FEBRUARY 21 Nation Building

1945 elections, they voted this same Churchill out of power, and instead brought in Clement Attlee, a social reformer who as a member of the Fabian Society, had quite actively participated in the non-political field. The same task needed to be performed after independence in India. The freedom fighters should have been awarded pensions and other facilities in acknowledgement of their services, but when it came to assigning political power, such persons should have been sought out who had already established their reputations in social service in the field of education, social reform, scientific research, etc. Those who emerged as heroes in the age prior to independence had welldeveloped warlike qualities which were essential in a period of clash and confrontation, whereas after independence we needed heroes possessing just the opposite qualities. At that time as now, it was necessary to have people who believed in love instead of hatred, in peace instead of confrontation; in short, in a constructive rather than a destructive approach. By making the team of freedom fighters into leaders of the second phase, the nation took the wrong turning at the very outset. By reason of the psychology of their rise to power, the main concern of freedom fighters was to maintain the superior political position they had come to acquire. This mentality produced all sorts of abhorrent forms of evil, such as we have been experiencing today. It was thanks to the extraordinary glorification of the freedom fighters that we were unable to see any of their acts in a critical light. For instance, the involvement in the Bangladesh war in 1971 was undoubtedly a wrong decision, but since this decision had been taken by a freedom fighter government, it came to be regarded as having been right without anyone having given the matter any real thought. A similar, ill-considered involvement, stirred up the dormant problem of Kashmir and resulted in enormous economic losses. It is a fact that after a long period of time the Pakistanis had actually consigned the problem of Kashmir to oblivion. The issue of Kashmir was no longer, actively, on their political agenda. But when the involvement of India broke Pakistan into two, all Pakistanis were set to avenge this division of their country. In revenge, they re-opened the issue of the closed front of Kashmir. Sooner or later, nothing could have stopped Bangladesh from being separated from Pakistan. But our involvement caused