| Editorial Jamaat-e-Islam and its anti-liberation role in 1971 Shamsuddin Ahmed
The comments made by former bureaucrat Shah Abdul Hannan, coming as they did on the heels of similar comments from the Jamaat-e-Islam Secretary-General Mohammad Mujahid, on our glorious Liberation War of 1971 should have triggered a tsunami across the political land mass of Bangladesh by now for the simple reason that there would have been no Bangladesh today had there been no Liberation War in 1971. There should have been country-wide agitation, with people protesting their remarks.
We heard a judiciously guarded patriotic comment from former chief justice Mostafa Kamal, and a soldierly, patriotic outburst from Maj Gen Syed Muhammad Ibrahim, a retired valiant freedom fighter, through the courtesy of The Daily Star.
Why this audacity from the anti-liberation forces? This needs a bit of explaining.
Thanks to our rulers, for whom capturing political power has been the be-all and end-all of their lives, the true history of our Liberation War, the finest hour of our history and the brightest star on our national firmament, has not been put across to our people, particularly the post-independence generations. Our politicians have been too busy with who declared the independence of Bangladesh and who raised the flag of Bangladesh first, and who should be lionised for this.
I wish they could stop here. But no. From Ziaur Rahman onward all our rulers, without exception, have soft-pedaled with regard to the defeated anti-liberation political forces of 1971 in general and the Jamaat-e-Islam in particular.
It was none other than a valiant freedom fighter like late Ziaur Rahman who, in his bid to capture and consolidate political power, picked up from the dustbin of history all the anti-liberation forces, particularly the Jamaat-e-Islam, which was banned as a political outfit soon after our liberation, and gave them political space in order to counter and whittle down the Awami League, the dominant political force at that time.
Many of those who opposed our independence and our Liberation War in 1971 were made senior minister, prime minister and cabinet ministers by Zia ur Rahman. He, on advice from these politicians, changed the constitution by supplanting secularism as one of the four guiding principles of the constitution by religion based politics in the country. He allowed the Jamaat-e-Islam chief Golam Azam, who had gone into hiding in Pakistan, to return to Bangladesh.
Ershad, the dictator, picked up the thread from Zia and took many steps to appease the anti-liberation forces.
Sheikh Hasina, daughter of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the architect of this sovereign nation, was too busy planning her political future, and chose not to touch the anti-liberation forces. And Khaleda Zia, true to her late husband's political doctrine, threw open her slender arms and embraced the Jamaat-e-Islam and all other anti-liberation forces as partners in governing this country.
This is how Jamaat-e-Islam has gained enough political clout and muscle over the years to reach a stage where its leaders like Mujahid, and like-minded Shah Hannan, could dare throw down the gauntlet and say openly that what we proudly called our glorious Liberation War was nothing more than a civil war, and that no war criminals ever existed in 1971, nor do they exist now.
Let us not forget that soon after Zia politically rehabilitated Jamaat-e-Islami, its official stance was that the party did not make any mistake in 1971, and that it did what it considered right at that time by upholding the ideology of a united Pakistan. This did amply imply that Jamaat-e-Islam did not recognise our Liberation War and our independence from Pakistan in 1971.
Like Pakistan, Jamaat-e-Islam slandered our heroic fight for independence as an Indian engineered conspiracy to break Pakistan. But the Jamaat leadership, at any level, never said so emphatically and so openly as it has done now that there was no Liberation War in 1971 and that no war criminals ever existed in 1971, nor do they exist now.
Let there be no mistaking that Jamaat-e-Islam has adopted a well thought out posture vis-à-vis our glorious Liberation War of 1971. It did not recognise our Liberation War in 1971. Nor does it recognise it now, even after 36 years of our existence as an independent country. What we call, and often proudly refer to as, our glorious War of Liberation of 1971 was, and still is, a civil war in the political history of Pakistan.
True, from the Pakistani perspective it was a civil war fought between the Pakistan nationalist forces led by the Pakistan armed forces and the dissident secessionist nationalist forces of East Pakistan represented by the Mukti Bahini and the freedom loving people of this country, minus a paltry number of Jamaat-e-Islam cum Muslim League adherents who aligned themselves with and swore their allegiance to Pakistan.
It is an irony of fact, but it is true, that while all the defeated anti-liberation political forces of 1971 in this country in general, and Jamaat-e-Islam in particular, have been enjoying full political freedom in this country, they continue to show their trans-border loyalty and allegiance to Pakistan by toeing the Pakistani policy of calling our Liberation War a civil war and denying that a genocide was committed by the Pakistan occupation forces in 1971, while the whole world witnessed the saga of our heroic war for liberating this country from the Pakistani bondage and the Pyrrhic victory we achieved in the end.
It is a shame that a section of our own people, coming from this soil hallowed by the blood of the best martyred manhood of our nation, should find it fit to distance themselves from the mainstream of our freedom loving people, gloat over being the collaborators of the Pakistani occupation army in committing heinous war crimes like genocide and dishonouring of our women folks, and belittle the heroic resolve and sacrifice of millions of our people for freedom from Pakistani bondage.
As a citizen, and as a man with a humble contribution in our glorious War of Liberation, I fully endorse the sentiments expressed by Gen Muhammad Ibrahim in his write up on this issue. I would only wish to add a footnote to what he has so eloquently and so poignantly suggested to address this problem of paramount national importance.
A wound like this -- the presence of anti-liberation political elements in the body politic of this country -- will only keep festering if we do not administer proper treatment to cure it permanently. I am hundred percent sure that our major political players would not like to touch this wound and cure it. It has to be done by this non-political, pro-people and pro-democracy interim government, with the full backing by the rejuvenated civil administration, the new look judiciary, the valiant armed forces, and the freedom loving people of this country, particularly the surviving freedom fighters.
In the preamble to our constitution, it has been mentioned in unambiguous terms that the fundamental principles of the constitution inspired our heroic people to dedicate themselves to, and our brave martyrs to sacrifice their lives for, the war of national independence. It has also been clearly stated that the people of Bangladesh, having proclaimed their independence on March 26 1971, established the independent, sovereign People's Republic of Bangladesh through a historic war for national independence.
There is therefore no way for any one to deny the War of Independence or Liberation of 1971. Nor is there any scope for any one to deny that our brave martyrs did sacrifice their lives in the War of Independence or Liberation.
Nowhere in the constitution does it say that civil war was fought in this country leading to emergence of Bangladesh as an independent and sovereign country in 1971. Therefore, those people who deny our War of Independence/Liberation of 1971, in fact, deny the very legitimacy of their claim as citizens of this country. So, my humble suggestion to this government and to our Election Commission is as follows:
* Enact a law stipulating that any political party or any person denying our War of Independence/Liberation of 1971 and calling it a civil war and denying the existence of war criminals in the country in 1971, shall be debarred permanently from taking part in any parliamentary election or any local government election or from being a minister or advisor or from holding any office of profit in the People's Republic of Bangladesh.
* Enact a law forbidding any political party or any person known to have opposed actively or in any other manner our War of Independence/Liberation, and of having collaborated actively with the Pakistan occupation army in committing acts of violence or war crime like wanton killing of civilians and rape of women folks in 1971, from participation in any parliamentary election or any local government election.
It is a pity that we, the freedom loving people of this country, particularly the freedom fighters, have splintered while the need was to close our ranks. This has helped the anti-liberation political forces to move from strength to strength. We have to fight these forces, not merely because they have denied the very existence of our glorious Liberation War and our sacrifice to attain independence in 1971 but also because their Taliban like obscurantist politics represent a potential threat to peace and harmony in this tiny Muslim majority country and in this region as a whole.
Brig Gen Shamsuddin Ahmed is a former Military Secretary to the President of Bangladesh. |
