When a nation loses its intellectuals, it loses its backbone.
Never forget. Pakistan Army, and collaborating local Rajakar death squads, wiped out large swaths of the Bengali intellectual community over two weeks in December 1971. Bangladesh never truly recovered from the intellectual vacuum created in that moment.
আলাল ও দুলাল | ALAL O DULAL 
If we did not recover from the intellectual vacuum created in December 1971, then it means we did not have much intellectual heritage to begin with. With no disrespect to murdered intellectuals, if we are still intellectually poor 40 years afterwards then we must face the fact that our land and people are relatively intellectually infertile.
“Land” (whatever that may mean) alone does not create intellectual environment. Institutions, policy, and economics do.
An American University received $12 million dollars from one single Indian donor this month. This money will be earmarked to pay for professors and students doing research on India. These structures also create intellectual climate, work, and history.