How Long Can Pakistan Troops Hold In East Pakistan?

SALEEM SAMAD

In a crucial meeting held in Washington DC, on the morning of December 6, 1971, was attended by senior officials of departments of State, Defence, Joint Chief of Staffs, CIA, USAID, and others.

The heavyweight US Secretary for State at the onset of the meeting asked Gen. Westmoreland: What is your military assessment? How long can Pakistan hold out in the east [Bangladesh]?

Gen. Westmoreland candidly said, up to three weeks. Once Pakistan Army runs out of supplies, all the troops in East Pakistan [Bangladesh] will become a hostage.

No doubt sly Kissinger was worried about the safety and security of marauding Pakistan’s troops battling in occupied Bangladesh.

The United States seriously wanted to stick with withdrawal and ceasefire not a humiliating surrender of Pakistan troops and Kissinger assured the Pakistan regime that they doing all the best they can do diplomatically.

The perturbed Kissinger believed that there would be a massacre of the disarmed troops in the hands of the Mukti Bahini (Bangladesh Liberation Forces) after enemy soldiers are disarmed.

Three days after a full-scale war between India-Pakistan on the eastern front and Bangladesh-India jointly against Pakistan in the eastern war theatre, Henry Kissinger asked how long Pakistan troops can hold in Bangladesh.

The officials discussed whether there were any possibilities of Pakistan troop evacuation. Gen. Westmoreland responded in negative.

A senior official of the State Department asked Gen. Westmoreland that assuming the Indians take over Bangladesh, how do you think it will happen.

Gen. Westmoreland: I think their primary thrust will be to cut off the seaport of Chittagong. This will virtually cut off any possibility of resupply. Then they will move to destroy Pakistan’s regular forces, in cooperation with the Mukti Bahini. They will then be faced with the major job of restoring some order to the country. I think there will be a revenge massacre — possibly the greatest in the twentieth century.

Kissinger asked shall the Indians withdraw their army once the Pakistan forces were disarmed.

Gen. Westmoreland replied that he thinks they [Indians] will leave three or four divisions to work with the Mukti Bahini and pull the remainder back to the West [Pakistan].

The officials expect that the Indians will pull out as quickly as they can. Once the Pakistan forces are disarmed, the Indians will have a friendly population. They can afford to move back to the border areas quickly.

Another official in the nerve-breaking meeting predicted that after the Indian Army has been in Bangladesh for two or three weeks, they will be accepted as a “Hindu army of occupation”.

Kissinger asked: What will India do with Bangladesh? Will they see it as an independent state or have them negotiate with Islamabad?

An official responded that India has already recognised Bangladesh as an independent country. Kissinger said then there is no hope for Pakistan to negotiate with Bangladesh.

The objective of the prudent Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s government was to force a surrender of the Pakistani troops in Bangladesh within 10 days.

In a telegram from New Delhi on December 6, US Ambassador Kenneth Barnard Keating reported that Indian Foreign Secretary Triloki Nath Kaul had expressed “disappointment, shock and surprise” that the United States had tabled the resolution it did in the UNSC.

On December 5 the Soviet representative on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) vetoed an eight-power draft resolution that called for a ceasefire and mutual withdrawal of forces, as well as intensified efforts to create the conditions necessary for the return of refugees to their homes.

However, the UN Security Council accepted on December 6 that an impasse had been reached in its deliberations on the conflict in South Asia, and referred the issue to the General Assembly adopted by a vote of 11 to 0 with 4 abstentions.

On the other hand, Pakistan’s General Yahya Khan’s administration conveyed their intentions to retreat from their eastern wing to the United Nations on 10 December 1971, and a formal surrender was submitted and accepted when the Commander of Eastern Command and Governor of East Pakistan, General Niazi, signed an instrument of surrender with his counterpart, Lieutenant General Jagjit Singh Aurora, Commander of Eastern Command.

An estimated 93,000 Pakistan troops and civilians including family members made an unconditional public surrender in Dhaka on December 16, 1971, which is observed each year as Victory Day both in Bangladesh and by Indian armed forces.

The surrender was indeed the largest surrender that the world had witnessed since the end of the Second World War.

Conclusion: Despite the growing anger among the Mukti Bahini commanders to avenge the extreme barbarity unleashed by Pakistan troops, fortunately, none of the disarmed enemy troops was killed or died for being held captive in military garrisons inside Bangladesh.

Soon after the Prisoners of War (POWs) were transferred to India, as newly born Bangladesh did not have the ability to the containment of such a huge number of POWs.

Under Tripartite Agreement in April 1974 between Bangladesh, India and Pakistan signed in New Delhi enabled the repatriation of all the 79,676 uniformed POWs and 13,324 civilians to Pakistan, including the 195 officers held for suspected war crimes.

First published in The News Times, December 16, 2022

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

The elections that broke Pakistan

Independence hero Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Pakistan military junta President, Genera Yayha Khan (right)

SALEEM SAMAD

The inclusive elections were the first since Pakistan was carved out in 1947

A separate state for Indian Muslims to live happily ever after in Pakistan came to a dead end after Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s brainchild -- the controversial “two-nation theory” -- collapsed after 24 years, when East Pakistan bifurcated and became Bangladesh.

Apparently, the free, fair, and credible general elections held in 1970 stirred a political hype in the eastern province of Pakistan and led to the gradual realization of their identity as a nation-state. 51 years ago, the general elections of the national and provincial assemblies were held on December 7, 1970 -- to elect members of the National Assembly. The inclusive elections were the first since Pakistan was carved out in 1947.

The top-secret intelligence message transmitted from Dhaka to the Rawalpindi GHQ of the hawks of the Pakistan Army predicted that the Awami League would get one-third of seats, while factions of the Muslim League, the Pakistan Democratic Party (PDP), and other Islamist parties would hold two-third majority. The Rawalpindi hawks were confident that a political coalition could be easily matched to corner Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s party, the Awami League.

Probably due to the physical distance of 1,000 miles between the two wings of Pakistan, with the huge India in the middle, the “mango people” (aam janata) had no clue about the rulers of Pakistan and the ruling bourgeoisie class.

A fierce contest began between two socialist democratic parties, the eastern political party Awami League, and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) in the western region, over who would govern Pakistan. The time for the electoral test arrived in 300 constituencies, of which 162 were in East Pakistan and 138 were in West Pakistan.

The Awami League became the single majority in the eastern wing, while the PPP managed to make a dent in the two provinces of Sindh and Punjab, but were rejected in Balochistan and the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) provinces. In reality, the PPP faced stiff competition from the conservative factions of the Muslim League, the largest of which was the Muslim League (Qayyum), the pro-Marxist National Awami Party (Wali), as well as Islamist parties like Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), and Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan (JUP).

The result was a victory for the Awami League, which won an absolute majority of 160 seats, all of which were in East Pakistan.

This victory was a big test for the flamboyant politician Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, leading the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), who won only 81 seats out of 138 seats in the western region. Nevertheless, the two leading parties failed to add feathers in their caps and become a national political party in 1970.

In the five provincial elections held 10 days later, the Awami League swept in East Pakistan, while the PPP were the winning party in Punjab and Sindh. The Marxist National Awami Party emerged victorious in the then NWFP (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) and restive Balochistan.

During the political impasse on March 1, 1971, the Rawalpindi hawks unilaterally cancelled the first National Assembly scheduled in Dhaka to blackmail Sheikh Mujib to come into their terms for the handover of power.

Unfortunately, the military dictator Yayha Khan’s parley with Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in mid-March reached a stalemate, as the latter refused to withdraw Martial Law, clamped in March 1969.

Mujib argued that Martial Law must be withdrawn before the parliament session commenced.

48 hours after the dialogue collapsed, the “Operation Searchlight” genocidal campaign was launched.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 8 June 2021

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

Remembering the forgotten reports of the Hamoodur Rahman Commission

SALEEM SAMAD

Judge Hamoodur Rahman, along with two Pakistan High Court judges, worked tediously for five years and was able to submit the final reports on the Pakistan military’s failure since they launched the notorious “Operation Searchlight.” 

However, the report lies buried, with little or no accountability; the report never saw the light of day and was kept as highly classified documents in fear of backlash. 

The Hamoodur Rahman Commission (also known as the War Enquiry Commission), assessed Pakistan’s military involvement from 1947 to 1971. The commission was set up on December 26, 1971. 

When the Mukti Bahini and the Indian army threw their full might, the occupation forces had to negotiate an instrument of surrender on December 16, 1971. The surrender at Dhaka, according to war historians, was the largest surrender of the military after the historic surrender of Germany, Italy, and Japan, which brought an end to WWII.

The Commission interviewed 213 persons of interest that included former president Yahya Khan, politician Nurul Amin, Abdul Hamid Khan (Chief of Army), Abdul Rahim Khan (Chief of Air Force), Muzaffar Hassan (Chief of Navy), Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, senior commanders, activists, journalists, and various political leaders.

The Commission also interviewed Gen Tikka Khan, Gen AAK Niazi, and Gen Rao Farman Ali who were responsible for the horrific war crimes in Bangladesh.

In 1974, the Commission again resumed its work and interviewed 300 freed POWs and recorded 73 more bureaucrats’ testimonies that served on government assignments in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).

The report recognized the atrocities and systematic massacre at Dhaka University which led to recommendations of holding public trials for civilian bureaucrats and court-martials for the senior officers. It is theorized that the first report is very critical of the Pakistan military’s interference in politics and misconduct of politicians in the country’s political atmosphere.

The military headquarters in Rawalpindi and Bhutto himself maintained that the first report should be classified to “save [the military’s] honour”. The report was marked Top Secret because Bhutto told Indian journalist Salil Tripathi in 1976 that he was concerned that it would demoralize the military and might trigger unrest.

Both the first and the supplementary report lashed out at the Pakistan Army for “senseless and wanton arson, killings in the countryside, killing of intellectuals and professionals and burying them in mass graves, killing of officers of East Pakistan Army and soldiers on the pretense of quelling their rebellion, killing East Pakistani civilian officers, businessmen and industrialists, raping a large number of East Pakistani women as a deliberate act of revenge, retaliation and torture, and deliberate killing of members of the Hindu minority.”

The report also did not hesitate to accuse military dictator General Yahya Khan of being a womanizer, debaucher, and an alcoholic. He was forced to step down after Pakistan’s defeat in December 1971.

Rahman asked Bhutto for the feedback and status of the report. Bhutto remained silent for a while and replied that the report was missing. It was either lost, or stolen, and was nowhere to be found, he remarked.

Justice Rahman also asked the Chief of Army Staff General Zia-ul-Haq on the fate of the report who also commented that the original report was nowhere to be found, and nobody knew where the report went missing -- either at the Army GHQ or the National Archives of Pakistan.

In the 1990s, curiosity over the report grew when a Pakistan daily newspaper leaked the classified report which was lying at the army HQ in Rawalpindi. 

The trials of Gul Hassan, Abdul Rahim Khan, and Muzaffar Hassan were held in the light of the Hamoodur Rahman Commission’s recommendations. 

In December 2000, 29 years after the report was compiled, the War Report was finally declassified by Pakistan’s military dictator Pervez Musharraf. Subsequently, Bangladesh officially requested a copy of the report through diplomatic channels.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune on 13 April 2021

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

Bangabandhu in Mianwali Jail

Bangabandhu was arrested and then was taken to West Pakistan shortly 
before the start of Operation Search Light on 25 March, 1971. File Photo

SALEEM SAMAD

Mohanlal Bhaskar alias Mohammed Aslam's undercover identity was blown by a double agent. He was caught and imprisoned in Pakistan from 1967 to 1974.

He and dozens of fellow Indian spies were swapped with Pakistani spies soon after the ice-breaking Simla Accord signed by Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in July 1972.

Bhaskar's mission was to gather intelligence on Pakistan's nuclear programme. He witnessed the India-Pakistan war in December 1971 from his cell in Mianwali jail as history unfolded when Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was brought there and had his grave dug, at least four times, and then quickly refilled.

Possibly the book, 'An Indian Spy in Pakistan', written by Mohanlal Bhaskar in Hindi and translated by Jai Ratan, is the only eyewitness narrative on Bangladesh's independence leader Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman which unfolded in Mianwali Jail.

He exhaustively writes two separate chapters. One on 'Turmoil in Bangladesh' and another on 'Sheikh Mujib in Mianwali Jail'.

"According to the news that had reached us, Sheikh Mujib was supposed to be in the Lyallpur Jail. The winter had just started. A helicopter landed one night in our jail compound. We couldn't see who had got down from it, for our cells were locked at that time. In the morning we [learned] that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had been brought to Mianwali […] the Lyallpur Jail."

It is presumed Mujib was brought to Mianwali Jail in early September 1971, according to Bhaskar. Sadly, the Indian spy, for reasons unknown, did not mention any date behind the events he has mentioned.

As soon as Sheikh Mujib's arrival was confirmed by prisoners, some soldiers of the East Bengal Regiment planned to dig a tunnel in the jail to smuggle him away from there, according to Bhaskar.

The attempt proved abortive as Mujib was lodged in the female ward of Mianwali Jail. The female inmates had hurriedly been shifted to another barracks.

The Indian prisoners were also shifted to barrack number 10 and the female ward was right behind their barracks.

Unfortunately, neither the Bangalee soldiers nor the Indian spies could have a glimpse of the stalwart politician. He was kept under heavy military guard.

Well, a Bangalee cook had been deployed to cook Mujib's preferred menu – fish and rice.

The following morning, when news of the Sheikh's arrival spread in the jail the Pathan prisoners climbed up the roof of the jail barracks and shouted expletives at the Sheikh. 

Armed guards quickly climbed onto the roof of the female ward and fired six rounds in the air, which terrified the Pathans. 

The Jail Superintendent on a routine round of the barracks informed the prisoners that Mujibur Rahman had been brought to Mianwali Jail to be hanged.

This news triggered sadness among the Indian and Bengal Regiment prisoners but caused a ripple of happiness among Pakistani prisoners and they cried 'Ya Ali!'.

Bhaskar recalls that, unfortunately, he could not meet the "great hero, known as the Lion of Bengal who had awakened the hungry and oppressed people of East Bengal...".

Whenever the Indian prisoners went to collect food rations, they met Mujib's cook but could not have a word with him as he was escorted by military guards.His cook was very devoted to him.

The ration clerk would ask the cook, "How's he faring?" The defiant cook would reply that Sheikh Shaheb was in fine health and with a sound mind and would keep fighting for the rights of the Bangalees till his last breath.

One day, the deputy superintendent called the eight Indian prisoners languishing in condemned cells.

He notes: "We were marched out and halted in front of the female ward where Sheikh Mujib was imprisoned. We were not told what was required of us nor did we care to find out. We were happy in the thought that we may yet be able to have a fleeting glimpse of the Sheikh. But to our chagrin, even the wooden gate leading to his barred cell had been closed."

The senior jail officer ordered them to dig an eight feet long, four feet wide and four feet deep trench and specified the exact spot where the trench was to be dug.

"We immediately guessed that Sheikh Mujib was scheduled to be hanged that night and we were digging a grave to bury his dead body. Short of asking a question which we were reluctant to do, we had no way of confirming our suspicion," he writes.

The grave was ready by nine and the prisoners returned to their cells. They waited with bated breath for the ominous news of Mujib's execution. "Our ears were all along attuned to the "house of death' but nothing happened throughout the night; everything was so quiet and still."

Bhaskar realised that the decision to hang Bangabandhu had been deferred. In the morning when the cells were unlocked, they heard some people saying that Sheikh Mujib was still alive.

There were also rumours that poison had been injected into his body, putting him to eternal sleep, after which he had been buried in the grave dug the previous evening.

In the morning when the Indian prisoners went to the ration godown for collecting their quota, they saw Sheikh Mujib's cook waiting there to get milk, tea and sugar for his morning tea.

It was indeed a relief for them, for "it meant that he was still alive."

They heard a rumour that on the night scheduled for the Sheikh's execution Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had sought an audience with President Yahya Khan and had advised him not to execute him. 

He [Bhutto] impressed upon the President that if he [Mujib] was executed the Bangalees in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) would not sit idle. The Pakistani forces stationed in East Pakistan right from the highest officer down to a soldier would become the target of the wrath of the Bangalee guerrillas. Yahya Khan on second thought decided to halt Mujib's execution.

The next day, the prisoners were again called out and asked to fill in the trench dug the previous day. "But our happiness was short-lived."

Fifteen days later, they were again called out and asked to dig a similar trench. Again, Sheikh Mujib was not hanged. This process was repeated three times and every time his hanging was deferred.

For the fourth time, Sheikh Mujib was saved from walking to the gallows. In this manner, Sheikh Mujib stayed for four months in the Mianwali Jail.

Finally, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in early January released Bangabandhu, who was to return in triumph to Bangladesh.

Even now, the days of Sheikh Mujib in Mianwali Jail remains a nightmare. Time and again they [the Pakistan authorities] would prepare the noose for his neck and dig a grave. But he did not die at the hands of his enemies.

Regrettably, he died at the hands of his "own people whom he called his children." Nobody could believe that the same people for whom he had made such huge sacrifices and suffered imprisonment and political harassment would assassinate him," laments Bhaskar.

First published in The Business Standard, 17 March 2021

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

"How long can Pakistan hold out in the east (Bangladesh)”

SALEEM SAMAD

A conversation between Henry Kissinger and General Westmoreland about the birth of Bangladesh

Three days after a full-scale war between India and Pakistan in the eastern frontier and Bangladesh-India jointly against Pakistan in the eastern theatre, Henry Kissinger asked how long could the Pakistan troops hold in Bangladesh.

The meeting held in Washington DC, in the morning of December 6, 1971, was attended by senior officials of departments of state, defence, joint chief of staffs, CIA, USAID, and others.

US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, at the onset of the meeting asked Gen Westmoreland: “What is your military assessment? How long can Pakistan hold out in the east” (Bangladesh war zone)?

Gen Westmoreland candidly said up to three weeks. Once the Pakistan Army runs out of supplies, all the troops in East Pakistan [Bangladesh] will become hostage. The officials discussed whether there were any possibilities of Pakistan troop's evacuation. Gen Westmoreland responded in negative.

A senior official of the State Department asked Gen Westmoreland that assuming the Indians took over Bangladesh, how did he think it would happen?

Gen Westmoreland replied, “I think their primary thrust will be to cut off the seaport of Chittagong. This will virtually cut off any possibility of resupply. Then they will move to destroy the Pakistan regular forces, in cooperation with the Mukti Bahini. They will then be faced with the major job of restoring some order to the country. I think there will be a revenge massacre — possibly the greatest in the twentieth century.”

Kissinger asked whether the Indians would withdraw their army once the Pakistan forces were disarmed.

Gen Westmoreland replied that he thought they [Indian] would leave three or four divisions to work with the Mukti Bahini, and pull the remainder back to the West.

The officials expected that the Indians would pull out as quickly as they could. Once the Pakistan forces were disarmed, the Indians would have a friendly population. They could afford to move back to the border areas quickly.

Another official predicted that after the Indian Army had been in Bangladesh for two or three weeks, they would be accepted as a “Hindu army of occupation.”

Kissinger asked: “What will India do with Bangladesh? Will they see it as an independent state or have them negotiate with Islamabad?”

An official responded that India had already recognized Bangladesh as an independent country. Kissinger said then that there was no hope for Pakistan to negotiate with Bangladesh. The objective of the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s government was to force a surrender of the Pakistani troops in Bangladesh within 10 days.

In a telegram from New Delhi on December 6, US Ambassador Kenneth Barnard Keating reported that Indian Foreign Secretary Triloki Nath Kaul had expressed “disappointment, shock and surprise” that the United States had tabled the resolution it did in the UNSC.

On December 5, the Soviet representative on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) vetoed an eight-power draft resolution that called for a ceasefire and mutual withdrawal of forces, as well as intensified efforts to create the conditions necessary for the return of refugees to their homes.

The United States sriously wanted to stick with withdrawal and ceasefire, not a surrender of Pakistan troops. Kissinger assured the Pakistan regime that they were doing the best they could do diplomatically.

The resolution, which was tabled by Argentina, Belgium, Burundi, Italy, Japan, Nicaragua, Sierra-Leone, and Somalia, garnered a vote of 11 to 2 with 2 abstentions but was not adopted because of the negative vote of the Soviet Union (USSR). However, the UN Security Council accepted on December 6 that an impasse had been reached in its deliberations on the conflict in South Asia, and referred the issue to the General Assembly.

An estimated 93,000 Pakistan troops and civilians made an unconditional public surrender in Dhaka on December 16, 1971, which is observed as Victory Day each year.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 22 December 2020

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

Bangladesh is divided over justice for victims of past massacres

SHASHI THAROOR

The sea of humanity besieging the Shahbag area in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, for the last two months, has had an unusual demand – unusual, at least, when it comes to the Indian subcontinent. The demonstrators have been clamoring for justice for the victims of the genocidal massacres of 1971 that led to the former East Pakistan’s secession from Pakistan.

The demonstrations have been spontaneous, disorganized and chaotic, but also impassioned and remarkably peaceful. Many of the several thousand demonstrators at Shahbag are too young to have had any personal experience of the killings that marked the Pakistani army’s brutal, and ultimately unsuccessful, attempt to suppress the fledgling independence movement. But they are animated by an ideal – the profound conviction that complicity in mass murder should not go unpunished, and that justice is essential for Bangladeshi society’s four-decade-old wounds to heal fully.

What is curious about this development is that the subcontinent has preferred to forget the injustices that have scarred its recent history. A million people lost their lives in the savagery of the subcontinent’s partition into India and Pakistan, and 13 million more were displaced, most of them forcibly. But not one person was ever charged with a crime, much less tried and punished.

An estimated million more were massacred in Bangladesh in 1971, and only this year have some of the perpetrators’ local allies been tried. Almost every year, somewhere on the subcontinent, riots, often politically instigated, claim dozens – sometimes hundreds and occasionally thousands – of lives in the name of religion, sect, or ethnicity. Again, investigations are conducted and reports are written, but no one is ever brought before the bar of justice.

To paraphrase the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin: The intentional killing of one person is murder, but that of a hundred, a thousand, or a million is merely a grim statistic.

The idealism of Bangladesh’s young demonstrators, however, points to a new development. The outpouring of emotion evident at Shahbag was provoked by a decision of an international criminal tribunal convened by the government. The tribunal, which tries cases of war crimes and crimes against humanity, found a prominent member of Bangladesh’s largest Islamist political party, Jamaat-e-Islami, guilty of complicity in the killings of 300 people, but gave him a relatively light sentence of 15 years in prison (prosecutors had sought the death penalty).

By demanding severe punishment for those guilty of war crimes – not the Pakistani Army, long gone, but their local collaborators in groups such as Jamaat-e-Islami, Al-Badar, Al-Shams and the Razakar irregulars – the protesters are also implicitly describing the society in which they wish to live: secular, pluralist and democratic.

These words are enshrined in Bangladesh’s constitution, which simultaneously declares the republic to be an Islamic state. While some see no contradiction, the fact that many of the collaborators who killed secular and pro-democracy Bengalis in 1971 claimed to be doing so in the name of Islam points to an evident tension.

If any proof of this clash of values were needed, it came in the form of a counter-demonstration against the Shahbag movement led by activists of the fundamentalist Islamic movement Hifazat-e-Islam, which occupied the capital’s Motijheel area. Unlike the Shahbag events, the counter demonstration was well-planned and organized, and conveyed the stark message that there was an alternative point of view in this overwhelmingly Muslim country.

The bearded, skull-cap-wearing protesters shouted in unison their agreement with speakers who denounced the International Crimes Tribunal. Their supporters include activists of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami-Bangladesh, which has fought alongside the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

The debate between religious fundamentalism and secular democracy is not a new one on the subcontinent. But the issue of justice for the crimes of 1971 has brought the divide into sharp relief. The Shahbag protesters reject Islamic extremists’ influence in Bangladesh, and even call for organizations like Jamaat-e-Islami to be banned, while Hifazat-e-Islam and its supporters want the country’s liberal forces repressed, secularist bloggers arrested, and strict Islamism imposed on Bangladeshi society.

The young people at Shahbag are mainly urban, educated and middle class; Hifazat derives its support mainly from the rural poor. Traditional versus modern, urban versus rural, intellectuals versus the peasantry: these divisions are the stuff of political cliche. But, all too often, cliches become established because they are true.

The Bangladeshi government’s sympathies are closer to the Shahbag protesters than to the Hifazat counter-demonstrators. But it must navigate a difficult path, because both points of view have significant public support. The authorities have even taken steps to appease the Islamists by arresting four bloggers for their posts. But the government remains resolute in its support for the international tribunal.

The irony is that true religion is never incompatible with justice. But when justice is sought for the crimes of those who claim to be acting in the name of religion, the terms of the debate change. The issue then becomes one that has been avoided in Bangladesh for too long: whether claiming to act according to the requirements of piety provides an exemption for murder.

The outcome of the standoff in Dhaka should provide an answer in Bangladesh, and its implications could reverberate far and wide.

First published in the print edition of The Daily Star, Lebanon, April 23, 2013

Shashi Tharoor is India’s minister of state for human resource development. His most recent book is “Pax Indica: India and the World of the 21st Century.” 

Review: The Unfinished Memoirs: Sheikh Mujibur Rahman

SUMIT MITRA

The Unfinished Memoirs: Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
Publisher: Viking
Indian Rs. 699 pp 324

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the first ruler of Bangladesh, lived an event-filled life, not to speak of creating quite a few of the events, including leading the movement almost single-handed to carve out the nation. His memoirs are therefore not only of interest to his countrymen but a valuable source of history of post-colonial South Asia. Mujibur’s story also stands out in the context of the unique saga of Bangladesh, born first as the eastern wing of Pakistan, the home of Indian Muslims, but tearing itself apart as a separate entity for unbridgeable cultural differences with the communal mother nation’s ‘Punjabi’ core.

But Mujibur’s Memoirs, as it confesses, is “unfinished”, and that’s a sad story. His daughter Sheikh Hasina, the present prime minister of Bangladesh, in her preface, recounts how she got hold of some of his diaries and notebooks after returning to her country in 1981. A decade earlier, when Pakistan army personnel cracked down on East Pakistan and raided Mujibur’s house, they looted everything except his scribbling, which they thought unworthy of making a bonfire. So the papers remained in a chest next to his bedroom. In 1975, after some dissident army officers had assassinated Mujibur with his family members (Hasina and her sister Rehana were miraculously away from the country), the house was sealed by the junta that took over, and the papers remained in the chest until another violent regime change, enabling Hasina to lay hands on her father’s notes. But it took her more than two decades more to discover her father’s autobiography, written in Bengali. Memoirs is its English translation.

The problem is, it is unfinished. Far from taking the story anywhere near its climax of Bangladesh’s birth, the narrative vanishes somewhere in the 1950s. So there are plenty of faces and voices of the Pakistan movement, the partition and the birth of Bangladeshi sub-nationalism, but little on the questions that still puzzle those following Mujibur’s life: what were his so-called linkages with Indira Gandhi’s government in New Delhi prior to the liberation war, and, why, after assuming power, did he fail to keep his personal enemies and covert agents of Pakistan at bay? The late diplomat JN Dixit’s book Liberation and Beyond: Indo-Bangladesh Relations is a treasure trove of unexpected, if not contrarian, ideas, but Mujibur’s own version would have brought us closer to the felt reality.

The book ends, rather abruptly, sometime after the first election in 1954 to the East Pakistan legislative assembly, in which the Awami League trounced the Muslim League. It turned on its head, for the first time perhaps, the League’s crude belief that nationalism could subsist on religion alone. But it does not explore in Mujibur the seed of the independent leader that later developments proved him as. On the other hand, the autobiography shows him as a rather fawning acolyte of Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, a shrewd politician remembered by many in West Bengal as the architect of the Great Calcutta Killings in 1946. Suhrawardy was in fact a bundle of contradictions, an avid proponent of liberal parliamentary democracy after he emerged as a top leader in Pakistan (prime minister between 1956 and 1957) but the first person to lead the country onto a path of frenzied military expansion. Educated in Oxford and a successful barrister in Calcutta, he was also a class apart from hick town politician Mujibur in his taste, chasing champagne parties and European blondes. In the book, there is only gushing praise.

What the book has in abundance are the details of a politically intense but clubby life led by the author in Calcutta and Dhaka. In Kolkata’s Maulana Azad College (known as Islamia College before Partition), he struggled to “achieve Pakistan” with millions of coreligionists. But he is at his best in chronicling Dhaka after Partition, when its politics shifted its focus to “achieve” a new Bengal which is a province of Pakistan in name but actually a nation in the making.

Sheikh Hasina has astutely enriched the book with a large collection of old photographs capturing moments that would otherwise have been water under the bridge. In a picture shot with the author standing near the door and the Mahatma in the middle, Suhrawardy by his side, much of their inner calculations find expression — Mujibur the young man insistent on “achieving” the promised land, Suhrawardy open to bargain and the Mahatma eager to let the Muslims feel that they were safe till he was around. The year: 1947.

Sumit Mitra is a Kolkata-based writer for Hindustan Times

First published in the Hindustan Times, August 18, 2012