The Passing Away of Giants

Dr. Amitabh Mitra


Two very simple people passed away. Both were considered
giants in their own right. Both were of Islamic identity, one from
India and the other from Pakistan. The world grieved at the loss of
such simple people who touched the lives of millions by their selfless
striving towards joining everybody together with love and feelings.

I first saw Nawab Akbar Bugti of Balochistan on NDtv documentary a
few months back. The oil rich Balochistan has been the centre of
world attention for a few years. The eighty-plus leader of Baluch
aspirations and a politician for more than four decades was murdered
yesterday in a Pakistani military operation.

The Baloch conflict crackled and flared from the creation of Pakistan
in 1947 to the 1970s, as Baloch nationalists bridled against the
Punjabi-dominated central government in Islamabad. The conflict has
steadily escalated since 2000 as President Pervez Musharraf widened
exploration of gas fields, and the Punjabis and Pashtuns gradually excluded the Baloch from the provincial government. Rebellious tribal chiefs were linked to a shadowy group that first surfaced in the 1970s, the Baloch Liberation Army, which conducts guerilla attacks.

The first attempt to kill Bugti was made on 17th March 2005, when
high-tech TOW missiles rained all around the Nawab as he moved around his private grounds in Dera Bugti. Then luck was with him as several people accompanying him perished in the sudden aerial attack. Sadly, seventeen Hindus of Dera Bugti, who had taken shelter nearby, also died after being subjected to a direct hit.

According to BBC Urdu service, having tracked down the Bugti chief on
a hillside, the Pakistani commandos and the Baloch engaged in a bitter
battle out in the open. Outnumbered, the Baloch were all killed and
Akbar Bugti's body was identified among the slain. The army had no
intention of handing over the deceased Nawab's body to his heirs,
hence the subterfuge about digging out the cave searching for a body
that will not be found.

I remember him saying at the interview "If Badshah Khan can be
declared as a Gaddar (traitor) after receiving the Bharat Ratna in 1987
and put to house arrest in Peshawar, what am I supposed to say? If I
don't toe the Government directives, I am also declared a Gaddar.”
 

Badshah Khan once said, "Better be poisoned in one's own blood than to be poisoned in one's principle."

Nawab Akbar Bugti Sahab was friend of the people of India and
Pakistan. He died fighting for a right that the world believed true.


Last week, I heard about the passing away of Shehnai Maestro Ustad Bismillah Khan.

He heralded the first Independence Day of an independent India by his
Shehnai strains in 1947. Only after that, India's first Prime Minister,
Jawaharlal Nehru, gave his speech.

A Bharat Ratna awardee, he belonged to Varanasi.
The President asked him to come to Delhi, many an American University
had asked him to stay and lecture in the USA, but he would never leave
his moholla in Varanasi.

 He once said “It would be such a shame, even absurd, if I have to die
somewhere else other than Varanasi.”

”How can I leave Benares, All the world's ras (sweetness) is here.”

Despite his fame, Khan's lifestyle retained its old world Benares
charm. His chief mode of transport was the cycle rickshaw. A man of
tenderness, he believed in remaining private, and that musicians are
supposed to be heard and not seen. He was a pious Shia Muslim and
also, like many Indian musicians regardless of creed, a devotee of
Mother Saraswati.

Ustad Khan will remain remembered as one of the finest musicians in
post-independent Indian Classical music and one of the best examples
of Hindu Muslim unity in India.

His concept of music was very beautiful and his vision, superb. He
once said, "Even if the world ends, the music will still survive," and
he often said, "Music has no caste"

I wept after hearing him talk.

The world is poorer today.

He was an integral part of the Mysticism that is Varanasi.