Kuldip Nayar

Kuldip Nayar in 2012

Kuldip Nayar (14 August 1923 – 23 August 2018) was an Indian journalist, syndicated columnist, human rights activist, author and former High Commissioner of India to the United Kingdom noted for his long career as a left-wing political commentator. He was also nominated as a member of the Upper House of the Indian Parliament in 1997.

Quotes

• Every time I go to Bangladesh—and I go regularly— I find the country still in the midst of war. The guns of 1971 have stopped long ago but conflicts and tensions have not. The society remains divided from top to bottom. People of Bangladesh can be categorised into two groups: pro-liberation and anti-liberation. The first claims to represent the forces which fought against Pakistan to create an independent country. It mostly favours Sheikh Hasina, daughter of Sheikla Mujib-ur-Rahman, the founder of Bangladesh. The second group supports Prime Minister Khaleda Zia. Her husband, Zia-ur-Rahman, headed free Bangladesh through a coup. ...After 30 years of Independence, who did what during the liberation struggle is getting hazier, but not the prejudices. Some impressions about people—a few may well be true—remain implacable. The worst part is that there is no mood of forgetting and forgiving. The liberation or the anti-liberation label has become such a prized possession that the fakes and failures use it to settle scores politically and, worse, violently. The cleavage, really speaking, is like India's caste system, with its prejudices and biases. Appointments, transfers and even allocations of funds are made on the basis of who was on which side.
  • in Rosser Y, Indoctrinating Minds: Politics of Education in Bangladesh. 2004, p 34ff