Word: bhashani
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Dates: during 1969-1969
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Living Saint. Bhashani's rhetoric, of course, outruns the facts. So far, Pakistanis have shown no desire to take on the troops, and Bhashani's own following is limited mainly to peasants in the East. But there are a formidable 30 million to 40 million country folk who revere him as a living saint. During the past 60 years, he has built up his following by siding with the impoverished peasants, first against the British raj and later against the rich absentee landlords. Living and dressing simply, he walks from village to village, dispensing a pastiche of religion...
Other Moslem holymen contend that Islam and Bhashani's brand of socialism do not mix. His critics also charge that he is seizing ,on secessionist tendencies chiefly because an independent East Pakistan would be so weak that it would be susceptible to influence from China and the neighboring Indian state of West Bengal, which is now ruled by a Communist government. Bhashani, while not a Communist, is a radical leftist with close personal and political ties to Peking...
...eclectic theologian, Bhashani completely ignores the fatalistic aspect of Mohammedanism. "My religion is revolutionary, and I am a religious man," he argues. "Therefore, it is my religion to rise up against wrong." He scorns the established order that the Koran bids the faithful to support. In his view, the status quo must be completely upset so that the new order in which he believes may take root. Bhashani also makes no apology for his allegiance to China, heightened during his first visit to Peking in 1952. Says he: "I admire everything about China except its godlessness...
Chinese Protection. After Mohammed Ayub Khan took power ten years ago, Bhashani became the unofficial go-between who helped Ayub establish better relations with Peking. It was a role that shielded him from arrest while other Pakistani leaders were being packed off to Ayub's prisons for criticizing the army-backed regime...
When the big riots broke out last month, Ayub may have wished that he had jailed Bhashani anyway. Operating apparently on Chinese orders to start a Maoist revolt, Bhashani's well-trained party workers led some of the worst rampaging, in which hundreds of people, including a dozen minor officials, were murdered and many houses burned down. Bhashani shrugs off the violence as "male-ganimat," or retribution, which is condoned by the Koran...