25 March is a reminder of our liability

No Bangali can forget the night of 25 March 1971. The entire day was spent in anxiety and alarm. The 7 March speech had brought the people together in a non-violent movement, though there were all preparations for an armed resistance. The people were well aware that the unarmed democratic movement could at any moment turn into an armed struggle for freedom.

Bangabandhu had kept the doors open for discussion and also for an alternative way of resistance. He placed before the Pakistani rulers a way for political solution, but he also made it clear that there would be no alternative but to fight for independence if they rejected the political way out.

It was more or less obvious that the Pakistan armed forces would resort to violence, but the degree and brutality of the violence was unimaginable. They cracked down on the armed citizens on the night of 25 March, paying no heed to any rules of war. They hit their targets and went on a killing spree. Their brutality crossed all limits, no words can describe the horrors of their actions. They attacked those who upheld the Bangali nationalist spirit. They killed the Hindu men, women and children. Bangabandhu had given the poor people a vision for which they took to the streets and so their homes were razed to the ground. Fleeing men, women and children were shot dead.

The night of 25 March is known as the Black Night. It is the darkest night in the country’s history when the genocide began. It was first in 1949 that the word ‘genocide’ was used to describe the planned annihilation of a people for their race or ethnicity.

We have been observing 25 March as the black night since then. It has become a synonym for the brutality, killings, rape, arson and other horrors of the nine-month liberation war. And then we have 26 March, our Independence Day, juxtaposing the horrors and the freedom.

There has long been a demand for 25 March to be recognised as Genocide Day. In 2017 a proposal was unanimously passed in the Jatiya Sangsad (national parliament)to recognise 25 March as Genocide Day. Many felt that the day should be internationally recognised and that the UN declare this to be International Genocide Day. That did not happen. But there has been significant achievement. In 2015 the UN declared 9 December as International Genocide Day. The genocide in Bangladesh can be remembered on that day along with that of other countries.

There are other countries that have days to remember the genocides they faced. In Rwanda, 7 April is Genocide Day, in Armenia it is 24 April, in Cambodia 20 May and for the Jews it is 27 January.

In our neighbouring Myanmar, genocidal attacks that been launched on the ethnic minorities of the Karen, Kachen, Shan and most recently, the Rohingyas. One million Rohingya men, women and children were oppressed, tortured and driven into Bangladesh. Bangladesh, which itself was victim of genocide in 1971, today stands by the side of the refugees. Prime minister Sheikh Hasina and the people of Bangladesh have set this shining example.

So 25 March reminds us of our past as well as of our responsibilities. We must never forget the genocide and must see the international trial of the perpetrators of the genocide for the sake of truth and justice. This applies to the Pakistani war criminals as well as the rulers of Myanmar. That liability remains to be fulfilled. And 25 March resonates with that message for us, for humanity.

* Mofidul Huq is a writer and cultural personality. This piece appeared in Bangla in the print version of Prothom Alo and has been rewritten in English by Ayesha Kabir