Raja Tridiv Roy came into the limelight when
he, though opposed by an Awami League
candidate, was elected to the National
Assembly of Pakistan from his home
constituency, the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT)
in the 1970 elections in which Mujib's party
swept the polls by capturing 160 out of 162
National Assembly seats earmarked for East
Pakistan. He and an octogenarion Nurul Amin
were the solitary non-Awami League winners
in East Pakistan.
The Raja was sent to other South Asian
countries by the military regime of the day
to explain its view point in the political
crisis that gripped the country on the
transfer of power in the wake of the fateful
1970 elections. After the fall of Dhaka, he
threw in his lot with Pakistan and was
inducted as a Minister in Bhutto's cabinet.
He continued to serve in the subsequent
regimes as an advisor or an ambassador till
1996. The present government has conferred
on him the status of a federal minister.
Raja Tridiv Roy has published his
reminiscences entitled The Departed
Melody. The book begins with the history
and culture of the people of the Hill Tracts
and the Chakma Rajas. Tridiv Roy claims to
hail from "the only area in the subcontinent
that had original Buddhists" and links up
his tribe, the Chakma, with Buddha's Shakyas.
The vast majority of the Hill inhabitants
are Buddhists, the others being Hindus,
Christians and even a few animists. They
have a high literacy rate. Yet, the Raja
laments that they are socially neglected and
politically dispossessed.
The book touches on the causes of tension in
the East-West relations during the era of
undivided Pakistan; Awami League's landslide
victory in the 1970 elections; postponement
of the National Assembly session followed by
the killings and assassinations in the civil
war as a result thereof; non-cooperation
movement launched by Mujib and the Indian
invasion culminating in the country's break
up.
It talks of, apart from the author's role as
the special envoy, his activities as, what
he calls, the New Pakistan's Federal
Minister or Advisor for Minorities Affairs
and Tourism; as a leader of the Pakistan
delegation to the 27th session of the United
Nations General Assembly in 1972 to discuss
the application of Bangladesh for entry into
the UN and the accolade won by him from
Bhutto in appreciation of his successful
lobbying for stalling the admission of
Bangladesh.
Part III of the book records his impressions
about what he saw and experienced as
ambassador to half a dozen South American
countries including Argentina. He was amused
at the sight of the littering of the streets
with shredded files and papers thrown out
from office windows in the Latin American
cities on the night of December 31 every
year and the heaping of empty bottles on the
roofs of stationary cars meant for sale
particularly in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He
refers to his stroll in the park in the
Argentine town with 2600-year-old trees
Alerces around. These, he believes, being
"contemporaneous with Buddha" could arguably
be the oldest living trees in the world
today.
The reader learns about a novel practice of
permitting cars with even number plates on
certain days only and odd numbers on the
other days in Chile's capital Santiago which
remains enveloped in fog most of the year.
The Raja repeatedly laments the inclusion of
the CHT with 98 per cent non-Muslim
population in Pakistan without ascertaining
the people's wishes when India was
partitioned in 1947. Deprivation and poverty
of his compatriots remains a constant
refrain in the book. The indigenous people
of the Hill Tracts, he argues, have lost
their separate ethnic and cultural identity
and the influx of plainsmen has changed the
demographic composition of the area.
Even the peace accord between the government
of Bangladesh and the hillmen in 1997,
failed to improve the situation. He
concludes his memoirs on a sad note over the
denial of autonomy and constitutional
safeguards to the people of CHT when the
neighbouring Indian territories of Mizoram
and Tripura, though smaller in population
and size respectively, enjoy the status of
fully autonomous states.
Tridiv Roy left his home in 1971 and did not
return despite the persuasion of his
relatives and friends. He did not yield to
the pleadings of his mother whom Mujib
deputed to lure him to Bangladesh. Even
Bhutto had allowed him to return to his home
"the day you decide". He chose to remain
away because Mujib "offered only development
but no safeguards, protection or special
status for the Hill Tracts". His book is,
however, completely silent on how and in
what manner his defection to Pakistan has
achieved these ends.
Tridiv Roy was a witness to the redrawing of
the country's map. Circumstances assigned to
him a larger-than-life role in those
momentous times. His book surprisingly
remains sketchy and incomplete or partial in
the description of the contemporary events.
He seems to have studiedly avoided
discussing candidly his colleagues and the
persons he came across in his diverse
vocations. The book abounds in trivial and
unimportant references. It looks more a
collection of the author's ramblings as, for
example, there is a chapter on Ranjit Singh
and the Kohinoor or some write-ups borrowed
from the newspapers which, though not even
remotely related to the book or its author,
have been included in it.
An autobiographical account being one sided
is per se egotistical. But the author is
expected to exercise a degree of moderation
when writing about himself. When thisis not
done it reduces his effort to an exercise in
self projection. Had Raja Tridiv Roy added
some political analysisand his personal
perspective of the events of the crucial
years when he played an important role on
the national scene, it would have enhanced
the informative and intellectual content of
his book which is so necessary to sustain
the reader's interest. We hope the next
edition will carry an index and a
bibliography. |
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