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Dr. Pradipto Bandyopadhyay presents his credentials...

The Bangladesh phase was a significant experience for Dr.Pradipto Bandyopadhyay. He was in Bangladesh uninterruptedly for about five years between 1995 and 2000. That was a period when some of the epoch-making events took place----the Ganga Water Sharing Treaty between India and Bangladesh, Return of the Chakma refugees from Tripura, Launching of bus travel from Kolkata to Dhaka , century’s worst flood in Bangladesh in 1998, Defeat of Pakistan cricket team by Bangladesh cricket team, Awami League  coming to power after twenty one years in1996 and so on.

             Dr.Bandyopadhyay was a witness to these events as Special Correspondent of All India Radio and subsequently of Prasar Bharati . During the period he was attached to the Indian High Commission in Dhaka.

        Dr.Bandyopadhyay travelled to the distant corners of Bangladesh from Tetulia toTeknaf  and studied the past and the present.The rise of Dhaka as a seat of power during the Mughal period, various events during the British period, the scenario as East Pakistan after Partition of India and the emergence of Bangladesh as an Independent nation all came under his purview.  He saw the joys and sorrows,the struggle, the strife and emergence as a sovereign nation and subsequent travails, and tortuous experiences, with an open mind.

           This is an interesting saga which has been  revealed in Dr. Bandyopadhyay’s book, ‘The Bangladesh Dichotomy –A Study  in Politicisation of Culture’  Pl. see the LINK.  The erstwhile East Bengal and the subsequent East Pakistan and the inevitible follow –up as Bangladesh had some minor changes and adjustments GEOGRAPHICALLY. But when the sovereign nation emerged,it was a near total sea change DEMOGRAPHICALLY in terms of power structure,class composition and socio-economic and cultural evolution with a perceptible and new IDENTITY. This metamorphosis is evident even in the capital city of Dhaka as a district town in the British period, as a provincial capital of East Pakistan days and as the capital of a sovereign country with all the associated paraphernalia. In fact, the relics of the Buddhist past, the Hindu tradition,the Mughal and Islamic rule,  the British phase,  the Pakistan link and the  rise of an independent nation , all are discernible in the entire country - the towns and the villages.

             Dr.Bandyopadhyay has described the story in his writings, pictures and various despatches for All India Radio and Prasar Bharati. See Concerned LINKS.

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