Many Bengali Hindus of West Bengal have the inherent obsession of converting vice into virtue by romanticizing and glorifying it, particularly when it is related to their wishful Hindu-Muslim unity. Presence of Hindu-persecuting Islamic Bangladesh next door and gradual Islamization of West Bengal escape their highly intelligent(?) eyes.
The situation can be better explained by a recent (3rd week of October, 2022) development. Swastika Mukherjee, a Bengali actress from Kolkata, has appealed for giving Azan from Hindu temples of Kolkata. This she did following wide spread anti-Hindu riot by the Muslims in Kolkata two weeks earlier. But this Bengali Hindu celebrity will never dare to appeal for playing Bhajan from the mosques of Kolkata. In extreme case, Ms Mukherjee can even ask Bengali Hindu women to practice Halala.
In the Sunday supplement (16.10.2022) of the largest circulating Bengali daily newspaper, Anandabazar Patrika, Riju Basu wrote a brief biography of one Salma Qureshi (Jaya Mukhapadhyay) of Karachi. The title of the biography The girl, who could not return back to home, was utterly misplaced and stupidly sentimental. Because, the girl did not want to come back home.
Jaya Mukhapadhyay was born in 1940 in her parental home in Dhaka city. Her father was a government official in the then Calcutta. Following partition of Bengal, Jaya’s father exchanged their home of Dhaka with one Muslim gentleman’s home in Park Circus area of Calcutta.
Jaya, after her birth in Dhaka, grew-up in Calcutta for next two decades, when she fell in love with neighbour Muslim youth Selim, who was 10 years older to her. She eloped with Selim, before attaining 18 years of age, to Khulna (East Pakistan), became Salma and performed Niqah. Then the couple left Calcutta and migrated to Dhaka, East Pakistan and settled there.
Salma Qureshi was happy with her kids and husband in Dhaka. The Bangladesh Liberation movement came after some years and Salma Qurashi with family migrated to Karachi. The reason for the migration was not clear. However, Salma’s three sons later became highly successful in life. After spending more than five decades in Karachi, Salma Qureshi is now an 82 years old proud great grand-mother.
We also come to know that in Dhaka, Salma did Lakshmi Puja as her Muslim Communist(?) husband did not mind. But in Karachi, she could not become comfortable with the small Hindu population there because of her Bengali-ness. Author Riju Basu elevated Bengali identity to an absurd level by sweeping the reality of Islamic East Pakistan / Bangladesh under the carpet.
Fazlul Haq, the first Prime Minister of Bengal from 1937 to 1943, was the maternal uncle of Salma’s husband. Fazlul Haq was from Urdu speaking family. He made himself a clear Pakistan supporter by moving the infamous Lahore Resolution in 1940. But a futile and funny effort has been made by Riju Basu to project Fazlul Haq as a pole bearer of Hindu-Muslim unity.
Salma Qureshi has been happy with her Muslim life. But the biographer has made an unnecessarily long and typically monotonous chewing-the-cud of Bengali-ness and Bengali-hood of Salma Qurashi. That was the most nauseating part of the biography. Salma’s story is anecdotal, but it gives wrong message.
Hope, the story of Salma Qureshi will not encourage more Bengali Hindu girls to elope, convert and marry Muslim boys. Though Bengali Hindu girls marrying Muslims has been common since a century, their easy availability, unlike Bengali Muslim girls, could be attributed as the main cause for such marriages. The callousness of Hindu guardians also helps such Bengali Hindu girls to become Salma or Ayesha or Rubina etc.
There is nothing wrong in such inter-religious marriages. But as per Islam, no Hindu boy or girl can marry Muslim girl or boy without being converted to Islam. It is “My way or Highway”. Muslim society, in general, also keeps its girls protected from non-Muslim boys consciously. So, the traffic is one-way. Add to this the Islamic practice of Dawa in form of Love Jihad. The bottom line is “SECULARISM” cannot be a one-sided compulsion of Hindu Bengalis. And the likes of Riju Basu should stop glorifying the likes of Salma Qureshi in wrong premise.
