All said and done, it has been a considerable departure from the past. This time we have decided not to kill our leaders, but to give them a chance to live. They could leave the country and slip out of the net. We could spare them, and they could spare us. What is better than live and let live? But the begums have chosen to stay in the country. So be it.

For argument's sake, let us say both leaders had gone to exile. It could be an opportunity for them to do some soul searching once they had settled down in their homes away from home. They will not be able to do that in the country for the same reason fishes don't learn to appreciate it when they are in water.

May be in exile the begums would have realized that they had gone too far. They could find time to study history. Then they could grapple with questions surrounding their politics and popularity.

Why didn't anybody die or why didn't people pour out on the streets when the military-backed government asked them to pack up and go? May be in the solitariness of their exile, they could hear the truth blowing in the wind. People don't mind when their leaders ride on them to go to power. But they don't like it when power is used to ride on them.

It is said that there is a woman behind every successful man. But each of the two begums has an illustrious man behind her; one has the father, and another the husband. But then there is something about history in this neck of the wood. The begums have always lived to pay for the sins of their men.

Well, it will be hard to find a blow-by-blow match between the begums now and the begums then. But the overall fate is more or less the same. It is the same intriguing sons, husbands and fathers, the rise and fall of political fortune, then the long afterlife in financial distress, isolation, neglect, fear and ignominy.

Lutfunnisa, the widow of Sirajuddaula, lived for 34 years after the brutal assassination of her husband. She spent all that time in pecuniary crisis, petitioning to the British to increase her allowance and then frequenting the tomb of her husband in Kush Bagh cemetery.

Both Ghasiti and Amina, Aliwardi's wayward daughters, were drowned in water, their boat capsized under the order from Mir Jafar's son Miran. Amina had prayed that Miran should be struck with lightening for his cruelty to them. Her prayer was answered within a few days when a thunderbolt killed him.

Other begums suffered equally except Munni Begum, the widow of Mir Jafar, who used her wealth and good demeanor to hold sway over Clive and Hastings. She would be the only begum to get gun salutes from the Company after her death, 90 of them corresponding with the number of years she had lived.

Murshid Quli's daughter Zinatunnisa lived in the care of Ghasiti and her husband until she died. Aliwardi's wife Sharfunnisa lived in Murshidabad with Lutfunnisa and spent her last days grazing in memories.

The entire saga started with a Brahmin who had converted to Islam. Murshid Quli, the Mughal Diwan of Bengal, had married his daughter to Shuja Khan who disputed with his father-in-law and set up his own court in Orissa.

Shuja took a distant relative named Mirza Mohammad to his service and Mirza's sons Haji Ahmad and Aliwardi wrestled power from Shuja's son Sarfaraz, who had discredited himself by dishonouring the beautiful daughter-in-law of Jagath Seth.

After Aliwardi became the new Nawab, he married his three daughters Ghasiti, Maimana and Amina to Haji's three sons. Now the plot begins to thicken. Ghasiti and Amina, while married to their husbands, fell in love with Husain Quli, which alarmed their virtuous mother Sharfunnisa.

But Husain Quli made no secret that he was more inclined towards younger Amina and a jealous Ghasiti joined her mother to take revenge. It fell on Sirajuddaula to see that his mother's lover would be brutally killed.

Meanwhile, the wheel of fortune turned again. Mir Jafar, who was related to Aliwardi and had sworn by the holy Quran to stand by Siraj, overthrew him. The irony of history is that Siraj would be stabbed to death by an ungrateful Mohammadi Beg, who was raised in Aliwardi's house. Lying in a pool of blood the fallen Nawab said to his assailant that he was done for the blood of Husain Quli, which was shed by him.

The purpose of this narration is to remind that politics has transformed since the days of Plassey and, thank God, it is now in the hands of people, not in the hands of families. I would like the begums to think about it. They wanted to take power in their grip and let their families run the country. And that was going to strangle the aspiration of freedom-loving people, the same aspiration which is now protecting them by forcing us to give them a choice.

It appears now that the choice has changed. The begum who was gone will rush home. The begum who was dawdling is not going anywhere. But history is full of surprises as it repeats the cycle of crime and recompense. The begums have bounced back, which, if anything only makes it harder to tell when and where the circle should close.

A quickly-cobbled translation from Sharat Chandra Chatterjee: Superior love doesn't always pull together, but it often pushes away. It means there is a time to come close and there is a time to stay far. The begums have chosen to stay close, when they should have gone far. Harder the bounce, harder the fall. Again, a nation will wait to feel the pain.

Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a banker.