Test
Contents |
Sources
“Bottomless basket,” US national security adviser Henry Kissinger called Bangladesh soon after it was formed [in 1971]. Five decades on, Bangladesh has turned that around, but as the [2024] turmoil has shown, democracy weakened (Samad, Saleem, ‘‘The Times of India’’ 2024)
1905- 1971: three partitions
India and Pakistan were partitioned once, in 1947. But Bangladesh was partitioned thrice — 1905, 1947 and 1971. The contentious theory of the origins of Bangladesh is that it goes back to 1905, when the British Viceroy of India Lord Curzon partitioned Bengal. Indian nationalists and the intellectuals of Bengal vehemently opposed it. The seeds of Bengali nationalism had been sown. (Samad, Saleem, ‘‘The Times of India’’ 2024)
The Pakistan movement and East Bengal
When the two-nation theory was floated, the name for the new homeland for Muslims, Pakistan, was suggested by a young Britain-educated lawyer Choudhary Rahmat Ali in 1933. P for Punjab, A for Afghan province (now KhyberPakhtunkhwa), K for Kashmir, I for Indus, S for Sindh, and ʻstanʼ for Balochistan. (Samad, Saleem, ‘‘The Times of India’’ 2024)
East Bengal found no mention. It angered the revolutionaries of Bengal. In 1940, fiery Bengal politician AK Fazlul Huq proposed the Lahore Resolution on behalf of the All India Muslim League — it called for independent states of Muslims in India — and nationalists began imagining an independent East Bengal. (Samad, Saleem, ‘‘The Times of India’’ 2024)
The 1960s
By the 1960s, it had turned into a movement. Bangabandhu (friend of Bangladesh) Mujib, incarcerated on and off, was sent off to jail again in 1968 in the infamous ʻAgartala Conspiracyʼ case. Anger spilled onto the streets and spread to the rest of Pakistan, with violent student protests against Pakistanʼs military junta in 1969. The anti-government agitation ousted the decade-long military dictatorship of General Ayub Khan. (Samad, Saleem, ‘‘The Times of India’’ 2024)
1970: a landslide victory unpalatable to Pakistan
Mujib won a landslide victory in the first ever general elections in December 1970. He was poised to be the head of the government of Pakistan. Three months later, opposition leaders from the provinces of Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and the North West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) pledged allegiance to Mujibʼs Six-Point Political Agenda, which sought regional autonomy for the provinces in Pakistan. (Samad, Saleem, ‘‘The Times of India’’ 2024)
Between Mujib winning and this agenda being accepted by political leaders, General Khadim Hussain Raja, commander of the Eastern Command, planned Operation Blitz. It would mean suspension of all political activities and a return to military rule. (Samad, Saleem, ‘‘The Times of India’’ 2024)
The armed forces of Pakistan would be allowed to move against “defiant political leaders” and take them into “protective custody”. But Lieutenant General Yaqub Khan, who was chief of general staff of the Eastern Command, and Admiral Syed Mohammad Ahsan, who was governor of East Pakistan, scuttled the plan. Not for long, though. (Samad, Saleem, ‘‘The Times of India’’ 2024)
The frustrated General Yahya Khan, president of Pakistan, ousted both Khan and Ahsan. Later, General Raja was also shown the door. (Samad, Saleem, ‘‘The Times of India’’ 2024)
Mukti Bahini
Why the Mukti Bahini was formed)
Weeks before the genocidal campaign of March 25, 1971, codenamed Operation Searchlight, most officers and soldiers of the East Bengal Regiment and border guards East Pakistan Rifles revolted. The rebel officers and soldiers along with hundreds of border guard troops and policemen crossed into India, with fire cover from the Indian Border Security Force shielding them. (Samad, Saleem, ‘‘The Times of India’’ 2024)
The rebel officers held a crucial meeting on April 12 at Teliapara in Sylhet — the Mukti Bahini (Bangladesh Liberation Force) was formed under the command of Colonel (later General) MAG Osmany. The Mukti Bahini decided it would go the guerrilla way, on the lines of what Vietnam rebels did, instead of conventional war. Thousands of students, youths and farmers, including women, joined the Mukti Bahini. (Samad, Saleem, ‘‘The Times of India’’ 2024)
1971: The triumph
No liberation war in the world was as decisive as that of Bangladesh. The barefoot, half-naked soldiers of the Mukti Bahini had faced off with the Islamic militia of Pakistan and emerged victorious. A triumphant Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the leader of the East Pakistan Awami League who led the resistance for an independent East Bengal, was released from prison in January 1972. When he took over the reins of the country, he had a huge task ahead of him. Corruption was raging, a famine was sweeping the nation and the ravages of over a decade of struggle had rent the people apart. (Samad, Saleem, ‘‘The Times of India’’ 2024)
1975
He got to work but his compatriots betrayed him. He was assassinated in a military putsch on 15 August 1975 – when India was celebrating its Independence Day. Fifty years on, the secular ethos he died defending is under threat. (Samad, Saleem, ‘‘The Times of India’’ 2024)
Sheikh Hasina
[Mujib’s] daughter, Sheikh Hasina, who took over in 2009 after the country had seen three decades of autocratic regimes. The economy took off. She opened up the country to foreign investment from India, Japan, South Korea, the US, Turkey and European countries. (Samad, Saleem, ‘‘The Times of India’’ 2024)
Soon, Bangladesh became the second-largest exporter of readymade garments. Pharmaceutical products are its other big export, to more than 70 countries, and frozen fish and food to Europe, North America, the Middle East and Australasia. Bangladesh made big strides in meeting Sustainable Development Goals. Hasina has been elected Prime Minister thrice, holding office for 12 years. Her decision to take in more than a million Rohingya refugees who had fled Myanmar was appreciated globally. (Samad, Saleem, ‘‘The Times of India’’ 2024)
But the human rights record at home has been controversial. Sectarian violence against Hindus in mid-October of 2021 cast a shadow on the secular credentials of the country. Rights groups claim no perpetrator of sectarian violence against religious minorities, desecration of temples, arson and plunder faced criminal proceedings. Before the 2018 general elections, the authorities ignored human rights groups, civil society and journalistsʼ bodies to enact the Digital Security Act, which was believed to throttle freedom of expression. (Samad, Saleem, ‘‘The Times of India’’ 2024)
In three years since then, 1,516 cases have been filed under the law against 142 journalists, 35 teachers, 194 politicians and 67 students. None against Islamic evangelists who peddle hate speech online against womenʼs empowerment and elective democracy, and want a theocratic state. Nor against those uploading videos on YouTube demanding that the countryʼs flag be changed to a crescent and the national anthem be scrapped because a Hindu poet (Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore) wrote it. “It is a retreat from the commitments of 1971,” said acclaimed social scientist Prof Rehman Sobhan. (Samad, Saleem, ‘‘The Times of India’’ 2024)
The authorities are yet to complete a non-controversial registration of liberation war veterans. Successive regimes failed to prepare a genuine list of veterans. Letʼs not discuss the total number of genocide victims — researchers claim the number could be higher than 3 million. Tens of thousands of infants and elderly people died of cholera and diarrhoeal disease in refugee camps. Bangladesh has had seven governments since Mujibʼs. Not one took up the issues of 1971 seriously. Political historian Mohiuddin Ahmad quoted a Liberation War poster: “Banglar Hindu, Banglar Christian, Banglar Buddhist, Banglar Musalman, Amra shobai Bangalee (Bengali Hindus, Christians, Buddists, Muslims — we are all Bengalis).”(Samad, Saleem, ‘‘The Times of India’’ 2024)
He added, “If I knew Islamism would triumph over secularism, pluralism and tolerance, I would not have joined Mukti Bahini to liberate the country.”(Samad, Saleem, ‘‘The Times of India’’ 2024)
August 5, 2024 marked the end of Sheikh Hasina's reign as she finally bowed to the same people's power that had once brought her to the office of Bangladesh prime minister. (Samad, Saleem, ‘‘The Times of India’’ 2024)
The writer is an independent journalist and columnist based in Bangladesh
