Myth-busting the Bangladesh war of 1971

An author discusses her new book about the historical narratives of the 1971 civil war that broke up East Pakistan. Sarmila Bose

Guerilla fighters of the Mukti Bahini prepare to bayonet men who allegedly collaborated with the Pakistani army during East Pakistan's fight to become the independent state of Bangladesh [GALLO/GETTY] Last month, Al Jazeera published an article entitled Book, film greeted with fury among Bengalis. Here, Sarmila Bose, author of Dead Reckoning: Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War, responds to the criticism levelled at her work. In all the excitement about the "Arab spring" it is instructive to remember the 1971 war in South Asia. Then too there was a military regime in Pakistan, easily identified as the "baddies" -  and a popular uprising in its rebellious Eastern province, where Bengali nationalists were reported to be peacefully seeking freedom, democracy and human rights. When the regime used military force to crush the rebellion in East Pakistan, India intervened like a knight to the rescue, resulting in the defeat of the bad guys, victory for the good guys and the independence of Bangladesh... Or so the story went for forty years. I grew up with it in Calcutta. It was widely repeated in the international press. Several years ago I decided to chronicle a number of incidents of the 1971 war in-depth. I observed that many Bangladeshis were aggrieved that the world seemed to have forgotten the terrible trauma of the birth of their nation. Given the scale of the suffering, that lack of memory certainly appeared to be unfair, but there did not seem to be many detailed studies of the war - without which the world could not be expected to remember, or understand, what had happened in 1971. My aim was to record as much as possible of what seemed to be a much-commented-on but poorly documented conflict - and to humanise it, so that the war could be depicted in terms of the people who were caught up in it, and not just faceless statistics. I hoped that the detailed documentation of what happened at the human level on the ground would help to shed some light on the conflict as a whole. The principal tool of my study was memories. I read all available memoirs and reminiscences, in both English and Bengali. But I also embarked on extensive fieldwork, finding and talking to people who were present at many particular incidents, whether as participants, victims or eye-witnesses. Crucially, I wanted to hear the stories from multiple sources, including people on different sides of the war, so as to get as balanced and well-rounded a reconstruction as possible. As soon as I started to do systematic research on the 1971 war, I found that there was a problem with the story which I had grown up believing: from the evidence that emanated from the memories of all sides at the ground level, significant parts of the "dominant narrative" seem not to have been true. Many "facts" had been exaggerated, fabricated, distorted or concealed. Many people in responsible positions had repeated unsupported assertions without a thought; some people seemed to know that the nationalist mythologies were false and yet had done nothing to inform the public. I had thought I would be chronicling the details of the story of 1971 with which I had been brought up, but I found instead that there was a different story to be told. Product of research My book Dead Reckoning: Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War, the product of several years of fieldwork based research, has just been published (Hurst and Co. and Columbia University Press). It focuses on the bitter fratricidal war within the province of East Pakistan over a period of a little more than a year, rather than the open "hot" war between India and Pakistan towards the end. It brings together, for the first time, the memories of dozens of people from each side of the conflict who were present in East Pakistan during the war. It lets the available evidence tell the stories. It has been described as a work that "will set anew the terms of debate" about this war. Even before anyone has had the chance to read it, Dead Reckoning has been attracting comment, some of it of a nature that according to an observer would make the very reception of my book a subject of "taboo studies". "Myth-busting" works that undermine nationalist mythology, especially those that have gone unchallenged for several decades, are clearly not to be undertaken by the faint-hearted. The book has received gratifying praise from scholars and journalists who read the advance copies, but the word "courageous" cropped up with ominous frequency in many of the reviews. Some scholars praised my work in private; others told me to prepare for the flak that was bound to follow. One "myth-busting" scholar was glad my book was out at last, as I would now sweep up at the unpopularity stakes and she would get some respite after enduring several years of abuse. Scholars and investigative journalists have an important role in "busting" politically partisan narratives. And yet, far too often we all fall for the seductive appeal of a simplistic "good versus evil" story, or fail to challenge victors' histories. So far the story of valiant rebels fighting oppressive dictators in the so-called "Arab spring" has had one significant blemish - the vicious sexual attack and attempted murder of CBS foreign correspondent Lara Logan by dozens of men celebrating the downfall of Hosni Mubarak in Tahrir Square in Cairo. It initially vanished from the headlines and has still not led to the kind of questioning of the representation of such conflicts that it should have generated. "Tahrir Square" became shorthand for freedom and democracy-loving people rising up against oppressive dictators. People in other countries started to say they wanted their own "Tahrir Square". Logan has given a brave and graphic account of what happened to her at the hands of those supposedly celebrating the fall of a dictator and the coming of freedom, democracy and human rights. Her life was saved by burqa-clad Egyptian women and she was rescued by soldiers. Her account endows "Tahrir Square" with an entirely different meaning. It should caution us against assuming that all those opposing an oppressive regime are champions of non-violence, democracy or human rights. It should alert us to the complexities of political power struggles and civil war, and stop getting carried away by what we imagine is happening, or would like to happen, rather than what the evidence supports. Such was the impact of the 1971 war on South Asians that the year has transformed into a shorthand for its particular symbolism: 1971, or ekattor, the number 71 in Bengali, has come to stand for a simple equation of a popular nationalist uprising presumed to embody liberal democratic values battling brutal repression by a military dictatorship. But was it really as simple as that? Over time, the victorious Bangladeshi nationalist side's narrative of Pakistani villainy and Bengali victimhood became entrenched through unquestioned repetition. The losing side of Pakistani nationalists had its own myth-making, comprising vast Indian plots. Pakistan had been carved out of the British Empire in India as a homeland for South Asia's Muslims. It was a problematic idea from the start - a large proportion of Muslims chose to remain in secular and pluralistic India, for instance, and its two parts, West Pakistan and East Pakistan, were separated by a thousand miles of a hostile India. In 1971 the idea of Islam as the basis of nationhood came apart in South Asia along with the country of Pakistan, after a mere 23 years of existence. What went wrong? And what do the memories of those who were there reveal about the reality of that war? The publication of Dead Reckoning has spoiled the day for those who had been peddling their respective nationalist mythologies undisturbed for so long. Careers have been built - in politics, media, academia and development - on a particular telling of the 1971 war. All the warring parties of 1971 remain relentlessly partisan in recounting the conflict. As the dominant narrative, which has gained currency around the world, is that of the victorious Bangladeshi nationalists and their Indian allies, they stand to lose the most in any unbiased appraisal. Unsurprisingly therefore, the protests from this section are the shrillest. Mixed reaction The reaction to the publication of Dead Reckoning by those who feel threatened by it has followed a predictable path. First, there has been an attempt to damn the book before it was even available. Apart from random rants on the internet - which provides opportunity for anyone to rail against anything - reports have been written by people who haven't read the book, citing other people who also haven't read the book. The reason for this may be summed up as the well-founded fear of "knowledge is power". When people read the book they will be far better informed as to what really happened in 1971. Hence the desperate attempt by those who have been spinning their particular yarns for so long to try to smear the book before anyone gets the chance to read it. A few people also seem to be trying to laud the book before reading it, an equally meaningless exercise. These commentaries are easy to dismiss: clearly, those who haven't read the book have nothing of value to say about it. Second, detractors of the book claim that it exonerates the military from atrocities committed in East Pakistan in 1971. In reality the book details over several chapters many cases of atrocities committed by the regime's forces, so anyone who says it excuses the military's brutalities is clearly lying. The question is - why are they lying about something that will easily be found out as soon as people start reading the book? The answer to this question is more complex than it might seem. Of course the detractors hope that by making such claims they will stop people from reading the book. Part of the answer lies also in that the book corrects some of the absurd exaggerations about the army's actions with which Bangladeshi nationalists had happily embellished their stories of "villainous" Pakistanis for all these years. But an important reason for falsely claiming that the book exonerates the military is to distract attention from the fact that it also chronicles the brutalities by their own side, committed in the name of Bengali nationalism. The nature and scale of atrocities committed by the "nationalist" side had been edited out of the dominant narrative. Its discovery spoils the "villains versus innocents" spin of Bangladeshi nationalist mythology. A key question about the "controversy" over Dead Reckoning is why this book is stirring such passions when other works do not. One reason for this is that there are precious few studies of the 1971 war based on dispassionate research. This is the first book-length study that reconstructs the violence of the war at the ground-level, utilising multiple memories from all sides of the conflict. Two eminent US historians, Richard Sisson and Leo Rose, published the only research-based study of the war at the diplomatic and policy level twenty years ago. Their excellent book, War and Secession: Pakistan, India and the Creation of Bangladesh (University of California Press, 1990), challenged the dominant narrative, but their work does not seem to be known among the general public as much as within academia. However, a crucial reason for the special impact of Dead Reckoning has to do with who the author is. I am a Bengali, from a nationalist family in India. As Indians and Bengalis our sympathies had been firmly with the liberation struggle in Bangladesh in 1971. The dominant narrative of the 1971 war is the story as told by "my side", as it were. My reporting of what I actually found through my research, rather than unquestioningly repeating the partisan narrative or continuing the conspiracy of silence over uncomfortable truths, is thus taken as a "betrayal" by those who have profited for so long from mythologising the history of 1971. It is important to note that not all South Asians subscribe to the myth-making. One eminent Indian journalist thought that my "courage, disregard for orthodoxy and meticulous research" in writing Dead Reckoning made me "the enfant terrible of Indian historians". A senior Bangladeshi scholar has found it "fitting that someone with Sarmila's links with Bengali nationalism should demonstrate that political values cannot be furthered by distorting history." South Asians are prone to conjuring up all manner of conspiracy theories when faced with unpleasant realities, but those looking for one for Dead Reckoning are at a loss, as the only explanation for what it contains is that it reconstructs what really happened on the basis of available evidence. The process of dismantling entrenched nationalist mythologies can be painful for those who have much vested in them, but the passions stirred by the publication of Dead Reckoning has sparked the debate that the 1971 war badly needed - and set on the right course the discussion of this bitter and brutal fratricidal war that split the only homeland created for Muslims in the modern world. Sarmila Bose is Senior Research Fellow in the Politics of South Asia at the University of Oxford. She was a journalist in India for many years. She earned her degrees at Bryn Mawr College (History) and Harvard University (MPA and PhD in Political Economy and Government.) Dead Reckoning: Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War is published by C. Hurst and Co. and Columbia University Press. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Jinnah And Urdu-Bengali Controversy

By Yasser Latif Hamdani

This is a quick blog to correct a historical fallacy. A false impression persists – thanks to people like Amar Jaleel and the like who in the right royal Urdu press fashion have a hard time sticking to the facts- that Jinnah- who according to Jaleel was drugged or cornered into making the speech in question- somehow told Bengalis to outlaw Bengali language when he declared Urdu to be the state language of Pakistan. This is historically inaccurate. This blog is not to discuss whether Jinnah’s declaration was politically suave or naïve but to set the record straight about what it was that Jinnah said which laid foundations for the Urdu-Bengali discord in Pakistan and led to Pakistan ultimately declaring both Urdu and Bengali the “national languages” of Pakistan. Ironically Jinnah did not even use the term “national language”, drawing the very valid distinction between a state language or lingua franca and a national language.

The two speeches that are at the center of controversy were made on 21^st and 24^th of March, 1948 at a public meeting and then at Dacca University convention. In both speeches Jinnah took a consistent stand:

1. The people of Bengal were free to choose Bengali as the official language of the Bengal province. This he said very clearly and unambiguously on both occasions and the premier of Bengal – Khawaja Nazimuddin also reaffirmed this.
2. Urdu alone would be the state language and the lingua franca of the Pakistan state.
3. Bengali – like other provincial languages- could be the official language of the East Bengal province but not the Pakistan state and the Pakistan center (Jinnah’s words).

(See Pages 150 and 158 of “Jinnah Speeches And Statements 1947-1948” Millennium edition Oxford University Press- he said “Realizing, however, that the statement that your Prime Minister made on the language controversy, left no room for agitation, in so far as it conceded the right of the people of this province to choose Bengali as their official language if they so wished, they changed their tactics. They started demanding that Bengali should be the state language of the Pakistan centre, and since they could not overlook the obvious claims of Urdu as the official language of a Muslim state, they proceeded to demand that both Bengali and Urdu should be the state languages of Pakistan. Make no mistake about it. There can only be one state language if the component parts of this state are to march forward in unison, and in my opinion, that can only be Urdu”)

It may be remembered that in this - wrong or right- Jinnah’s policy was identical to India’s policy of constitutionally elevating Hindi and English. Jinnah did not go even that far and described in the proper constitutional manner Urdu as the state language not a national one. Urdu was to be - in the real sense of the word- a lingua franca for the diverse people of Pakistan.

The problem with Amar Jaleel – who recently appeared on Vussatullah’s show on Dawn News Urdu Service- is that in his zeal for an otherwise good cause, he liberally twists the facts. For example in the show in question he declared amongst other things – as obiter dicta – that Gandhi had fasted in his last days to have wheat exported to Pakistan. Frankly I don’t know where he got this from. In reality however Pakistan connection in Gandhi’s fast was purported to be vis a vis Indian government’s refusal to give Pakistan its share of the treasury. However what was hilarious was his claim that Jinnah was cornered by people to make this statement.

Amar Jaleel’s cause is righteous. All Pakistani languages must be equally respected and given an equal status in the republic as languages of the people of Pakistan. However should he murder history and discredit himself by repeating this lie or does he believe that the longer it goes unnoticed, it might one day be taken up as the truth?

I have always felt that the writers of the Urdu press are given to exaggeration and embellishment, even if they are not right-wingers and pro-Jamaat-e-Islami fanatics but even self styled champions of leftists, liberals and ethno-nationalists. In this respect at least one hopes that Dawn News Urdu Service will bring some balance to the force.

Conjoined orphan twin girls successfully separated after 29-hour operation

By Richard Shears

For the first time in their young lives, orphaned twin sisters joined at the head are lying in individual beds after a incredible 29 hour operation to separate them.

Krishna and Trishna, whose mother died during childbirth in Bangladesh nearly three years ago, were given only a 50 per cent chance of surviving the Melbourne operation without brain damage.

The toddlers have a 25 per cent chance of making it through without any harm at all - and there was also the strong possibility that one or both could die.

But after a team of 16 surgeons, assisted by anaesthetists, nurses and other medical staff had worked around the clock in rotation, the Royal Children's Hospital head of surgery, Mr Leo Donnan, stepped from the operating theatre to announce with a smile: 'They have been successfully separated.'

Trishna (L) and Krishna (R), the Bangladeshi set of twins joined at the head before the operation to separate them

The dangerous operation had taken nearly 13 hours longer than anticipated - including 27 hours to separate the little girls, aged two years and 11 months, and a further two hours of work by plastic surgeons to seal the ensuing holes in their heads.

And although Mr Donnan said there was 'still is a long way to go' with the girls having a 'very difficult time ahead of them,' he said that the way the operation had gone was an historic moment for the hospital and for the twins 'an even more historic moment.'

The twins had come to the attention of a Melbourne-based organisation, Children First Foundation, which arranged for them to be flown to Australia for an operation that could give them a new start in life - if successful.

After weeks of careful planning, studying X-rays and monitoring the children's daily health and behaviour, the medical teams arranged their working hours, fully aware that the task ahead would not be easy.

The Royal Children's Hospital surgical team operate to separate twins Krishna and Trishna

Leo Donnan (C), chief of surgery at Royal Children's Hospital, speaks to the media after Australian doctors successfully separated the twins

On Monday Krishna and Trishna were anaesthetised and placed faced down on two adjoining operating tables. Plastic surgeons stepped forward to open up the skin and then neurosurgeons carefully opened a small area in the skull.

This 'window' allowed surgeons to insert their instruments to separate the brain tissue and blood vessels at the back of the girls' heads.

Next the twins were carefully lifted and turned over so they were face up, enabling surgeons to complete the separation of the skulls.

Bone had to be severed and connecting tissue separated.

Finally, for the first time, the twins were able to be moved apart and two teams of plastic surgeons set to work sealing the holes in their skulls.

Krishna and Trishna pictured a year after they were born

'This is a once-in-a-lifetime operation that teams would do,' said Mr Donnan, adding that the mood inside the operating theatre, where every minute was filled with tension, had changed after the separation.

'It's been a very nice stage to move into,' he said.

And there had been concerns, with problems occurring with Krishna's kidney, but when that crisis eased everyone, according to plastic surgeon Tony Holmes, 'was particularly optimistic and excited.'

He explained there had been a great deal of preparatory work before the operation could even begin.

'There's a lot of mucking around at the beginning of an operation like this,' said Mr Holmes.

'It's mainly for positioning and getting all the tubes right so there's no pressure on the eyes, no kinks in the tubes.'

Mr Holmes and another plastic surgeon, Andrew Greensmith stripped back the skin and that allowed neurosurgeons to create a one inch by seven inch window in the skull so that surgeons Wirginia Maixner and Alison Wray could separate blood vessels and brain matter.

Later the plastic surgeons came back to the girls, closing the brain lining and skulls with artificial caps and closing the skin.

The twins are now in intensive care. It will be weeks before it is known if the operation has been 100 per cent successful - but surgeons said they were remaining optimistic.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1228500/Conjoined-orphaned-twin-girls-successfully-separated-29-hour-operation.html#ixzz0X7QnlsP4

Dhaka’s 10 Billion Dollars- Something For Pakistan Also

By Muhammad Ali Sajjad
I came across this story; it was a pleasure to see the achievement of Bengalis. Only if we Pakistanis plan and execute our own economic policies, maybe we can achieve self sufficiency. Begging would not do us any good. We may get something from the Bengalis- inspiration. It is all we need.. . . . . . .

Dhaka’s foreign exchange reserve cross $10 bn

Bangladesh’s foreign exchange reserves have crossed the $10 billion mark, the highest ever, an official said.

The nine-fold increase in as many years is thanks to increasing remittances, a fall in global fuel prices and reduced rice imports.

The country’s foreign currency reserve was $1.3 billion in the financial year 2000-01.

The increase of 91 percent, from $5.24 billion in November 2008, recorded Wednesday was cause for celebration for the country’s economic planners.

“It is a historic moment as our long-cherished dream of reaching the $10 billion mark has finally turned into reality,” Bangladesh Bank governor Atiur Rahman told media.

“It has become evident to the international arena that Bangladesh’s economy is now based on strong economic foundation. We thank the farmers and non-resident Bangladeshis for their contribution in reaching the milestone,” New Age newspaper quoted him as saying on Thursday.

However, the reserves stood at $10.03 billion due to the addition of an Asian Development Bank (ADB) loan of $744 million to deal with the global recession and implementation of policy reforms.

Remittances had continued to rise despite global recession and hundreds of workers returning home jobless.

Bangladeshi workers abroad remitted over $3.6 billion in the first four months of the fiscal year, which is 21.23 percent up against the same period last year.

An all-time record for monthly remittance of $937.9 million was set in August this year. Bangladesh received $9.7 billion in remittance in 2008-09, and $7.9 billion in 2007-08.

Another plus for the calamity-prone economy was that rice production remained high and the import of the staple commodity dropped to zero.

Hit by floods and a cyclone in November 2007, Bangladesh had resorted to panic buying of rice during 2008 to offset crop losses

Source-The Hindustan Times

This is fantasy.

Bangladesh is a non-ideological regular country.

“pakistan” is an dieological “country”

Whats the point in awarding anything to Pakistan?
Without any aid Pakistan is doing sufficient for the THE GREAT AMERICAN cause, so are they mad to just spent their bucks off at pakistan for nothing!

Pakistan should learn from Bangladesh

By Adnan Farooqui

It is true that Bangladesh, once a part of Pakistan came into being almost 24 years later than Pakistan. So it is basically a fact that keeping in views the entire crisis that Pakistan faces, and the shortfalls, Bangladesh would be one step ahead.

The key to eliminate all the difficulties and eradicate all of the problems is that alongside the common man, those who govern the nation and are responsible for the progress and prosperity should equally be determined to keep the situation under control.

One of the most widespread of the problems, is the shortage of electricity in Pakistan, with the demand supply gap rising. Most parts of Pakistan or areas of major cities suffer from prolonged power outages, while the officials in the offices of the power authorities or the state employees enjoy the perk of having electricity around the clock. This is one such act that puts the sense of isolation inside the people, that the rulers enjoy all the comforts while the common man is given nothing at all.

Recently a piece of news caught my attention. Bangladesh has told all of its government officials to avoid wearing suits, jackets and ties during the summer to save electricity used on air conditioning. The Bangladeshi cabinet announced its decision recently, saying officials should wear open necked shirts and trousers changing a dress code that had been in place since 1982. This code was adhered to, at least by the mid and senior level officials who used to don a suit even in the hot months of March-Nov. This change shows the latest steps taken by the government of Bangladesh to curb the shortfall of electricity.

Its shows that the government is concerned about their country and their people. The high officials of Pakistan should also cease to enjoy the high level of comforts and sacrifice their privileges for the betterment of Pakistan