooting out the vision of the founding fathers of the nation.

What will it do to future of the youth of the nation? To be a part of globalisation and achieve the development agenda of the nation, this can be a major setback.

The youth, the future leaders of the nation must be educated without bias. Clamping down on intellectuals, independent thinkers and a multi-religious and multicultural people is antediluvian.

The government must do a rethink. Accommodating the pressures of obscurantists even as a tactical political move is self-defeating. They will demand more and more.

(The writer is a New Delhi based strategic analyst. He can be reached at e-mail grouchphart@yahoo.com)

TOPICS:BangladeshForeign PolicyPakistanSouth Asia