 Hello and welcome to the news clip. Today we are in Bangladesh in the sidelines of Asian Assembly for people's movement and organizations in Dhaka. We have Mr. Rasheed Khan Menon who is the Minister of Social Delivery and also the President of Workers' Party of Bangladesh. Thank you Mr. Menon. Mr. Menon, the first question itself which is out of curiosity. Your name as Menon which is mostly used in southern parts of Bangladesh. What is the context of this? The context is that my father was very fond of Mr. Menon in those days of independence struggle against the British. So when I was born, my father gave me this as a nickname. But nobody called me by my own name. When I came to the college, one of the great artists of Bangladesh, he just joined the mass head of our work magazine in which he gave me his name as Arkan Menon. And after that I used to write my name within Dhaka Menon otherwise nobody would have known me by that. Even during my university election days, there were two Rasheeds. So I had to distinguish as Menon. So sorry, the people would have hoped me proper. So at one time this Dhaka Menon had just gone away. I knew him as Menon. I did not know him as Menon. That's how it has stuck to my name. So now I think I can call you Menon than Rasheed. So Mr. Menon, you have literally lived through three eras. One is British India. You were born in 1943. And then Pakistan and now Bangladesh. You have seen a lot of struggles. You have been part of a lot of struggles. Now you are part of the workers party of Bangladesh. You spoke in the Asian assembly in the inaugural address that capitalism and neoliberalism are the threat for this world today. And we need to unite. Can you elaborate just a little? Well, I said there, though it was not a very long speech, but even then there is one thing that now the world is being ruled by only a set of people. The whole, the wealth of the world is now procedurally in the hands of, as I said in that paper, that eight men controls about 50% of the wealth of the world. So eight men controls about 300 crore people in his life. And not only that, it is the corporations and others who are determining the decisions making process of every country. Even in Bangladesh where the capital is not developing that way, the international companies are definitely herder to play in this country also. So after the fall of Soviet Union, or the disbanding of the Soviet Union, and the setback of socialism, now the capitalism has a free hand in the world. And what happened is that now to that, the free back change of capitalism has entrained the society, conservatism, and selfishness and other things that has become the goal of the day. Unfortunately, in our nation, we are the young people, we used to look for the good of the country, good of the people, wealth of everyone, similar people. Now I find the young people that they are confined to themselves, they desire that immediately they take a job, they will have a flat and a car, and they will live their life like that. So this is the effect in our country also. And not only that, the process of the privatisation process has increased much more. The difference between rich and poor has increased. In our country also, the genetic efficient measures this income gap. They say that it is increasing, not only in the case of the rich and poor, but also in the case of the poorer people also. And that is more good, greater than the poorer people. And in this way, the people are being deprived, and not only economically, now they are being deprived of their rights also. They are exercising that all the governments have become authoritarian, even in the government of Kasim, they have become authoritarian. You can see everywhere in the world. You said about the increasing gap, which we see in South Asia, the richer are becoming rich, the poorer are becoming poorer and poorer. Also, what is threatening the South Asian region, including Bangladesh and India, is the rising religious fundamentalist. In Bangladesh itself, recently we have witnessed attacks on activists, bloggers. How do you think that as your party... Unfortunately, what happened is that the liberation of Bangladesh was called the basis of a non-communal democratic rise. And immediately after the liberation of Bangladesh, the constitution included that secularism and democratic rise around socialism also in our four principles of our constitution. But three years, three and a half years after that liberation, the father of the nation was assassinated by the military. And when they came in, they just threw away this principle of secularism and everything from the constitution. Not only that, they even implanted those people who were the collaborators of the Pakistani army. So they were brought back to this country, they were given the citizenship, they were given the post of militia. At the same time, in the world also, something has happened is that the Middle Eastern photographer had a very good position in our country. Many of our people are now working in Saudi Arabia, the Middle East. So that influence is also coming to Bangladesh. And you know, we showed these efforts, they followed the Wahhabi system, the most extremist form of Islam. And so they supported these forces who were against Bangladesh, who fought against our people, who killed our people, who raped our people. They were brought back and financed by this country. You know, the Islamic Bank, the first Islamic Bank, now it is the biggest bank in Bangladesh, was established mainly with the help of the Saudis. Their professor was there, his name is Khatib, his name was Khatib. He was the pioneer of the, in the establishment of the bank. And all the people of Yamaat-e-Islami and others were brought in, became their director and other things. So in the economic factor, in the economic sector, they just got their entertainment in the economic sector also. And the 21 years of the military rule and the other rule, what happened is that with respect to our country. Now, with the influence of patriot honour, with the influence of Wahhabism, with the influence of, you know, other forces outside, the other forces outside. Now a sort of, in Bangladesh a change is coming, unfortunately. The change is that in the mindset of the people, now religion is getting deeper and deeper. And that religion is not the religion that we practice in our country. Because in our country, the Sufi is mainly the liberal kind of Islam in our country, it was followed by our people. Our forefathers used to do that. Now the extreme ideas has come in. And now we are being influenced by our young people and other people. What happened, you see, in this Islami U.S. you are seeing that is what is happening today. Today it is closed. About millions of people were there. And there also, the division is very sharp. The extremists and the liberal ones. The division is very sharp. This has made a ground for the rise of the Islamism and the military people. And after that, the Polition of BNP, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat Islamists, helped these forces to grow in Bangladesh. And they have gained this Islamism ability in our country. Now with the rise of IS in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and Syria, so they have already influenced our young people. And you know now the internet is the best thing to influence people. So by the way, it has influenced. In Bangladesh there is the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. In India we see there is the rise of religious Hindu fundamentalism. And in Myanmar there is the rise of Buddhist fundamentalism. And in this context, a lot of attacks against the Rohingya populations have happened in Myanmar. And most of these Rohingyas who are stateless people have come to Bangladesh. And Bangladesh is one of the few countries which has opened doors for these refugees and provided humanity in it. When a lot of other countries in southern and south-east Asia are no stateless. Recently, Bangladesh government has signed an agreement with Myanmar authorities about safe preparation of these refugees back to Myanmar. But there are also reports that post-agreement of the Rohingya villages were also burnt in Myanmar. So how do you see that there can be a safe reparation of these refugees back to Myanmar? Is there any monitoring process? Well, the more that Bangladesh has opened up its borders for the Myanmar people, now the total number has come down to about 1 billion. And just the people who just came in recently, about 600,000, obtained 70,000 are taken away. And in the last three months, about 30,000 are back there. So you know what problem Bangladesh is now facing. So Bangladesh has no other option but to go for a recension with the people though there is a world support, European support and other supports are coming. But Myanmar is a neighbor because we have to leave with the neighbor. So we thought that, we felt that these issues should be sorted out bilaterally first and then the others should come in. Now, after that, because we have a negative in 1992 about the Rohingyas, who had reported in Myanmar once in 1992 about 30,000 of them, but they stopped there. So we do not believe that Myanmar is going to respect the agreement, but we have to go through that process. Number one, because two things are very important here. You know, the China and India, both of them, they are not taking any side. They are trying to remain neutral about it. Now, the China is saying that it is an internal affair of Myanmar should be tested like that. And India is just keeping mum all the time. So it has been very difficult for Bangladesh to maneuver in that way. So we have to go for an agreement with them for a preparation. But in the preparation, we propose and they have been saying that in the preparation process the UN is said to be involved. So UN is said to be there to... Overset everything and say bye. Thank you, Mr. Menon, for speaking to Newslet. Thank you for watching Newslet. Please log into the website www.newslet.com.