The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) along with its Bangla division, recently conducted a survey among its audience to elect the "20 Greatest Bengalis." The survey was conducted from Feb. 11th through March 22nd. The BBC announced the names gradually, from the 20th place on to the up: the greatest Bengali of all time.
I don’t know what the parameters were for the survey. In fact, to my knowledge, the BBC did not disclose any. And the Dhaka-based newspapers only publicized, in a big way, the results. It was confusing.
Why did the BBC carry out this so-called election? To my knowledge, the BBC has not done this with any other nation. Why suddenly did they decide to do it for us?
How does one elect the greatest personality from any nationality? What is the yardstick for such elections? How do you measure the greatness of a man or woman? Are the BBC methodologies scientific or adhere to any standards? Or is this like an examination where a candidate comes in, takes the test and gets ranked by the examiners? I'd be much more comfortable if they'd decided to rank the top 20 or 30 or 40 greatest Bengalis for the many contributions they've made to our unsung glory and kept them together in one basket. But even that would, perhaps, be called arbitrary.
Our poet-philosopher Rabindranath Tagore, the politician Shahid Surawardy, and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the "father-of-the-nation," and all of their contributions to the nation were belittled by this strange election. Do we understand its derogatory nature or its gravity? Any Bengali with a sense of self-respect and dignity would feel insulted.
Why this sudden "mercy" on us, the poorest of the poor? Have they tried to list the top 20 Americans, or the top 20 Germans, French, or British? Have they even done it for the other lands they colonized for centuries? Would they dare rank the top 20 Indians?
This joke, and that too with help from Bengalis living in Britain, does not make any sense to me. Did the BBC have any particular span of time in mind to choose these people from? If so, from which century through which was the time period? "The greatest Bengalis ever," they said. The only ancient name I see on the list is that of Atish Dipankar, the Buddhist monk and preacher who lived a thousand years ago. Thus, it seems, at least a thousand years were included in the survey. So, the next question is, does the history of Bengal dwell within one millennium only? That is indeed problematic. We're distorting history here!
The results show that the survey was not confined to Bangladesh only (come to think of it, the political Bangladesh is only thirty plus years old). It has obviously included West Bengal – an Indian state now – that used to be a part of the cultural land of Bangladesh for more than a thousand years. Therefore, my question is, could the surveyors not find any post-British-partition Bengalis at all other than Satyajit Ray or Amartya Sen? It’s sad indeed; we always thought that both sides of Bengal – pre- and post-partition – generated incredibly powerful personalities in all walks of life, and still do, even though mainstream Western media is ignorant of them.
Economist Amartya Sen is the only living Bengali who made the list (clearly, the election did not exclude living Bengalis). So how come the media giant and its audience could not find any other living personalities to feature in the top 20 list? Is it because they are ignorant? The selection has been so arbitrary that they simply forgot to think while running the grandiose, feel-good event.
I actually question the political motive of this survey. Bengal is so well known for its rebel politics and politicians – not just our politicians, but our artists, poets, filmmakers and feminists too. Even some of our religious leaders have used their religions to preach and practice revolutionary, progressive, anti-imperialist and socialist politics. Other than Maulana Bhasani, no such known politicians or poets have been included in the list. Isn't it strange that Bengali socialist leaders, scholars or musicians have been completely left out of the survey? What about the thousands of pre-Gandhi young revolutionaries and tribal leaders who gave their lives to free India and Bengal from a tyrannical British rule? What about the thousands of young Bengali men and women who were tortured and killed by the Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi rulers in the 60s, 70s or 80s?
Why was General Zia ur Rahman featured on the list? Without undermining his leadership in the glorious liberation war, we can say that his contributions were short-lived and his post-1971 politics were problematic. We could surmise that General Rahman was included on the list only to somewhat balance the inclusion of Sheikh Mujib, and that too, as the greatest Bengali ever. Isn't that something that makes us suspicious about the modus operandi of this whole survey business?
So many important names have been omitted by the BBC, too many to mention in this column. I don't know how this so-called election will be reviewed in Bangladesh or West Bengal, or for that matter, among the expatriate Bengalis living in various parts of the globe.
Just a few weeks ago, I was at an award ceremony here in New York where the organizers of the event elected a few Bengalis living in the city on the basis of their own survey. As soon as the organizers began announcing the names of the recipients, a huge crowd of young people sitting in the back of the auditorium started shouting, "sham, sham!"
I now have a similar feeling. At this so-called survey and elections imposed by BBC and its lackeys, I want to shout: "Sham! Sham!"
