The writer is a freelance columnist and former newspaper editor. What states can do to hide away the truth, slice out a chunk of history and cast it aside, gives them enormous power over the minds and thinking of people. If there is control over what knowledge they hold, much can be done to frame what they see, to blinker out certain sights and to essentially deny them awareness about key events in history. In our country one of these episodes is the December 16, 1971, fall of Dhaka and all the dark events that led up to it. A random game of ‘word association’ using the word ‘Bangladesh’ with intermediate level students at one of Lahore’s most elite colleges led to interesting results. Bangladesh was associated most often with floods, cyclones or paddy fields. The Grameen Bank too received a couple of mentions, but only after some prompting did one student and then the next one or two associate it with once being a part of Pakistan and forming the eastern wing of the country till the brutal ripping apart four and a half decades ago. Few knew anything at all about this war or its horrors. Some blamed India for taking the country away and a significant number denied there had ever been a union between the two states. To prove his point one young man opened up a world map on his smartphone and asked how two blocks of land separated by over 1,000 miles of Indian territory could ever have formed a single nation. The question is not illogical and goes back to the desperately hurried Partition plan drawn up by the British in 1947. But then history is not always logical, and the reality is that a deliberate ignorance has been created about the loss of East Pakistan and the violent birth of Bangladesh. The ignorance is extraordinarily widespread, and even the evocative ghazal by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, ‘Hum Ke Tehre Ajnabi’, is not often associated with the breaking away of Bangladesh and the creation of strangers in place of friends. The stains of blood Faiz spoke about have not washed away even after 45 monsoons. Indeed the bitter memories of the events of the civil war have been opened up by war tribunal proceedings begun after the Bangladesh parliament in 2009 marginally amended the International Crimes (Tribunal) Act of 1973. This law was considered by many even at the time to be in conflict with provisions of the Bangladesh constitution and had been drawn up long before similar war crime tribunals were set up in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, helping clarify what precisely consisted of a war crime. Since 2009, the tribunals have been active even as criticism has come in from the international community and human rights watchdog bodies over issues of fair play and the justice of trials allowed to the accused. The 15 sentenced so far mainly belong to the Jamaat-e-Islami, a group that allied itself with the Pakistan Army. Other collaborators, as the state of Bangladesh sees them, are also on the list of those being tried. Pakistani soldiers of course escaped. The 93,000 men who surrendered in that scene in which guns are laid down before the Bangladesh army as the commanding officer of the Pakistan military, A A K Niazi, signs the surrender documents were taken prisoners of war and eventually released under the Simla Agreement reached in 1972 between Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the then prime minister of Pakistan and his Indian counterpart Indira Gandhi. Bangladesh was a part of the tripartite talks which eventually led to the release of most of these men. As the trials under the controversial tribunal continue, two men have now been executed. There has been a wave of protests from the Jamaat-e-Islami and a mirror of the same protests from that party and also others in Pakistan. Certainly, there is much to question about the justice of these trials, the witnesses that are being allowed to testify and the question of vendetta. Much seems tied in to the acrimonious politics in Bangladesh, pitching Sheikh Hasina, daughter of the late Mujibur Rehman, the first prime minister of Bangladesh, against key opponent Khaleda Zia. It is unclear if the search is really for justice or revenge. There is a huge difference between these two and international observers note those on trial have not always been allowed to defend themselves fully. It is important, however, to take in the view from within Bangladesh. Sheikh Hasina used the events of 1971 as part of her 2008 campaign for power. Images of slain, mutilated bodies, of the massacre at Dhaka University, also appeared on social media giving rise to anger among a new generation of Bangladeshis. Of course the war crimes should have been dealt with earlier. Multiple crises in Bangladesh soon after it was formed – Sheikh Mujib’s focus on 192 Pakistani soldiers held as POWs, his assassination in 1975 and the freeing of many of his enemies, including those who had collaborated in the war crimes by the military junta which seized power under General Ziaur Rehman, as a strategy to weaken the Awami League – prevented this. The horrendous crimes were never accounted for. All this only adds to the tragedy of Bangladesh. The country still struggles to come to terms with its past. But we, at home, should not be immune from this struggle. Apart from statements made recently criticising the tribunals, we have done our best to forget East Pakistan, the ignominy of surrender and why the eastern part of the country chose to break free in the first place. During the years after Partition, even though the eastern wing hosted a larger population than that of the western portion, and was in greater need of development, an average of only about 40 percent of the national budget was allocated to it through the years. This was despite the fact that East Pakistan’s jute brought in a large volume of export revenue for Pakistan. With Urdu declared the national language, a struggle for a place for Bengali, the language of the majority of Pakistanis at that time, began in 1952 and continued till Bangladesh was created. There was also resentment over the lack of Bengali representation in the civil services and armed forces as well as over the frequent racism directed the way of a portion of the country which had in many ways led the struggle for the establishment of Pakistan. Things were made worse by the Bhola cyclone of 1971, still regarded as one of the worst cyclones in history, which hit the Bay of Bengal and devastated the region. An estimated 300,000 to 500,000 people in East Pakistan are believed to have been killed. Claims about the lack of adequate support from West Pakistan are still heard widely in the Bangladesh of today. Families recall flooded houses, the constant shadow of death and the anticipation of help from West Pakistani military planes and troops – which never arrived. We also need to look back on the actual events of the war which began after the 1970 election, the first democratic poll held in the country. The Awami League, led by Mujibur Rehman, captured 160 seats out of the 300 seats contested, claiming a simple majority. The PPP won 81, sweeping West Pakistan. Neither of the two parties did well in each others’ territories. Constitutionally, Mujibur Rehman should have the first elected prime minister of Pakistan. However, he was not allowed to take this post by the military junta led by General Yahya Khan and backed by Zulfikar Bhutto. In the war that followed, terrible war crimes are now known to have been committed. The International Court of Justice agrees that some must be termed as ‘genocide’. Somewhere between 3,000,000 and 5,000,000 people were killed; entire villages torched and over 300,000 Bengali women systematically raped. These are not crimes that can be forgotten easily. Nor should they be. Yes, the tribunals raise many questions. But the main challenge is for both nations to face up to their past and not abandon a crucial chapter in history. Until then, there will be no true harmony between two lands that share so much of a common past. Email: kamilahyat@hotmail.com
