The Two-Nation Theory: A reality beyond borders |
India’s state-sponsored interference in Bangladesh is rooted not merely in contemporary politics but in a long and carefully constructed historical design aimed at weakening Pakistan and reshaping the political destiny of the Muslim-majority eastern wing of the sub-continent. The assassination of student leader Usman Hadi has brought this design into sharp and tragic focus. Hadi, a young and outspoken voice against foreign interference and ideological coercion, was gunned down in broad daylight after receiving repeated threats. According to local accounts, he had been under surveillance for weeks, warned to abandon his political activism and ultimately silenced in a targeted attack that bore the hallmarks of professional execution rather than spontaneous violence. His killing sent shockwaves through Bangladeshi campuses and revived fears that dissenting voices are being eliminated to preserve a carefully managed political order.
To understand the significance of this crime, one must return to the origins of the Pakistan Movement. Bengal was not a peripheral participant; it was one of its intellectual and political centres. From A.K. Fazlul Huq’s historic presentation of the Lahore Resolution in 1940 to the overwhelming electoral mandate given by Bengali Muslims to the Muslim League in 1946, the demand for Pakistan was as much an eastern aspiration as a western one. The Two-Nation Theory was not imposed by geography; it was embraced as a civilizational truth that Muslims, irrespective of language or region, formed a........