Professor Sachi Ghosh Dastidar is a unique man in the Hindu community, he is one of the few truth speaking Hindu intellectuals who has respect among both Hindus and the secular intellectual community. Hindu academics all too often find themselves pushed out of an occupation and polite society when they shed light on the fact that it was Hindus who suffered disproportionately during the genocides which followed the partition of India along Muslim-“Secular” lines, a condition which was agitated for by such outfits as India's Muslim League. Prof. Dastidar is one of the few who boldly speaks the truth on this issue, yet he has been able to maintain his position as a distinguished professor at the State University of New York. His rare position as a “friend of Hindu” academic has allowed Dastidar to gift the Hindu cause with several books covering the 1947 and 1971 partitions: "Empire’s Last Casualty", "Indian Subcontinent’s Vanishing Hindu and other Minorities", "Living among the Believers", "This Bengal, that Bengal" (in Bengali), and "This Is My Home" (in Bengali). He has authored over seventy-five articles on these issues and has twice testified in Washington about the plight of non-Muslim minorities in Muslim-majority Bangladesh. But Dastidar’s latest book “Mukti: Free To Be Born Again” is sure to cause quite a stir since it also implicates “upper caste Hindus” turned Leftists/Marxists as witting accomplices in the suffering of the Hindu people.
Mukti: Free to be Born Again – Partitions of Indian Subcontinent, Islamism, Hinduism, Leftism and Liberation of the Faithful, has just been released in the U.S. by Author House. It is a 684 page book available in hard cover, soft cover and as eBook. In the US it is available in bookstores, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Author House, ISPaD: Partition Center Office in Jamaica, Queens, NYC and more. Here is a bit from the book’s Preface, “Mukti is a product of love and pain of at least three decades. It is a byproduct of over three decades of field work, social work and travel in the 1947 Partition-affected Bengal –Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan), West Bengal State of India – as well in the neighboring states…….During my travel in Muslim-majority Bangladesh I have come across the term ‘mukti’ from many, especially indigenous pre-Islamic Hindu, and lately Buddhist, families as they pray for liberation from their suffering….The book is directed towards Western readers many of whom may have heard of India, yet very little is known about post-partition Muslim-majority Bangladesh and Hindu-majority West Bengal, the effects of Indian Partition on the people of the Bengali-speaking region, the former mixed Hindu-Muslim Bengal Province of Colonial British India……Yet the privileged-caste Hindu-refugee elites quickly rose to power in two Hindu Bengali-majority states in India: West Bengal and Tripura. They would champion liberal, left and Marxist ideologies but refused to show solidarity with the oppressed, mostly belonging to Hindu oppressed castes [whom they left behind]… Seeds of Mukti was first sown in early 1990s when many of my friends and associates asked for translation of my Ai Bangla, Oi Bangla (This Bengal, That Bengal.)…..The Bengal of British India was known to be a relatively-tolerant mixed Hindu-Muslim society where both Hindu and Muslim nationalism played significant role. In a surprise twist of history after Partition of Bengal and India in 1947 both Bengals took stride towards intolerant politics, one…Islamism, the other….Leftism, led by Bangladeshi (East Pakistani) Muslims and Bangladeshi (East Pakistani) Hindu, albeit refugee. The book delves into that ethos and contradiction, although politically incorrect and, at times, impolite…..I have no power to protect individuals and families who have shared their deepest feelings to my family. I have no power to protect their villages either. As a result I have not used the real names of individuals, villages and neighborhoods….”
Dr. Dastidar himself comes from a family that was cleansed from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) during the 1947 partition due to their Hindu heritage. This led him on a lifelong journey of documenting the atrocities committed against Hindus during this monumental time in history and flushing out the root cause for their suffering. Besides helping run several schools and orphanages in Bangladesh, the Dastidars currently run the ISPaD (Indian Subcontinent Documentation Project, http://www.ispad1947.org) Center in Queens NY, a project which aims to preserve the unknown history of the Partition of the Indian Subcontinent using a wide variety of mediums and methods. It is often a taboo to discuss the plight of minorities and research the whereabouts of the missing population of minorities in Muslim nations in South Asia. The ISPaD Project is making an effort to break that taboo and provide widely accessible and reliable records for archiving/documenting the Indian Subcontinent and it essentially being infused with hatred and bloodshed through partition. So many personal stories have been lost and all too often overlooked when looking at "the big picture". ISPaD utilizes a combination of both small scale and large scale research in conceptualizing the scores of people that have gone missing in The Indian Subcontinent during and since Partition, AND to answer the all too frequently asked unasked question: "Where have my people gone?" You can learn more about Dr. Dastidar and his projects by viewing him on Episode 86 of "Eye on South Asia" below or emailing him at DastidarS@oldwestbury.edu.
