Professor Arun Kumar Basak :
1. Basic Ingredients of Human Qualities:
Free mind (with fearlessness), Religions (with belief in the Creator God representing the Truth) and Science (with the Language of the Creator) are complementary and synergic. They are certainly not contradictory. The trinity (of free mind, religion and science) endows the power to control Greed, the so-called Satan, which subdues all the human qualities including values, judgment, creativity and respect for others. Attainment of the latter qualities makes a person ‘secular’.
Our first great philosopher and ideal teacher is Socrates (BC 470-399), who sacrificed his life for the sake of truth. Different Prophets and/or religious incarnations appeared on Earth to establish rule of law in a disordered society. All of them had been secular to respect others. Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727), number one renowned Polymath Scientist and a devout Christian, was humble to say, “I have been only like a boy playing on the seashore…. in finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lays all undiscovered before me.” Nobel Laureate Albert Einstein (1879-1955) was religious. He claimed, “Science without religion is lame and religion without science is blind”. He also categorically mentioned that the language of God can be understood through unfolding the integrity of His creation”.
Sentiment of Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) regarding Truth is expressed clearly in his poem on the Chariot festival of Hindus where the devotees behave in such a way that “the path ponders itself as God, so does the chariot, the idol thinks itself the same and the creator gets amused”. With his secular mind, Kabiguru was great in understanding sciences as reflected in his conversation with Einstein on the ‘absolute truth’ in 1930. In reply to the realization of Einstein that “the super-human quality, the absolute truth, cannot be explained by science and can be perceived by mind only,” Kabiguru asserted. “Matters in the universe are made out of electrical forces as perceived by human’s scientific mind. The absolute truth of mind, according to the Indian Philosophy, is embedded in Brahman representing the infinity”.
Einstein conceded by saying, “I am more religious than you”. Brahman may be ascribed to the singularity with infinite energy at a point in the modern Big Bang theory. The secular ideal of Kabiguru led him to encourage his son Rathindranath Tagore to be trained in modern agriculture and to adopt the business management system as can be seen in his introduction of the Cooperative Farming and Cooperative Banking. Kabiguru was a great philanthropist in caring very much about the welfare of his subjects, his country and contributed his wealth entirely for the common mass. Kabigurus’s intimate friend Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858-1937), a pioneering Polymath Scientist who is famous for discoveries of Microwave used for all Internet Communication Technologies (ICT) including radar, ground communication including cellular and smart phones, long-range communications including satellite, weather mapping, remote sensing, navigation and telescopes; detector for Radio Waves, living behavior of Plants and Crescograph in Plant Science. Like Tagore, he was also greatly secular and his discoveries earned him M.A. from Cambridge University and D.Sc degree from London University without examinations. ‘Bose crater’ on the moon’s surface has been named after him. He produced great scientists like Satyendra Nath Bose, Meghnad Saha and Prasanta Mahabolis as his students.
Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis (1861-1941), basically with degrees in Physics was a world renowned Statistician without any degree in it for his stupendous contributions including his invention of ‘Mahalanobis distance’ which enjoys enormous applications in all branches of Sciences including medical studies, social sciences, technologies, engineering including industries. He was the father of statistics in our subcontinent and practiced secularism.
Nobel Laureate Bertrand Arthur William Russell (1872-1970), wrangler in Mathematics and famous as a great philosopher, was secular in his writings.
In the present era, renowned Cosmologist Stephen William Hawking (1942 -2018) has been labeled as a disbeliever in God. But God had been pleased to honour him with many laurels as he served His creation with all his devotion. Both of Russell and Hawking did not show any disrespect to other believers.
2. Realization of Bangabandhu and his sacrifices for Secularism
During the partition of the British India in 1947, the standard of education and research in our country was at par with that of India. With the passage of time, India is improving in technological developments and now trailing China closely. On the other hand, in spite of being the successors of Sir Jagadish Bose and Sir Prafulla Chandra Ray, the two great pioneers of scientific renaissance in the subcontinent, we are lagging far behind India.
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibar Rahman as a young political leader had analyzed the situation in Pakistan since the partition of India in 1947. He noted that our education standard had been declining with the migration of teachers and intellectuals with the advent of Pakistan creation. With this realization he incorporated secularism in Awami League in the middle of fifties. With secular policies, Awami League won the 1970 election of Pakistan with overwhelming majority bagging almost all parliamentary seats in East Pakistan and absolute majority in whole Pakistan.
Denial of the martial Law Government to hand over power to Awami League, braved Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to deliver the Landmark Speech of 7 March 1971 declaring Independence in case the Pakistan Army did not respect democratic result of the election. In response, the Pakistan Army inflicted a brutal genocide in East Pakistan starting on the night of 25 March. In the early hours of 26 March Bangabandhu was imprisoned following his declaration of the independence of Bangladesh. This triggered the Liberation War as per proclamation of Bangabandhu in his Race Course speech. Emergence of the secular Bangladesh was the culmination of the nine-month-long liberation war at the cost of martyred intellectuals, gallant freedom fighters and lives of 3 million innocent people and brutal raping of our mothers.
On 15 August 1975, some of young army officers, lacking in values and lured by big positions, killed Bangabandhu and his family including 10 years old son Sheikh Russel excepting Sheikh Hasina and Sheikh Rehana who were visiting abroad. In 2004, Bangabadhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was adjudged the ‘Best Bengali ‘of all time according to the opinion poll conducted by BBC with Rabindranath Tagore in the second position Bangabandhu, in his ‘Prison Diaries’, expressed, ‘Sacrifice wins idealism’. Bangabandhu’s enormous strength may be ascribed to his inherent secular mind, which gained maturity through jail sentences of various types during the Pakistan rule. He remains immortal through all his activities.
3. Solution to the Problems impeding the expected Growth of Bangladesh
In spite of all developments achieved by Bangladesh after its global connectivity through the installation of ‘submarine optical fibre’ in the first decade of the twenty first century, Bangladesh received in 2016 a cyber heist of US$ 101 million from Bangladesh Bank to other countries, a long-standing problem of ‘question leakage’ of various examinations and the alleged adulteration of gold in the Bangladesh Bank vault. These relating to the abuse of digital facilities are culmination of ‘immense greed’ in educated people.
To alleviate the problems facing us, only option is to impart quality education with a focus on values before the tertiary stage, The trinity of qualities, namely honesty, values and judgment instilled in the youths, can morph into a powerful shield against evil deeds including the abuse of ICT. Only dedication of secular teachers can find us the ‘Holy Grail’ in achieving ‘Sonar Bangla’, the long cherished dream of Bangabandhu, for which he sacrificed lives of himself and his family.
The contemporary world is restless with excess of Science and Technology inflicting ‘psychosis in rich countries’, while too much dependency on supernatural spirit afflicting laziness and malnutrition in poor nations. Only the trinity of free mind, religion and science can steer the trend to shower us not only with successes in our roadmap to prosperity but also providing us mental peace.
(Arun Kumar Basak, Professor Emeritus, Department of Physics, Rajshahi University)
