By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: “We have so much in common heritage, history, custom, cuisine, language and script. What is actually uniting us is overwhelming and original and what is dividing us is artificial and superficial,” Governor RS Mooshahary said at the International Seminar on Indo-Bangladesh Cultural Relations and an exhibition of photographs by Arindam Mukherjee titled ‘Glimpses of Bangladesh’ organised by Institute of Social and cultural Studies (ISCS), Kolkata and Sri Aurobindo Institute of Indian culture (SAIIC) at the SAIIC campus in the city on Wednesday.
“We have enormous potential in four Ts – Trade, Tourism, Transportation and Transit and these four Ts can bring in prosperity leading to good relationship which will bring about growth,” he added.
While informing that religion and politics should be kept separate he said, “It is time that we forget about influence of religion and politics and both should be kept separately. Bangladesh is newly emerging as a secular state and the present government there is secular like our Indian government,” the Governor said.
He also said that there are more Muslims residing in India than in Bangladesh and so it will be wrong to say that India is not secular country. “We have eleven million people who practice Islam in the Northeast and the recent problem that flared in Assam is due to shrinking resources and not religion. Migration of human being is a part of history and the effect of migration, which is inevitable, was what actually manifested in Assam,” he said.
Stating that the people of India and Bangladesh are in the same political platform, he laid emphasis on the ‘Look East Policy’ saying that goods from both countries can reach destinations on the other side more easily. “In order to boost trade between the two countries we have opened border haats in Meghalaya and there are lots of other small localised trade centres,” he said.
The Governor, while recalling his earlier days in Shillong, said, “I used to see cars registered with the letters ‘CD’ and those were the vehicles of the Bangladesh Deputy High Commissioner in Shillong. I believe we should re-establish the cooperation between the two countries in the region and there should be a Deputy High Commissioner in Shillong or Guwahati and likewise in Bangladesh which will deepen our relationship,” he said.
Sharing a lesser known historical information, Mooshahary said that Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Liaqat Ali Khan, the two founding fathers of Pakistan, had spent two months in Shillong in 1946 and stayed in the ‘Green House’ belonging to Abdul M Chowdhury who was a minister from the Muslim League. “Shillong is not far away from the hearts of the people of Bangladesh. Politics can divide land but not hearts. When the heart want to be together there is no force on earth that can separate them,” he said.
“We are also looking up to the opening up of Chittagong Port which will provide new opportunities for us,” he said.
Eminent writer, journalist and filmmaker from Bangladesh, Shahriar Kabir, said India and Bangladesh have a common history of more than 5000 years and the political division has not been able to divide the common history and culture of the two countries.
“During liberation we saw refugees taking shelter in the neighbouring Indian states bordering Bangladesh. There are people from the Northeastern states of India who contributed in the liberation war of Bangladesh and the Government of Bangladesh will honour them on October 20 in Dhaka,” he said.
Prof G Kharkongor, Vice Chancellor, Martin Luther Christian University, said