A compilation of quotes from books refuting common myths about the 1971 war and it's predeceasing events.
Byline: Arshi Saleem Hashmi
December 16 1971 does not bring good memories for Pakistanis; it is
the date we lost half of our country. Since 1971 a lot has been
published questions have been raised politician and military
personalities have been blamed and that continues to happen even today.
According to the Hamood-ur-Rehman commission report the defeat suffered
was not a result of military factors alone but had been brought about as
the cumulative result of political developments that took place between
1947 and 1971. It is unfortunate that instead of an objective analysis
of the circumstances that led to the debacle in 1971 one sided
accusative approach is adopted to describe the situation during that
time. Critiques of Pakistan take no time to come up with the accusation
of brutality" being conducted by Pakistan Army without any
substantiated data.
A strong narrative based on 'biased propaganda' was
promoted without analyzing factors like the role of India Mukti Bahini
Awami League and wrong decisions at political level. Unfortunately
Bangladeshi youth is also being brought up on this narrative. East
Pakistan was not governed properly can be a true assessment but the
violence that was unleashed in the year prior to the secession was way
too exaggerated. The brutal murder of innocent Bengalis was all
classified as the gruesome act of Pakistan Military it actually helped
covering the negligence of East Pakistani political and civil
administration. The new narrative that was created in the subsequent
years was to protect the violence conducted by Mukti Bahini and Awami
League's members against those East Pakistanis who were not
convinced that the solution to governance problems in East Pakistan was
to break away from West Pakistan.
These patriotic East Pakistanis believed in Pakistan and paid heavy
price by losing their lives and damage to property. Later on all the
killings were termed as genocide by West Pakistan's policy tool and
Pakistan Army was presented as the one responsible for this.
Recently I have gone through few books that record the accounts of
primary sources and show the true picture. These books in a way respond
to the most prevailing myths about 1971 and East Pakistan. The study of
these books reveals the extent and effectiveness of Indian and Awami
League propaganda to defame Pakistan and Pakistan Army. These
independent scholars who have tried to bring a more scholarly work based
on extensive research included personal experience as well as accounts
of common Bangladeshis to unravel the true face of negative narratives.
Sarmila Bose is one such author who in her book Dead Reckoning:
Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War" provides primary sources
interviews detailing the accounts during the time and unfolding many
mysteries that have been dominating the literature on East Pakistan
situation.
There are many other voices opening up new avenues for researchers
and scholars working on Bangladeshi politics and its history. Ikram
Sehgal renowned defence expert has come up with his book Escape from
Oblivion: The story of a Pakistani Prisoner of War in India". Mr.
Sehgal narrates the details about the real situation after Pakistan Army
men were taken as prisoners by India.
Similarly the book The Wastes of Time: Reflections on the Decline
and Fall of East Pakistan" written by a Bengali professor Dr Syed
Sajjad Hussain who remained Vice Chancellor of Rajshahi University and
moved to Dhaka University in July 1971 gives an insider's account
that unfolds many secrets regarding East Pakistan buried in the history.
In next paragraphs I am reproducing few of the relevant excerpts
for the interest of readers that also highlight different but a
well-researched view-point about prevailing myths.
Myth: The military operation was conducted against innocent
civilians.
Reality: "At the more organised level weapons training started and
military-style parades were held carrying weapons both real and dummy.
Kaliranjan Shil a Communist activist who survived the army's
assault on Jagannath Hall in Dhaka University on 25-26 March wrote that
following the postponement of the national assembly on 1 March and the
start of the non-cooperation movement as part of the struggle the
student union started 'training in pre-paration for war with dummy
rifles on the Dhaka University gymnasium field... I was also taking
training in a group. In a few days our first batch's training was
completed and along with girl-students' group three groups of us
took part in a march-past on the roads'. Photographs of marching
girls carrying rifles appeared in the foreign media during this period
and images of such gatherings and parades are displayed with pride in
the Liberation War Museum in Dhaka.
The invocation of Gandhi's name in connection with the Bengali
uprising of 1971 is not only entirely inappropriate it is patently
absurd. Mujib 'the apostle of agitation' seeking power through
brilliant oratory and electoral politics did not speak the language of
Gandhi or think his thoughts. Crowds did not go to hear Gandhi armed
with guns rods and spears." (Sarmila Bose Dead Reckoning: Memories
of 1971 Bangladesh War Page 26)
Myth: There were over 3 million killings of Bengalis during the
military operations.
Reality: "Examination of the available material on the 1971 war in
both Bengali and English showed that while the allegation of
'genocide' of 'three million Bengalis' is often made
in books articles newspapers films and websites it is not based on any
accounting or survey on the ground. Sisson and Rose state that the
figure of three million dead was put out by India while some Bangladeshi
sources say it was the figure announced on his return to Dhaka by Sheikh
Mujib who in turn had been 'told' that was the death toll when
he emerged from nine months in prison in West Pakistan. It is unclear
who 'told' Sheikh Mujib this and on what basis. However Sheikh
Mujib's public announcement of 'three million dead' after
his return to the newly created Bangladesh was reported in the media.
For instance on 11 January 1972 in The Times Peter Hazelhurst
reported from Dhaka on Mujib's emotional home-coming: in his first
public rally in independent Bangladesh Mujib is reported to have said
'I discovered that they had killed three million of my
people'." As the earlier chapters indicate my own experience
in Bangladesh was very similar with claims of dead in various incidents
wildly exceeding anything that could be reasonably supported by evidence
on the ground. 'Killing fields' and mass graves were claimed
to be everywhere but none was forensically exhumed and examined in a
transparent manner not even the one in Dhaka University. Moreover as
Drummond pointed out in 1972 the finding of someone's remains
cannot clarify unless scientifically demonstrated whether the person was
Bengali or non-Bengali combatant or non-combatant whether death took
place in the 1971 war or whether it was caused by the Pakistan Army.
Ironically as Drummond also points out the Pakistan Army did kill
but the Bangladeshi claims were 'blown wholly out of
proportion' undermining their credibility. Drummond reported that
field investigations by the Home Ministry of Bangladesh in 1972 had
turned up about 2000 complaints of deaths at the hands of the Pakistan
Army." (Sarmila Bose Dead Reckoning: Memories of 1971 Bangladesh
War Pages 175 177)
Myth: The riches of East Pakistan (Sonar Bangla) were exploited by
West Pakistanis.
Reality: "The second move in the game was to build up an equally
fictitious image of a Bengal overflowing with milk and honey which had
been delivered over to Pakistan. The so-called Bengali scholars claimed
to discover almost every day more and more evidence of a rich cultural
heritage in Bengal's past now exposed to risk. The fact that the
province had not yet recovered from the devastating famine of 1943 and
the ravages of the Second World War was conveniently overlooked. Nor did
anybody care to draw. attention to the recurring cycle of famines and
shortages which has been a constant in Bengal's history. Only about
43 years before the 1943 famine there had been at the turn of the
century a terrible famine of the same kind which had taken a heavy toll
of human life. Stories of similar food shortages at twenty-five or fifty
year intervals form the staple of Bengal's literature. But the
illiterate public in Bengal have a short memory and are apt to forget
inconvenient truths.
They love day-dreaming. Oblivious to the picture of this barrenness
and starvation the image they love to cherish of Bengal is that of an
inexhaustible granary where no one goes hungry"... No one could
deny either openly or secretly that Bengal overwhelmed with a large
population needed foreign capital for development since she had no
capital herself. On the other hand the presence of outsiders who seemed
to possess both money and skill was keenly resented. To rationalise the
resentment they created the myth that the outsiders were not really
helping in the development of her resources but fleecing Bengal. There
had existed they maintained back in the dim past of Sonar Bangla a
Golden period when the country lacked nothing. The outsiders had eaten
her resources away reduced her to destitution and poverty and degraded
her to her present position. The myth took hold on the imagination of
the public.
In their lucid moments of course they remembered how relentless the
realities around them were. But the natural bent of their minds towards
romanticism and emotionalism gave rise to puerile fancies without the
slightest foundation in fact about the wealth and resources of the
motherland. The Indian conspirators kept fanning this puerilism taking
advantage of the inevitable frictions which the advent of foreign
capital produces in any society." (Dr Syed Sajjad Hussain The
Wastes of Time: Reflections on the Decline and Fall of East Pakistan
Pages 111 112 117)
Myth: Pakistan Army alone is responsible for all violence.
Reality: By the time I reached my unit my world had been turned
topsy-turvy the writing clearly on the wall. One could never believe
that the 2E Bengal had killed their West Pakistani colleagues. Sadly it
was true. The massacre of the family of Subedar Ayub was especially
heinous and unforgiveable. All these officers had repeatedly been warned
by West Pakistani officers that they would be killed if they did not
leave the unit. During those critical days some Bengali officers even
advised them to take leave or go to Dacca on some pretext. All of them
without exception refused to take the easy exit by abandoning the unit.
It was unthinkable on their part to do so particularly at such a
juncture. They all were of the sentiment that if they stood their ground
they will be able to stop any action that might be taken against their
unit. But they proved to be gravely wrong. They were murdered their
martyrdom proves that they were heroes by all means.
Their killing is a dark stain on history and can never obliterate
the fact that they were a fine battalion." (Ikram Sehgal Escape
from Oblivion: the Story of a Pakistani Prisoner of War in India Page 6)
Myth: India entered the war in December 1971 and was trying for
peaceful political solution to the problem from the outset.
Reality: The date of the start of full-fledged war between India
and Pakistan in 1971 is a contested issue. The date popularly given out
is 3 December the one announced by India but this is merely the date the
war spread to include the Western sector. In a sense India's
involvement in the war may be taken to be from March and its involvement
in the politics of the province perhaps from even earlier. Numerous
Bangladeshi pro-liberation accounts blithely recount close contact and
coordination with authorities prior to the military action taken by the
Pakistani Regime as well as in-year. Many of the Pakistani officers I
spoke to described Indian involvement and casualties in
'actions' in East Pakistan throughout the year
'The big operations are always done by the Indians'
reported The Guardian on 18 September 1971 after an ethnic Bengali who
blended in with the local population and needed no translation visited
the training camps of the Mukti Bahini in India and crossed in to East
Pakistan with a guide on his own. Of the couple of hundred Bengali
'volunteers' who were said to be in the border area he visited
only six had been given any training at all and only three had taken
part in any operation" The American government was correct in its
assessment that India had already decided to launch a military operation
in East Pakistan when Mrs. Gandhi came to Washington in early November
pretending that she was still seeking a peaceful solution".
(Sarmila Bose Dead Reckoning: Memories of 1971 Bangladesh War Pages 172
173)
Myth: The West Pakistanis imposed their culture on Bengalis.
Reality: During the Civil War of 1971 there was a great deal of
talk in the American Press particularly in such journals as Time and
Newsweek about the revolt of the Bengalis against the attempted
imposition of an alien culture upon them by the Punjabis. In so far as
the term Bengalis connoted Bengali Muslims this was of course a plain
lie there having been no difference between the culture of one section
of Muslims and another in Pakistan. In so far as the statement referred
to the original culture of the local inhabitants there was not much in
it which one could consider worth defending. There was in either case no
truth in the allegation that the inhabitants of East Pakistan were being
forced to accept a way of life repugnant to them.
What had indeed been happening since the adoption of policy of
industrialisation by Pakistan was that the crust of old customs and
superstitions was gradually breaking up people were beginning to
understand the advantages of modern comforts; polished floors were being
substituted for mud and sand bamboo being replaced by cement concrete
porcelain taking the place of brass and bell-metal chairs and tables
being substituted for cane mattresses. New roads better communications
the influx of capital from abroad the growth of industrial townships the
arrival of new skills and techniques had begun to erode the traditional
pattern of life and end the old isolationism. An air of cosmopolitanism
filled the atmosphere. Bengalis both Hindus and Muslims were being
forced increasingly to come into contact with foreigners whose ways and
judgments were so different.
The opening of airports in remote areas like Lalmonirhat or
Shaistanager the setting up of a paper mill at Chandraghona or a
newsprint mill at Khulna the establishment of a network of jute mills
all over the province the discovery and utilisation of gas at Haripur
and Titas disclosed new potentialities at the same time that they opened
up possibilities of change never foreseen." (Dr Syed Sajjad Hussain
The Wastes of Time: Reflections on the Decline and Fall of East Pakistan
Page 116)
Myth: West Pakistani Army was the 'occupying force'
whereas Indian Army was a 'liberation army'.
Reality: "The Pakistan army is also constantly referred to in the
Bangladeshi literature as an occupying force' or 'hanadar
bahini' (invading force raiders). This is a mindless
misrepresentation of reality. In 1971 East Pakistan was a province of
Pakistan a country created in 1947 as a homeland for South Asia's
Muslims through a movement in which East Bengal played a significant
role. The Pakistan army was present in the province as it was in other
provinces of the newly created state. Bengalis served both in the
existing units of the army and in the special Bengal regiments raised
later. Just as West Pakistanis served in East Pakistan Bengali officers
were posted in West Pakistan.
Bengalis who later decided they wanted to secede from Pakistan and
fight for an independent country could have termed the Pakistan army
'shotru' 'enemy forces' whom they wished to eject
instead of resorting to pointless attempts to erase history by labelling
them 'occupying' or 'invading' forces as though they
had suddenly appeared from a foreign land. Moreover many Bengalis did
not support the idea of secession and continued to consider the Pakistan
regime the legitimate government and some Bengali officers continued to
serve in the Pakistan army defending what was still Pakistani territory.
There was only one 'invading force' in East Pakistan in 1971
that was India." (Sarmila Bose Dead Reckoning: Memories of 1971
Bangladesh War Page 163)
Myth: Bengali language was fundamental part of Bengali nationalism.
Reality: "The Indians began by painting a dismal picture of the
subservience to which the Bengali-speaking Muslims of East Pakistan
would be reduced in the event of Urdu being declared Pakistan's
state language. The Bengali-speaking Hindus of West Bengal saw no threat
to their identity in the adoption of Hindi as the Indian state language.
This was perverse logic. We seemed to be back in the world of Humpty
Dumpty. But the so-called intellectuals of East Pakistan failed to see
through the Indian game and immediately took up the cry that Bengali had
to be saved from the threatened onslaught. A myth was concocted almost
overnight about a conspiracy against the Bengali language" What on
the contrary the Awami Leaguers assisted by the left-wing journalists
fanned all the time was the cult of Bengali nationalism. Here again
their dishonesty was transparently plain.
They didn't contend that the entire subcontinent needed
reorganising on linguistic lines or that each major language group in
Pakistan and India called for recognition as a separate nationality with
a right to self-determination. The theory was applied to the Bengalis of
Pakistan only. The Bengalis in West Bengal in India could stay where
they were; the Marathis the Tamils the Andhras---all belonged to the
Indian nation and nothing illogical could be seen in their union into a
single State of the disparate language groups which inhabited India. The
Nagas ethnically linguistically and culturally differed from the rest of
India but they received no support although they had been struggling for
secession since 1947; their leader Dr Phizo lived in exile in London
while Indian tanks armoured cars heavy artillery and bombs helped
'pacify' Naga villages. The disputed area of Kashmir was also
left severely alone.
No India had a right to be one and anyone who pleaded for pluralism
either politically or culturally was a reactionary. But Pakistan with
precisely the same demographic composition as India had to be viewed
differently. Never in political history before has the jaundiced eye
been so powerfully at work as in India and Pakistan weighing the same
problems in the two countries in different scales and insisting on
different conclusion." (Dr Syed Sajjad Hussain The Wastes of Time:
Reflections on the Decline and Fall of East Pakistan Pages 111 213)
Myth: Armed activities against non-Bengalis were carried out by
Mukti Bahini guerrilla only and not the Indian Army.
Reality: "Bengali accounts of the 'heroic' exploits of
rebel fighter in the war are punctured by some accounts given by their
powerful allies the Indians. 'It can now be said' wrote Maj.
Gen. Sukhwant Singh 'that despite the Awami League's hold on
the Bengali troops in the name of patriotism Mujib's charisma and
the professional contacts in the armed forces of Col Osmani the
organizers of the insurgency had not been able to draw up and implement
an integrated plan... the revolt had no strong popular base'.
Initially the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) supported the
operations of the rebels but 'Unfortunately these efforts were not
very effective'. 'The failure of the revolt and the poor
results obtained by the rebel forces in their operations after crossing
into India led to a detailed appraisal of the situation by the Indian
Government in the last week of April'. According to Maj. Gen. Singh
'the Indian Army was asked to take over the guidance of all aspects
of guerilla warfare on 30 April'"
The assessment of Maj. Gen. Lachhman Singh was similar: 'The
Mukti Bahini fighter was not a dedicated guerilla... the Awami League
leaders were reluctant to join them and face the hazards of military
struggle. The guerillas had no safe bases for operations inside East
Pakistan but could safely operate from camps across the Indian
border'. In Singh's view 'It was becoming clear by July
that Mukti Bahini was unable to win the confidence of the
villagers'. They also avoided direct confrontation with the
Pakistan army owing to the heavy casualties they suffered. However
'The propaganda machine worked hard and to good effect. Dressed in
a Iungi and rifle in hand the Mukti Bahini guerilla became an instant
hero... The news-hungry press swallowed claims of fictitious successes
which were widely believed." (Sarmila Bose Dead Reckoning: Memories
of 1971 Bangladesh War Pages 146-47)
Myth: Pakistani soldiers carried out rapes of university student
during Operation Searchlight.
Reality: "None of the Bengali eye-witness accounts nor the testimony
to me of Pakistan army officers involved in the action nor the evidence
of the recorded radio communication among them mention Rokeya Hall the
women's hostel of Dhaka University as a target of military action.
Yet a story had circulated in 1971 repeated to me by members of the
Bangladeshi intelligentsia about the women's hostel being attacked
and girls jumping out of the windows. In reality like the other hostels
Rokeya Hall had also emptied of its normal residents before 25 March and
did not seem to have been a targeted building. Similarly as attested in
Jahanara Imam's book by a terrified resident of Mohsin Hall the
army did not go to Mohsin Hall either." (Sarmila Bose Dead
Reckoning: Memories of 1971 Bangladesh War Page 57)
Myth: 93000 Pakistani soldiers became POWs to India.
Reality: "One of the most notable 'numbers' of 1971 in
circulation is the assertion that '93000 Pakistani soldiers'
were taken prisoner by India at the end of the war. This statement has
been repeated virtually unchallenged in practically every form of
publication. It is a number about which one expects a certain precision
after all the number of POWs in India had to be an exact figure not an
approximation. Yet it turns out that 93000 soldiers were not in fact
taken prisoner.
In March 1971 the number of West Pakistani troops in East Pakistan
was reported to be 12000. More forces were brought in to cope with the
crisis and Lt Gen A. A. K. Niazi Commander of the Eastern Command in
1971 from April to December wrote: 'The total fighting strength
available to me was forty-five thousand 34000 from the army plus 11000
from CAF and West Pakistan civilian police and armed
non-combatants'. Out of the 34000 regular troops 23000 were
infantry the rest being armour artillery engineers signals and other
ancillary units.
How did 34000 army personnel plus 11000 civilian police and other
armed personnel a total of 45000 men more than double into '93000
soldiers' who were reported taken prisoner by India in
December" (Sarmila Bose Dead Reckoning: Memories of 1971 Bangladesh
War Page 174)
