The Game Some People Play with the Number of 1971 Victims and Why
[Part I]
Farida Majid (Aug.13, 2002)
Genocides are not just mindless massacres of one group of people by another. The perpetrator of a modern genocide is propelled by a distinctive ideology. From Nazism on in the post World War II, we have seen that the basic ideology of genocide has been that of racism or communalism.
The immediate political causes of genocidal conflicts usually have a historical background of either European colonialism (genocide of Rwanda-Burundi, and the 1971 genocide of Pakistan) or totalitarianism (genocide in Bosnia-Herzgovinia in wake of the break-up of former Yugoslavia). I will presently come upon the colonial connection, but let us consider the immediate set of circumstances in the genocide of 1971. It was triggered by people's desire for self-determination in East Pakistan after years of economic exploitation and a series of military dictatorships, which movement was brutally suppressed by the West Pakistani military.
The military might of Pakistan was built up over the years by very generous aid from the United States. Supplies of sophisticated equipment and weaponry plus other U.S. assistance such as special training, etc. amounted to the tune of a staggering $8 billion up to the time of 1971. Just think of it! After all, it was the height of the Cold War era of the 20th century, and in Pakistan's militaristic dictatorial regime the USA found the ideal "ally of the allies" (an actual phrase used by a States Dept. official), an intrepid bulwark against communism and the evil empire of the Soviet Union.
Two factors must be considered in discussing genocide or crimes against humanity: the physical strength and/or the logistical advantages of the perpetrator of the genocide, and the adopted doctrine behind the justification of the crime. I have given a brief sketch of the superpower-assisted superiority of the Pakistani military efficacy that was unleashed in full fury on the unarmed civilians of East Pakistan – one of the most, if not the most, densely populated regions of the world.
Eye-witness accounts by foreign journalists of the atrocities committed on a daily basis by the Pakistanis, guided and assisted by their Bengali collaborators, were being published in newspapers and journals in Europe, Britain, other parts of the world in other languages, and even in the United States, flashed often times on the front page. (The New York Times and Christian Science Monitor were deeply involved on behalf of the US journalists, and I feel grateful to them).
There were international journalists at the cramped and over-flowing refugee camps in West Bengal who were reporting what the refugees had to describe on the conditions inside East Pakistan from where they barely escaped with their lives. The whole world's attention was riveted at this unusual crime against humanity taking place with the full sanction of United States and its continuing military aid to Pakistan. Computing three million victims is an approximation, but not an improbability in the minds of those in the outside world who were following the development of events from day to day, especially during the latter part of the nine month-period, from these published, authentic, eye-witness reports. I was one of them.
Let us now turn to the consideration of the doctrinal component behind the 1971 genocide. We need to pay close attention to this if we want to identify the modern-day players of drastic reductions and ridicules of the 3-million number game and try to understand why they are playing it. I regret that I do not have Anthony Mascarenhas's book before me, because I admired him very much, as did the whole world, for his courageous, principled journalism and his generosity of spirits. [Digression: I feel honored that I was able to honor him at a luncheon at my mother's home in Dhaka, in Feb.1972, purely as a gesture of gratitude for all he did for Bangladesh. I did not know then that he was a food-page writer as a journalist in his earlier life – he said he never ate such wonderful authentic Bangali food before, and he kept on praising and reminiscing about the food he had in my home all the way to London years afterwards on the few occasions I met him over there].
However, I have Tariq Ali's book, The Clash of Fundamentalisms (2002). Since he is an ex-Pakistani, he ought be able to give an authentic account of what was the justification given to the Pakistani soldiers for committing the heinous crimes against humanity.
"Within the army, the soldiers were injected with the poison of ethnic hatred. They were told that Bengalis were only recent converts to Islam, that Hinduism was in their blood, that this was the reason they wanted to break away from Pakistan. Nobody said: but we seem to be breaking away from them.
Soldiers were incited to mass-rape women in order to mutate the Hindu Bengali gene. This was what was said by the Punjabi officers to Punjabi soldiers. This is what they did" (p.187).
Turning our gaze now to the current spat over the 3 million figure, we can see an uncanny correlation between the loudest voices protesting the inflated number and those who are India-haters and see the sly hand of RAW in everything that they dislike in Bangladeshi political or cultural life.
Sohail Ahmed, the loudest rebuker of the '3 million' number, for instance, spends sleepless nights in Dartmouth, MA, U.S.A., quaking in fear of 19th century Hindu Bangali bhadroloks taking over Bangladesh any time any one of these days. After I angrily protested the scurrilous lies about RAW-funding of Ghatok Dalal Nirmul Committee, he broke out in a shrieking prayer (circulated widely by e-mail): "Allah, tumi ei abul-derke manush kore dao." By 'abul' he means us – the hapless, fickle-brained, half-Hindu Bangalee Muslims who are proud to be bangalee.
Sohail Ahmed's shrieking prayer reminds me of Tony Mascarenhas's account of his interview of the Pakistani Major in 1971. "Why are you killing these people, your own citizens?" asked Mascarenhas. Taking a sip from his glass of Scotch and soda, the Major answered, "These Bengali people need to learn a lesson. The British knew how to deal with them. But these Bangal people never learn. This time we're going to see that they don't forget the lesson."
With only a very short flight of fancy, I can see in my mind's eye, Sohail Ahmed of Dartmouth (although I've not had the pleasure of meeting him) in a crisp Pakistani army officer's uniform, in command of sophisticated, Made-in-USA arms and ammo, atop an armored tank, with an entourage of Golam Azam's Shanti Bahini cadres running on foot beside the tank, marching on a muddy road of a muffasil town of East Pakistan "to teach the Bangals a lesson" or in his own words, "abul der manush kore deya" mission.
This is not a matter of joke, nor is it a matter of just Sohail Ahmed, Maqsoodul Huq and Farhad Mazhar, although it is true that together they are some of the loudest voices barking at India like a fearsome brigade of K-9 force. They represent a large chunk of our educated population, both at home and abroad, and they constitute, in my mind, a clear and present danger. It is important for all of us, regardless of our political, cultural, religious or social leanings, to understand what that danger is.
The unsevered bond linking the mindset of this India-gnashing K-9 brigade in present-day Bangladesh and the mass-murdering Pakistani army officer in East Pakistan in 1971 is the colonialism-engendered communal politics of Two-nation theory. This odious theory of Hindus and Muslims of India belonging to each other's separate nation, a typical brainchild of colonial communalism, was embraced by Savarkar (the Hindu counterpart of Abul 'ala Moududi) and then, under communal political pressure, by Jinnah. Please, folks, it had nothing to do with Islam or Hinduism despite all the religious trappings and wrappings of rhetoric.
This is all for now. I know that it would take you time swallow what I have offered so far. I promise to follow my argument further in a sequel – coming to your monitor screen soon! Meanwhile, you MUST read Taj Hashmi's sequel of essays in Weekly Holiday on Islamization of Bangladesh if you want to understand what I have to say. My argument is intertwined with those that he makes in his series.
[Part I]
Farida Majid (Aug.13, 2002)
Genocides are not just mindless massacres of one group of people by another. The perpetrator of a modern genocide is propelled by a distinctive ideology. From Nazism on in the post World War II, we have seen that the basic ideology of genocide has been that of racism or communalism.
The immediate political causes of genocidal conflicts usually have a historical background of either European colonialism (genocide of Rwanda-Burundi, and the 1971 genocide of Pakistan) or totalitarianism (genocide in Bosnia-Herzgovinia in wake of the break-up of former Yugoslavia). I will presently come upon the colonial connection, but let us consider the immediate set of circumstances in the genocide of 1971. It was triggered by people's desire for self-determination in East Pakistan after years of economic exploitation and a series of military dictatorships, which movement was brutally suppressed by the West Pakistani military.
The military might of Pakistan was built up over the years by very generous aid from the United States. Supplies of sophisticated equipment and weaponry plus other U.S. assistance such as special training, etc. amounted to the tune of a staggering $8 billion up to the time of 1971. Just think of it! After all, it was the height of the Cold War era of the 20th century, and in Pakistan's militaristic dictatorial regime the USA found the ideal "ally of the allies" (an actual phrase used by a States Dept. official), an intrepid bulwark against communism and the evil empire of the Soviet Union.
Two factors must be considered in discussing genocide or crimes against humanity: the physical strength and/or the logistical advantages of the perpetrator of the genocide, and the adopted doctrine behind the justification of the crime. I have given a brief sketch of the superpower-assisted superiority of the Pakistani military efficacy that was unleashed in full fury on the unarmed civilians of East Pakistan – one of the most, if not the most, densely populated regions of the world.
Eye-witness accounts by foreign journalists of the atrocities committed on a daily basis by the Pakistanis, guided and assisted by their Bengali collaborators, were being published in newspapers and journals in Europe, Britain, other parts of the world in other languages, and even in the United States, flashed often times on the front page. (The New York Times and Christian Science Monitor were deeply involved on behalf of the US journalists, and I feel grateful to them).
There were international journalists at the cramped and over-flowing refugee camps in West Bengal who were reporting what the refugees had to describe on the conditions inside East Pakistan from where they barely escaped with their lives. The whole world's attention was riveted at this unusual crime against humanity taking place with the full sanction of United States and its continuing military aid to Pakistan. Computing three million victims is an approximation, but not an improbability in the minds of those in the outside world who were following the development of events from day to day, especially during the latter part of the nine month-period, from these published, authentic, eye-witness reports. I was one of them.
Let us now turn to the consideration of the doctrinal component behind the 1971 genocide. We need to pay close attention to this if we want to identify the modern-day players of drastic reductions and ridicules of the 3-million number game and try to understand why they are playing it. I regret that I do not have Anthony Mascarenhas's book before me, because I admired him very much, as did the whole world, for his courageous, principled journalism and his generosity of spirits. [Digression: I feel honored that I was able to honor him at a luncheon at my mother's home in Dhaka, in Feb.1972, purely as a gesture of gratitude for all he did for Bangladesh. I did not know then that he was a food-page writer as a journalist in his earlier life – he said he never ate such wonderful authentic Bangali food before, and he kept on praising and reminiscing about the food he had in my home all the way to London years afterwards on the few occasions I met him over there].
However, I have Tariq Ali's book, The Clash of Fundamentalisms (2002). Since he is an ex-Pakistani, he ought be able to give an authentic account of what was the justification given to the Pakistani soldiers for committing the heinous crimes against humanity.
"Within the army, the soldiers were injected with the poison of ethnic hatred. They were told that Bengalis were only recent converts to Islam, that Hinduism was in their blood, that this was the reason they wanted to break away from Pakistan. Nobody said: but we seem to be breaking away from them.
Soldiers were incited to mass-rape women in order to mutate the Hindu Bengali gene. This was what was said by the Punjabi officers to Punjabi soldiers. This is what they did" (p.187).
Turning our gaze now to the current spat over the 3 million figure, we can see an uncanny correlation between the loudest voices protesting the inflated number and those who are India-haters and see the sly hand of RAW in everything that they dislike in Bangladeshi political or cultural life.
Sohail Ahmed, the loudest rebuker of the '3 million' number, for instance, spends sleepless nights in Dartmouth, MA, U.S.A., quaking in fear of 19th century Hindu Bangali bhadroloks taking over Bangladesh any time any one of these days. After I angrily protested the scurrilous lies about RAW-funding of Ghatok Dalal Nirmul Committee, he broke out in a shrieking prayer (circulated widely by e-mail): "Allah, tumi ei abul-derke manush kore dao." By 'abul' he means us – the hapless, fickle-brained, half-Hindu Bangalee Muslims who are proud to be bangalee.
Sohail Ahmed's shrieking prayer reminds me of Tony Mascarenhas's account of his interview of the Pakistani Major in 1971. "Why are you killing these people, your own citizens?" asked Mascarenhas. Taking a sip from his glass of Scotch and soda, the Major answered, "These Bengali people need to learn a lesson. The British knew how to deal with them. But these Bangal people never learn. This time we're going to see that they don't forget the lesson."
With only a very short flight of fancy, I can see in my mind's eye, Sohail Ahmed of Dartmouth (although I've not had the pleasure of meeting him) in a crisp Pakistani army officer's uniform, in command of sophisticated, Made-in-USA arms and ammo, atop an armored tank, with an entourage of Golam Azam's Shanti Bahini cadres running on foot beside the tank, marching on a muddy road of a muffasil town of East Pakistan "to teach the Bangals a lesson" or in his own words, "abul der manush kore deya" mission.
This is not a matter of joke, nor is it a matter of just Sohail Ahmed, Maqsoodul Huq and Farhad Mazhar, although it is true that together they are some of the loudest voices barking at India like a fearsome brigade of K-9 force. They represent a large chunk of our educated population, both at home and abroad, and they constitute, in my mind, a clear and present danger. It is important for all of us, regardless of our political, cultural, religious or social leanings, to understand what that danger is.
The unsevered bond linking the mindset of this India-gnashing K-9 brigade in present-day Bangladesh and the mass-murdering Pakistani army officer in East Pakistan in 1971 is the colonialism-engendered communal politics of Two-nation theory. This odious theory of Hindus and Muslims of India belonging to each other's separate nation, a typical brainchild of colonial communalism, was embraced by Savarkar (the Hindu counterpart of Abul 'ala Moududi) and then, under communal political pressure, by Jinnah. Please, folks, it had nothing to do with Islam or Hinduism despite all the religious trappings and wrappings of rhetoric.
This is all for now. I know that it would take you time swallow what I have offered so far. I promise to follow my argument further in a sequel – coming to your monitor screen soon! Meanwhile, you MUST read Taj Hashmi's sequel of essays in Weekly Holiday on Islamization of Bangladesh if you want to understand what I have to say. My argument is intertwined with those that he makes in his series.
__._,_.___
