SAARC folk dances

Nehal Adil Symposium on Folk Dances of SAARC region was held at Shilpakala Academy from October 22 to October 25. The first day was rainy, on the last day the participants were in river cruise and sight seeing. So actual programme, that people could enjoy were for two days. There was heavy RAB and police presence, despite that, some people were able to make their way to the venue and enjoyed the folk dances. It was jointly sponsored by SAARC Cultural Centre Colombo and Ministry of Cultural Affairs, Bangladesh. The security men on guard told me, it was a government function and commoners were not allowed. That is typical of any under-developed country; public is not part of the Republic. But I think Liaqat Ali Lucky, Director General of Shilpakala Academy, was far more co-operative person. He let the people come. Someone said, security was needed because Indians were there. I do not buy this theory. In fact Ziaur Rahman, the founder of BNP which is branded anti-Indian, was behind the SAARC. It is like saying me and my uncle are pro-Indian and everybody else is anti-Indian and me and my uncle are anti-Indian and everyone else is pro-Indian. It does real damage to India and Bangladesh. India is not alone in the SAARC. Pakistan is its member too, though unfortunately there was no Pakistani participation in the mentioned event. Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh participated. Bangladeshi folk dancers presented the folk dances of all the SAARC countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan and Maldives. Participants from India presented the spring dance from our neighbouring Indian state of Assam. The same performance was repeated next day. The Nepalese folk artists presented a folk dance from the Jhapa region of Western Nepal. Jhapa is a culturally forward region of Nepal. One of the poorest regions of the sub-continent, it played a heroic role in the uprising against the monarchy and for democracy. Sri Lankan dance troupe came from the southern region of the country. It was once colonised by the Portuguese and it has still some cultural hall mark in dresses like Portuguese hat. The Bhutanese presented a temple dance representing the religious foundation of the country. Special attraction was the key-note speech by Gauhar Rizvi, the foreign affairs adviser of the Prime Minister. Gauhar Rizvi is a great intellectual, tall and fair he does not look like average Bangalee. But is it a crime? It reflects our multi-cultural and multi-ethnic entity. I am personally proud of it. A young man (I felt, he was an intellectual by his accent) told me that under Sheikh Hasina Bangladesh's relation with India is guided by two Pakistanis Tareq Karim, Bangladesh High Commissioner to India and Gauhar Rizvi, her foreign policy adviser. Tareq Karim and Shahed Sadullah were among my best friends in Dhaka University. True, I never spoke with them in Bangla but I do not remember if I ever talked with them in Urdu. Both Tareq and Shahed married ethnic Bengalis from Chittagong and Sylhet respectively. They speak fluent Bangla. I found some facial similarity of a long lost friend of Tangail with Rizvi. His mother was the principal of Kumudini College and a great associate of R P Saha. The family was secular and I ate Mogul sweet at their house. I heard he was dead in the war but I could never verify it. They came from Bihar. Sadly many vanished like that in the war, both Bangalees and Biharis. I do not know whether Gauhar Rizvi is from Tangail. I forgot all their names but the world is the same. We should not call everybody Pakistani out of hatred as that angry young man did. Pakistan was separated from Bangladesh not in 71 but in 47. Ours was part of Eastern India. Pakistan was Western India. SAARC wanted to cover that gap. How far we have gone? I would not definitely agree with Gauhar Rizvi that SAARC is an English speaking region. Hardly one per cent of SAARC population can speak or write correct English. They do not come from affluent families like that of Professor Rizvi. They did not have opportunity to study abroad. In Europe eighty per cent Swedes can speak fluent English but they do not claim themselves to be English speaking. I do not know whether Nepal and Bhutan who were never colonised by The British would accept that honour. I was glad that the gentleman from SAARC Cultural Centre from Colombo used some sentences from all the languages of the region and specially a part of an Urdu poem. The real SAARC cultural unity is the unity of the people. Bangabandhu wanted this unity at the grassroots. He was not anti-Indian or anti-Pakistani. The symposium conducted in English for an elite hardly touched that. There were empty slogans like that of Syed Jamil Ahmed full of poetic vision but with little content. Shamsuzzaman Khan's article was far penetrating. It presented his scholarly vision and the Bangladesh perspective. Sharmila Banerjee's paper was short but to the point. Ravibandhu Vidyapathi gave a scholarly vision. We should properly utilise scanty SAARC resources not for pleasant trips but to liberate our culture for our people not under the threat of gun and fear but in love and fraternity. That is folk culture.