Shahbag Square Thunderous Slogan ‘Joy Bangla'

SALEEM SAMAD

On 5 February 2013, suddenly Shahbagh intersection become lively as thousands of angry and frustrated young people thronged the place to demand maximum punishment of war criminals indicted for war crimes and a crime against humanity during the brutal birth of Bangladesh.

On the tenth anniversary of Gono Jagaron Moncho, remembered for the revival of the war cry of Bangladeshi nationalism ‘Joy Bangla’ was significant. Tens of thousands of young people from all walks of life have turned up to protest the life sentences handed out to Islamists.

The platform for trial and punishment of Bangladesh-born henchmen of occupation Pakistan armed forces imbibed millions of young people despite they were born after the liberation war. They did not forget what the war criminals have committed to their motherland.

Popular belief suggests that Bangladesh is a conservative Sunni Muslim majority. The melee of thousands of young women at the square belies this. The women are there, with children in tow, on their lap or shoulder way past midnight.

The deafening roar of the youths at Shahbag Square, the epicentre of protest in Dhaka, is awe-inspiring. Mainly because over one lakh youth chanted “Joy Bangla” (Long Live Bangladesh) throughout the day and night.

Joy Bangla was the war cry of the Mukti Bahini (Bangladesh Liberation Forces) during the 1971 bloody liberation war.

The Joy Bangla slogan became taboo after the assassination of independence hero Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975.

“Today I walk in the streets shouting the slogan without fear, prejudice or being bashful,” Shamsuddin Ahmed, journalist and writer tells me. “I haven’t heard that slogan in over 40 years since the country was liberated.”

The revival of the war cry of Bangladeshi nationalism is significant. Young people from all walks of life have turned out in their thousands to protest the life sentences handed out to an Islamist war criminal by the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal.

If the tribunal persists, Bangladesh could become the world’s first Muslim nation to bury political Islam once and for all. It is a devil which needs to be contained. And here’s why they were at Shahbag.

The struggle against the Islamic Republic of Pakistan was sparked off in its erstwhile eastern province in March 1971. Nine months later, the new nation of Bangladesh emerged, after a bloody gruesome war for millions of Muslims, Hindus, Christians and Buddhists and Adivasis alike.

Pakistan’s marauding army with their local henchmen committed genocide, crime against humanity and forced abductions for nine months of the independence war, nearly 4.5 lakh women were victims of rape as a weapon of war, and intellectuals were murdered and abducted.

Bangladesh war historian Prof. Muntasir Mamoon claims genocide of three million people. These were people whose only crime was to believe in the independence of Bangladesh. The marauding Pakistan forces and their henchmen were blamed for the genocide.

The peasants and students fought the elite Pakistan military forces and their auxiliary forces, largely recruited from among the Bangalee Muslim population in the country.

Their spirits were not dampened and we have demanded the trial of these henchmen, collaborators of war crimes. For forty years our voice was not heard. But most underestimated the new generation.

Their thunderous cry is not just audible over Shahbag Square. It echoes over social media, Twitter and Facebook. It is an angry voice demanding justice.

In the Arab Spring, the protests were anti-government. The Arab protester’s objective was to achieve democracy, freedom and justice. In Bangladesh, the scenario is dramatically different.

The protester’s quest is to seek justice for crimes committed in 1971, when Bangladesh, formerly the Eastern province of Pakistan, attained its independence. The crowd listens patiently to the chorus, poetry recitation and brief speeches for hours. Thousands chant slogans repeatedly.

Today Gono Jagaron Moncho which bonded millions of youngsters is a history, despite the controversy and myths around the movement. Forty-two years after its difficult birth, Bangladesh witnessed a rebirth in Shahbag Square.

First published in The News Times, February 5, 2023

Saleem Samad, is an award winning independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleemsamad@hotmail.com>; Twitter @saleemsamad

Bangladesh declared war against India on Dec 3

Photo: Courtesy Anwar Hossain Foundation

SALEEM SAMAD
And how a dream became reality

After nearly nine months of a brutal war of independence was coming to an end in early December, the foot soldiers of Mukti Bahini liberated large swathes of occupied Bangladesh backed by the mighty Indian Army, while the ragtag Pakistan soldiers were on the backfoot, converging to the nearest military garrisons.

Pakistan, in desperation, declared “Operation Chengiz Khan” and Pakistan Air Force (PAF) bombers began bombardment of six Indian military bases on December 3, 1971. The strike caused little damage.

The Indian armed forces in anticipation of air-strikes had kept their planes in bunkers.

A day before the Pakistan attack on Indian airfields, Indira Gandhi addressed her last public meeting in Kolkata after visiting the refugee camps in the city. Moments after the air-strikes in India’s western war theatre, few top military brasses briefed Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi regarding the PAF attacks on India.

Lieutenant General Sam Manekshaw, chief of the Army Staff of the Indian Army, paused for a moment in silence and advised her (Indira) to delay the declaration of war against Pakistan.

She was told that a surprise was waiting at the eastern theatre. Soon, Indira informed her senior aides that India would not declare war against Pakistan. Instead, Bangladesh would strike Pakistan targets in the east. 

She explained to her aides that the imminent declaration of war would jeopardize the diplomatic efforts mustered around the Bangladesh cause -- the genocide and millions of refugee issues. On the eve of a formal war between India and Pakistan, telephones started to ring at the Mukti Bahini headquarters on December 2. The two-month-old Bangladesh Air Force was entrusted to strike targets deep inside occupied Bangladesh.

Earlier on September 28, 1971, Bangladesh Air Force was formed with three fighter pilots defected from PAF and six civil pilots from Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), and another 60 strong ground technical crew also from PAF.

The formation of the Bangladesh Air Force, dubbed “Kilo Flight,” began its journey with three vintage aircraft on October 8, 1971.

Indian civilian authorities and the Indian Air Force gave one American-made stubborn DC-3 Dakota (donated by the Maharaja of Jodhpur), one Canadian-built DHC-3 Otter plane, and one French Alouette III helicopter for the newborn “Kilo Flight.”

The pilots and ground crew gathered for a special mission on September 28 at Dimapur in Nagaland, where they took advantage of the lack of night-fighting capability of the PAF to launch hit-and-run attacks on sensitive targets inside occupied Bangladesh.

After months of intensive training, the formation was activated for combat.

The first sortie was scheduled to take place on November 28 but was postponed by Indian high commands to December 2, which invited frustration among the “Kilo Flight” crews, eagerly waiting to strike inside Bangladesh. Meanwhile, the three civilian aircraft were renovated, suitable for guerrilla warfare operations.

The Otter boasted seven rockets under each of its wings and could deliver 10 of the 25-pound bombs manually through a makeshift door in the bottom of the plane. The helicopter was rigged to fire 14 rockets from pylons attached to its side and had .303 Browning machine guns installed.

It was fitted with a one-inch (25mm) steel plate welded to its floor for extra strength.

The Dakota was also modified, but for technical reasons, it was used to ferry exiled government officials and supplies only.

The Otter took off from Kailashsahar with a two-member crew -- Flight Lt Shamsul Alam and co-pilot Akram Ahmed -- for a mission against targets in Chittagong, the vital seaport, to disrupt logistics and supplies of Pakistani troops.

The second unit -- a helicopter sortie from Teliamura base in adjoining Tripura state -- was piloted by Flight Lt Sultan Mahmood and Flight Lt Badrul Alam and made a deadly strike at Godnail fuel depot, Narayanganj. The smoke from the flames was seen from the capital Dhaka for days.

Two sorties on crucial targets on December 3 completely demoralized the Pakistan military.

Well, the Indians commenced air-strikes from December 4 in the eastern theatre and, by December 7, the lone airfield at Tejgaon airport was disabled and knocked out of operation.

The 13 days was the shortest war in military history, followed by a historic surrender ceremony, and in fact, the second surrender after WWII.

On December 16 in 1971, a dramatic push led to the fall of Dhaka. The jubilant Mukti Bahini chanting “Joy Bangla” and Indian troops riding battle tanks marched into the capital. Indira Gandhi at Ramlila Grounds in New Delhi. on December 12, 1971. said: “The Bangladesh of their dream has today become a reality.” 

First Published in the Dhaka Tribune 16 December 2019

Saleem Samad, is an independent journalist, media rights defender, also recipient of Ashoka Fellow and Hellman-Hammett Award.

Bangladesh Must Never Forget Those Sacrifices

Photo: Sheikh Hasina has remained constant in her action against the right wing fundamentalists who, aided by the BNP, acting out of electoral compulsions, has encouraged nationwide violence

VIKRAM SOOD

It was on February 5, 2013 that the young in Dhaka came out to Shahbag Square to protest and demand capital punishment for the Butcher of Mirpur, Abdul Quader Mollah, along with others who had been sentenced to life imprisonment, for their war crimes during the Bangladesh Liberation War. The movement had quickly spread to the rest of the country and the Jamaat Islami reaction was immediate and has remained violent. Nevertheless, Sheikh Hasina has remained constant in her action against the right wing fundamentalists who, aided by the BNP, acting out of electoral compulsions and its own convictions, has encouraged nationwide violence.

Shahbag was about closure. It was a war against fundamentalism and was not about revenge. Many of the protestors were young boys and girls born after 1971 who gave the famous slogan ‘Joy Bangla’ a new relevance and a new meaning. It is in Bangladesh that they wish to remember the discrimination in all the 25 years preceding 1971 and the genocide in the nine months that preceded that December 16. It was too soon after independence to find out what happened during those horrible months as the new nation had to be built from the debris and the devastation that the West Pakistanis had left behind. Yet they needed to remember all that to build their future.

The then Karachi-based journalist, Anthony Mascarhenas, was the first in June 1971 to break the news internationally of the genocide in East Pakistan, leading the Pakistan Government to white wash the events in its white paper of August that year. The young nation needed more than anecdotal references.

The Bangladesh Collaborators (Special Tribunals) Order soon after liberation and the 1973 War Crimes Tribunals Act were lost in the assassination of Bangabandhu and some members of his family. It took the Awami League twenty years to regain power in 1996 only to lose it to the right wing BNP supported by the Jamaat-e-Islami, the party that had supported the Pakistan Army and had opposed independence.

Attempts at discovering what happened in 1971 and to record Pakistani atrocities remained haphazard. There was no systematic fact finding and War and Secession — Pakistan, India and the creation of Bangladesh by Richard Sisson and Leo Rose in 1991 was more an account covering the military aspects of the war and did not cover the activites of the Pakistan Army before the war.

Robert Payne’s Massacre has several anecdotal references but his book was published soon after independence as was Mascarenhas’ book The Rape of Bangladesh, so could not give accurate estimates. Susan Brownmiller (Against Our Will) refers to 400000 rapes by the Pakistan Army and its collaborators, of which nearly 80 per cent were Muslim women.

Centuries of Genocide (4th edition in 2013) edited by Samuel Totten and William S Parsons has a chapter — Genocide in Bangladesh by Rounaq Jahan that has detailed graphic descriptions of the killings and depredations. She also says 3 million were killed. Yet Sarmila Bose’s book Dead Reckoning has remained controversial as it sought to find proof for a predetermined finding that the Bengali claim was grossly exaggerated and accepts the Pakistan Army figure of 26,000 Bengalis killed. Bose is dismissive of Bengali claims about the extent of genocide.

It was left to Dr M A Hasan, a medical student in 1971 who had joined the Mukti Bahini resistance movement. He painstakingly researched the events of 1971 through his NGO, The War Crimes Fact Finding Commission established in 1999 produced an accurate report entitled War Crimes, Genocide and the Quest for Justice in 2008. This report should ideally be in research and history libraries given the meticulous details and perhaps not something the average reader would read. Fortunately, Dr Hasan has now published Beyond Denial — The Evidence of a Genocide for the average reader. Hasan’s study says that the figure of 3 million innocent civilians killed is the more likely figure. The book describes in considerable detail some truly blood curdling systematic massacres; only those with strong hearts should read these pages.

Bangladesh needs full closure of this painful aspect of her history and a move away from fundamentalism that threatens it today. Bangladesh has to see the fulfillment of its Shahbag moment. The recent hanging of Mollah, is a process in that closure. But when Pakistan’s National Assembly expressed concern at the hanging of Mollah and Interior Minister Nasir Ali Khan criticised this hanging, this only shows how dangerously delusional Pakistan’s leaders have become. No wonder this prompted Sheikh Hasina to comment that Pakistan had not accepted liberation of Bangladesh.

First published in Mid Day, Mumbai, India, December 30, 2013

Vikram Sood is a Vice President at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi, and a former chief of Research and Analysis Wing

Forty years on, Bangladesh is still in the shadows of war

Photo: Makiko Segawa - Demostration at Shahbag against Islamist

A focus on unity and closure is desperately needed

AISHA GANI

The blood-red circle on a vast vivid green flag flutters in the skyline, with the honking taxis and busses below. Throngs of people join in the carnival atmosphere - pride and  patriotism can be seen on their faces. Traditional folk music about freedom can be heard from the local community centre, and fairy lights decorate buildings. Rickety rickshaws race past through the narrow and uneven side streets, while little boys with the green and red bandanas draped over their foreheads and little girls wearing scarlet  and emerald shalwar khameez run past.

The peanut seller reads a newspaper and tosses the nuts under the glowing kerosene lamp, while a group of men huddle over their chai in street corners, while speeches of  freedom fighters of days gone by blurt out of speakers, into the Dhaka smog. Political slogans – Joi Bangla! – wreaths of flowers and the faces of the Prime Minister Sheikh  Hasina, leader of the Awami League Party, and the "father of the nation" Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, dominate every street lamp and corner. It is Victory Day in Bangladesh.

But despite the bunting and the banners marking the 41st anniversary of national independence and the defeat of the occupying Pakistani forces in 1971, it also commemorates how Bangladesh has suffered a history of so much human tragedy, natural disaster and political chaos. Yet perhaps the greatest injustice is that people are denied the truth of what really happened during the war. In the months since the death sentence verdict was given to Jamaat-e-Islami politician Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, over 100 people have died during clashes between protesters and the police. Attacks on journalists and bloggers, political abductions and open firing on civilians have sparked fears of instability in Bangladesh. But why is such a youthful population still in chains of the memories and grudges of the older generation?  

I wonder what brings thousands of young and educated Bangladeshis – the Shahbag movement – to the streets of Dhaka to call for the hanging of elderly men, for events that happened before they were alive? While travelling in Bangladesh, I met student Ali Uddin* who explained how he couldn’t look to the future or do anything, as everything depends on the political situation: “It’s so frustrating, the biggest problem for students is that lessons and exams can be suspended or delayed at any moment due to strikes, that can happen at any time.”

As someone of Bangladeshi heritage, I have realised that not many people care about this tiny nation, or know Bangladesh’s history and what happened after decolonisation, which is so central to understanding the current political tumult.

After the 1947 partition of India, newly formed Pakistan, with west and east wings, experienced difficulties. Within five years the Bangladeshi Language Movement was established, but the central government based in West Pakistan refused to recognise Bengali as an official language. When the Pakistani forces under Yahya Khan declared martial law, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, founder of the nationalist Awami League (AL), was arrested in the early morning on 26 March 1971 of Operation Searchlight. With no one to lead East Pakistan’s fight for independence, Ziaur Rahman, an army Major who would go on to establish the Bangladeshi National Party (BNP), declared himself the head of the provisional revolutionary government of Bangladesh.

That evening, he made a radio broadcast from Kalurghat in Chittagong,  “I, Major Ziaur Rahman, at the direction of Bangobondhu Mujibur Rahman, hereby declare that Independent People's Republic of Bangladesh has been established.”  Yet this very act has since been the source of so much political turmoil of Bangladesh.

Both Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Ziaur Rahman were later assassinated by their opponents, and even four decades later, the Bangladeshi political arena is still dominated by their shadows – Awami League being led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s daughter and current prime minister Sheikh Hasina, while the BNP is led by her bitter foe, Ziaur Rahman’s widowed wife Khaleda Zia. These political divisions have fractured and left deep fault lines in Bangladesh, and academic Dr. Shaheen Amany* told me that ‘for the country to progress, the government needs to put the national interest first, then political interest, and then self-interest.’ 

The great injustice is that there is no way of knowing how many people died. Estimates are between 300,000 to 3mn dead and 200,000 women raped by Pakistani troops, and these figures are frequently used in political discourse and have shaped the dominant historical narrative. This matters and it is astonishing that there isn’t enough adequate academic source analysis, especially when the 3mn figure is so contested. There’s a continuous rewriting of history, and a change of government leads to the change in the list of freedom fighters – all 5 lists have been condemned for partisanship and for including the names of frauds. It’s an issue as those on the list receive special patronage including monthly food, rations and special educational provisions to their children are given, and according to the ministry of liberation war affairs budget, an allowance will be provided for 1,57,838 freedom fighters.

Furthermore, old wounds have been slashed open, hampering any attempts for closure. In 1973, after the birth of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujib declared ageneral amnesty for the Pakistani army officials, and despite being main perpetrators, were returned to Pakistan and 26,000 detainees under the Collaborators Order were released. However, Hasina, leading Awami League, in 2008 resurrected this issue which had been resolved by her father, and made a manifesto pledge to hold accused “war criminal and collaborators” on trial. It was an election winner.

A domestic International Crimes Tribunal was set up; bearing little sign of international standards, and this issue has been the cause of the recent protests and bloodshed. Those on trial are from the opposition – most are longstanding members of the Jammat-e-Islami party, who in 1971 were a small party who didn’t want a split from Pakistan, civilians holding no seats or positions of state authority, or military power in the army. So blaming the defendants of war crimes, genocide and rape considering their diminutive status is highly problematic.

I recently heard Toby Cadman, international criminal barrister representing the Jammat-e- Islami defendants, speak at the LSE about the serious irregularities in the Bangladesh war trial, and failures to abide by the minimum standards of due process. Crucially, as there is no jury and as the death penalty can be implemented, there should be extra caution. Not a single judge has heard all the evidence in the case of Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, in total three different judges have presided over the case, with the first two resigning. “Skypegate” revealed emails and 17 hours of extrajudicial discussions about the workings of the tribunal between the presiding judge Mr Nizamul Huq and a third party. The cases of abducted defence witness es is especially concerning, and in the Professor Ghulam Azam case, an arbitrary limit was placed on the number of defence witnesses dropping from 16, to 12 and then to a single witness. With a lack of resources and international assistance, the trial has been shambolic. One young woman in the audience put it to Cadman that these issues are just “legalities”: the will of the people should be heard. This concerned me. No, these irregularities are not just technical legal issues: justice can not be done without adequate evidence and impartial judgement.   

The war trials will not help solve anything, and are being rushed through before elections in Bangladesh are later this year. If anything, it is hampering stability and the economic progress that has been made. Efforts for unity have been hacked to pieces. I sometimes think about South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and how restorative justice for victims was at its heart: it wasn’t about political point-scoring. The TRC wasn’t perfect, but huge strides were made to bring about closure in post-apartheid South Africa. This is a highly emotive subject and is discussed in binary terms, but Bangladesh would do well to focus on unity and closure – revenge gets you nowhere, and two injustices won't make anything right. Progress cannot be made if there is no will to break from the haunting memory of the past, and this drive should come from the youth.

*Names have been changed to protect the identity of sources.

first PUBLISHED in The NewStatesman, 19 APRIL 2013

'We gave up, but they didn't': A former Mukti Bahini guerrilla walks through Shahbag Square and sees the demise of political Islam in Bangladesh

SALEEM SAMAD

The deafening roar of the youth at Shahbag Square, the epicentre of protest in Dhaka, is awe-inspiring. Mainly because over 1 lakh youth are chanting "Joy Bangla" (Long Live Bangladesh).

This was the war cry of the Mukti Joddhas (war veterans) who liberated the country in 1971. I haven't heard that slogan in over 40 years since the country was liberated.

I was a Mukti Joddha. I joined the underground movement in April 1971, a month after the liberation struggle began. I was a student of the (now defunct) Central college.

I spoke fluent English and Urdu and was tasked with reconnaissance and arranging getaways for guerrillas who did their hit-and-run raids out of Dhaka. If the Pakistanis caught me, the punishment was death.

But death would come after slow brutal torture where they would try and extract the names of all my collaborators from me. I guess I was too young to worry about the consequences.

The Joy Bangla slogan became a taboo after the assassination of independence hero Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975. "Today I walk in the streets shout the slogan without fear, prejudice or being bashful," Shamsuddin Ahmed, media consultant and writer tells me.

The revival of the war cry of Bangladeshi nationalism is significant. Young people from all walks of life have turned out in their thousands to protest the life sentences handed out to Islamists.

If they persist, Bangladesh could become the world's first Muslim nation to bury political Islam once for all. It is a devil which needs to be contained. And here's why.

The struggle against Islamic Pakistan was sparked off in its erstwhile eastern province in March 1971. Nine months later, the new nation of Bangladesh emerged, after a bloody gruesome war for millions of Hindus and Muslim alike.

Pakistan's marauding army with their local henchmen committed genocide, arson and forced abductions for nine months of liberation war, 4 lakh women were sexually abused, intellectuals murdered and abducted.

Bangladesh war historian Prof. Muntasir Mamoon claims genocide of three million people. These were people whose only crime was to believe in independence of Bangla speaking nation. The marauding Pakistan forces and their henchmen were blamed for the genocide.

The peasants fought the elite Pakistan military forces and their auxiliary forces, largely recruited from among the Bangali Muslim population in the country. War veterans of the Mukti Bahini, a majority of them like me are still alive and active in civil society.

Our spirits are not dampened and we have demanded the trial of these collaborators and war criminals. For forty years our voice was not heard. After nearly 30 years of struggle, we gave up. But we underestimated the new generation.

Their thunderous cry is not just audible over Shahbag Square. It echoes over social media, Twitter and Facebook. It is an angry voice demanding justice.

In the Arab Spring, the protests were anti-government. The Arab protesters objective was to achieve democracy, freedom and justice. In Bangladesh the scenario is dramatically different.

The protesters quest is to seek justice for crimes committed in 1971, when Bangladesh, formerly Eastern province of Pakistan, attained its independence. The crowd listens patiently to chorus, poetry recitation and brief speeches for hours. Thousands chants slogans repeatedly.

Popular belief suggests that Bangladesh is a conservative Sunni Muslim society. The presence of young women at the square belies this. The women are there, with children in tow, on their lap or shoulder way past midnight.

Forty two years after its difficult birth, Bangladesh is witnessing a rebirth in Shahbag Square.

First appeared in India Today, March 2, 2013

Saleem Samad is an award winning journalist based in Bangladesh. He specialises in conflict, ethnicity, Islamism and elective democracy. He recently returned home after living in exile for six years in Canada. He was imprisoned, tortured and later expelled for his articles in TIME magazine