১২ comments

1. 

   মাসুদ করিম - ২ এপ্রিল ২০১৫ (১০:০৬ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

   এই একটি মতামত-বিশ্লেষণে অনেক কিছু বলেছেন তিনি(বন্যা আহমেদ), জঙ্গি ধর্মবাদী ও তাদের সামনে কর্তব্যবিমূঢ় সরকার প্রশাসন – এর অতীত বর্তমান ভবিষ্যৎ: এলেখার প্রতিটি শব্দ নিঃশ্বাস দীর্ঘশ্বাস অবশ্যপাঠ্য।

   তোমাদের ঘৃণা করতেও ঘৃণা হয় আমার

   একটু একটু করে বেঁচে ওঠার চেষ্টা করছি প্রতিদিন। শরীরের ক্ষত তাকিয়ে থাকে আমার দিকে, জীবনের ক্ষত নিয়ে ভাবার ইচ্ছে হয় না এখনও। একটু একটু করে গড়ে তোলা বহু বছরের জীবনটা ফেলে এসেছি ঢাকার বই মেলার ফুটপাতে। মাঝরাতে ঘুম ভেঙ্গে চোখের সামনে দেখতে পাই ফুটপাতের উপর পড়ে থাকা অভিজিতের রক্তাক্ত দেহ। ভরদুপুরের নিস্তব্ধতায় শুনতে পাই হাসপাতালে আমার পাশেই শুইয়ে রাখা ক্ষতবিক্ষত অর্ধচেতন অভিজিতের মুখ থেকে ভেসে আসা অস্ফুট আওয়াজ। ডাক্তার যখন আমার কপালের, মাথার চাপাতির কোপগুলোর সেলাই খোলে, তখনও আঁতকে উঠি। বুড়ো আঙুলহীন বাম হাতটা দেখে প্রায়শ চমকেও উঠি। আয়নায় নিজের চেহারাটাও ঠিকমতো চিনতে পারি না আর।

   আহত মস্তিষ্ক উত্তর খোঁজে, খোঁজে কারণ আর পারম্পর্য। তারপর বুকের খুব গভীরের সেই অপূরণীয় শূণ্যতা থেকে জন্ম নিতে থাকে এক অদ্ভূত অনুভূতি। চোখে ভাসতে থাকে মানুষের চেহারায় মনুষ্যেতর সেই প্রাণিদের কথা, যারা ঢাকার রাজপথে উন্মুক্ত চাপাতি হাতে বেরিয়ে আসে অন্ধকার মধ্যযুগীয় মূল্যবোধের গুহা থেকে, যাদের হুঙ্কারে ক্রমশ আজ চাপা পড়ে যাচ্ছে সভ্যতার স্বর।

   লেখাটা লিখতে লিখতেই দেখলাম ঢাকা শহরে আবারও নাকি চাপাতির উল্লাসে ফেটে পড়েছে তাদের বিজয়গর্জন। এক মাস যেতে না যেতেই তারা আবার অভিজিতের হত্যা উদযাপন করেছে আরেকটি হত্যা দিয়ে। বাংলার মাটি ভিজতেই থাকে ধর্মোন্মাদ কূপমণ্ডূকদের নবীন উল্লাসে।

   কিন্তু ইতিহাস ও বিজ্ঞানের শিক্ষার্থী হিসেবে তারপরই মনে পড়ে যায় সে কথা, তোমরা তো সব সময় ছিলে। তোমাদের মতো ধর্মোন্মাদ অপশক্তিগুলোর বিরুদ্ধে যুদ্ধ করেই এগিয়েছে মানবসভ্যতা। তোমাদের মতো হায়েনার দল সব সময় প্রগতিকে খুবলে খুবলে খাওয়ার চেষ্টা করেছে। বুদ্ধিবৃত্তি, বিজ্ঞানমনস্কতা, প্রগতিশীল শিল্প-সাহিত্য-সংস্কৃতি, সবই তোমাদের আতঙ্কিত করেছে যুগে যুগে। তোমরাই তো প্রতিবার জ্ঞান-বিজ্ঞানের প্রগতি আটকাতে অস্ত্র তুলে নিয়েছ। কিন্তু সামান্য কলমের আঁচড়ে তোমাদের কাঁচের ঘর হুড়মুড় করে ভেঙে পড়ে। তোমাদের দুর্বল ধর্মবিশ্বাস মুক্তচিন্তার হাওয়ায় নড়ে ওঠে। তলোয়ার নিয়ে, চাপাতি নিয়ে ছুটে আস, কল্লা ফেলেই শুধু তোমাদের ঈমানরক্ষা হয়।

   তোমরা তো সব সময় ছিলে…

   হাইপেশিয়ার শরীরের মাংস তোমরাই চিরে চিরে উঠিয়েছিলে। অসংখ্য নির্দোষ ‘ডাইনি’ পুড়িয়েছ তোমরা। সতীদাহে মেতেছ। ব্রুনোকে আগুনে পুড়িয়ে দানবীয় আনন্দ পেয়েছ। কূপমণ্ডূকের মতো গ্যালিলিওকে শাস্তি দিয়ে স্বস্তির ঢেঁকু্র তুলে ভেবেছ, এই বুঝি পৃথিবীর ঘোরা চিরতরে বন্ধ করে দিতে সক্ষম হলে!

   অভিজিৎ হাইপেশিয়াকে নিয়ে একটা লেখা লিখেছিল অনেক আগে। সামান্য অক্ষরজ্ঞান থাকলে পড়ে দেখ, দেড় হাজার বছর আগের ধর্মোন্মাদ ফ্যানাটিকদের সঙ্গে আজকের তোমাদের কোনো পার্থক্য নেই। সময়, পটভূমি ও অস্ত্র একটু বদলে দিলে তোমাদের নিজেদের চেহারাই দেখবে ওদের মধ্যে। হাজার বছরেও কাল, দেশ, ধর্ম, জাতিনির্বিশেষে তোমাদের কোনো পরিবর্তন হয়নি।

   ‘‘একাত্তরে বাঙালি বুদ্ধিজীবী হত্যার মতোই সিরিল (পোপ-পূর্ববর্তী সময়ে আলেকজান্দ্রিয়ার ক্রিশ্চান ধর্মগুরু) যেমনভবে বেছে বেছে বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের ‘নব্যতান্ত্রিক’ নিও-প্লেটোনিস্টদের ধরে ধরে হত্যার মহোৎসবে মত্ত ছিলেন, এমনই এক দিন কর্মস্থলে যাওয়ার পথে হাইপেশিয়া মৌলবাদী আক্রোশের শিকার হলেন, অনেকটা আজকের দিনের হুমায়ুন আজাদের মতোই। তবে হাইপেশিয়ার ক্ষেত্রে বীভৎসতা ছিল আরও ব্যাপক। হাইপেশিয়া-হত্যার পুঙ্খানুপুঙ্খ বিবরণ পাওয়া যায় পনের শতকে সক্রেটিস স্কলাসটিকাসের রচনা হতে:

   ‘পিটার নামের এক আক্রোশী ব্যক্তি অনেক দিন ধরেই তক্কে তক্কে ছিল। শেষমেষ সে হাইপেশিয়াকে কোনো এক জায়গা থেকে ফিরবার পথে কব্জা করে ফেলে। সে তার দলবল নিয়ে হাইপেশিয়াকে তাঁর ঘোড়ার গাড়ি থেকে টেনেহিঁচড়ে কেসারিয়াম (Caesarium) নামের একটি চার্চে নিয়ে যায়। সেখানে তারা হাইপেশিয়ার কাপড়-চোপড় খুলে একেবারে নগ্ন করে ফেলে। তারপর ধারালো অস্ত্রের সাহায্যে তাঁর চামড়া চেঁছে ফেলে, তাঁর শরীরের মাংস চিরে ফেলে। আর শেষ নিঃশ্বাস ত্যাগ করার আগ পর্যন্ত হাইপেশিয়ার উপর তাদের অকথ্য অত্যাচার চলতে থাকে। এখানেই শেষ নয়, মারা যাবার পর হাইপেশিয়ার মৃতদেহ টুকরো টুকরো করে সিনারন (Cinaron) নামের একটি জায়গায় জড়ো করা হয় আর তারপর পুড়িয়ে তা ছাই করে দেওয়া হয়।’

   হাইপেশিয়াকে হত্যা করা হয় ৪১৫ ক্রিস্টাব্দের মার্চ মাসে। হাইপেশিয়ার হত্যাকারীদের তালিকায় ছিল মূলত সিরিলের জেরুজালেমের চার্চের প্যারাবোলানস, মৌলবাদী সন্ন্যাসী, নিটৃয়ান খ্রিস্টীয় ধর্মবাদীরা।’’

   ভুল করেও ভেব না যে, আমরা ভাবছি তোমরা শুধু ইতিহাসের পাতা জুড়েই আবদ্ধ হয়ে আছ। তোমরা যে এই একুশ শতকে আরও শক্তিশালী হয়ে আহত হিংস্র পশুর মতো দক্ষযজ্ঞে লিপ্ত হয়েছ, সেটা ইচ্ছে করলেও কারও চোখ এড়াতে পারবে না। ঈমানরক্ষার জন্য আইসিসের জল্লাদেরা যখন কল্লা কাটে, বিধর্মী মেয়েদের যৌনদাসী হতে বাধ্য করে, বোকো হারাম যখন কয়েকশ তরুণীকে উঠিয়ে নিয়ে গিয়ে মধ্যযুগীয় বাজারদরে বিক্রি করে বা তালিবানরা যখন নিস্পাপ স্কুলছাত্রদের উপর গণহত্যা চালায়, তখনও আমরা দেখতে পাই, তোমরা আগেও যেমন ছিলে, এখন তেমনি আছ।

   বিশ্বজুড়ে তোমাদের ক্ষমতাধর পৃষ্ঠপোষকদেরও আমরা চিনি, যারা যুগে যুগে তোমাদের টিকে থাকতে সাহায্য করেছে, ধর্মের ব্যবসা থেকে মুনাফা লুটেছে। তোমাদের মূর্খতা, কূপমণ্ডূকতা এবং পাশবিক নিষ্ঠুরতার নমুনা তো সারাক্ষণ চারপাশেই দেখেছি; এবার নিজের জীবনেও দেখলাম।

   আমার মাথার চাপাতির কোপগুলো এখনও পুরোপুরি সারেনি। আঙুলবিহীন হাতটা এখনও অবাক করে। আর অভিজিতের নিথর হয়ে পড়ে থাকা দেহটা তো চোখের সামনে ভেসেই থাকে। আর তখনই বুঝতে পারি– না, তোমাদেরকে ঘৃণাও করি না আমি, করতে পারি না। বড্ড অরুচি হয় তোমাদের মতো অমানুষদের ঘৃণা করতে। একজন মানুষকে ঘৃণা করার জন্য তাদের মধ্যে যতটুকু মনুষ্যত্ব অবশিষ্ট থাকতে হয়, তার কণাটুকুও নেই তোমাদের মধ্যে। তোমরা আমার ঘৃণারও যোগ্য নও।

   অভিজিৎ, আমি, বাবু এবং বর্তমান ও ইতিহাসের পাতা জুড়ে ছড়িয়ে থাকা আমাদের মতো হাজারো মানুষেরা তোমাদের অপকর্মেরই সাক্ষী। তোমাদেরকে ইতিহাসের আস্তাকুঁড়ে ছুঁড়ে ফেলার সময় মানবসভ্যতা এই বর্বর উন্মাদনা দেখে ঘৃণায় শিউরে উঠবে, এ থেকেই সামনে এগিয়ে যাবার প্রতিজ্ঞা নেবে।

   || দুই ||

   এবার একটু অন্য প্রসঙ্গে আসি। মাঝে মাঝে ভেবে অবাক হই যে, বাংলাদেশ সরকারের পক্ষ থেকে এ প্রসঙ্গে আমরা এখনও একটা শব্দও শুনলাম না। যে দেশের ‘ন্যাচারালাইজড’ নাগরিক আমরা সে সরকার যতটুকু বলল, আমাদের জন্ম নেওয়া দেশের সরকার তার ধারেকাছেও কিছু বলল না, ভয়ে সিঁটকে থাকল! বলুন তো, আপনাদের ভয়টা কোথায়? নাকি এ শুধুই রাজনীতির খেলা?

   অভিজিতের বাবাকে নাকি লুকিয়ে লুকিয়ে ফোন করেছিলেন প্রধানমন্ত্রী। দেখা করেছিলেন কয়েক জন মন্ত্রী। সে খবর যেন গোপন থাকে, সে বিষয়ে সতর্কতাও নিয়েছিলেন তাঁরা। আমরা জন্মেছি যে দেশে– বড় হয়েছি যে দেশে– দেশের বাইরে এসে ভালো চাকরি, গাড়ি, বাড়ি নিয়ে শুধু স্বাচ্ছন্দ্যে থাকার চিন্তা না করে লেখালেখি করেছি যে দেশের জন্য– বারবার ফিরে এসেছি যে দেশের মায়ায়– সে দেশের সরকারের কি কিছুই বলার ছিল না?

   বাংলাদেশসহ আন্তর্জাতিক বিভিন্ন মিডিয়া, ব্লগগুলো তীব্র প্রতিবাদ করেছে; অভিজিৎ রায়ের লেখাগুলো অনুবাদ এবং পুনঃপ্রচারে নেমেছে অনেকগুলো প্ল্যাটফর্ম। দেশের বিভিন্ন শহরে, আর দেশের বাইরে লন্ডন, ওয়াশিংটন ডিসি, ফ্লোরিডা, টরন্টো, নিউইয়র্ক, বার্লিন, সিডনিতে মানববন্ধন থেকে শুরু অসংখ্য প্রতিবাদ সমাবেশ হয়েছে। অথচ বই মেলায় লোকে লোকারণ্য, আলোকিত ‘নিশ্ছিদ্র নিরাপত্তার’ মধ্যে অভিজিতের মতো একজন লেখককে কুপিয়ে কুপিয়ে মারা হল, তার প্রতিবাদ জানিয়ে একটা কথাও কি বের হতে পারল না আপনাদের মুখ থেকে? অথচ আপনারাই আপনাদের ধর্মোন্মাদ বন্ধুদের দাবিতে নাস্তিক ব্লগারদের ধরে ধরে জেলে পুরেছিলেন। তাদের ধরে জেলে পুড়তে যে তৎপরতা দেখিয়েছিলেন তার কণাটুকুও তো চোখে পড়ল না আজ!

   অনেক সময় মৌনতাই অনেক কিছু বলে দেয়। আমরা কি ধরে নেব যে, অভিজিৎ বা বাবুর হত্যার পেছনে, আমাকে কোপানোর পেছনে, আপনাদেরও প্রচ্ছন্ন সম্মতি আছে? কলমের বিরুদ্ধে চাপাতির আঘাতই আপনারা এখন দেশের সংস্কৃতি হিসেবে মেনে নিতে বলছেন?

   এক মাস চলে গেল। শুরুতে তদন্তের যাও-বা কিছুটা তাগিদ দেখলাম, তা আস্তে আস্তে মিইয়ে গেল। আপনাদের কাছ থেকে সহানুভূতি আশা করি না আমরা; সমর্থনের আশা তো বাদ দিয়েছি সেই কোন কালেই। আপনাদের ভোটের রাজনীতি করতে হয়, মন জুগিয়ে চলতে হয় কত ধরনের অপশক্তির, সেটা তো আমরা বুঝি। কিন্তু আপনাদের নিশ্চুপতার কারণটাও বড্ড জানতে ইচ্ছে করে।

   বাংলাদেশে ধর্মীয় মৌলবাদ যে ধীরে ধীরে আঁটি গেড়ে বসেছে, তার খবর তো আমরা সবাই জানি। তাদের পৃষ্ঠপোষক হিসেবে দেশবিদেশ জুড়ে কারা কাজ করছে তাও অজানা নয়। অভিজিতের হত্যা একজন দুজন লোকের হাতে হয়নি। এর পিছনে সংগঠিত ইসলামি মৌলবাদী সন্ত্রাসী দলের হাত রয়েছে, তার প্রমাণ আমরা সঙ্গে সঙ্গেই পেয়েছি। না হলে এত তাড়াতাড়ি ‘আনসার বাংলা ৭’এর মতো দল হত্যার দায়িত্ব স্বীকার করতে পারত না। এদের যদি সমূলে উৎপাটন করার ব্যবস্থা না নেওয়া হয়, তবে আমাদের ভবিষ্যৎ কোথায় গিয়ে দাঁড়াবে, সেটা কি ভেবে দেখা দরকার নয় এখন? আইসিস, বোকো হারাম, আল-কায়েদার পথে জাতিকে ঠেলে দেওয়াটাই কি ভবিতব্য?

   || তিন ||

   মানব সভ্যতা যখন আজ মঙ্গলগ্রহে বসতি বানানোর স্বপ্ন দেখছে, তখন আমরা মধ্যযুগীয় ‘উদ্ভট এক উটের পিঠে চড়ে’ পিছনের দিকে যাত্রা শুরু করেছি। ক্ষমতাশালীরা সব সময় প্রগতির গলা চেপে ধরার অস্ত্র হিসেবে ধর্ম ও ধর্মীয় মৌলবাদ লালন করেছে। তারা জয়ীও হয়েছে কখনও কখনও। কিন্তু যত সময় লাগুক না কেন, মানবসভ্যতা তাকে হারিয়ে দিয়ে আবার এগিয়ে গিয়েছে।

   অভিজিৎ শুধু লেখালেখি করেনি, দেশে মুক্তবুদ্ধিচর্চার এক দৃঢ় প্ল্যাটফর্ম তৈরির চেষ্টাও করে গেছে আজীবন। ঢাকা বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের শিক্ষক কাবেরী গায়েন আমাকে এক ব্যক্তিগত ম্যাসেজে লিখেছেন, ‘‘জানি, লেখার প্রতিবাদে চাপাতি দিয়ে কুপিয়ে মারাটাই এখন আমাদের দেশের আইনি সংস্কৃতিতে পরিণত হয়ে গিয়েছে। তবে অভিজিতের মৃত্যুর পর একজন নাস্তিক এবং মুক্তবুদ্ধিচর্চাকারীর পক্ষে দাঁড়ানোর ব্যাপারে আমাদের যে ট্যাবুটা ছিল তা ভেঙ্গে পড়েছে। চারদিকে মানুষ সোচ্চার হয়ে উঠেছে। প্রতিদিনই প্রায় এ নিয়ে লেখালেখি, মিটিং, মিছিল চলছে।’’

   অভিজিতকে কুপিয়ে হত্যার বিনিময়ে এই অর্জন কতটা যুক্তিযুক্ত সে বিতর্কে না গিয়েই বলছি, সমাজ সরলরেখায় এগোয় না, কখনও হোঁচট খেয়ে, কখনও হাঁটি হাঁটি পা পা করে, কখনও-বা জনগণের প্রবল শক্তিতে বলিয়ান হয়ে তীব্রগতিতে সামনে এগিয়ে চলে। আজ অগুণতি অন্যায়, হত্যা, অরাজকতা, দুর্নীতি দেখতে দেখতে যে মানুষেরা মনুষ্যত্বহীন হয়ে ফ্যালফ্যাল করে তাকিয়ে থাকে ফুটপাতে পড়ে থাকা চাপাতিতে কুপানো নিথর শরীরের দিকে, সাহায্যের জন্য এগিয়ে আসার কথাও ভাবতে পারে না, তারাই হয়তো একদিন জাগবে। ইতিহাস বলে, আমরাও এগুব; তবে দুপা আগানোর আগে আর কত পা পিছাতে হবে, সেটা হয়তো সময়েই বলে দেবে।

2. 

   মাসুদ করিম - ৮ এপ্রিল ২০১৫ (১২:৩৯ অপরাহ্ণ)

   Interview: Masked Chinese Activists ‘Show Solidarity’ with Detained Feminists

   On March 6 and 7, ahead of International Women’s Day, feminist activists in three Chinese cities were arrested for planning to distribute stickers in public subways and buses that condemn sexual harassment. One month later, five of those women remain under criminal detention for “picking quarrels and causing a public disturbance” — a charge that could bring a prison sentence of up to five years if prosecution goes forward.

   Soon after the arrests, a group of anonymous supporters in China began publicly donning masks with the faces of the five detained feminists and uploading photos to various social media accounts. The group has since inspired others around China to stage similar masked photos of themselves.

   Asia Blog got in touch with a member of the original masked group who goes by the pseudonym Wu Tingting. She answered questions about her campaign via email.

   Can you talk a bit about your background and those of the other women making these photos?

   For safety reasons, I can’t talk about our specific identities except to say that we’re all feminist activists who have been paying attention to women’s interests for a long time. We are from all walks of life; some of us are students and some are workers from various places. We got to know each other through following feminist friends on social media and other Internet channels.

   What prompted you to come together to create these photos?

   We’re doing it to show solidarity with the women’s rights advocates that were arrested without any legitimate reason. They’ve done so much to promote women’s rights and they’re trying to make this country a better place with more gender equality. They have now been detained for one month and been deprived of freedom for one month. We hope through this activity to show our concerns and also make more people concerned for them. We want the five women to know that there are many people supporting them and we also want to show that it is impossible to arrest all feminist activists.

   Why did you use the particular approach of wearing masks of the five detained women?

   The places we choose are very normal, like small restaurants, parks, vegetable markets, shopping malls. The idea is to simulate those detained women living ordinary lives as free people. We also chose places like restrooms to commemorate their “Occupy Men’s Room” movement. When we take the pictures, some people are watching and are surprised, but we haven’t met any trouble yet.

   The women you’re supporting were arrested for activities not much different from what you’re doing now. Are you afraid you could meet the same fate as them?

   We are concerned for our safety, so we don’t reveal our real personal information. But we’re not doing anything unreasonable or illegal, so we’re not afraid.

   How do you think these arrests will influence feminist activism?

   I believe the arrests signal that the authorities are repressing feminism. There will be less room for feminist activities, but that won’t prevent us from pushing change within the limited space. Among the people who know about this case, there’s overwhelming support for these five feminists — including support from abroad. The government crackdown has infuriated many people. Of course, high pressure will create fear, but it also shows people why they should fight.

   Interview: Masked Chinese Activists 'Show Solidarity' with Detained Feminists: http://t.co/gHWRE7yYVE #FreeTheFive pic.twitter.com/0rFSuIjoyC

   — Asia Society (@AsiaSociety) April 8, 2015

3. 

   মাসুদ করিম - ৮ এপ্রিল ২০১৫ (১:০৭ অপরাহ্ণ)

   The Kabuliwalas of Tagore’s story still live in Kolkata

   A community of 5,000 Afghans has found a home in the city for over a century.

   One of the lasting images of Afghans in India comes from Rabindranath Tagore’s famous bittersweet story of a Kabuliwala, a dried fruit seller from Kabul, who strikes up a touching friendship with a little girl in Calcutta.

   But the story of real Kabuliwalas does not begin(or end) with Tagore. Afghans had been coming as salesmen to India for decades before and after the 1892 story. A closely knit community of around 5,000 Afghans lives in Kolkata even today, though they might no longer be vendors of odds and ends.

   From Kabul to Kolkata: of Belonging, Memories and Identity, a new exhibition of photographs by journalists Moska Najib and Nazes Afroz attempts to show just that. The exhibition of 50 photographs, inspired by the short story, is a product of their collaboration from 2012

   Between them, Najib and Afroz have close connections to Afghanistan and Kolkata. Najib, who has lived in India for most of her life, was forced to flee Afghanistan when she was only eight years old. Over the years, she said, Tagore’s story was often a point of reference in conversations about Afghans and the ties between the two countries.

   “Being displaced from Afghanistan at the age of eight, I always felt there was an abrupt disconnection with my roots and hence, a lasting sense of loss,” she wrote. “And so throughout my life, I’ve been drawn to themes of identity and belonging.”

   When in 2012 she wanted to work on a project around Afghanistan, Kabuliwalas were a natural choice. Thinking she might be too close to the project, she decided to team up with someone who might have a more distant perspective. That person was Afroz, a former colleague of her.

   Afroz had lived and worked in Kolkata for 17 years. As a child, he stayed in Park Circus, then an amazingly diverse area that was home to a host of Chinese, Anglo-Indians, Armenians, Baghdadi Jews and Kabuliwalas.

   “This diversity of Calcutta definitely contributed to who I am today,” he said. Over the decades, as Calcutta homogenised, these small communities shrunk further.

   “It disturbed me that Calcutta was losing its diversity,” he said. “There has not been enough visual work done to capture that, except for Pablo Bartholomew’s work on the Chinese community. I thought this would be my tribute to the city.”

   Who are Kabuliwalas?

   At first, they were not certain they would find Kabuliwalas in Kolkata at all. The city Afroz had grown up in was no longer as welcoming. Yet once they began research towards the end of 2012, they found a vibrant community of 5,000 people, many of whom still lived as Afghans though they had not visited their home in decades or ever.

   While the links between modern Afghanistan and India are old and deep, Afghans first came to Calcutta on the heels of the Anglo-Afghan wars that began in 1839. Calcutta, then the capital of the British Raj, was a natural destination. Over the next decades, streams of Afghans travelled back and forth across the southern land route from Kandahar to Quetta and finally to Calcutta, usually as the salesmen familiar in the Tagore story.

   Then came 1947. Without valid travel documents, Afghan traders found themselves unable to return home. Many remained in Calcutta instead, the city that had already been so welcoming to them.

   “When you talk about the Afghan diaspora today, you think about people who have been displaced by wars,” Afroz said. “This community has no association with war at all. They have been coming to Calcutta for so long because they found the city hospitable towards them.”

   Kabuliwalas in Kolkata are not from Kabul, they found. They are from Paktia and Paktika in south Afghanistan. Since they travelled without women, many ended up marrying Indians, but remained entrenched in the culture of their homeland. Many of the younger ones have never set foot in Afghanistan, but still speak Pashto and identify deeply with their home country. Even today, they celebrate both Eids in Afghan fashion in the maidans of Kolkata.

   Lingering connections

   The project was not entirely easy for the two, particularly when it came to contacting the women of the community. They remained indoors for the most part and they were finally able to photograph only two women, both outside their homes.

   “Documenting the lives of women and their children proved to be our main challenge,” Najib wrote. “As a woman, I wanted to peek in and photograph the minutiae of their everyday life. […] Their absence accentuates our photographic challenges and the submission to cultural restrictions and sensitivities.”

   At the exhibition in Kabul, Afroz met a man from the same province as Kolkata’s Kabuliwalas. The man had lived in Kolkata during the early years of the Taliban war, as had his father and grandfather. His father died and was buried there. Two years ago, the man went back to India to search for his father’s grave. The main photo of exhibition is of a man combing his beard against the blue background. That person had helped him find his father’s grave.

   “This is not a community stuck in a silo,” Afroz said. “There continues to be a continuum, a connection with their country.”

   The first instalment of the exhibition opened in Kabul on March 18. The Delhi edition will run from April 10 to 23. The show will then travel to Dhaka on April 27 and land in Kolkata from May 16 to 29.

   Photos: The Kabuliwalas of Tagore's story still live in Kolkata. http://t.co/zY7eFpC1UN pic.twitter.com/KAA60gbePO

   — scroll.in (@scroll_in) April 8, 2015

   মিনির কাবুলিওয়ালারা এখনো আছে কলকাতায় http://muktangon.blog/ajkerlink/9996#comment-46770via scroll.in > http://scroll.in/article/718950/Photos:-The-Kabuliwalas-of-Tagore%27s-story-still-live-in-Kolkata

   Posted by Masud Karim on Wednesday, April 8, 2015

4. 

   মাসুদ করিম - ৯ এপ্রিল ২০১৫ (১:৫৭ অপরাহ্ণ)

   South Korea’s PM warns Japan of ‘grim judgment’ over textbooks that ‘distort history’

   South Korean Prime Minister Lee Wan Koo on Thursday warned Japan it would face a “grim judgment” if it failed to address what he called the realities of history.

   Mr Lee issued the warning during a specially called press conference following Monday’s announcement by Japan’s Education Ministry that all 18 new social studies textbooks for use in junior high schools assert Japanese ownership of two separate island groups at the centre of disputes with China and South Korea.

   “You can never cover up stark truth. (Japan) will eventually face a grim historical judgement,” Mr Lee was quoted as saying by the Yonhap news agency. “(Japan) must stop distorting history.”

5. 

   মাসুদ করিম - ১১ এপ্রিল ২০১৫ (১:০৯ অপরাহ্ণ)

   A fresh move made to build Bangladesh-Myanmar road

   Yangon (!, or Naypyidaw) agrees on route thru Bandarban

   A fresh move has been made to build the long- dreamt Bangladesh-Myanmar friendship road after the neighbouring country agreed in principle to explore the possibility of routing the continental highway through Bandarban area, official sources said.

   The trans-border communications route is broadly planned to establish wider connectivity with the Southeast Asian countries, including the Chinese spring city of Kunming, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore crossing over Myanmar.

   It is also conceived as part of the long-cherished Asian Highway and BCIM (Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar) corridor.

   Bangladesh and Myanmar signed an agreement in July 2007 to build the cross-border friendship road.

   The 153-kilometre road was proposed to be set up from Balukhali-Gundum in Cox’s Bazar district to Chin state through Bawli Bazar in Myanmar.

   However, the initiative remained shelved afterwards despite Bangladesh efforts several times, for not getting any response from the Myanmar government which was supposed to construct 110km portion of the road inside its hilly terrains.

   Foreign Ministry sources said the fresh initiative has been taken after Myanmar’s transport minister was convinced with the Bangladesh proposal to have the connectivity through Thanchi or Alikadam of Bandarban hill district to Deletme of Chin state of Myanmar instead of Balukhali-Gundum route.

   They said the Bangladesh ambassador to Myanmar in a meeting proposed to the Myanmar Transport Minister the potential of the new route.

   The envoy stated that this link would connect the India-Myanmar joint project — Kaladan Multimodal Transit Transport Project.

   It is planned that the Kaladan project will link the Indian state of Mizoram to facilitate trade and commerce but will “facilitate establishing regional connectivity in the long run”.

   Sources said the Myanmar government had already started the widening and upgrading of highways in the area which is that country’s worst poverty- stricken state. Meanwhile, the foreign ministry held an inter-ministerial meeting in February to work on the agreed proposal to conduct fresh feasibility study on the Bangladesh side in both Thanchi and Alikadam areas to find “best possible route”.

   An official of Road Transport and Bridges Ministry said Roads and Highways Department has already taken a project to conduct the study and visited the roads both in Thanchi and Alikadam areas.

   “In both cases, there is missing link on the Bangladesh side. But the study will show which would be more comfortable and straight to establish the friendship road,” said the official, preferring not to be named as he is not the authority to talk to the media.

   Earlier, the Bangladesh government with support of security forces conducted a feasibility study to explore the opportunity to establish the border road with Myanmar through Balukhali-Gundum to Bawali of Myanmar.

   RHD officials said this Balukhali-Gundhum border road was, however, found less suitable from the context of land acquisition and route length and the study recommended Ukhiya-Naikhyongchhari route as the best option.

   The Balukhali-Gundhum road was also known as a ‘missing link’ as there was no road up to 25 kms to establish the Bangladesh-Myanmar road.

   As per the 2007 contract, Bangladesh had to construct 23km road inside its territory and 20 kms on Myanmar side as the missing link. The rest 110 kms were supposed to be constructed by the Myanmar government as per international standards for establishing regional connectivity, including linking with the Asian Highway and the BCIM corridor.

   Bangladesh and Myanmar have an over 200km common border but the frontier area has challenges in constructing road for its being hilly terrains.

   Meanwhile, in early February, the Bangladesh government proposed to import gas from the gas field in Myanmar state of Rakhine and export electricity to that country’s Chin state to meet its high demand for electricity. This proposal has yet to proceed far.

6. 

   মাসুদ করিম - ১৩ এপ্রিল ২০১৫ (৭:৩৭ অপরাহ্ণ)

   Günter Grass, Nobel-winning German novelist, dies aged 87

   The writer Günter Grass, who broke the silences of the past for a generation of Germans, has died in hospital in Lübeck at the age of 87.

   German president Joachim Gauck led the tributes, offering his condolences to the writer’s widow Ute Grass. “Günter Grass moved, enthralled, and made the people of our country think with his literature and his art,” he said in a statement. “His literary work won him recognition early across the world, as witnessed not least by his Nobel prize.”

   “His novels, short stories, and his poetry reflect the great hopes and fallacies, the fears and desires of whole generations,” the statement continued.

   Tributes began to appear within minutes of the announcement of Grass’ death on Twitter by his publisher, Steidl.

   In the UK, Salman Rushdie was one of the first authors to respond, tweeting:

   This is very sad. A true giant, inspiration, and friend. Drum for him, little Oskar. https://t.co/5b4Y7fTtin

   — Salman Rushdie (@SalmanRushdie) April 13, 2015

   The Turkish Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk had warm personal memories: “Grass learned a lot from Rabelais and Celine and was influential in development of ‘magic realism’ and Marquez. He taught us to base the story on the inventiveness of the writer no matter how cruel, harsh and political the story is,” he said.

   He added: “In April 2010 when there was a mushroom cloud over Europe he was in Istanbul and stayed more than he planned. We went to restaurants and drank and drank and talked and talked … A generous, curious and a very warm friend who also wanted to be a painter at first!”

   Grass found success in every artistic form he explored – from poetry to drama and from sculpture to graphic art – but it wasn’t until publication of his first novel, The Tin Drum, in 1959 that he found the international reputation which brought him the Nobel prize for literature 40 years later. A speechwriter for the German chancellor Willy Brandt, Grass was never afraid to use the platform his fame afforded, campaigning for peace and the environment and speaking out against German reunification, which he compared to Hitler’s “annexation” of Austria.

   Grass was born in the Free City of Danzig – now Gdansk – in 1927, “almost late enough”, as he said, to avoid involvement with the Nazi regime. Conscripted into the army in 1944 at the age of 16, he served as a tank gunner in the Waffen SS, bringing accusations of betrayal, hypocrisy and opportunism when he wrote about it in his 2006 autobiography, Peeling the Onion.

   The writer was surprised by the strength of the reaction, arguing that he thought at the time that the SS was merely “an elite unit”, that he had spoken openly about his wartime record in the 1960s, and that he had spent a lifetime “working through” the unquestioning beliefs of his youth in his writing. His war came to an end six months later having “never fired a shot”, when he was wounded in Cottbus and captured in a military hospital by the US army. That he avoided committing war crimes was “not by merit”, he insisted. “If I had been born three or four years earlier I would, surely, have seen myself caught up in those crimes.”

   Instead he trained as a stonemason, studied art in Düsseldorf and Berlin, and joined Hans Werner Richter’s Group 47 alongside writers such as Ingeborg Bachmann and Heinrich Böll. After moving to Paris in 1956 he began working on a novel which told the story of Germany in the first half of the 20th century through the life of a boy who refuses to grow.

   A sprawling mixture of fantasy, family saga, bildungsroman and political fable, The Tin Drum was attacked by critics, denied the Bremen literature prize by outraged senators, burned in Düsseldorf and became a global bestseller.

   Speaking to the Swedish Academy in 1999, Grass explained that the reaction taught him “that books can cause offence, stir up fury, even hatred, that what is undertaken out of love for one’s country can be taken as soiling one’s nest. From then on I have been controversial.”

   A steady stream of provocative interventions in debates around social justice, peace and the environment followed, alongside poetry, drama, drawings and novels. In 1977 Grass tackled sexual politics, hunger and the rise of civilisation with a 500-page version of the Grimm brothers’ fairytale The Fisherman and His Wife. The Rat (1986) explored the apocalpyse, as a man dreams of a talking rat who tells him of the end of the human race, while 1995’s Too Far Afield explored reunification through east German eyes – prompting Germany’s foremost literary critic, Marcel Reich-Ranicki, to brand the novel a “complete and utter failure” and to appear on the cover of Der Spiegel ripping a copy in half.

   His last novel, 2002’s Crabwalk, dived into the sinking of the German liner Wilhelm Gustloff in 1945, while three volumes of memoir – Peeling the Onion, The Box and Grimms’ Words – boldly ventured into troubled waters.

   Germany’s political establishment responded immediately to the news of Grass’s death. The head of the German Green party, Katrin Göring-Eckardt, called Grass a “great author, a critical spirit. A contemporary who had the ambition to put himself against the Zeitgeist.”

   “Günter Grass was a contentious intellectual – his literary work remains formidable,” tweeted the head of the opposition Free Democratic party, Christian Lindner.

   The foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was “deeply dismayed” at the news of the author’s death, a tweet from his ministry said.

   Steinmeier is a member of the Social Democratic party, which Grass had a fraught relationship with – after campaigning for the party in 1960s and 70s, he became a member in 1982, only to leave ten years later in protest at its asylum policies.

   “Günter Grass was a contentious intellectual who interfered. We sometimes miss that today,” SPD chairwoman Andrea Nahles said.

   While there were plenty of tributes recognising Grass as one of Germany’s most important post-war writers, social media users swiftly revived many of the controversies of his divisive career, bringing up his membership of the SS and his alleged anti-Semitism.

   Speaking to the Paris Review in 1991, Grass made no apology for his abiding focus on Germany’s difficult past. “If I had been a Swedish or a Swiss author I might have played around much more, told a few jokes and all that,” he said. “That hasn’t been possible; given my background, I have had no other choice.”

   The controversy flared up again following by publication of his 2012 poem What Must be Said, in which he criticised Israeli policy. Published simultaneously in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the Italian La Repubblica and Spanish El País, the poem brought an angry response from the Israeli ambassador to Germany, Shimon Stein, who saw in it “a disturbed relationship to his own past, the Jews, and Israel”.

   Despite his advanced age, Grass still led an active public life, and made vigorous public appearances in recent weeks. In a typically opinionated interview for state broadcaster WDR, which he gave in February after a live reading from Grimms’ Words, Grass called his last book a “declaration of love to the German language”.

   He also talked about how the internet and the loss of the art of letter-writing had led to a “new illiteracy”. “Of course that has consequences,” he said. “It leads to a poverty of language and allows everything to be forgotten that the Grimm brothers created with their glorious work.”

   He also remained critical of western policy in the Middle East (“now we see the chaos we make in those countries with our western values”), and talked about how his age had done nothing to soften his political engagement.

   “I have children and grandchildren, I ask myself every day: ‘what are we leaving behind for them?’ When I was 17, at the end of the war, everything was in ruins, but our generation, whether for good reason or not, had hope, we wanted to shape the future. That’s very difficult for young people today, because the future is virtually fixed for them.”

   Literaturnobelpreisträger: Günter Grass ist tot http://t.co/59IPRNhGN4 via @DerSPIEGEL pic.twitter.com/zt9biBFMIO

   — MasudKarimমাক (@urumurum) April 13, 2015

7. 

   মাসুদ করিম - ১৩ এপ্রিল ২০১৫ (৭:৫৩ অপরাহ্ণ)

   Eduardo Galeano Dead, Prolific Writer Was 74

   Award-winning Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano has died, El Pais reported.

   He was 74.

   Galeano was best known for his 1971 book, “Open Veins of Latin America,” which details the history of the region and how it was exploited by Europe and the United States. The book was banned for years across the continent, including in Uruguay, at the hands of powerful dictators. Galeano himself was arrested and exiled after a military coup lead by Juan Maria Bordaberry took over Uruguay.

   In retrospect, the book has been widely praised and has been translated into at least 20 languages. In 2009, the Guardian called Galeano “one of the most well-known and celebrated writers in Latin America.”

   “We have a memory cut in pieces,” he once told “Democracy Now. “And I write trying to recover our real memory, the memory of humankind, what I call the human rainbow, which is much more colorful and beautiful than the other one, the other rainbow. But the human rainbow had been mutilated by machismo, racism, militarism and a lot of other isms, who have been terribly killing our greatness, our possible greatness, our possible beauty.”

   He had been diagnosed with cancer twice and, according to El Pais, was admitted to the hospital on Friday related to his illness.

   Muere el escritor uruguayo Eduardo Galeano a los 74 años http://t.co/PsUUuT2X1j pic.twitter.com/t1dOppmMZS

   — MasudKarimমাক (@urumurum) April 13, 2015

   Really sad to hear Eduardo Galeano has died. Among many other important works, he wrote the best book about soccer anyone has ever written.

   — Stephanie Thompson (@Stefaniya) April 13, 2015

8. 

   মাসুদ করিম - ২৩ এপ্রিল ২০১৫ (৮:২৩ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

   নারীদের জন্য ‘ডিলডো’ খুব সম্ভবত ‘হালাল’ হবে না ‘হারাম’ই থেকে যাবে।

   Halal Sex Shop Opening For Muslims In Mecca, Saudi Arabia: Report

   Halal is a lifestyle for many adherents of Islam, and the topic of sexuality is mostly taboo among Muslims. Combining the two might seem a toxic mix, but the recent appearance of sex shops catering to Muslims — even in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the center of the Islamic faith — indicates there is a market for certain adult products.

   A store called Halal Sex Shop is expected to open soon in Mecca, according to a report on Alyaoum24, an Arabic news portal, which did not specify an opening date. Owner Abdelaziz Aouragh said the products at his store are halal-observant and target married couples trying to enhance their sex lives. “Our products [do] not include inflatable dolls, but products that increase feelings of sensuality and improve the atmosphere between the couple in [their] sexual relationship,” Aouragh told Alyaoum24. While halal typically refers to food and beverages that are permissible for consumption by Muslims, it also guides the use of objects under Islamic law.

   With the help of German company Beate Uhse, one of the largest sex product vendors in Europe, Aouragh is reportedly selling 18 Islam-appropriate sex toys in his Mecca store.

   Muslims are typically viewed as not very sexually active, and many people think Muslim women are repressed sexually within their marriages, but Aouragh wants to change the negative stereotypes. “The image of women in the kitchen with burqa is not a true picture,” he said. “There is a lot of love and respect Islam has for adult women. Our store puts women at the center, offers information, and provides answers to frequently asked questions on sex.”

   Aouragh, a Moroccan Muslim, consulted with an Islamic cleric in Saudi Arabia before receiving permission to sell the halal sex products that would lead to “the improvement of the sexual relationship between husband and wife,” he said in an interview with Agence France-Presse last year. Aouragh also founded the Amsterdam-based sex product vendor El Asira several years back, which now has a successful online division, according to reports.

   The first Halal Sex Shop opened in Turkey in 2013, Alyaoum24 reported. But previous reports of halal sex shops in various European cities with large Muslim populations have been discredited.

9. 

   মাসুদ করিম - ২৩ এপ্রিল ২০১৫ (৯:০৯ পূর্বাহ্ণ)

   চীনের বর্তমান রাষ্ট্রপতির লাইফলাইক প্রোট্রেট, জিনপিং-এর উত্থান ও রাজনীতি নিয়ে আগ্রহীদের জন্য অবশ্যপাঠ্য।

   Born Red
   How Xi Jinping, an unremarkable provincial administrator, became China’s most authoritarian leader since Mao.

   In anticipation of New Year’s Eve, 2014, Xi Jinping, the President of China and the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, permitted a camera crew to come into his office and record a message to the people. As a teen-ager, Xi had been sent to work on a farm; he was so delicate that other laborers rated him a six on a ten-point scale, “not even as high as the women,” he said later, with some embarrassment. Now, at sixty-one, Xi was five feet eleven, taller than any Chinese leader in nearly four decades, with a rich baritone and a confident heft. When he received a guest, he stood still, long arms slack, hair pomaded, a portrait of take-it-or-leave-it composure that induced his visitor to cross the room in pursuit of a handshake.

   Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, read his annual New Year’s greeting from a lectern in an antiseptic reception hall. Xi, who took office in November, 2012, has associated himself with an earthier generation of Communists, a military caste that emphasized “hard work and plain living.” He delivered his New Year’s message at his desk. Behind him, bookshelves held photographs that depicted him as Commander-in-Chief and family man. In one picture, he was wearing Army fatigues and a fur hat, visiting soldiers in a snowfield; in another, he was strolling with his wife and daughter, and escorting his father, Xi Zhongxun, a hallowed revolutionary, in a wheelchair. The shelves also held matching sets of books. Xi’s classroom education was interrupted for nearly a decade by the Cultural Revolution, and he has the autodidact’s habit of announcing his literary credentials. He often quotes from Chinese classics, and in an interview with the Russian press last year he volunteered that he had read Krylov, Pushkin, Gogol, Lermontov, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, Nekrasov, Chernyshevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Sholokhov. When he visited France, he mentioned that he had read Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Saint-Simon, Fourier, Sartre, and twelve others. In his New Year’s remarks, Xi oscillated between socialist slogans (“Wave high the sword against corruption”) and catchphrases from Chinese social media (“I would like to click the thumbs-up button for our great people”). He vowed to fight poverty, improve the rule of law, and hold fast to history. When he listed the achievements of the past year, he praised the creation of a holiday dedicated to the Second World War: “Victory Day of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.”

   Xi is the sixth man to rule the People’s Republic of China, and the first who was born after the revolution, in 1949. He sits atop a pyramid of eighty-seven million members of the Communist Party, an organization larger than the population of Germany. The Party no longer reaches into every corner of Chinese life, as it did in the nineteen-seventies, but Xi nevertheless presides over an economy that, by one measure, recently surpassed the American economy in size; he holds ultimate authority over every general, judge, editor, and state-company C.E.O. As Lenin ordained, in 1902, “For the center . . . to actually direct the orchestra, it needs to know who plays violin and where, who plays a false note and why.”

   Xi’s New Year’s message was broadcast on state television and radio channels at 6:30 p.m., just before the evening news. A few hours later, the news veered sharply out of his control. In Shanghai, a large holiday crowd had gathered to celebrate on the Bund, the promenade beside the Huangpu River, with splendid views of the skyline. The crowd was growing faster than the space could handle. Around 11:30 p.m., the police sent hundreds of extra officers to keep order, but it was too late; a stairway was jammed, and people shouted and pushed. A stampede ensued. In all, thirty-six people suffocated or were trampled to death.

   The disaster occurred in one of China’s most modern and prosperous places, and the public was appalled. In the days that followed, the Shanghai government held a memorial for the victims, and encouraged people to move on; Internet censors struck down discussion of who was responsible; police interrogated Web users who posted criticisms of the state. When relatives of the victims visited the site of the stampede, police watched them closely, and then erected metal barriers to render it unreachable. Caixin, an investigative media organization, revealed that, during the stampede, local officials in charge of the neighborhood were enjoying a banquet of sushi and sake, at the government’s expense, in a private room at the Empty Cicada, a luxury restaurant nearby. This was awkward news, because one of the President’s first diktats had been “Eight Rules” for public servants, to eliminate extravagance and corruption. Among other things, the campaign called on officials to confine themselves to “four dishes and one soup.” (Eventually, eleven officials were punished for misusing funds and for failing to prevent a risk to the public.)

   A few weeks after the incident in Shanghai, I paid a call on a longtime editor in Beijing, whose job gives him a view into the workings of the Party. When I arrived at his apartment, his kids were in raucous control of the living room, so we retreated to his bedroom to talk. When I asked him how President Xi was doing, he mentioned the banquet at the Empty Cicada. He thought it pointed to a problem that is much deeper than a few high-living bureaucrats. “The central government issued an order absolutely forbidding them to dine out on public funds. And they did it anyway!” he said. “What this tells you is that local officials are finding their ways of responding to change. There is a saying: ‘When a rule is imposed up high, there is a way to get around it below.’ ” The struggle between an emperor and his bureaucracy follows a classic pattern in Chinese politics, and it rarely ends well for the emperor. But the editor was betting on Xi. “He’s not afraid of Heaven or Earth. And he is, as we say, round on the outside and square on the inside; he looks flexible, but inside he is very hard.”

   Before Xi took power, he was described, in China and abroad, as an unremarkable provincial administrator, a fan of American pop culture (“The Godfather,” “Saving Private Ryan”) who cared more about business than about politics, and was selected mainly because he had alienated fewer peers than his competitors. It was an incomplete portrait. He had spent more than three decades in public life, but Chinese politics had exposed him to limited scrutiny. At a press conference, a local reporter once asked Xi to rate his performance: “Would you give yourself a score of a hundred—or a score of ninety?” (Neither, Xi said; a high number would look “boastful,” and a low number would reflect “low self-esteem.”)

   But, a quarter of the way through his ten-year term, he has emerged as the most authoritarian leader since Chairman Mao. In the name of protection and purity, he has investigated tens of thousands of his countrymen, on charges ranging from corruption to leaking state secrets and inciting the overthrow of the state. He has acquired or created ten titles for himself, including not only head of state and head of the military but also leader of the Party’s most powerful committees—on foreign policy, Taiwan, and the economy. He has installed himself as the head of new bodies overseeing the Internet, government restructuring, national security, and military reform, and he has effectively taken over the courts, the police, and the secret police. “He’s at the center of everything,” Gary Locke, the former American Ambassador to Beijing, told me.

   In the Chinese Communist Party, you campaign after you get the job, not before, and in building public support and honing a message Xi has revealed a powerful desire for transformation. He calls on China to pursue the Chinese Dream: the “great rejuvenation of the nation,” a mixture of prosperity, unity, and strength. He has proposed at least sixty social and economic changes, ranging from relaxing the one-child policy to eliminating camps for “reëducation through labor” and curtailing state monopolies. He has sought prestige abroad; on his first foreign trip (to Moscow), he was accompanied by his wife, a celebrity soprano named Peng Liyuan, who inspired lavish coverage of China’s first modern Presidential couple. Peng soon appeared on Vanity Fair’s Best-Dressed List.

   After Mao, China encouraged the image of a “collective Presidency” over the importance of individual leaders. Xi has revised that approach, and his government, using old and new tools, has enlarged his image. In the spirit of Mao’s Little Red Book, publishers have produced eight volumes of Xi’s speeches and writings; the most recent, titled “The Remarks of Xi Jinping,” dissects his utterances, ranks his favorite phrases, and explains his cultural references. A study of the People’s Daily found that, by his second anniversary in office, Xi was appearing in the paper more than twice as often as his predecessor at the same point. He stars in a series of cartoons aimed at young people, beginning with “How to Make a Leader,” which describes him, despite his family pedigree, as a symbol of meritocracy—“one of the secrets of the China miracle.” The state news agency has taken the unprecedented step of adopting a nickname for the General Secretary: Xi Dada—roughly, Big Uncle Xi. In January, the Ministry of Defense released oil paintings depicting him in heroic poses; thousands of art students applying to the Beijing University of Technology had been judged on their ability to sketch his likeness. The Beijing Evening News reported that one applicant admired the President so much that “she had to work hard to stop her hands from trembling.”

   To outsiders, Xi has been a fitful subject. Bookstores in Hong Kong, which are insulated from mainland control, offer portraits of varying quality—the most reliable include “The New Biography of Xi Jinping,” by Liang Jian, and “China’s Future,” by Wu Ming—but most are written at a remove, under pseudonyms. The clearest account of Xi’s life and influences comes from his own words and decisions, scattered throughout a long climb to power.

   Kevin Rudd, the former Prime Minister of Australia, a Mandarin speaker who has talked with Xi at length over the years, told me, “What he says is what he thinks. My experience of him is that there’s not a lot of artifice.”

   In a leadership known for grooming colorless apparatchiks, Xi projects an image of manly vigor. He mocks “eggheads” and praises the “team spirit of a group of dogs eating a lion.” In a meeting in March, 2013, he told the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, “We are similar in character,” though Xi is less inclined toward bare-chested machismo. Xi admires Song Jiang, a fictional outlaw from “Water Margin,” a fourteenth-century Chinese classic, for his ability to “unite capable people.” Neither brilliant nor handsome, Song Jiang led a band of heroic rebels. In a famous passage, he speaks of the Xunyang River: “I shall have my revenge some day / And dye red with blood the Xunyang’s flow.”

   Xi describes his essential project as a rescue: he must save the People’s Republic and the Communist Party before they are swamped by corruption; environmental pollution; unrest in Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and other regions; and the pressures imposed by an economy that is growing more slowly than at any time since 1990 (though still at about seven per cent, the fastest pace of any major country). “The tasks our Party faces in reform, development, and stability are more onerous than ever, and the conflicts, dangers, and challenges are more numerous than ever,” Xi told the Politburo, in October. In 2014, the government arrested nearly a thousand members of civil society, more than in any year since the mid-nineteen-nineties, following the Tiananmen Square massacre, according to Chinese Human Rights Defenders, a Hong Kong-based advocacy group.

   Xi unambiguously opposes American democratic notions. In 2011 and 2012, he spent several days with Vice-President Joe Biden, his official counterpart at the time, in China and the United States. Biden told me that Xi asked him why the U.S. put “so much emphasis on human rights.” Biden replied to Xi, “No President of the United States could represent the United States were he not committed to human rights,” and went on, “If you don’t understand this, you can’t deal with us. President Barack Obama would not be able to stay in power if he did not speak of it. So look at it as a political imperative. It doesn’t make us better or worse. It’s who we are. You make your decisions. We’ll make ours.”

   In Xi’s early months, supporters in the West speculated that he wanted to silence hard-line critics, and would open up later, perhaps in his second term, which begins in 2017. That view has largely disappeared. Henry Paulson, the former Treasury Secretary, whose upcoming book, “Dealing with China,” describes a decade of contact with Xi, told me, “He has been very forthright and candid—privately and publicly—about the fact that the Chinese are rejecting Western values and multiparty democracy.” He added, “To Westerners, it seems very incongruous to be, on the one hand, so committed to fostering more competition and market-driven flexibility in the economy and, on the other hand, to be seeking more control in the political sphere, the media, and the Internet. But that’s the key: he sees a strong Party as essential to stability, and the only institution that’s strong enough to help him accomplish his other goals.”

   In his determination to gain control and protect the Party, Xi may have generated a different kind of threat: he has pried apart internal fault lines and shaken the equilibrium that for a generation marked the nation’s rise. Before Xi took power, top officials presumed that they were protected. Yu Hua, the novelist, told me, “As China grew, what really came to matter were the ‘unwritten rules.’ When the real rules weren’t specific enough or clear enough, when policies and laws lagged behind reality, you always relied on the unwritten rules.” They dictated everything from how much to tip a surgeon to how far an N.G.O. could go before it was suppressed. “The unwritten rules have been broken,” Yu said. “This is how it should be, of course, but laws haven’t arrived yet.”

   The Communist Party dedicated itself to a classless society but organized itself in a rigid hierarchy, and Xi started life near the top. He was born in Beijing in 1953, the third of four children. His father, Xi Zhongxun, China’s propaganda minister at the time, had been fomenting revolution since the age of fourteen, when he and his classmates tried to poison a teacher whom they considered a counterrevolutionary. He was sent to jail, where he joined the Communist Party, and eventually he became a high-ranking commander, which plunged him into the Party’s internal feuds. In 1935, a rival faction accused Xi of disloyalty and ordered him to be buried alive, but Mao defused the crisis. At a Party meeting in February, 1952, Mao stated that the “suppression of counterrevolutionaries” required, on average, the execution of one person for every one thousand to two thousand citizens. Xi Zhongxun endorsed “severe suppression and punishment,” but in his area “killing was relatively lower,” according to his official biography.

   Xi Jinping grew up with his father’s stories. “He talked about how he joined the revolution, and he’d say, ‘You will certainly make revolution in the future,’ ” Xi recalled in a 2004 interview with the Xi’an Evening News, a state-run paper. “He’d explain what revolution is. We heard so much of this that our ears got calluses.” In six decades of politics, his father had seen or deployed every tactic. At dinner with the elder Xi in 1980, David Lampton, a China specialist at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins, marvelled that he could toast dozens of guests, over glasses of Maotai, with no visible effects. “It became apparent that he was drinking water,” Lampton said.

   When Xi Jinping was five, his father was promoted to Vice-Premier, and the son often visited him at Zhongnanhai, the secluded compound for top leaders. Xi was admitted to the exclusive August 1st School, named for the date of a famous Communist victory. The school, which occupied the former palace of a Qing Dynasty prince, was nicknamed the lingxiu yaolan—the “cradle of leaders.” The students formed a small, close-knit élite; they lived in the same compounds, summered at the same retreats, and shared a sense of noblesse oblige. For centuries before the People’s Republic, an evolving list of élite clans combined wealth and politics. Some sons handled business; others pursued high office. Winners changed over time, and, when Communist leaders prevailed, in 1949, they acquired the mantle. “The common language used to describe this was that they had ‘won over tianxia’—‘all under Heaven,’ ” Yang Guobin, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania, told me. “They believed they had a natural claim to leadership. They owned it. And their children thought, naturally, they themselves would be, and should be, the future owners.” As the historian Mi Hedu observes in his 1993 book, “The Red Guard Generation,” students at the August 1st School “compared one another on the basis of whose father had a higher rank, whose father rode in a better car. Some would say, ‘Obey whoever’s father has the highest position.’ ” When the Cultural Revolution began, in 1966, Beijing students who were zilaihong (“born red”) promoted a slogan: “If the father is a hero, the son is also a hero; if the father is a reactionary, the son is a bastard.” Red Guards sought to cleanse the capital of opposition, to make it “as pure and clean as crystal,” they said. From late August to late September, 1966, nearly two thousand people were killed in Beijing, and at least forty-nine hundred historical sites were damaged or destroyed, according to Yiching Wu, the author of “The Cultural Revolution at the Margins.”

   But Xi Jinping did not fit cleanly into the role of either aggressor or victim. In 1962, his father was accused of supporting a novel that Mao opposed, and was sent to work in a factory; his mother, Qi Xin, was assigned to hard labor on a farm. In January, 1967, after Mao encouraged students to target “class enemies,” a group of young people dragged Xi Zhongxun before a crowd. Among other charges, he was accused of having gazed at West Berlin through binoculars during a visit to East Germany years earlier. He was detained in a military garrison, where he passed the years by walking in circles, he said later—ten thousand laps, and then ten thousand walking backward. The son was too young to be an official Red Guard, and his father’s status made him undesirable. Moreover, being born red was becoming a liability. Élite academies were accused of being xiao baota—“little treasure pagodas”—and shut down. Xi and the sons of other targeted officials stayed together, getting into street fights and swiping books from shuttered libraries. Later, Xi described that period as a dystopian collapse of control. He was detained “three or four times” by groups of Red Guards, and forced to denounce his father. In 2000, he told the journalist Yang Xiaohuai about being captured by a group loyal to the wife of the head of China’s secret police:

   I was only fourteen. The Red Guards asked, “How serious do you yourself think your crimes are?”

   “You can estimate it yourselves. Is it enough to execute me?”

   “We can execute you a hundred times.”

   To my mind there was no difference between being executed a hundred times or once, so why be afraid of a hundred times? The Red Guards wanted to scare me, saying that now I was to feel the democratic dictatorship of the people, and that I only had five minutes left. But in the end, they told me, instead, to read quotations from Chairman Mao every day until late at night.

   In December, 1968, in a bid to regain control, Mao ordered the Red Guards and other students to the countryside, to be “reëducated by the poor and lower-middle-class peasants.” Élite families sent their children to regions that had allies or family, and Xi went to his father’s old stronghold in Shaanxi. He was assigned to Liangjiahe, a village flanked by yellow cliffs. “The intensity of the labor shocked me,” Xi recalled in a 2004 television interview. To avoid work, he took up smoking—nobody bothered a man smoking—and lingered in the bathroom. After three months, he fled to Beijing, but he was arrested and returned to the village. In what later became the centerpiece of his official narrative, Xi was reborn. A recent state-news-service article offers the mythology: “Xi lived in a cave dwelling with villagers, slept on a kang, a traditional Chinese bed made of bricks and clay, endured flea bites, carried manure, built dams and repaired roads.” It leaves out some brutal details. At one point, he received a letter informing him that his older half-sister Xi Heping had died. The Australian journalist John Garnaut, the author of an upcoming book on the rise of Xi and his cohort, said, “It was suicide. Close associates have said to me, on the record, that after a decade of persecution she hanged herself from a shower rail.”

   Xi chose to join the Communist Party’s Youth League. Because of his father’s status, his application was rejected seven times, by his count. After Xi befriended a local official, he was accepted. In January, 1974, he gained full Party membership and became secretary of the village. His drive to join the Party baffled some of his peers. A longtime friend who became a professor later told an American diplomat that he felt “betrayed” by Xi’s ambition to “join the system.” According to a U.S. diplomatic cable recounting his views, many in Xi’s élite cohort were desperate to escape politics; they dated, drank, and read Western literature. They were “trying to catch up for lost years by having fun,” the professor said. He eventually concluded that Xi was “exceptionally ambitious,” and knew that he would “not be special” outside China, so he “chose to survive by becoming redder than the red.” After all, Yang Guobin told me, referring to the sons of the former leaders, “the sense of ownership did not die. A sense of pride and superiority persisted, and there was some confidence that their fathers’ adversity would be temporary and sooner or later they would make a comeback. That’s exactly what happened.”

   The following year, Xi enrolled at Tsinghua University as a “worker-peasant-soldier” student (applicants who were admitted on the basis of political merit rather than test scores). That spring, Xi Zhongxun was rehabilitated, after sixteen years of persecution. When the family reunited, he could not recognize his grown sons. His faith never wavered. In November, 1976, he wrote to Hua Guofeng, the head of the Party, asking for reassignment, in order to “devote the rest of my life to the Party and strive to do more for the people.” He signed it, “Xi Zhongxun, a Follower of Chairman Mao and a Party Member Who Has Not Regained Admission to Regular Party Activities.”

   Xi Jinping’s pedigree had exposed him to a brutal politics—purges, retribution, rehabilitation—and he drew blunt lessons from it. In a 2000 interview with the journalist Chen Peng, of the Beijing-based Chinese Times, Xi said, “People who have little experience with power, those who have been far away from it, tend to regard these things as mysterious and novel. But I look past the superficial things: the power and the flowers and the glory and the applause. I see the detention houses, the fickleness of human relationships. I understand politics on a deeper level.” The Cultural Revolution and his years in Yan’an, the region where he was sent as a teen-ager, had created him. “Yan’an is the starting point of my life,” he said in 2007. “Many of the fundamental ideas and qualities I have today were formed in Yan’an.” Rudd, the former Australian Prime Minister, told me, “The bottom line in any understanding of who Xi Jinping is must begin with his dedication to the Party as an institution—despite the fact that through his personal life, and his political life, he has experienced the best of the Party and the worst of the Party.”

   Xi’s siblings scattered: his brother and a sister went into business in Hong Kong, the other sister reportedly settled in Canada. But Xi stayed and, year by year, invested more deeply in the Party. After graduating, in 1979, he took a coveted job as an aide to Geng Biao, a senior defense official whom Xi’s father called “my closest comrade-in-arms” from the revolution. Xi wore a military uniform and made valuable connections at Party headquarters. Not long after college, he married Ke Xiaoming, the cosmopolitan daughter of China’s Ambassador to Britain. But they fought “almost every day,” according to the professor, who lived across the hall. He told the diplomat that the couple divorced when Ke decided to move to England and Xi stayed behind.

   China’s revolutionaries were aging, and the Party needed to groom new leaders. Xi told the professor that going to the provinces was the “only path to central power.” Staying at Party headquarters in Beijing would narrow his network and invite resentment from lesser-born peers. In 1982, shortly before Xi turned thirty, he asked to be sent back to the countryside, and was assigned to a horse-cart county in Hebei Province. He wanted to be the county secretary—the boss—but the provincial chief resented privileged offspring from Party headquarters and made Xi the No. 2. It was the Chinese equivalent of trading an executive suite at the Pentagon for a mid-level post in rural Virginia.

   Within a year, though, Xi was promoted, and he honed his political skills. He gave perks to retired cadres who could shape his reputation; he arranged for them to receive priority at doctors’ offices; when he bought the county’s first imported car, he donated it to the “veteran-cadre office,” and used an old jeep for himself. He retained his green Army-issue trousers to convey humility, and he learned the value of political theatrics: at times, “if you don’t bang on the table, it’s not frightening enough, and people won’t take it seriously,” he told a Chinese interviewer in 2003. He experimented with market economics, by allowing farmers to use more land for raising animals instead of growing grain for the state, and he pushed splashy local projects, including the construction of a television studio based on the classic novel “A Dream of Red Mansions.”

   In 1985, he spent two weeks in Iowa as part of an agricultural delegation. In the town of Muscatine, he stayed with Eleanor and Thomas Dvorchak. “The boys had gone off to college, so there were some spare bedrooms,” Eleanor told me. Xi slept in a room with football-themed wallpaper and “Star Trek” action figures. “He was looking out the window, and it seemed like he was saying, ‘Oh, my God,’ and I thought, What’s so unusual? It’s just a split-level,” she said. Xi did not introduce himself as a Communist Party secretary; his business card identified him as the head of the Shijiazhuang Feed Association. In 2012, on a trip to the U.S. before becoming top leader, he returned to Muscatine, to see Dvorchak and others, trailed by the world press. She said, “No one in their right mind would ever think that that guy who stayed in my house would become the President. I don’t care what country you’re talking about.”

   By 1985, Xi was ready for another promotion, but the provincial Party head blocked him again, so he moved to the southern province of Fujian, where one of his father’s friends was the Party secretary, and could help him. Not long after he arrived, he met Liao Wanlong, a Taiwanese businessman, who recalled, “He was tall and stocky, and he looked a little dopey.” Liao, who has visited Xi repeatedly in the decades since, told me, “He appeared to be guileless, honest. He came from the north and he didn’t understand the south well.” Liao went on, “He would speak only if he really had something to say, and he didn’t make casual promises. He would think everything through before opening his mouth. He rarely talked about his family, because he had a difficult past and a disappointing marriage.” Xi didn’t have a questing mind, but he excelled at managing his image and his relationships; he was now meeting foreign investors, so he stopped wearing Army fatigues and adopted a wardrobe of Western suits. Liao said, “Not everyone could get an audience with him; he would screen those who wanted to meet him. He was a good judge of people.”

   The following year, when Xi was thirty-three, a friend introduced him to Peng Liyuan, who, at twenty-four, was already one of China’s most famous opera and folk singers. Xi told her that he didn’t watch television, she recalled in a 2007 interview. “What kind of songs do you sing?” he asked. Peng thought that he looked “uncultured and much older than his age,” but he asked her questions about singing technique, which she took as a sign of intelligence. Xi later said that he decided within forty minutes to ask her to marry him. They married the following year, and in 1989, after the crackdown on student demonstrators, Peng was among the military singers who were sent to Tiananmen Square to serenade the troops. (Images of that scene, along with information about Peng’s private life and her commercial dealings, have been largely expunged from the Web.) In 1992, they had a daughter. As it became clear that Xi would be a top leader, Peng gave up the diva gowns and elaborate hairdos in favor of pants suits and the occasional military uniform. Fans still mobbed her, while he stood patiently to the side, but for the most part she stopped performing and turned her attention to activism around H.I.V., tobacco control, and women’s education. For years, Xi and Peng spent most of their time apart. But, in the flurry of attention around Big Uncle Xi, the state-run media has promoted a pop song entitled “Xi Dada Loves Peng Mama,” which includes the line “Men should learn from Xi and women should learn from Peng.”

   The posting to the south put Xi closer to his father. Since 1978, his father had served in neighboring Guangdong, home to China’s experiments with the free market, and the elder Xi had become a zealous believer in economic reform as the answer to poverty. It was a risky position: at a Politburo meeting in 1987, the Old Guard attacked the liberal standard-bearer, Hu Yaobang. Xi’s father was the only senior official who spoke in his defense. “What are you guys doing here? Don’t repeat what Mao did to us,” he said, according to Richard Baum’s 1994 chronicle of élite politics, “Burying Mao.” But Xi lost and was stripped of power for the last time. He was allowed to live in comfortable obscurity until his death, in 2002, and is remembered fondly as “a man of principle, not of strategy,” as the editor in Beijing put it to me.

   His son avoided overly controversial reforms as he rose through the ranks. “My approach is to heat a pot with a small, continuous fire, pouring in cold water to keep it from boiling over,” he said. In 1989, a local propaganda official, Kang Yanping, submitted a proposal for a TV miniseries promoting political reform, but Xi replied with skepticism. According to “China’s Future,” he asked, “Is there a source for the opinion? Is it a reasonable point?” The show, which Xi predicted would leave people “discouraged,” was not produced. He also paid special attention to cultivating local military units; he upgraded equipment, raised subsidies for soldiers’ living expenses, and found jobs for retiring officers. He liked to say, “To meet the Army’s needs, nothing is excessive.”

   Xi prosecuted corruption at some moments and ignored it at others. A Chinese executive told the U.S. Embassy in Beijing that Xi was considered “Mr. Clean” for turning down a bribe, and yet, for the many years that Xi worked in Fujian, the Yuanhua Group, one of China’s largest corrupt enterprises, continued smuggling billions of dollars’ worth of oil, cars, cigarettes, and appliances into China, with the help of the Fujian military and police. Xi also found a way to live with Chen Kai, a local tycoon who ran casinos and brothels in the center of town, protected by the police chief. Later, Chen was arrested, tried, and sentenced to death, and fifty government officials were prosecuted for accepting bribes from him. Xi was never linked to the cases, but they left a stain on his tenure. “Sometimes I have posted colleagues wrongly,” he said in 2000. “Some were posted wrongly because I thought they were better than they actually were, others because I thought they were worse than they actually were.”

   Xi proved adept at navigating internal feuds and alliances. After he took over the economically vibrant province of Zhejiang, in 2002, he created policies intended to promote private businesses. He encouraged taxi services to buy from Geely, the car company that later bought Volvo. He soothed conservatives, in part by reciting socialist incantations. “The private economy has become an exotic flower in the garden of socialism with Chinese characteristics,” he declared. In 2007, he encountered a prime opportunity to show his political skills: a corruption scandal in Shanghai was implicating associates of Jiang Zemin, the powerful former President, who served from 1989 to 2002. Xi was sent to Shanghai to take over. He projected toughness to the public without alienating Jiang. He rejected the villa that had been arranged for him, announcing that it would be better used as a retirement home for veteran comrades.

   His timing was fortunate: a few months later, senior Party officials were choosing the next generation of top leaders. Xi was expected to lose to Li Keqiang, a comrade who had no revolutionary family pedigree, and had postgraduate degrees in law and economics from Peking University. Since 2002, the highest ranks of Chinese politics had been dominated by men who elbowed their way in on the basis of academic or technocratic merit. President Hu’s father ran a tea shop, and the Premier, Wen Jiabao, was the son of a teacher, but Chen Yun, the late economic czar, had advised his peers that born reds, now known as “second-generation reds,” or princelings, would make more reliable stewards of the Party’s future. One princeling told a Western diplomat, “The feeling among us is: ‘Hu Jintao, Wen Jiabao, your fathers were selling shoelaces while our fathers were dying for this revolution.’ ” In private, some princelings referred to the President and the Premier as huoji—“hired hands.” In October, 2007, Xi was unveiled as the likely heir apparent. It was not entirely a compliment. “Party leaders prefer weak successors, so they can rule behind the scenes,” Ho Pin, the founder of Mingjing News, an overseas Chinese site, said. Xi’s rise had been so abrupt, in the eyes of the general public, that people joked, “Who is Xi Jinping? He’s Peng Liyuan’s husband.”

   Xi was tested by a pageant of dysfunction that erupted in the run-up to his début as General Secretary, in 2012. In February, Wang Lijun, a former police chief, tried to defect to the U.S. and accused the family of his former patron, Bo Xilai, the Party secretary of Chongqing, of murder and embezzlement. Party leaders feared that Bo might protect himself with the security services at his command, disrupt the transition of power, and tear the Party apart. In September, Ling Jihua, the chief of staff of the outgoing President, was abruptly demoted, and he was later accused of trying to cover up the death of his son, who had crashed a black Ferrari while accompanied by two women.

   Beset by crises, Xi suddenly disappeared. On September 4, 2012, he cancelled a meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and visits with other dignitaries. As the days passed, lurid rumors emerged, ranging from a grave illness to an assassination attempt. When he reappeared, on September 19th, he told American officials that he had injured his back. Analysts of Chinese politics still raise the subject of Xi’s disappearance in the belief that a fuller explanation of why he vanished might illuminate the depth, or fragility, of his support. In dozens of conversations this winter, scholars, officials, journalists, and executives told me that they suspect he did have a health problem, and also reasons to exploit it. They speculate that Xi, in effect, went on strike; he wanted to install key allies, and remove opponents, before taking power, but Party elders ordered him to wait. A former intelligence official told me, “Xi basically says, ‘O.K., fuck you, let’s see you find someone else for this job. I’m going to disappear for two weeks and miss the Secretary of State.’ And that’s what he did. It caused a stir, and they went running and said, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa.’ ” The handoff went ahead as planned. On November 15, 2012, Xi became General Secretary.

   i headed a Politburo Standing Committee of seven men: four were considered princelings by birth or marriage, a larger ratio than in any Politburo in the history of the People’s Republic. Western politicians often note that Xi has the habits of a retail pol: comfort on the rope line, gentle questions for every visitor, homey anecdotes. On a trip to Los Angeles, he told students that he likes to swim, read, and watch sports on television, but rarely has time. “To borrow a title from an American film, it’s like ‘Mission: Impossible,’ ” he said. But Chinese observers tend to mention something else: his guizuqi, or “air of nobility.” It can come off as a reassuring link to the past or, at times, as a distance from his peers. In a meeting at the Great Hall of the People last year, Party officials were chatting and glad-handing during a lengthy break, but Xi never budged. “It went on for hours, and he sat there, staring straight ahead,” a foreign attendee told me. “He never wandered down from the podium to say, ‘How’s it going in Ningxia?’ ”

   Xi believed that there was a grave threat to China from within. According to U.S. diplomats, Xi’s friend the professor described Xi as “repulsed by the all-encompassing commercialization of Chinese society, with its attendant nouveaux riches, official corruption, loss of values, dignity, and self-respect, and such ‘moral evils’ as drugs and prostitution.” If he ever became China’s top leader, the professor had predicted, “he would likely aggressively attempt to address these evils, perhaps at the expense of the new moneyed class.” Though princelings and their siblings had profited comfortably from China’s rise (Xi’s sister Qi Qiaoqiao is reported to have large corporate and real-estate assets), the revolutionary families considered their gains appropriate, and they blamed the hired hands for allowing corruption and extravagance, which stirred up public rage and threatened the Party’s future.

   The first step to a solution was to reëstablish control. The “collective Presidency,” which spread power across the Standing Committee, had constrained Hu Jintao so thoroughly that he was nicknamed the Woman with Bound Feet. Xi surrounded himself with a shadow cabinet that was defined less by a single ideology than by school ties and political reliability. Members included Liu He, a childhood playmate who had become a reform-minded economist, and Liu Yuan, a hawkish general and the son of former President Liu Shaoqi. The most important was Wang Qishan, a friend for decades, who was placed in charge of the Central Commission on Discipline and Inspection, the agency that launched the vast anticorruption campaign.

   The Party had long cultivated an image of virtuous unanimity. But, during the next two years, Wang’s investigators, who were granted broad powers to detain and interrogate, attacked agencies that might counter Xi’s authority, accusing them of conspiracies and abuses. They brought corruption charges against officials at the state-planning and state-assets commissions, which protect the privileges of large government-run monopolies. They arrested China’s security chief, Zhou Yongkang, a former oil baron with the jowls of an Easter Island statue, who had built the police and military into a personal kingdom that received more funding each year for domestic spying and policing than it did for foreign defense. They reached into the ranks of the military, where flamboyant corruption was not only upsetting the public—pedestrians had learned to watch out for luxury sedans with military license plates, which careered around Beijing with impunity—but also undermining China’s national defense. When police searched homes belonging to the family of Lieutenant General Gu Junshan, a senior logistics chief, they removed four truckloads of wine, art, cash, and other luxuries. According to a diplomat in Beijing, Gu’s furnishings included a gold replica of China’s first aircraft carrier. “When questioned about it, he said it was a sign of patriotism,” the diplomat said.

   By the end of 2014, the Party had announced the punishment of more than a hundred thousand officials on corruption charges. Many foreign observers asked if Xi’s crusade was truly intended to stamp out corruption or if it was a tool to attack his enemies. It was not simply one or the other: corruption had become so threatening to the Party’s legitimacy that only the most isolated leader could have avoided forcing it back to a more manageable level, but railing against corruption was also a proven instrument for political consolidation, and at the highest levels Xi has deployed it largely against his opponents. Geremie Barme, the historian who heads the Australian Centre on China in the World, analyzed the forty-eight most high-profile arrests, and discovered that none of them were second-generation reds. “I don’t call it an anticorruption campaign,” a Western diplomat told me. “This is grinding trench warfare.”

   Shortly after taking over, Xi asked, “Why did the Soviet Communist Party collapse?” and declared, “It’s a profound lesson for us.” Chinese scholars had studied that puzzle from dozens of angles, but Xi wanted more. “In 2009, he commissioned a long study of the Soviet Union from somebody who works in the policy-research office,” the diplomat in Beijing told me. “It concluded that the rot started under Brezhnev. In the paper, the guy cited a joke: Brezhnev brings his mother to Moscow. He proudly shows her the state apartments at the Kremlin, his Zil limousine, and the life of luxury he now lives. ‘Well, what do you think, Mama,’ says Brezhnev. ‘You’ll never have to worry about a thing, ever again.’ ‘I’m so proud of you, Leonid Ilyich,’ says Mama, ‘but what happens if the Communists find out?’ Xi loved the story.” Xi reserved special scorn for Gorbachev, for failing to defend the Party against its opponents, and told his colleagues, “Nobody was man enough to stand up and resist.”

   The year after Xi took office, cadres were required to watch a six-part documentary on the Soviet Union’s collapse, which showed violent scenes of unrest and described an American conspiracy to topple Communism through “peaceful evolution”: the steady infiltration of subversive Western political ideas. Ever since the early aughts, when “color revolutions” erupted in the former Soviet bloc, Chinese Communists have cited the risk of contagion as a reason to constrict political life. That fear was heightened by a surge of unrest in Tibet in 2008, in Xinjiang in 2009, and across the Arab world in 2011. Last September, when pro-democracy protests erupted in Hong Kong, an opinion piece in the Global Times, a state-run daily, accused the National Endowment for Democracy and the C.I.A. of being “black hands” behind the unrest, intent on “stimulating Taiwanese independence, Xinjiang independence, and Tibetan independence.” (The U.S. denied involvement.)

   Xi’s government has no place for loyal opposition. When he launched the anticorruption campaign, activists—such as the lawyer Xu Zhiyong, who had served as a local legislator in Beijing—joined in, calling on officials to disclose their incomes. But Xu and many others were arrested. (He was later sentenced to four years in prison for “gathering crowds to disrupt public order.”) One of Xu’s former colleagues, Teng Biao, told me, “For the government, ‘peaceful evolution’ was not just a slogan. It was real. The influence of Western states was becoming more obvious and more powerful.” Teng was at a conference in Germany soon after Xu and another colleague were arrested. “People advised me not to return to China, or I’d be arrested, too,” Teng said. He is now a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School.

   A prominent editor in Beijing told me that Chinese philanthropists have been warned, “You can’t give money to this N.G.O. or that N.G.O.—basically all N.G.O.s.” In December, the Committee to Protect Journalists counted forty-four reporters in Chinese jails, more than in any other country. Well-known human-rights lawyers—Pu Zhiqiang, Ding Jiaxi, Xia Lin—have been jailed. Earlier this month, Human Rights Watch called this the harshest suppression of dissent in a decade.

   Although Vladimir Putin has suffocated Russian civil society and neutered the press, Moscow stores still carry books that are critical of him, and a few long-suffering blogs still find ways to attack him. Xi is less tolerant. In February, 2014, Yiu Mantin, a seventy-nine-year-old editor at Hong Kong’s Morning Bell Press, who had planned to release a biography critical of Xi, by the exiled writer Yu Jie, was arrested during a visit to the mainland. He had received a phone call warning him not to proceed with publication. He was sentenced to ten years in prison, on charges of smuggling seven cans of paint.

   For years, Chinese intellectuals distinguished between words and actions: Western political ideas could be discussed in China as long as nobody tried to enact them. In 2011, China’s education minister, Yuan Guiren, extolled the benefits of exchanges with foreign countries. “Whether they’re rich or poor, socialist or capitalist, as long as they’re beneficial to our development we can learn from all of them,” he told the Jinghua Times, a state newspaper. But in January Yuan told a conference, “Young teachers and students are key targets of infiltration by enemy forces.” He said, “We must, by no means, allow into our classrooms material that propagates Western values.” An article on the Web site of Seeking Truth, an official Party journal, warned against professors who “blacken China’s name,” and it singled out the law professor He Weifang by name. When I spoke to He, a few days later, he said, “I’ve always been unpopular with conservatives, but recently the situation has become more serious. The political standpoint of this new slate of leaders isn’t like that of the Hu or Jiang era. They’re more restraining. They’re not as willing to permit an active discussion.”

   Sealing China off from Western ideas poses some practical problems. The Party has announced “rule of law” reforms intended to strengthen top-down control over the legal system and shield courts from local interference. The professor said, “Many colleagues working on civil law and that sort of thing have a large portion of their lectures about German law or French law. So, if you want to stop Western values from spreading in Chinese universities, one thing you’d have to do is close down the law schools and make sure they never exist again.” Xi, for his part, sees no contradiction, because preservation of the Party comes before preservation of the law. In January, he said that China must “nurture a legal corps loyal to the Party, loyal to the country, loyal to the people, and loyal to the law.” Echoing Mao, he added, “Insure that the handle of the knife is firmly in the hand of the Party and the people.”

   Xi’s wariness of Western influence is reflected in his foreign policy. On a personal level, he expresses warm memories of Iowa, and he sent his daughter, Xi Mingze, to Harvard. (She graduated last year, under a pseudonym, and has returned to China.) But Xi has also expressed an essentialist view of national characteristics such that, in his telling, China’s history and social makeup render it unfit for multiparty democracy or a monarchy or any other non-Communist system. “We considered them, tried them, but none worked,” he told an audience at the College of Europe, in Bruges, last spring. Adopting an alternative, he said, “might even lead to catastrophic consequences.” On his watch, state-run media have accentuated the threat of “peaceful evolution,” and have accused American companies, including Microsoft, Cisco, and Intel, of being “warriors” for the U.S. government.

   As for a broad diplomatic vision, Chinese leaders since Deng Xiaoping have adhered to a principle known as “Hide your strength, bide your time.” Xi has effectively replaced that concept with declarations of China’s arrival. In Paris last year, he invoked Napoleon’s remark that China was “a sleeping lion,” and said that the lion “has already awakened, but this is a peaceful, pleasant, and civilized lion.” He told the Politburo in December that he intends to “make China’s voice heard, and inject more Chinese elements into international rules.” As alternatives to the Washington-based World Bank and International Monetary Fund, Xi’s government has established the New Development Bank, the Silk Road infrastructure fund, and the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, which, together, intend to amass two hundred and forty billion dollars in capital. Xi has been far bolder than his predecessors in asserting Chinese control over airspace and land, sending an oil rig into contested waters, and erecting buildings, helipads, and other facilities on reefs that are claimed by multiple nations. He has also taken advantage of Putin’s growing economic isolation; Xi has met with Putin more than with any other foreign leader, and, last May, as Russia faced new sanctions over the annexation of Crimea, Xi and Putin agreed on a four-hundred-billion-dollar deal to supply gas to China at rates that favor Beijing. According to the prominent editor, Xi has told people that he was impressed by Putin’s seizure of Crimea—“He got a large piece of land and resources” and boosted his poll numbers at home. But, as war in Ukraine has dragged on, Xi has become less complimentary of Putin.

   No diplomatic relationship matters more to China’s future than its dealings with the United States, and Xi has urged the U.S. to adopt a “new type of great-power relationship”—to regard China as an equal and to acknowledge its claims to contested islands and other interests. (The Obama Administration has declined to adopt the phrase.) Xi and Obama have met, at length, five times. American officials describe the relationship as occasionally candid but not close. They have “brutally frank exchanges on difficult issues, and it doesn’t upset the apple cart,” a senior Administration official told me. “So it’s different from the era of Hu Jintao, where there was very little exchange.” Hu almost never departed from his notes, and American counterparts wondered how much he believed his talking points. “Xi is reading what I’m confident Xi believes,” the official said, though their engagements remain stilted: “There’s still a cadence that is very difficult to extract yourself from in these exchanges. . . . We want to have a conversation.”

   For years, American military leaders worried that there was a growing risk of an accidental clash between China and the U.S., in part because Beijing protested U.S. policies by declining meetings between senior commanders. In 2011, Mike Mullen, then the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, visited Xi in Beijing, and appealed to his military experience, telling him, as he recalled to me, “I just need you to stop cutting off military relationships as step one, every time you get ticked off.” That has improved. In Beijing last November, Xi and Obama spent five hours at dinner and meetings and announced coöperation on climate change, a high-tech free-trade deal that China had previously resisted, and two military agreements to encourage communication between forces operating near each other in the South China and East China Seas. Mullen, who has met Xi again since their initial encounter, is encouraged: “They still get ticked off, they take steps, but they don’t cut it off.”

   As China ejects Western ideas, Xi is trying to fill that void with an affirmative set of ideas to offer at home and abroad. Recently, I rode the No. 1 subway line eastbound, beneath the Avenue of Eternal Peace—under Party headquarters, the Central Propaganda Department, and the Ministries of Commerce and Public Security—and got off the train at the Second Ring Road, where the old City Wall once stood. Near the station, at a Starbucks, I met Zhang Lifan, a well-known historian. At sixty-four, he defies the usual rumpled stereotype of the liberal intelligentsia; he is tall, with elegant hints of gray hair, and he wore a black mandarin-collar jacket and a winter cap covered in smooth black fur. Zhang grew up around politics; his father, a banker before the revolution, served as a minister in the early years of Mao’s government. I asked him what message Xi hoped to promote from China around the world. He said, “Ever since Mao’s day, and the beginning of reform and opening up, we all talk about a ‘crisis of faith,’ ” the sense that rapid growth and political turmoil have cut China off from its moral history. “He is trying to solve that problem, so that there can be another new ideology.”

   Zhang writes about politics, and he is occasionally visited by police who remind him to avoid sensitive subjects. “Sometimes, they will pass by and say it through the closed front door,” Zhang said. He commented, “They tried to stop me from coming today. They followed me here.” He indicated a slim young man in a windbreaker, watching us from a nearby table. In remote areas, where police are unaccustomed to the presence of foreigners, authorities often try to prevent people from meeting reporters. But, in a decade of writing about China, this was the first time I’d encountered that situation in the capital. I suggested we postpone our discussion. He shook his head. In a stage whisper, he said, “What I say and what I write are the same. There’s no difference.”

   The most surprising thing about the era of Xi Jinping is the decision to close off the margins—those minor mutinies and indulgences that used to be tolerated as a way to avoid driving China’s most prosperous and well-educated citizens abroad. For years, the government tacitly allowed people to gain access to virtual private networks, or V.P.N.s, which allow users to reach Web sites that are blocked in China. The risks seemed manageable; most Chinese users had less interest in politics than in reaching a celebrity’s Instagram feed (Instagram, like Facebook, Twitter, Bloomberg, Reuters, and the Times, is blocked). Keeping them open, the theory went, allowed sophisticated users to get what they wanted or needed—for instance, researchers accessing Google Scholar, or businesses doing transactions—while preventing the masses from employing technology that worries the Party. But on January 23rd, while I was in Beijing, the government abruptly blocked the V.P.N.s, and state media reiterated that they were illegal. Overnight, it became radically more difficult to reach anything on the Internet outside China. Before the comments were shut down on the Web site Computer News, twelve thousand people left their views. “What are you afraid of?” one asked. “Big step toward becoming a new North Korea,” another wrote. Another wrote: “One more advertisement for emigration.”

   A decade ago, the Chinese Internet was alive with debate, confession, humor, and discovery. Month by month, it is becoming more sterilized and self-contained. To the degree that China’s connection to the outside world matters, the digital links are deteriorating. Voice-over-Internet calls, viral videos, podcasts—the minor accessories of contemporary digital life—are less reachable abroad than they were a year ago. It’s an astonishing thing to observe in a rising superpower. How many countries in 2015 have an Internet connection to the world that is worse than it was a year ago?

   The General Secretary, in his capacity as Big Uncle Xi, has taken to offering advice on nonpolitical matters: last fall, he lamented an overly “sensual” trend in society. (In response, Chinese auto executives stopped having lightly clad models lounge around vehicles at car shows.) In January, he urged people to get more sleep, “however enthusiastic you may be about the job,” saying that he goes to bed before midnight. Online, people joked that it seemed implausible: since taking office, Xi has acquired heavy bags under his eyes and a look of near-constant irritation.

   For a generation, the Communist Party forged a political consensus built on economic growth and legal ambiguity. Liberal activists and corrupt bureaucrats learned to skirt (or flout) legal boundaries, because the Party objected only intermittently. Today, Xi has indicated that consensus, beyond the Party élite, is superfluous—or, at least, less reliable than a hard boundary between enemies and friends.

   It is difficult to know precisely how much support Xi enjoys. Private pollsters are not allowed to explicitly measure his public support, but Victor Yuan, the president of Horizon Research Consultancy Group, a Beijing polling firm, told me, “We’ve done some indirect research, and his support seems to be around eighty per cent. It comes from two areas: one is the anticorruption policy and the other is foreign policy. The area where it’s unclear is the economy. People say they’ll have to wait and see.”

   China’s economy is likely to be Xi’s greatest obstacle. After economic growth of, on average, nearly ten per cent a year, for more than three decades, the Party expected growth to slow to a sustainable pace of around seven per cent, but it could fall more sharply. China remains the world’s largest manufacturer, with four trillion dollars in foreign-exchange reserves (a sum equivalent to the world’s fourth-largest economy). In November, 2013, the Party announced plans to reinvigorate competition by expanding the role of private banks, allowing the market (instead of bureaucrats) to decide where water, oil, and other precious resources are directed, and forcing state firms to give up larger dividends and compete with private businesses. Last spring, China abolished registered-capital and other requirements for new companies, and in November it allowed foreign investors to trade shares directly on the Shanghai stock market for the first time. “A fair judgment is that Xi’s government has achieved more progress, in more areas, in the past eighteen months than the Hu government did in its entire second term,” Arthur Kroeber, a longtime Beijing-based economist at Gavekal Dragonomics, a research firm, told me. And yet, Kroeber added, “my confidence level is only slightly above fifty per cent” that the reforms will be enough to head off a recession.

   The risks to China’s economy have rarely been more visible. The workforce is aging more quickly than in other countries (because of the one-child policy), and businesses are borrowing money more rapidly than they are earning it. David Kelly, a co-founder of China Policy, a Beijing-based research and advisory firm, said, “The turning point in the economy really was about four, five years ago, and now you see the classical problem of the declining productivity of capital. For every dollar you invest, you’re getting far less bang for your buck.” The growth of demand for energy and raw materials has slowed, more houses and malls are empty, and nervous Chinese savers are sending money overseas, to protect it in the event of a crisis. Some factories have not paid wages, and in the last quarter of 2014 workers held strikes, or other forms of protest, at three times the rate of the same period a year earlier.

   Xi’s ability to avoid an economic crisis depends partly on whether he has the political strength to prevail over state firms, local governments, and other powerful interests. In his meetings with Rudd, the former Australian Prime Minister, Xi mentioned his father’s frustrated attempts to achieve market-oriented reforms. “Xi Jinping is legitimately proud of his father,” Rudd said, adding, “His father had a record of real achievement and was, frankly, a person who paid a huge political and personal price for being a dedicated Party man and a dedicated economic reformer.”

   Historically, the Party has never perceived a contradiction between political crackdown and economic reform. In 2005, Premier Wen Jiabao met with a delegation from the U.S. Congress, and one member, citing a professor who had recently been fired for political reasons, asked the Premier why. Wen was baffled by the inquiry; the professor was a “small problem,” he said. “I don’t know the person you spoke of, but as Premier I have 1.3 billion people on my mind.”

   To maintain economic growth, China is straining to promote innovation, but by enforcing a political chill on Chinese campuses Xi risks suppressing precisely the disruptive thinking that the country needs for the future. At times, politics prevails over rational calculations. In 2014, after China had spent years investing in science and technology, the share of its economy devoted to research and development surpassed Europe’s. But, when the government announced the recipients of grants for social-science research, seven of the top ten projects were dedicated to analyzing Xi’s speeches (officially known as “General Secretary Xi’s Series of Important Speeches”) or his signature slogan: the Chinese Dream.

   The era of Xi Jinping has defied the assumption that China’s fitful opening to the world is too critical and productive to stall. The Party today perceives an array of threats that, in the view of He Weifang, the law professor, will only increase in the years ahead. Before the Web, the professor said, “there really weren’t very many people who were able to access information from outside, so in Deng Xiaoping’s era the Party could afford to be a lot more open.” But now, if the Internet were unrestricted, “I believe it would bring in things that the leaders would consider very dangerous.”

   Like many others I met this winter, He Weifang worries that the Party is narrowing the range of acceptable adaptation to the point that it risks uncontrollable change. I asked him what he thinks the Party will be like in ten or fifteen years. “I think, as intellectuals, we must do everything we can to promote a peaceful transformation of the Party—to encourage it to become a ‘leftist party’ in the European sense, a kind of social-democratic party.” That, he said, would help its members better respect a true system of law and political competition, including freedom of the press and freedom of thought. “If they refuse even these basic changes, then I believe China will undergo another revolution.”

   It is a dramatic prediction—and an odd

10. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ২৫ এপ্রিল ২০১৫ (৭:১৯ অপরাহ্ণ)

    Earthquake in Nepal Kills Hundreds and Levels Buildings

    An earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 7.8 shook Nepal on Saturday near its capital, Katmandu, flattening sections of the city’s historic center and trapping sightseers in a 200-foot tower that crumbled into a pile of bricks. People in the capital described scenes of panic and collapsed buildings, and the United States Geological Survey predicted severe damage to villages near the quake’s epicenter, about 50 miles from Katmandu.

    A spokesperson for Nepal’s Home Ministry, Laxmi Prasad Dhakal, said that the preliminary death toll stood at 686, nearly all in the valley around Katmandu, and that thousands of people had been injured. Trekkers reported a major avalanche on Mount Everest, where two people were reported dead, according to tourism officials. In addition, 34 deaths had been reported in India.

    Residents of Katmandu ran into the streets and other open spaces as buildings fell, throwing up clouds of dust, and wide cracks opened on paved streets and the walls of city buildings. Overflowing hospitals were treating injured patients on the street, and Nepal’s leading television station, its studios crushed, was broadcasting from the pavement outside.

    By midafternoon the United States Geological Survey had counted 12 aftershocks, one of which measured at a magnitude of 6.6.

    Kanak Mani Dixit, a Nepali political commentator, said he was having lunch with his parents when the quake struck. The rolling was so intense and long-lasting that he had trouble getting to his feet, he said. He helped his father and an elderly neighbor to safety in the garden outside and then had to carry his elderly mother.

    “And I had time to do all that while the quake was still going on,” Mr. Dixit said. “It was like being on a boat in heavy seas.”

    The nine-story Dharahara Tower, which was built in 1832 as a watchtower on the orders of the queen, collapsed, Mr. Dixit said. Witnesses there said more than 200 people had bought tickets to climb up to a viewing platform on the eighth story, and that several dozen were likely to have been on the platform when the earthquake hit. “Scores probably died in this place,” Mr. Dixit said.

    Joydeb Chakravarty, managing director of the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency in Nepal, said he was grocery shopping when the quake struck. “And suddenly, everything started collapsing around us,” Mr. Chakravarty said. “The shelves all came down, the food items all crashed down. We were barely able to get out the emergency exit.”

    Seismologists have long feared a big earthquake in western Nepal, where there is pent-up pressure between tectonic plates grinding up against one another. Though there have been a series of earhquakes in the region over the last century, none resulted in a full release of seismic energy, said Ganesh K. Bhattari, a Nepali expert on earthquakes now living in Denmark.

    Many worried that there would be vast loss of life in urban areas, where multistory concrete buildings have been hurriedly erected in recent years. But Saturday’s earthquake may prove less devastating than feared, because it struck during the afternoon when schools were not in session. Building collapses in Katmandu appeared largely confined to brick structures in the city’s historic area, rather than concrete high-rise buildings.

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    Photographs posted on social media showed people digging in the debris of collapsed structures. Kashish Das Shrestha, a photographer, said people had been trapped in the rubble and could be heard crying out as rescuers tried to make their way into buildings.

    “Everywhere there are people on the streets, people crying, people stuck in rubble, people trying to help,” Mr. Shrestha said.

    He described severe damage to parts of the palace complex in Vasanthapura Square, the site of palaces and temples that date to the 11th century. The old section of the city is a warren of narrow lanes and historic structures.

    “Oh my God, the entire Vasansthapura is in rubble,” Mr. Shrestha said. Hospitals in Katmandu were reporting the arrival of patients with broken limbs.

    For hours after the earthquake, many in the city remained sitting in the road, afraid to go back indoors. Many residents said they would spend the night outside, despite the cold and darkness.

    The earthquake set off avalanches on Mount Everest, where several hundred trekkers were attempting an ascent, according to climbers there. Via Twitter, Alex Gavan, a hiker at base camp, described, “huge earthquake then huge avalanche,” and “running for life from my tent.” Nima Namgyal Sherpa, a tour guide at base camp, described one avalanche as “huge” and said it had caused many injuries.

    “Many camps have been destroyed by the shake and wind from the avalanche,” Mr. Sherpa, the base camp manager for Asian Treks, wrote in a post on Facebook. “All the doctors here are doing our best to treat and save lives.”

    Two people died on Mount Everest after the earthquake, and another eight people have been badly injured, said Tulasi Prasad Gautam, an official in the state tourism department.

    Tremors from the quake were felt across northern India, rattling bookcases and light fixtures as far away as Delhi. Electricity was switched off for safety reasons in the state of Bihar, where three deaths were reported in one district, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, India’s minister of skill development, told reporters in New Delhi. Two other deaths were reported in a second nearby district.

    Historically, the region has been the site of the largest earthquakes in the Himalayas. A 2005 earthquake in Kashmir and a 1905 earthquake in Kangra resulted in a death toll of more than 100,000 people, according to the United States Geological Survey.

    ভূমিকম্প: পাবনায় একজনের মৃত্যু http://t.co/8oAFgW2x53 – http://t.co/o0DOH9i0mn

    — bdnews24.com (@bdnews24com) April 25, 2015

    50 RMG workers injured, Savar,while rushing out during #earthquake that jolted country http://t.co/PAEc3e7Ztm #Dhaka pic.twitter.com/yDKsbB9Ovt

    — The Daily Star (@dailystarnews) April 25, 2015

    Kathmandu’s Patan Durbar Square before and after the #NepalEarthquake pic.twitter.com/KoYNXAjAOr

    — CCTVNEWS (@cctvnews) April 25, 2015

    Part of a building collapsed in Agra due to the #NepalQuake pic.twitter.com/k3VEXWEL20

    — EconomicTimes (@EconomicTimes) April 25, 2015

    An apartment building after the #Kathmandu #earthquake How safe is ours? @IndianExpress @neerajexpress @LoksattaLive pic.twitter.com/6pPqNQo8Wj

    — Tashi Tobgyal (@tashitobgyal) April 25, 2015

    Patan Durbar Square several buildings leveled need medical help and manpower to pull people out of rubble pic.twitter.com/gylI62fSue

    — John Snowden (@SnowdenJohn) April 25, 2015

    BREAKING: Death toll in #NepalEarthquake rises to nearly 900 http://t.co/LpO7omMxtv #Nepal #Kathmandu pic.twitter.com/8B5D3T9JKr

    — Sputnik (@SputnikInt) April 25, 2015

    প্রায় ৩৫ মিনিটের ব্যবধানে ২টি ভূমিকম্প (কেন্দ্রে ৭.৯ ও ৬.৬) অনুভূত হয়েছে, দুটিরই কেন্দ্র ছিল নেপালের লামজুং। pic.twitter.com/WceUDFPiN1

    — MasudKarimমাক (@urumurum) April 25, 2015

    Earthquake set off avalanches on Mount Everest, where trekkers were attempting an ascent http://t.co/QuyyKOqrEG pic.twitter.com/ivRfQ49dDG

    — The New York Times (@nytimes) April 25, 2015

    Thankfully it was Saturday weekend morning, schools were closed. Traditional buildings in mud-brick seem most affected.

    — Kanak Mani Dixit (@KanakManiDixit) April 25, 2015

    হিমালয়ের ভাঙা গড়া চলছেই৷‌ তারই ফল হিসেবে শনিবার ভূমিকম্প হল নেপাল-সহ ভারতের বিভিন্ন জায়গায়৷‌ এ রাজ্য-সহ (cont) http://t.co/Ol9kUK5h4s

    — MasudKarimমাক (@urumurum) April 25, 2015

11. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ২৭ এপ্রিল ২০১৫ (৬:৫৭ অপরাহ্ণ)

    আজ ফজলুল হকের মৃত্যুবার্ষিকী। এখবর আমি দেখেছি ৪টি পত্রিকায়: ৩টি পত্রিকায় পড়েছি প্রধানমন্ত্রী রাষ্ট্রপতি বাণী দিয়েছেন এগুলোতে খালেদা জিয়ার কথা নেই, ‘ডেইলি স্টার’এর খবরে আবার প্রধানমন্ত্রী রাষ্ট্রপতি বাণীর কথা নেই আছে খালেদা জিয়ার বাণীর কথা।

    Sher-e-Bangla’s death anniversary today

    The 53rd death anniversary of Sher-e-Bangla AK Fazlul Huq will be observed with due respect today.

    On the occasion, various socio-political organisations, including BNP, have chalked out elaborate programmes, including placing wreaths and offering Fateha at his grave.

    His family will hold a milad mahfil in their Banani residence in the capital after Maghrib prayers. Sher-e-Bangla Smrity Academy Bangladesh will hold a milad near his mazar. A discussion will also be organised at Razpur upazila of Jhalakathi at 9:00am.

    He served as the mayor of Calcutta (1935), chief minister of undivided Bengal (1937-1943) and of East Pakistan (1954), home minister of Pakistan (1955), and governor of East Pakistan (1956-58).

    He founded Krishak Praja Party which championed the rights of the Bangalee peasantry. He established Bangla Academy in Dhaka in 1954.

    Khaleda Zia in a message said AK Fazlul Huq was vocal till the last day of his life to ensure the rights of the people and will always be remembered for his role in anti-British movement.

    শেরেবাংলার মৃত্যুবার্ষিকী আজ

    অবিভক্ত বাংলার মুখ্যমন্ত্রী ও বাঙালি জাতীয়তাবাদের মহান নেতা শেরেবাংলা আবুল কাশেম ফজলুল হকের ৫৩তম মৃত্যুবার্ষিকী আজ ২৭ এপ্রিল। ১৯৬৩ সালের এই দিনে এ মহান নেতার মৃত্যু হয়। দিবসটি উপলক্ষে বিভিন্ন রাজনৈতিক, সামাজিক ও সাংস্কৃতিক সংগঠন নানা কর্মসূচি গ্রহণ করেছে। জাতীয় এ নেতার মৃত্যুবার্ষিকী উপলক্ষে আজ সোমবার মরহুমের মাজার জিয়ারত, ফাতেহা পাঠ এবং পুষ্পার্ঘ্য অর্পণ প্রভৃতি কর্মসূচি পালিত হবে।

    শেরেবাংলা এ কে ফজলুল হক কলকাতার মেয়র (১৯৩৫), অবিভক্ত বাংলার মুখ্যমন্ত্রী (১৯৩৭-১৯৪৩) এবং পূর্ব বাংলার মুখ্যমন্ত্রী (১৯৫৪), পাকিস্তানের স্বরাষ্ট্রমন্ত্রী (১৯৫৫) এবং পূর্ব পাকিস্তানের গভর্নরের পদ (১৯৫৬-১৯৫৮)সহ বহু উচ্চ রাজনৈতিক পদে অধিষ্ঠিত ছিলেন। তিনি বাকেরগঞ্জ জেলার সাটুরিয়ায় ১৮৭৩ সালের ২৬ অক্টোবর জন্মগ্রহণ করেন। তবে তার পূর্বপুরুষদের বাড়ি ছিল বরিশাল শহর থেকে চৌদ্দ মাইল দূরে চাখার গ্রামে। শেরে বাংলা এ কে ফজলুল হক, মুহম্মদ ওয়াজিদ ও সায়িদুন্নিসা খাতুনের একমাত্র পুত্র।

    রাষ্ট্রপতি ও প্রধানমন্ত্রীর বাণী

    রাষ্ট্রপতি মোঃ আবদুল হামিদ শেরেবাংলা এ কে ফজলুল হকের মৃত্যুবার্ষিকী উপলক্ষে গতকাল এক বিবৃতিতে বলেছেন, “শেরেবাংলা এ কে ফজলুল হক ছিলেন উপমহাদেশের এক অসাধারণ প্রজ্ঞাবান রাজনৈতিক নেতা। প্রায় অর্ধ-শতাব্দীর অধিককাল তিনি গণমানুষের কল্যাণে কাজ করে গেছেন। এদেশের কৃষক শ্রমিক তথা মেহনতি মানুষের আর্থসামাজিক উন্নয়নে এ কে ফজলুল হক-এর অবদান জাতি গভীর শ্রদ্ধার সাথে স্মরণ করে। আমি এ মহান নেতার আত্মার মাগফিরাত কামনা করি।

    প্রধানমন্ত্রী শেখ হাসিনা শেরেবাংলা এ কে ফজলুর হকের মৃত্যুবার্ষিকী উপলক্ষে গতকাল এক বিবৃতিতে বলেছেন, “বাংলার কৃষক ও মেহনতি জনতার অকৃত্রিম বন্ধু শেরেবাংলা আবুল কাশেম ফজলুল হকের ৫৩তম মৃত্যুবার্ষিকীতে আমি তার স্মৃতির প্রতি গভীর শ্রদ্ধা নিবেদন করছি। শেরেবাংলা এদেশের কৃষকদের অর্থনৈতিক মুক্তি নিশ্চিত করতে সারাজীবন সংগ্রাম করেছেন। তার নেতৃত্বে গড়ে ওঠা আন্দোলনের ফলেই দেশে প্রজাস্বত্ব প্রতিষ্ঠিত হয়। বাঙালি কৃষক সমাজ সামন্তদের শোষণ থেকে মুক্ত হয়। আমি মহান আল্লাহর দরবারে তার আত্মার মাগফিরাত কামনা করছি।

    জেপি’র বাণী

    শেরেবাংলা এ কে ফজলুল হকের মৃত্যুবার্ষিকীতে তার প্রতি গভীর শ্রদ্ধা জানিয়েছেন জাতীয় পার্টি-জেপির চেয়ারম্যান এবং পরিবেশ ও বন মন্ত্রী আনোয়ার হোসেন মঞ্জু এবং মহাসচিব ও সাবেক মন্ত্রী শেখ শহীদুল ইসলাম। গতকাল এক বিবৃতিতে জেপি নেতৃদ্বয় বলেন, মরহুম শেরেবাংলা এ কে ফজলুল হক এ দেশের রাজনীতির কিংবদন্তী পুরুষ। এ দেশের কৃষককুলকে মহাজনী ও জমিদারী শোষণ থেকে রক্ষা করার জন্য তিনি আজীবন রাজনীতি করেছেন। এ দেশের শিক্ষা বিস্তারের আন্দোলনে তার অবদান জাতি কৃতজ্ঞচিত্তে স্মরণ করে। বিবৃতিতে জেপি নেতৃদ্বয় শেরেবাংলা এ কে ফজলুল হকের রুহের মাগফিরাত কামনা করেন এবং সকলকে তার আদর্শে অনুপ্রাণিত হওয়ার আহ্বান জানান।

    শেরেবাংলা ফজলুল হকের মৃত্যুবার্ষিকী আজ

    বাঙালি জাতীয়তাবাদের মহান নেতা শেরেবাংলা আবুল কাশেম ফজলুল হকের ৫৩তম মৃত্যুবার্ষিকী আজ। ১৯৬৩ সালের এই দিনে এ মহান নেতার মৃত্যু হয়। দিবসটি উপলক্ষে বিভিন্ন রাজনৈতিক, সামাজিক ও সাংস্কৃতিক সংগঠন নানা কর্মসূচি গ্রহণ করেছে। জাতীয় এ নেতার মৃত্যুবার্ষিকী উপলক্ষে আজ সোমবার মরহুমের মাজার জিয়ারত, ফাতেহা পাঠ এবং পুষ্কার্ঘ্য অর্পণ প্রভৃতি কর্মসূচি পালিত হবে।

    শেরেবাংলা একে ফজলুল হক ব্রিটিশ কলকাতার মেয়র (১৯৩৫), ব্রিটিশ ঔপনিবেশিক শাসনামলে অবিভক্ত বাংলার মুখ্যমন্ত্রী (১৯৩৭-১৯৪৩) এবং পূর্ব বাংলার মুখ্যমন্ত্রী (১৯৫৪), পাকিস্তানের স্বরাষ্ট্রমন্ত্রী (১৯৫৫) এবং পূর্ব পাকিস্তানের গভর্নরের পদসহ (১৯৫৬-১৯৫৮) বহু উচ্চ রাজনৈতিক পদে অধিষ্ঠিত ছিলেন।

    তিনি বাকেরগঞ্জ জেলার সাটুরিয়ায় ১৮৭৩ সালের ২৬ অক্টোবর জন্মগ্রহণ করেন। তবে তার পূর্বপুরুষদের বাড়ি ছিল বরিশাল শহর থেকে চৌদ্দ মাইল দূরে চাখার গ্রামে। শেরেবাংলা একে ফজলুল হক ছিলেন মুহম্মদ ওয়াজিদ ও সায়িদুন্নিসা খাতুনের একমাত্র পুত্র।

    এ উপলক্ষে রাষ্ট্রপতি মো. আবদুল হামিদ ও প্রধানমন্ত্রী শেখ হাসিনা পৃথক বাণী দিয়েছেন।

    53rd death anniv of Sher-e-Bangla today

    The 53rd anniversary of death of Sher-e-Bangla AK Fazlul Huq will be observed in the country in a befitting manner today (Monday), reports BSS.

    Different political parties, socio-cultural and professional bodies have drawn up various programmes to observe the day.

    The programmes include holding of discussion meetings, placing wreaths and offering doa and munajat at the Sher-e-Bangla’s mazar in Dhaka.

    President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina issued separate messages marking the death anniversary of Sher-e-Bangla.

    They paid glowing tributes to the late leader and recalled his struggle for economic freedom of the peasants and toiling people of the country.

12. 

    মাসুদ করিম - ২৯ এপ্রিল ২০১৫ (৬:১৪ অপরাহ্ণ)

    বঙ্গভঙ্গের হোতা কার্জন কলকাতা ও বাঙালিকে সত্যিই ভালবাসতেন

    ইংরেজরা আমাদের দেশটা শাসন করেছে হরেদরে ১৯০ বছর৷‌ এর মধ্যে ১০০ বছর লেগেছে গোটা দেশটাকে কব্জা করতে৷‌ শেষ ৪২ বছর তাদের কেটেছে স্বাধীনতা সংগ্রাম দমন করতে৷‌ আরামে দেশটা শাসন করেছে ১৮৫৭-র সিপাহি বিদ্রোহের পর থেকে ১৯০৫-এ লর্ড কার্জনের বিদায় বছর পর্যন্ত৷‌
    জর্জ ন্যাথানিয়েল কার্জন, মার্কুইস অফ কেডলেসটন এদেশে যখন গভর্নর জেনারেল হয়ে আসেন, তখন তাঁর বয়স চল্লিশ৷‌ ইটস এবং অ‘ফোর্ডের ছাত্র, পরম রূপবান, বিদগ্ধ পণ্ডিত মানুষটিকে বিলেতের তাবৎ নেতারাই ভয় পেতেন৷‌ কারণ ওদেশের প্রধানমন্ত্রী হওয়ার তাবৎ গুণ ছিল৷‌ আর সেই গুণই হল দোষের কারণ৷‌ তাই তাঁকে ভারতে পাঠানো হল ভারত-সম্রাজ্ঞী ভিক্টোরিয়ার শাসন ও জীবনের শেষ পর্বে৷‌ অনেকগুলো ভাল কাজ করেছিলেন এদেশের জন্য৷‌ যেমন খনি আইন, অফিসিয়াল সিক্রেটস আইন, এনসিয়েন্ট মনুমেন্ট প্রিজার্ভেশন আইন ইত্যাদি৷‌ এই শেষোক্ত আইনটির জন্য আজও তাজমহল, অজন্তা-ইলোরা, কোনারক, খাজুরাহো, হাজারদুয়ারি, আদিনা মসজিদ টিকে আছে৷‌ আবার জঘন্য কাজ করেছিলেন ইউনিভার্সিটি আইন ও বাংলা ভাগের আইন করে৷‌ তাঁর কাজে সন্তুষ্ট হয়ে প্রথম ৫ বছরের (১৮৯৯-১৯০৪) টার্মের পর সম্রাজ্ঞী ভিক্টোরিয়া দ্বিতীয় টার্মও মঞ্জুর করেন৷‌ কিন্তু ভারতের সেনাধ্যক্ষ লর্ড কিচেনারের সঙ্গে তুমুল ঝগড়ার কারণে দ্বিতীয় পর্বের প্রথম বছরেই চাকরি ছেড়ে কার্জন দেশে ফিরে যান৷‌ ১৯০৫৷‌ তখন দেশ, শুধু বাংলা নয়, জ্বলছে৷‌ কারণ বঙ্গভঙ্গ৷‌
    সব কালো মেঘের যেমন একটা রুপালি রেখা থাকে, তেমনই বঙ্গভঙ্গের ফলে দেশ জুড়ে স্বদেশি সংগ্রাম শুরু হল, তার ফলে জমিদারিতে অভ্যস্ত বাঙালি নতুন করে উদ্যোগী হল শিল্প স্হাপনে৷‌
    তার আগে ইস্ট ইন্ডিয়া কোম্পানির আমলে অষ্টাদশ শতাব্দীর শেষ দিকে জয়মণি সেন ও তাঁর বংশধররা শুরু করেন ব্যাঙ্কের ব্যবসা৷‌ বড়বাজারের মল্লিকরা করতেন লবণের ব্যবসা৷‌ ১৭৭০ সালে শুকদেব মল্লিক ছিলেন তখনকার ভারতের অন্যতম প্রধান লবণ ব্যবসায়ী৷‌ জাহাজ ব্যবসা ছিল পঞ্চু দত্ত, রামগোপাল মল্লিক এবং মদন দত্তের হাতে৷‌ দ্বারকানাথের প্রপিতামহ দর্পনারায়ণ ঠাকুর চন্দননগরে ফরাসিদের এজেন্ট হিসেবে লবণ ব্যবসায় বিপুল বিত্ত অর্জন করেন৷‌ কিন্তু পরবর্তী কালে বাঙালি ব্যবসায়ীদের রমরমা চক্ষুশূল হয়ে ওঠে ইস্ট ইন্ডিয়া কোম্পানির৷‌ নানা আইন, বেআইনি হস্তক্ষেপ ও অন্যায়ভাবে জোর করে বাঙালিদের সব ব্যবসা লাটে তুলে দেয়৷‌ শেষমেশ উদ্যোগী বাঙালিরা তাঁদের অর্জিত ও সঞ্চিত ধন জমিদারিতে নিয়োগ করে বিলিতি জমিদারদের নকলে অভ্যস্ত হয়ে ওঠেন৷‌ কার্জনের বঙ্গভঙ্গ আইন যে স্বদেশির সূচনা করে, তাতে বিংশ শতাব্দীতে আবার বাঙালি শিল্পোদ্যোগে নিজেদের নিয়োগ করে৷‌ আর এই উদ্যোগপতিদের প্রধান উৎসাহদাতা ছিলেন কাশিমবাজারের মহারাজা, ভূকৈলাসের রাজা, ভাগ্যকুলের রায়রা এবং ময়মন সিং-এর আচার্য্য চৌধুরীরা এবং আংশিকভাবে জোড়াসাঁকোর ঠাকুররা৷‌
    বঙ্গভঙ্গের প্রতিবাদে বিলিতি কাপড় বর্জন তো করা হল৷‌ কিন্তু দিশি লোক পরবে কী? তাই মৃত বঙ্গলক্ষ্মী কটন মিলের পুনরুজ্জীবন ঘটল ১৯০৬-এ৷‌ এর পেছনে ছিলেন কাশিমবাজারের মহারাজা মণীন্দ্রচন্দ্র নন্দী৷‌ এর পরই এক রিটায়ার্ড বাঙালি ম্যাজিস্ট্রেট মোহিনীমোহন চক্রবর্তী ১৫ লাখ টাকার পুঁজি নিয়ে শুরু করলেন কুষ্টিয়ায় মোহিনী মিল৷‌ এই মোহিনী মিলের ডিরেক্টরদের মধ্যে ছিলেন রবীন্দ্রনাথ স্বয়ং, যিনি বঙ্গভঙ্গের প্রতিবাদে রাস্তায় নেমে রাখি বন্ধনের সূচনা করেছিলেন৷‌ ওই ১৯০৬ সালেই উদয় দাস সৃজন করলেন শ্রীনাথ মিল৷‌
    গেঞ্জি, জাঙ্গিয়া, বেনিয়ান, ফতুয়া, এক কথায় হোসিয়ারি শিল্পে জোয়ার এল ঠিক এই সময়ে, একই কারণে৷‌ ১৮৯৩-এ খিদিরপুরে ওরিয়েন্টাল হোসিয়ারি লিমিটেডের যাত্রা শুরু হলেও এর অবস্হা ভাল ছিল না৷‌ জোয়ার এল স্বদেশি পর্বে৷‌ এর ফলে একে একে জন্ম নিল পাবনার শিল্প সঞ্জীবনী কোম্পানি, নবাব আবদুস সোভানের বেঙ্গল হোসিয়ারি কোম্পানি৷‌ ১৯২৬-এর ট্যারিফ বোর্ডের রিপোর্টে স্পষ্ট উল্লেখ আছে বড়, মেজ, সেজ– নানা সাইজের দেড়শোটি কোম্পানি বাংলায় গড়ে উঠেছিল স্বদেশি জোয়ারে৷‌
    চটকল ছিল স্কট সাহেবদের একচেটিয়া৷‌ সে মনোপলি ভেঙে দিলেন বাংলার শেঠ ঘনশ্যাম দাস বিড়লা ১৯১৯ সালে বিড়লা জুটমিল পত্তন করে৷‌ এর পর পর গড়ে উঠল হুকুমচাঁদ জুটমিল৷‌ এর পর এক এক করে গড়ে উঠল শ্রী অম্বিকা, প্রেমচাঁদ, শ্রীগণেশ, কেদারনাথ, ভারত, লক্ষ্মীনারায়ণ, নফরচাঁদ ও প্রবর্তক জুটমিল৷‌
    একইভাবে ওই পর্বে যুগান্তর ঘটে গেল ওষুধ ও রসায়ন শিল্পে৷‌ এ ব্যাপারে যিনি সবচেয়ে গুরুত্বপূর্ণ ভূমিকা পালন করেন, তিনি আচার্য প্রফুল্লচন্দ্র রায়৷‌ বেঙ্গল কেমিক্যাল তাঁরই সন্তান৷‌ এ ব্যাপারে তাঁকে যাঁরা দারুণ সাহায্য করেছিলেন, তাঁরা হলেন বটকৃষ্ণ পালের দুই বংশধর কৃষ্ণনাথ পাল ও স্যার হরিশঙ্কর পাল৷‌ বেঙ্গল কেমিক্যালের সাফল্য দেখে অসংখ্য আরও ছোটবড় ওষুধের ও রসায়নের কোম্পানি গড়ে উঠল৷‌ যাদের মধ্যে উল্লেখযোগ্য ইন্ডিয়ান ফার্মাসিউটিক্যাল ওয়ার্কস, মিনার্ভা কেমিক্যাল ওয়ার্কস, ভিক্টোরিয়া কেমিক্যাল ওয়ার্কস৷‌ পরে এল ক্যালকাটা কেমিক্যাল কোম্পানি, বেঙ্গল ইমিউনিটি, ব্রহ্মচারী রিসার্চ ইনস্টিটিউট, ইউনিয়ন ড্রাগ, লিখটার অ্যান্টিসেপটিক ড্রেসিং কোম্পানি ইত্যাদি৷‌
    পটারি ও সেরামিক শিল্পেও নতুন উদ্যোগ দেখা গেল যখন মহারাজা মণীন্দ্রচন্দ্রের উৎসাহে গড়ে উঠল ক্যালকাটা পটারি ওয়ার্কস৷‌ গোটা ভারতে প্রথম এই দিশি উদ্যোগ৷‌ ১৯০৮৷‌ পরবর্তীকালে ক্যালকাটা পটারির বিবর্তন হল নতুন নামে বেঙ্গল পটারিজ লিমিটেডে৷‌
    একইভাবে এনামেল, কাচ, ট্যানারি ও চামড়া শিল্পে স্বদেশি পর্বে গড়ে ওঠল একের পর এক কোম্পানি৷‌ ম্যাচ বক্সতৈরির কারখানা বানাল বন্দেমাতরম দেশলাই৷‌ সিগারেট দেশেই তৈরি হতে লাগল৷‌ ক্যালকাটা সিগারেট কোম্পানি, ইস্ট ইন্ডিয়া সিগারেট কোম্পানির কারখানায়৷‌ জলপাইগুড়িতে ১১টি কোম্পানি গড়ে উঠল চায়ের৷‌ এই উদ্যোগপতিদের অন্যতম ছিলেন আচার্য জগদীশচন্দ্র বসুর বাবা ভগবানচন্দ্র বসু৷‌ এ ছাড়াও জয়চন্দ্র সান্যাল, গোপালচন্দ্র ঘোষ, তারিণীপ্রসাদ রায় প্রমুখ৷‌
    ইস্পাত শিল্পের প্রতিষ্ঠাতা এ দেশে বাঙালিই৷‌ ১৮৬৭-তে কে এল মুখার্জি অ্যান্ড কোং সালকিয়ায় গড়ে তোলেন বেঙ্গল আয়রন অ্যান্ড স্টিল কোম্পানি৷‌ পরে বিংশ শতাব্দীর শুরুতে মহারাজা মণীন্দ্রচন্দ্র গড়ে তোলেন তারা ইঞ্জিনিয়ারিং ওয়ার্কস মানভূমের একরায়৷‌ জাহাজ ব্যবসাও নতুন উদ্যোগে গড়ে উঠতে শুরু করে৷‌ এরই মধ্যে রাজেন মুখোপাধ্যায় কুলটি ও বরাকরের দুটি কারখানাকে একই ছাতার তলে এনে গড়ে তোলেন ইন্ডিয়ান আয়রন অ্যান্ড স্টিল কোং৷‌
    কোথায় গেল সে সব কারখানা? সবই শেষ হয়ে গেল বিংশ শতাব্দীর প্রথমার্ধেই৷‌ যে দুটি-একটি টিম টিম করে চলছিল তা-ও শেষ পর্যন্ত কর্মীদের মাইনে দিতে পারল বা পারছে কেন্দ্রীয় সরকার অধিগ্রহণ করায়৷‌ আর এর জন্য যে ঘটনাটি সবচেয়ে বেশি দায়ী, তা বঙ্গভঙ্গ করার পরিবর্তে কলকাতা থেকে দিল্লিতে দেশের রাজধানীর স্হানান্তরণ৷‌ শুনতে অবাক লাগে, এই স্হানান্তরণের বিরুদ্ধে যিনি সবচেয়ে বেশি সোচ্চার হয়েছিলেন, তিনিই বঙ্গভঙ্গের হোতা মার্কুইস অব কেডলেসটন, লর্ড কার্জন৷‌ বাঙালি নেতাদের চেয়ে শতগুণ প্রতিবাদ করেছিলেন কার্জন, এই রাজধানী সরানোর বিরুদ্ধে৷‌ বলেছিলেন, অচিরেই শিল্পে-বাণিজ্যে কলকাতা তার তাবৎ গুরুত্ব হারাবে৷‌ বঙ্গভঙ্গের ১১০ বছর বাদে আজ ফিরে তাকালে স্পষ্ট হয়ে ওঠে কলকাতা ও বাঙালিকে বোধহয় মানুষটা সত্যি ভালবাসতেন৷‌