Liberation War of Bangladesh
The nine-month long War of Liberation waged by the people of Bangladesh
in 1971 will for ever remain recorded as one of the most glorious chapters
in human history. The sovereign and independent People's Republic of
Bangladesh, as it stands today, is the outcome of an arduous struggle of
the people under the leadership of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
To do or die-Freedom Fighters of Sector 9 wading through water for an
encounter with the enemy during the War of Liberation in 1971The very
nomenclature of the country, the declaration of independence,
proclamation of the glorious War of Liberation, the national flag- the
crimson sun on the canvas of green and the inspiring national anthem - all
these we owe to his inspiring and unique vision and courage. He served to
shape the history and aspirations of his people. He rejuvenated them with
the indomitable and unbending spirit of Bengalee Nationalism, charged
them with unprecedented courage, valour, resilience and granite-like unity
and triggered off an armed struggle for freedom- the like of which the
world rarely witnessed before.
An entire people of 70 million, inspired by their great leader Bangabandhu
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, rose in arms against the military junta of
Pakistan when years of political persuasion failed to secure for the
Bengalees a place of honour and justice in that country.
Initially the peace-loving unarmed Bengalees did not know how to respond
to the sudden and savage crackdown by the well-equipped Pakistani
military on the night of 25 March, 1971, especially when their beloved
leader had been arrested and taken to West Pakistan. The military had
perhaps reckoned that suppressing any attempt at resistance by the
leaderless Bengalees would be child's play. But the events proved otherwise.
The people quickly woke up to the warnings their leader had sounded time
and again about the evil designs of the Pakistani military and the
directives he had issued about building up resistance with whatever they
had. They soon turned their anger into determination to beat back the
occupying military at their own game. That meant no immediate direct
confrontation at the strategic positions of the enemy troops, but
employment of guerrilla tactics to drag them out of their fortresses and
force them to spread out into the country-side which was the freedom
fighters' home ground.
Hundreds of turbulent rivers and canals, vast swamps, unending crop
fields, thick jungles, incessant rains, awe-inspiring floods and frequent
storms, combined with the hostility of the local people proved to be too
daunting for the Pakistani soldiers. By attacking isolated enemy positions
the freedom fighters started gathering arms and ammunition, and soon
found themselves trained and equipped to attack and disrupt bigger enemy
camps and establishments.
The Genesis
The Liberation War did not start overnight. It had been brewing for 23
years. Ever since the birth of Pakistan in August 1947, the Bengalees first
felt ignored in the scheme of the country's governance and gradually found
themselves deprived and exploited by the power elite dominated by the
West Pakistani bureaucrats, the military and the big businesses.
Although they constituted the majority of the country's population, the
Bengalees of the eastern wing had a very poor representation in the civil
services and the armed forces and had almost no place in commerce and
industry. At the political level, their voice was stifled in the name of
security of the realm and the bogey of mighty Hindu India's constant threat
to the existence of Islamic Pakistan which had its two wings separated by
nearly 1200 miles of Indian territory.
The Muslims of the eastern wing were regarded as inferior Muslims and no
effort was spared to cleanse them and make them as 'good as the Muslims
of West Pakistan. A constant source of political irritation was the existence
in East Pakistan of a large Hindu minority population, whose well-being
was of no little concern to India. In fact, Pakistan fought three wars with
India and had forever been seeking security alliances with other countries.
Political and economic deprivation led the Bengalees to demand greater
provincial autonomy and control over such natural resources as jute and
tea which, because of the Korean War boom in the fifties, became the prime
earners of foreign exchange for the then Pakistan. This called for
constitutional changes.
The demand was viewed by the Pakistani rulers as a strategic move by the
Bengalees to make way for secession. The demand for making Bangla one
of the State Languages of Pakistan was also viewed with suspicion and this
led to repression and bloodshed. Several students killed in Dhaka in 1952
while agitating for winning a place of honour for their mother tongue were
honoured by the people as martyrs. The demand for provincial autonomy
now assumed a new meaning and urgency and the disillusioned Bengalees
would no longer settle for anything more than a thin constitutional link
with Pakistan.
Historic Six-Points
By 1958, Pakistan went under military dictatorship blocking normal
avenues for a political resolution of the constitutional issue. In September
1965, Field Marshal Ayub Khan fought his country's second costly war with
India, exposing the military vulnerability of the eastern wing, and also
made a costly experiment with democracy in getting himself elected as
President through a ridiculously limited franchise of 80,000 'basic
democrats' It was against this background that Bangabandhu Sheikh
Mujibur Rahman put forward in 1966 his historic six points which, in
effect, structured the foundation for East Pakistan's future independence.
The proposal suggested:
1. Pakistan should be a federation of states with parliamentary system of
government;
2. Only defence and foreign affairs should remain with the federal
government;
3. There should either be separate currencies for the two wings or one
currency for the whole country with its inter-wing flow to he regulated by
the reserve banks of the two wings;
4. Taxes to be levied only by the regional governments, but a specified
portion will automatically go to the federal account;
5. Separate accounts to be maintained for foreign currencies earned by
each region; and
6. A separate militia or a paramilitary force to be created for the eastern
wing.
In January 1968, Sheikh Mujib and 34 Bengalee civil and military officials
were arrested on charges of their involvement in the so-called Agartala
conspiracy to declare independence of East Pakistan. Their trial proved that
the charges were baseless and the case had to be withdrawn by February
1969 amidst angry protests by the Bengalees. Sheikh Mujib and the other
co-accused were released on 22 February, 1969.
The design of President Ayub Khan and his military junta to make Sheikh
Mujib unpopular was thoroughly defeated. In fact, he came out of the case
as a persecuted hero and the leader of the Bengalees. Much to his chagrin,
Ayub Khan was obliged to invite him to the round table conference of
political leaders in Rawalpindi; but Sheikh Mujib withdrew from it as he
found that his 6-points were not entertained by the West Pakistani leaders
as the basis for constitutional talks.
Declaration of the War of Independence
On 25 March 1969, President Ayub was thrown out of power by his army
chief General Yahya Khan. Once again Pakistan was put under Martial
Law. But soon General Yahya had to take steps to hold General Elections
and permit open political activities.
On 28 October 1970, Sheikh Mujib made a broadcast over radio and TV as
part of his election campaign.Then in the elections held on 12 December,
1970, the Awami League came out as the largest party in Pakistan
parliament winning 167 out of 313 seats. But the Awami League was not
allowed to form the Government because of machinations of General Yahya
in collusion with the West Pakistani Leader Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto whose
Pakistan People's Party won 88 seats.
The inaugural session of the Parliament due to begin in Dhaka was
abruptly postponed on the pretext of resolving differences between the
political leaders of the two wings. The Bengalees saw this as one more
conspiracy of the Pakistani military junta to deny them the power that they
had won democratically through elections. In his historic speech at the
March 7 public meeting at Suhrawardy Uddyan, Sheikh Mujib asked his
people to continue the non-cooperation movement they had started at his
behest and prepare for a decisive battle for independence. But to avoid a
direct confrontation with Yahya Khan's blood-thirsty military, he kept the
door open for political negotiations.
Despite stiff opposition from his followers, especially the vocal student
community, Sheikh Mujib sat with General Yahya and his advisers to
negotiate a constitutional settlement and when things appeared to be going
well, the dialogue was snapped on March 25. A military crackdown was
ordered and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib was arrested and taken away to
West Pakistan. But just before he was arrested, he sent out a call for the
Liberation War to begin. Known as the Declaration of the War of
Independence, this hurriedly written Historic Document reads as follows:
Pak Army suddenly attacked EPR Base at Pilkhana, Rajarbagh Police line
and killing citizens. Street battles are going on in every street of Dhaka,
Chittagong. I appeal to the nations of the world for help. Our freedom
fighters are gallantly fighting with the enemies to free the motherland. I
appeal and order you all in the name of Almighty Allah to fight to the last
drop of blood to liberate the country. Ask police, EPR, Bengal Regiment and
Ansar to stand by you and to fight. No compromise, Victory is ours. Drive
out the enemies from the holy soil of motherland. Convey this message to
all Awami League leaders, workers and other-patriots and lovers of
freedom. May Allah bless you. Joy Bangla.
-Sk Mujibur Rahman
History's worst Genocide
In utter frustration, the Pakistan military went for indiscriminate killing of
innocent people, wide-scale destruction of villages, raping of women and
looting and plunder. By playing up religious sentiments, they tried to
instigate the simple-minded Bengalee Muslims to kill or drive out the
Hindus who were painted as pro-Indian.
By playing on similar sentiments, they created some auxiliary forces such
as the Al-Badr, Al-Shams and Razakars to collaborate with the military in
identifying and eliminating all those who sympathized with the War of
Liberation. The Freedom Fighters, who were operating behind the enemy
lines, were to be hunted down and delivered to the military for torture and
killing. So-called Peace Committees composed of collaborators were set up
at different places to show that normalcy prevailed.
The repression grew in scale and intensity as the Pakistani military junta
watched the freedom fighters grow in strength and achieve one success
after another. To hoodwink the international community, it launched a
worldwide campaign to paint that the Liberation War was a rebellion
against the sovereignty of Pakistan and that their arch enemy India was
behind all this.
The fact that about 10 million Bengalees had fled to India to escape the
military repression was depicted as India's own game to draw international
sympathy. However, the truth about the character of the liberation war
and the atrocities committed by the military became known to the wider
world through independent reports by the foreign journalists and
despatches sent home by the diplomatic community in Dhaka.
About the crackdown of March 25, Simon Dring's report to the Daily
Telegraph of London, smuggled out of Dhaka and published on March 30,
was one of many such reports. It said: "An estimated three battalions of
troops were used in the attack on Dhaka - one of armoured, one of artillery
and one of infantry. They started leaving their barracks shortly before 10
p.m. By 11 p.m. firing had broken out and the people who started to erect
makeshift barricades-overturned cars, tree stumps, furniture, concrete
piping-became early casualties. Sheikh Mujibur was warned by telephone
that something was happening, but he refused to leave his house." "If I go
into hiding they will burn the whole of Dhaka to find me," he told an aide
who escaped arrest.
The students were also warned, but those who were still around later said
that most of them thought they would only be arrested. Led by M-24 World
War II tanks, one column of troops sped to Dhaka University shortly after
midnight. Troops took over the British Council Library and used it as fire-
base from which to shell nearby dormitory areas.
Caught completely by surprise, some 200 students were killed in Iqbal Hall
headquarters of the militantly anti-government students' union, I was told.
Two days later, bodies were still smoldering in burnt-out rooms; others
were scattered outside, more floated in a near-by lake, an art student lay
sprawled across his easel. The military removed many of the bodies, but
the 30 bodies still there could never have accounted for all the blood in the
corridors of Iqbal Hall."
The road to freedom for the people of Bangladesh was arduous and
tortuous, smeared with blood, toil and sacrifices. In the contemporary
history, perhaps no nation paid so dearly as the Bengalees did for their
emancipation. During the nine months of the War, the Pakistan military
killed an estimated three million people and inflicted brutalities on millions
more before their ignominious defeat and the surrender of nearly a
hundred thousand troops on 16 December 1971.
Thousands of their well-armed troops were killed by the freedom fighters.
The War of Liberation was literally fought in the name of Bangabandhu
and under the leadership of the government which his party formed during
those trying and eventful days.
That, briefly, was the genesis of the Liberation War. The Liberation War
was not, however, fought on the battlefield alone. Thousands of unarmed
people including women and children provided support to the freedom
fighters-in running errands, hiding or transporting arms and ammunition,
providing shelter and food, nursing the sick and the wounded and in
myriad other ways.
In consonance with Bangabandhu's Declaration of Independence, a
provisional revolutionary government was formed in exile on April 17,1971
in Mujibnagar with Bangabandhu as the President in absentia, In his
absence, the Acting President Syed Nazrul Islam with Tajuddin Ahmed as
Prime Minister coordinated the war operations, arranged funds and carried
on negotiations with foreign governments.
The radio station calling itself 'Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra' kept on
transmitting patriotic programmes throughout the war to inspire the
Freedom Fighters as well as the people behind the Pak army line, A
recurrent theme of these programmes was Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur
Rahman's Declaration of Independence and his 7th March speech at
Suhrawardy Uddyan.
Several hundred civil servants took grave risks, left their posts and joined
the Government-in-exile. Scores of Bengalee diplomats defected from
Pakistani Missions abroad and worked to mould international opinion in
favour of Bangladesh.
Thousands of Bengalee expatriates joined hands with their foreign friends
and sympathizers in raising funds and building public opinion for the
cause of liberation. The contributions and efforts of all combined to take
the war to its glorious end in such a short time. That is how
Bangabandhu's dream of an independent state of Bangladesh finally
materialized.
History of Bangladesh
Bangladesh came to today's shape through a long history of political
evolution. Bengal was probably the wealthiest part of the subcontinent up
till the 16th century. The area's early history featured a succession of
Indian empires, internal squabbling, and a tussle between Hinduism and
Buddhism for dominance. All of this was just a prelude to the unstoppable
tide of Islam which washed over northern India at the end of the 12th
century. Mohammed Bakhtiar Khalzhi from Turkistan captured Bengal in
1199 with only 20 men.
Under the Mughal viceroys, art and literature flourished, overland trade
expanded and Bengal was opened to world maritime trade - the latter
marking the death knell of Mughal power as Europeans began to establish
themselves in the region. The Portuguese arrived as early as the 15th
century but were ousted in 1633 by local opposition. The East India
Company negotiated terms to establish a fortified trading post in Calcutta
in 1690.
The decline of Mughal power led to greater provincial autonomy, heralding
the rise of the independent dynasty of the nawabs of Bengal. Humble East
India Company clerk Robert Clive ended up effectively ruling Bengal when
one of the impetuous nawabs attacked the thriving British enclave in
Calcutta and stuffed those unlucky enough not to escape in an
underground cellar. Clive retook Calcutta a year later and the British
Government replaced the East India Company following the Indian Mutiny
in 1857.
The Britons established an organizational and social structure
unparalleled in Bengal, and Calcutta became one of the most important
centers for commerce, education and culture in the subcontinent. However,
many Bangladeshi historians blame the British dictatorial agricultural
policies and promotion of the semi-feudal zamindar system for draining
the region of its wealth and damaging its social fabric. The British
presence was a relief to the minority Hindus but a catastrophe for the
Muslims. The Hindus cooperated with the Brits, entering British
educational institutions and studying the English language, but the
Muslims refused to cooperate, and rioted whenever crops failed or another
local product was rendered unprofitable by government policy.
At the closure of World War II it was clear that European colonialism had
run its course and Indian independence was inevitable. Independence was
attained in 1947 but the struggle was bitter and divisive, especially in
Bengal where the fight for self-government was complicated by internal
religious conflict. The British, realizing any agreement between the
Muslims and Hindus was impossible, decided to partition the subcontinent.
That Bengal and Punjab, the two overwhelmingly Muslim regions, lay on
opposite sides of India was only one stumbling block. The situation was
complicated in Bengal where the major cash crop, jute, was produced in
the Muslim-dominated east, but processed and shipped from the Hindu-
dominated city of Calcutta in the west.
Inequalities between the two regions i.e. East and West Pakistan soon
stirred up a sense of Bengali nationalism that had not been reckoned with
during the push for Muslim independence. When the Pakistan government
declared that `Urdu and only Urdu' would be the national language, the
Bangla-speaking Bengalis decided it was time to assert their cultural
identity. The drive to reinstate the Bangla language metamorphosed into a
push for self-government and when the Awami League, a nationalistic
party, won a majority in the 1971 national elections, the president of
Pakistan, faced with this unacceptable result, postponed opening the
National Assembly. Riots and strikes broke out in East Pakistan, the
independent state of Bangladesh was unilaterally announced, and Pakistan
sent troops to quell the rebellion.
The ensuing war was one of the shortest and bloodiest of modern times,
with the Pakistan army occupying all major towns, using napalm against
villages, and slaughtering and raping villagers. Bangladeshis refer to
Pakistan's brutal tactics as attempted genocide. Border clashes between
Pakistan and India increased as Indian-trained Bangladeshi guerrillas
crossed the border. When the Pakistani air force made a pre-emptive attack
on Indian forces, open warfare ensued. Indian troops crossed the border
and the Pakistani army found itself being attacked from the east by the
Indian army, the north and east by guerrillas and from all quarters by the
civilian population. In 11 days it was all over and Bangladesh, the world's
139th country, officially came into existence. Sheikh Mujib, one of the
founders of the Awami League, became the country's first prime minister in
January 1972 ; he was assassinated in 1975 during a period of crisis
The ruined and decimated new country experienced famine in 1973-74,
followed by martial law, successive military coups and political
assassinations. In 1979, Bangladesh began a short-lived experiment with
democracy led by the overwhelmingly popular President Zia, who
established good relationships with the West and the oil-rich Islamic
countries. His assassination in 1981 ultimately returned the country to a
military government that periodically made vague announcements that
elections would be held `soon'. While these announcements were
rapturously greeted by the local press as proof that Bangladesh was indeed
a democracy, nothing came of them until 1991. That year the military
dictator General Ershad was forced to resign by an unprecedented popular
movement led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the Awami League.
Democracy was re-established and the economy ticked along at a 4.5%
growth rate, which hardly made it an 'Asian tiger' but was at least
respectable. Political dog-fighting between the BNP and the Awami League
became acrimonious in the run up to national elections in February 1996
leaving the country strike-ridden and rudderless. The election was marred
by violence and boycotted by the three main opposition parties, resulting in
a BNP shoo-in. However, low voter turnout and reports of ballot-box
stuffing by polling officials raised serious questions about the government's
legitimacy and in April 1996 Prime Minister Begum Khaleda agreed to
stand down and appointed an interim caretaker administration, pending
new elections scheduled for 12 June 1996.In the elections Awami League
got the largest number of seats. Sheikh Hasina Wazed, the leader of the
Awami League, was sworn in as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh
Government.
