Bangladesh

Bangladesh is a developing country in South Asia, located on the fertile Ganges Delta. It is bordered by the Republic of India to its north, west and east, by the Union of Myanmar (Burma) to its south-east and by the Bay of Bengal to its south. It is separated from the Democratic Republic of Nepal and the Kingdom of Bhutan by the narrow Indian Siliguri Corridor. Together with the neighboring Indian states of West Bengal and Tripura, it makes up the ethno-linguistic region of Bengal. The name, Bangladesh, means "Country of Bengal" in the official Bengali language.

Quotes

Bangladesh, Bangladesh
Bangladesh, Bangladesh
When the sun sinks in the west
Die a million people of the Bangladesh.
- Joan Baez, "Song of Bangladesh", Come from the Shadows (1972)

Millions of souls nineteen seventy one
Homeless on Jessore road under grey sun
A million are dead, the million who can
Walk toward Calcutta from East Pakistan.
- Allen Ginsberg, "September on Jessore Road" (1971)

Those sons-of-bitches, who never have lifted a finger for us, why should we get involved in the morass of East Pakistan? ... [I]f East Pakistan becomes independent, it is going to become a cesspool. It’s going be 100 million people, they have the lowest standard of living in Asia. No resources. They’re going to become a ripe field for Communist infiltration.
- Henry Kissinger, quoted in G. J. Bass, The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide (2014)

Not one has yet understood what we did in India-Pakistan and how it saved the China option which we need for the bloody Russians. Why would we give a damn about Bangladesh?”
- Henry Kissinger, to U.S. President Richard Nixon, who responded: "We don't." Quoted in G. J. Bass, The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide (2014), Epilogue

People's priorities and actions are influenced by many different affiliations and associations, not just by their religion. For example, the separation of Bangladesh from Pakistan was connected with loyalty to Bengali language and literature, along with political - including secular - priorities, not with religion, which both wings of undivided Pakistan shared. Muslim Bangladeshis - in Britain or anywhere else - may indeed be proud of their Islamic faith, but that does not obliterate their other affiliations and capacious dignity.
- Amartya Sen, "Solution to cultural confusion is freedom and reason", Financial Times (November 29, 2005)