While debating over the president’s speech at the Indian Lok Sbha, prime minister Narendra Modi remembered two deceased Bengali leaders, Bhupendra Kumar Dutt of Jessore who was a revolutionary and Jogendranath Mandal of Barishal who was Pakistan’s first law minister.
The reason why their names were mentioned is because after partition, both of them decided to stay back in Pakistan instead of going to India.
Later, the two resigned from their posts to protest the expulsion of Hindus from Pakistan.
Narendra Modi said: “Eventually, they came to India and died here. Modi used this as an example to bolster the citizenship law over religious minorities.”
Bhupen Dutt remained in Pakistan after partition but soon became disillusioned about the persecution of Hindus and in 1962 went back to India where he died in 1979.
Jogendra Nath Mandal was vocal against the scourge of the caste system in Hinduism and also became the law minister, but within three years he became disaffected too. In 1950, he wrote in his resignation letter to prime minister Liaqat Ali Khan saying that the policy to oust Hindus has been successful in West Pakistan and is on the way to becoming successful in the east.”
He further wrote: “There is an effort in this country to exterminate the Hindu intelligentsia and eradicate their influence on Pakistani society.”
Jogendra Nath died in 1968. But why were they mentioned so many years later?
As per the chairman of South Asia strategic studies at JNU, Sanjay Vardwaz: “Modi wanted to show that after partition the Hindus in Pakistan were mistreated and victims of injustice. The CAA will try to amend that. In the almost three hour address, Modi never mentioned persecution of minorities in Bangladesh. By this, it’s easy to understand what messages he wanted to send Sheikh Hasina.”