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Pias Karim: A different perspective

Mozammel H. Khan
I never thought I would write an obituary for Pias Karim, who was much younger than me. I came to know him some 35 years ago, when he was a diehard leftist, both in conviction and in practice. He accompanied me on the maiden trip his elder sister made to my home town after I married her while I was working as a professor of an overseas university. In my first trip to his house in Illinois when he was a professor in the United States, I grumbled that he did not have an airconditioner in his guest room because of his socialistic philosophy, and not because he could not afford one
He had a desire to go back to Bangladesh, which he was not able materialise due to his first love's (his deceased wife) otherwise different position. As a test case, he took a year of sabbatical leave and took a teaching assignment in a university on the outskirts of Dhaka city, whose proprietor was his ideological comrade. However, he realised in no time that so-called ideologues are not ideologues in the real sense. He shared his bitter experience with me in private and went back to the United States before his contract expired.
After the sudden demise of his wife in 2006, he got the absolute freedom to make his decision to pack his bags andreturn to Bangladesh, which he had wanted to do for a long time Initially, I was told that he would be working for the Daily Star. However, except for a lone piece I never saw his write-ups in DS. He eventually ended in Brae University, which was his workplace until his sudden death just 11 days before his 56th birth anniversary (incidentally both of us had the same date of birth).
Over the last few years, he became a TV talk-show specialist, and his categorical views on most aspects, as I heard from others, portrayed him as an active adherent of a major political party whose politics is guided solely by their antagonism against AL, the party that led us to freedom. However, I always viewed Pias Karim as an exception. During his students days, when his mother would advise him just like any other mother not to get involved in politics, he would respond: "if Sheikh Mujib's mother would advise him the same and if he would abide by it, there would be no Bangladesh." During his recent and rare meeting with the heir apparent of BNP, he told him that he did not concur with his tampering with Bangladesh's history of birth, and especially with his childish attempt to demean Bangabandhu.
During the tumultuous days of Ganajagoron Mancha, he earned the wrath of millions when he took a stand against the movement, preaching identical views as BNP vis-a-vis war
crimes trials, such as "we want trial, but the trial has to be...". This was a radical transformation, which many of his former comrades, strangely, viewed as smooth transition. That was probably the beginning and there was no turning back - albeit none of his family members subscribed to his radical transformation.
His sudden and untimely departure was a great shock for his family and friends. His family members and friends never ever imagined that he would be such a discussed personality after his death. In his life, he never thought that his body would to taken to any iconic place In feet, it was the so-called ideologues who proposed the idea, obviously to meet their own vested political interest. It will be naivete of the worst order if they want others to believe
that they did not anticipate the repercussions in the politically highly polarised society of Bangladesh. Let them draw their own deductions as to what they have gained through it, but the family had to endure a traumatic few days while mourning one of its dearest members.
In the news and social media there are all kinds of exaggerations involving his father vis-4-vis his role in 1971. As an example, it was widely reported that his father was responsible for the arrest of Shaheed Dhiredranath Datta by the Pakistani army. The fact of the matter is when Shaheed Datta was arrested on March 29,1971 his father had already escaped to his own paternal home. One of his uncles was the second IGP of Bangladesh, who was later on chosen by no other than Bangabandhu to become the PM's secretary in 1973, the most coveted bureaucratic position of the government, while another uncle was an AL candidate in the 1979 general election.
I found him a practicing socialist, great humanist, genuine patriot and a person possessing absolutely no materialistic greed, a scarce virtue in Bangladesh society. Keeping aside his latest political stand, he will be greatly missed by anyone who met or knew him, including his friends and foes alike May his soul rest in peaceThe writer Is the Convenor of the Canadian Committee for Human Rights and Democracy in Bangladesh.