The world sometimes chooses to remember history selectively. Talk of genocide and Rwanda comes to mind, after Nazi Germany and Pol Pot’s Cambodia. Somehow Bangladesh just isn’t there in the collective picture even though the massacres of 1971 by the Pakistan Army in that country eclipse many other 20th century calamities. Consider this: Pol Pot is believed to have killed two million of his countrymen, the Pakistan Army and its collaborators in Bangladesh massacred an estimated three million.
One reason why Bangladesh is not on the top of global consciousness as the setting of one of history’s worst mass slaughters is geopolitical. The events of 1971 took place during the height of the Cold War years, at a time when Pakistan was a frontline state and darling of the West. Its breakup with the help of Soviet ally, India, was a cause of distress in Washington and other Western capitals.
US President Richard Nixon and his principal foreign policy advisor Henry Kissinger did not care how many Bengalis were being shot in East Pakistan; their focus was to prevent the breakup and stop a possible Indian military assault on West Pakistan. The genocide was swept under the carpet.
George Harrison and Ravi Shankar organised the Concert for Bangladesh in New York’s Madison Square Garden to focus on the heartrending refugee problem. But as far as the West was concerned that was it.
Western reporters, many of whom had risked their lives, to report on the mayhem caused by the Pakistan Army in their eastern wing, were dismayed to see their reports sink without a ripple. The reports of widespread mass killings were disputed and at times completely denied.
Bangladesh was born from blood and bullets but was viewed more of an embarrassment than an overwhelming human victory. The new country’s independence was initially recognised by just two countries: Bhutan and India.
More than four decades later as Bangladesh struggles to come to terms with its violent beginnings and finally punish some of those responsible for the systematic slaughter of 1971, attitudes in the West are not very different. Bangladesh is still a black hole, a poverty stricken country deserving of charity but not comprehension.
This is why journalist and author Salil Tripathi’s book is important. It forces us back to the events of 1971 and explains what happened. His narrative is from a human perspective, from the level of an enquirer interacting with real life actors some of whom were part of those terrible times.
Tripathi’s story begins with the hanging of the assassins of Bangladesh’s first president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman who was gunned down with his entire family on the night of August 15, 1975. One of his surviving daughters, Sheikh Hasina Wajed, went on to become the country’s prime minister and finally brought five of the former military officers involved in the assassination to justice. All five were hanged to death in 2010.
From there the author retraces the country’s history to before the catastrophic events of 1971. His aim is to look at the historical roots of the current political situation in the country, particularly the intense rivalry between the country’s two main political parties, the ongoing war crimes trials and Sheikh Hasina’s war on the former collaborators of the Pakistan Army.
Contemporary Bangladeshi politics cannot be understood without knowing how the language agitation, which began shortly after the creation of Pakistan in 1947, snowballed over the years and eventually led to the open confrontation between Urdu speaking West Pakistan and Bengali speaking East Pakistan (today’s Bangladesh).
The final straw that broke the East Pakistani back was West Pakistan’s refusal to allow Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who had won a majority in the 1970 Pakistan general elections, to become premier. Rahman was ultimately jailed and dissent in East Pakistan turned to armed revolt.
The Pakistan Army crackdown on supporters of the liberation struggle began in early 1971 with a series of grisly operations that have not been forgotten in Bangladesh to this day. Intellectuals, academics, professionals and hundreds of thousands of ordinary Bengalis were systematically butchered.
Some of the worst atrocities were committed by Islamist collaborators of the Pakistan Army. The tragedy, as Tripathi’s book unfolds, is how the elements that slaughtered and tortured their own countrymen returned after Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s assassination and came to control the country.
Tripathi’s book is important not just because Bangladesh’s tragic history needs to be told and retold but also because the enemies of free Bangladesh continue to wield immense power within that country. In a sense, Bangladesh’s freedom struggle is not over and this book needs to be read to realise how important it is that the bloodstains of 1971 are forever cleansed.
A brief interview of the author Salil Tripathi
Q: Why another book on Bangladesh & the 1971 war?
A: There have been several interesting books about 1971 in recent years. Srinath Raghavan’s 1971 is an account of how international geopolitical currents shaped the events that led to the war. Gary Bass’s The Blood Telegram focuses on the Nixon White House, and its role in contributing to the crisis, including looking the other way when the Pakistani army unleashed the massacre. My book looks at the war from the bottom of the hill, as it were. I’ve interviewed victims, survivors, witnesses, and observers; I’ve talked to people who journalists and historians don’t get to interview boatmen, farmers, women who were assaulted sexually — and built the story from such accounts. Also, my book takes the story forward, not only to 1975 and the assassination of Sheikh Mujib, but to the Zia, Ershad, Khaleda, and Hasina years, as well as the current tribunals. And it goes back to the language movement of 1952, the Calcutta Riots, Gandhi’s Noakhali Mission, the Famine of 1942-43, all the way to 1905, when Curzon divided Bengal. So to that extent, it is a different book.
Q: Do you believe that the thinking Indian should be more aware of the tortured history of Bangladesh you have written about?
A: It would certainly help. Bangladesh today shows the tussle between secularism and communalism, about the kind of identity a nation wants. The struggle between being Bengali and being Muslim is an old one; Bangladesh is both, part of both, and of course it is also Hindu and Chakma and Sylheti. How to bring those identities together is a challenge. The war also offers a lesson about the international community’s responsibility to protect. When do you intervene, and when do you leave, and under what circumstances? Finally, understanding the neighbour better would help thinking Indians realise that while Bangladesh is not India, it is not Pakistan either.
Q: While there is a movement within Bangladesh to punish 1971 war criminals, a significant chunk of the population seems to believe in just the opposite. Why?
A: I think this struggle goes to the heart of the question — what kind of a nation Bangladesh is. Is it Bengali or Muslim? And does it believe in letting bygones be bygones, or does it believe in justice? When does the quest for justice become a desire for revenge? When does forgiveness transform into impunity? Those are profound questions; it is what only Bangladeshis can resolve. And the arguments we hear show the existence of different views within Bangladesh.
Q: The appeal of Wahabbi Islam appears to be growing worldwide. Could this swamp Bangladesh as well? Your take?
A: I’m not an expert on Wahhabi Islam. It is true that many Bangladeshi have been working in the Middle East, and many return as more devout Muslims. Many also believe that women should not wear saris, but be covered fully. And some Bangladeshis believe their children should study at madrasas, a substantial number of which may be funded from overseas sources, including Wahhabi sources. But to conclude that Bangladesh is therefore turning Wahhabi Islamist would be alarmist. There is a strong undercurrent of tolerant, secular worldview in the country, and it is not only among the elite in the cities. The way to combat any fundamentalist spread lies in economic development, which means more opportunities to trade, invest, and greater human contact within the neighbourhood, and not insurmountable fences.
Q: Do you think Bangladeshis view the war crimes trial as being fair, especially given the West’s scepticism?
A: Bangladeshis are absolutely justified in holding war crimes trials to prosecute those accused of having perpetrated abuses or collaborated with abusers. Bangladesh also has an obligation to ensure that the trials are run in a scrupulous and fair manner. The West’s scepticism arises because of widely-held perception that the trials are not being conducted in a free and fair manner. Bangladesh should ask itself if its purpose is served by continuing the trials as they are, or by making improvements to ensure itself, and the world, that justice is not only being sought, not only being done, but seen to be done.
Q: Bangladesh for most of its history has been anti-Indian, even to the extent of aiding terrorists. Could reconciliation with its past change this dynamic?
A: I have not looked at the issue of terrorism and who aids whom in India-Bangladesh relations, nor does my book. I think the question comes with a lot of assumptions that need to be unpacked. About five months’ travel over three years in Bangladesh makes me wonder if Bangladesh is as anti-Indian as people in India seem to believe. There is a lot of goodwill. But India can’t keep demanding gratitude for 1971; there are many in Bangladesh who argue, with some conviction, that India joined the war for its own interests, and not only out of a humanitarian impulse. Awami League sympathisers will in fact argue that under the current government Bangladesh has done several things which India should see as confidence-building-measures, and India has failed to reciprocate.
Q: You appear to have been a frequent traveller to Bangladesh. What did you find the most attractive in that country?
A: Rural Bangladesh is beautiful. The highlight for me was the riverine landscape around Kushtia, with rivers so vast that you can’t see the other end, the boats, Tagore’s family home, Lalon’s music academy, the spot from where Tagore went on a boat and wrote poems that became Gitanjali, the sight of paddy fields, the forests of Srimongol, the other-worldly feel off the Bay of Bengal south of Chittagong those are all inspiring. Visiting the Gandhi Ashram in Noakhali is poignant. And I haven’t mentioned the Sundarbans or the Chittagong Hills!
The untold story of Bangladesh By Salil Tripath; Publisher: Aleph Book Company, 2014; 382 pages; price: Indian Rs 595