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Literary Review
Sound of silence
BY ANITA JOSHUA
A Suppressed Chapter in History: The Exodus of Hindus from East Pakistan and Bangladesh 1947-2006, Tathagata Roy, Bookwell, Rs. 995.
All those who were sceptical about the clamour against the saffronisation of history during the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led regime ought to at least browse through A Suppressed Chapter in History: The Exodus of Hindus from East Pakistan and Bangladesh 1947-2006 by Tathagata Roy.
To be fair to Roy, he does not claim to be qualified to write history and describes his book as a “political essay” at best. Neither does he camouflage his political leanings. His aim is to expose the “concealment of history” — the migration of 10 million minority Hindus with a handful of Buddhists and Christians to India from East Pakistan after 1947 — and he goes about building his case in the very same tone and tenor of written material produced by the BJP. There is the perennial rubbishing of the Leftist-Nehruvian secular ethos (for some reason, Roy does not refer to it as pseudo-secularism as is wont with the Sangh Parivar) and very little effort to present the other side of the story or introspect; except for an admission that victims of this exodus were themselves partners to this conspiracy of silence. His primary submission, however, is that India — pursuing secularism of the Leftist-Nehruvian model — wilfully turned a Nelson’s eye to the plight of these Hindu migrants from East Bengal.
Using interviews, available written material and admittedly even hearsay, Roy has sought to place on record a major case of human rights violation that has escaped the attention of the world in the hope that it would trigger further research by people better qualified than him.
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