71 War - The Mythology of Genocide
In September, this year, Bangladesh Liberation War Minister AKM
Mozammel Haque urged all those “who believe in the spirit of the liberation
war” to unite for the recognition of 1971 War as genocide.
The minister, while addressing a press conference at the ‘Jatiya’
or National Press Club, said that “the UN has not yet recognized the ghastly
episode as genocide”.
Earlier, on several occasions, Bangladesh PM Hasina highlighted that Bangladesh
experienced one of the worst forms of genocide in the history of mankind. She
had also made this observation just ahead of the year- long celebration that
the country observed to commemorate 50 years of independence.
Hasina has brought up the issue at several fora. In December 2020,
she even told Pakistan High Commissioner to Dhaka Imran Ahmed Siddiqui that the
pain of the 1971 genocide will remain forever.Hasina had brought up the issue
while addressing the UN General Assembly in 2017 too.Finally, in March 2017,
the Bangladesh Parliament passed a resolution to observe March 25 as the
Genocide Day.
Bangladesh claims that in the 9-month-long civil war against
Pakistan about three million innocent people were killed and more than 200,000
women were violated.The alleged episode started at the midnight of 25 March
1970 when , according to the Bangladesh narrative ,the Pakistan army cordoned
Peelkhana- the headquarters of the East Pakistan Rifles (EPR), Rajarbagh police
barracks, and the Ansar headquarters at Khilgaon. As per the Awami League claims,
about 8,000 to 12,000 people were killed every day.
Undercurrents of the 1971 War
There is a well-known and much thrashed out
political background to the 1971 War. We all know that the war resulted due to
a struggle for power between Awami League, the Army, and Peoples Party. This
power struggle degenerated into a civil war, which was exploited by India to
dismember Pakistan. We shall briefly recollect certain facts from the past with
a view to evolve a clear picture.
As a result of the 1970
general elections, Awami League emerged as the majority party in the
parliament, but it did not have even a single representative from West
Pakistan. Likewise Peoples Party, the second largest party in the parliament,
did not have any member from East Pakistan. In a mature democracy, handing over
power to the majority party would have taken place without a hassle , provided
there were no hidden motives. As the pre-poll strategy of the two largest
parties suggests, the personal ambitions of Mujib and Bhutto had already
reached a stage where they were not thinking in terms of a united Pakistan but
nurturing ambitions of ruling their respective wing as their independent fief.
There was a so-called Legal Framework Order (LFO) promulgated by Yahya Khan,
which laid down the code of conduct for the elections. Both Awami League and
Peoples Party had been blatantly violating the LFO by basing their election
campaign on parochialism and hatred. That Yahya Khan remained indifferent to
these violations amply shows that he had his own hidden agenda. Probably he was
thinking that he would exploit the differences between the two politicians to
perpetuate his rule.
Awami League’s six points
election manifesto suggested a loose federation where the central government
would not have the power to levy taxes. The central government in such a setup
would be completely dependent on the constituent units for running its day to
day and long duration affairs. It was essentially a blueprint for, initially a confederation,
and subsequently outright independence. Pakistan was carved out of India when
Jinnah, instead of beating around the bush, laid down his cards on the table
and demanded independence for the Muslim majority provinces in the northwestern
and eastern India. It was a bitter pill to swallow for the Congress leaders,
but they agreed to India’s partition instead of living in perpetual hostility
with the Muslim separatists. Whereas both Mujib and Bhutto were working for
Pakistan’s division for the fruition of their personal ambitions, they did not
have the moral courage and integrity of character to say so openly.
Their true intentions,
though, slipped out occasionally. After the postponement of the national
assembly’s inaugural session, Mujib addressed a mammoth public meeting at
Dhaka’s Paltan Maidan. Responding to the crowd chanting slogans of independent
Bangladesh, Mujib said “Independence, no! Not yet”. In another public meeting
held at Lahore, Bhutto made his famous remarks, “There are only three forces;
Peoples Party, Awami League, and the Army”. Then, addressing
Awami League, he said “Yahan
Hum, Wahan Tum (We here, you there)”. Had Mujib and Bhutto, instead of a tongue
in cheek attitude, possessed the moral courage to clearly express their
intentions, the unpleasant but inevitable partition of Pakistan would have
taken place peacefully.
Do we have a national narrative on the 1971 War?
Presently, all we have
is a distorted and confused version framed by batteries of disgruntled
politicians and pseudo intellectuals who support and peddle the joint Indian-
Awami League narrative of Bengali genocide perpetrated by the Pakistan Army. The Awami League led
Bangladeshi intelligentsia has built its ideological framework around the
mythology of a holocaust reminiscent of the Nazi gas chambers. It needs this
framework to remain in power.
Sarmila Bose – the
Indian-American journalist, in her book “Dead Reckoning”, gives a balanced
analysis of the army crackdown on the night of 25 March1970. According to
Martin Woollacott* (2011):
Bose's
case-by-case arithmetic leads her in the end to estimate that between 50,000
and 100,000 people died in 1971. One lakh, in other words, at most. One cannot
say that she absolutely proves this, but her evidence points in that direction,
and, in any case vastly away from the figure of 3 million still proclaimed in
Bangladesh and India. The wider revision of the conflict's history she implies
exonerates the Pakistani government of any plot to rule the east by force,
suggests that the Bengali leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman let the genie of
nationalism out of the bottle but could not control it, and insists that the
conflict was a civil war within East Pakistan. The killings by Bengalis of
non-Bengali minorities, of Bengalis who stuck with the idea of a united
Pakistan, and even of some Hindu Bengalis – all of whose deaths were attributed
at the time to the Pakistani army – needs to be reckoned in any fair balance.
The notion that the Bangladesh movement was non-violent, even Gandhian, was
always fantastical. Bose has written a book that should provoke both fresh
research and fresh thinking about a fateful turning point in the history of the
subcontinent.
Pakistan Army had launched Operation Searchlight in March 1971 in a bid to
control the mayhem caused by the Awami League in reaction to the postponement
of the national assembly’s inaugural session. By mid-May, Pakistan Army had
re-occupied all the major towns in East Pakistan and driven the battered
remnants of the Mukti Bahini across the border into India, forcing the Mukti
Bahini to seek training and guidance from the Indian Army for waging the
insurgency in East Pakistan.
As the
post-regime-change government in Pakistan remains indifferent to the propaganda
campaign launched by Bangladesh, the common man remains confused about what
actually happened in the wake of 1970 general elections that led to the 1971
War and dismemberment of Pakistan. The nation is fed half-truths woven by a
dis-oriented Pakistani intelligentsia.
On 23 March 2013, Bangladeshi PM Hasina Wajid conferred “Foreign Friends of Bangladesh
Award” on five selected Pakistanis at a ceremony in Dhaka. The recipients of
awards from Pakistan were mainly those whose fathers had opposed Army action in
the East Pakistan.Those who were given away the included Asma
Jahangir, daughter of Malik Ghulam
Jilani; Hamid Mir, son of Prof Waris
Mir; Hasil Bux Bizenjo, son of Ghaus Bux
Bizenjo and daughter of Habib
Jalib.
The award of late Faiz Ahmed Faiz
was received by Saleema Hashmi who received the “Bangladesh Liberation War
Honour Award” at a ceremony held in Dhaka on
24March 2013. At the ceremony Saleema Hashmi said: “The Pakistan
government should formally apologize to the people of Bangladesh for the
atrocities committed by Pakistan occupation army during the War of Independence
in 1971.”
Tail piece :
Recently, there is a flurry of statements by the post-regime - change ministers , as if they have suddenly woken up to condemn India's involvement in terrorist activities in Pakistan. Bilawal has held a press conference in New York. While condemning India, he compared Modi with Hitler. The people of Pakistan very well know that both Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, when in power in the past, divulged secret information to their Indian counterparts. Why this sudden surge of waking up to India's designs? Is it cover up to something else?
*Woollacott, M. (2011).Dead Reckoning by Sarmila Bose – review. The Guardian
Saleem Akhtar Malik
The author is a Pakistan Army veteran who regularly writes on national and international affairs, defence, military history, and military technology. His talks on these subjects are aired on his YouTube Channel "The Observation Post". His blog "Sam1953.blogspot.com" features his articles. Tweets @saleemakhtar53.
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