It may remain unsaid but the reality is that our educated elite in general have no real concern for the common people.
We can derive the conclusion from what H. G. Wells said in his book Outline of History that in our race between education and catastrophe our education failed us allowing catastrophe to happen again and again.
The job seeking education in our system has made them selfish to live well easily with public money. To them to fight wrongs to the people is the domain of politicians whether they mean it or not. In other words to say it as a plain truth education is no help for the redress of cruel wrongs being suffered by our people.
In the absence of any role of our educated people Bangabandhu’s success in our autonomy demand could not be retained to save lives of thousands of our people from the savagery of Pakistan army’s war against East Pakistan.
The adventurists including outsiders, succeeded in their game while our educated people thought they had no responsibility to unravel the empty adventurism to subvert the people’s mandate for autonomy as a rightful solution.
The cries of war for independence were both against popular mandate and our leadership unprepared for a war. So the cries of war could not have been ours in our interest.
The political leaders including the young “brave” agitators rushed to India for their safety. Even in that leaderless helpless situation our educated ones or otherwise known as civil society did not come forward as a force of sanity to save the people.
To go to India’s for a war against Pakistan could not be ours for our six-point demand or our democracy. Indian war forced Pakistan to leave East Pakistan. But our liberation war was not for denial of democracy and democratic rights. The situation we are in is contrary to the liberation war being unfaithful to the liberation war. Again our educated people are not helping us understand the logic of education.
India went into the war taking advantage of our war of liberation. But the role of our liberation fighters was flatly denied. Pakistan army surrendered not to the joint command but to the Indian army with no control of ours over the defeated Pakistan army.
The defeated Pakistan army was in the custody of India as its prisoners. Our educated people or their education came of no use to keep us on our straight path.
As war prisoners of India whether we had jurisdiction to try them was also a question of international law as because they did not surrender to us.
When democracy was buried denying all rights to the people who were the victims of genocide for freeing the country, the people’s elected leaders, educated people or the freedom fighters had shown no fighting spirit of a free people.
That a new flag or piece of land is not freedom and that is why our people struggled and gave blood in their resistance to Pakistan’s war lords.
According to historian H. G. Wells our race for freedom had to be seen as a race between education and catastrophe. Even now lawyers, journalists and university professors are unashamedly loyal to the two major undemocratic parties because politics is business of wealth making unconcerned about service to the people.
Thus catastrophe after catastrophe has been engulfing our people.
The political leaders made mistakes that led them to the trap of leftists and their own demise. Now they have vanished politics and political leadership.
Unless education means to our educated ones freedom and human dignity our future will remain bleak and slavish. We shall live in fear of uncertainty and injustice. The press and the judiciary have been tamed for the journalists and lawyers as being activists of undemocratic politics.
The shame of a mismanaged country should be the shame of the educated ones. That sense of shame is clearly absent collectively in our educated people. People are not power base and criticising politicians will make no difference. Failure of the government is a different cause.
We have brought war among ourselves in Bangladesh for fighting each other brutally unrestrained by law or free election. So another catastrophe is waiting to happen. We are helpless to help ourselves.
