A harrowing new book about the 1971 war
Women, War and the Making of Bangladesh: Remembering 1971 by Dr Yasmin Saikia was launched in Pakistan on Tuesday, January 3 by Oxford University Press at the Forman Christian College in Lahore. The launch was attended by historians, bureaucrats, media stalwarts, and the students and faculty members of the Forman Christian College.
Professor Imtiaz Bukhari, who heads the Department of Political Science at FC College, and Professor Tariq Rehman, Dean of the School of Education at Beaconhouse National University, were the speakers at the launch, while Dr Yaqoob Khan Bangash of FC College and Oxford University Press and Dr James Tebbe, Executive Vice Rector at FC, effectively presented the welcome address. The book tells the story of violence against women in the 1971 war that culminated in the independence of Bangladesh. It depicts the trauma of Bengali and Bihari women, some of whom were tortured and raped during the war.
All the speakers at the launch paid tribute to the book's author. Dr Bangash emphasized the uniqueness of the book, which according to him does not "participate in a 'blame game' but focuses on the trauma and suffering still present in the memory of the survivors." He also said, "This book was exemplary since it spoke to all of us through its emphasis on the loss of 'insaniyat' during the conflict."
Professor Imtiaz Bukhari said, "People must learn from history. We hear different stories about 1971 but it is indeed a new theme [the author] has set." He appreciated the book's objectivity and further added, "it is undoubtedly the emergence of a new genre".
Professor Tariq Rahman commended the initiative taken by Yasmin Saikia in bringing to light this other perspective on the war of 1971. He said he supported the terminology "Pakistani Punjabi Army soldiers" used in the book.
The book depicts the trauma of Bengali and Bihari women, some of whom were tortured and raped during the war. Mahfuz ur Rehman, Deputy High Commissioner of Bangladesh, was also invited to the event, but due to another commitment was unable to attend it. He sent a statement via email, which was read out by Dr Yaqoob Bangash. It expressed Ambassador Rehman's gratitude to Dr Yasmin Saikia for taking the trouble of traveling to different parts of Bangladesh, meet many people, mainly women from different walks of life and listen to their recollections of their very personal experiences; he thanked her also for traveling to India and Pakistan several times to collect personal memories of the concerned men and women, for going through archives and documents, and for weaving them into a narrative.
"The reading of Dr Saikia's book was not an easy task.," the statement said. "The personal memories of many women from Bangladesh, as cited in the book, were not only hurting, depressing and painful, but the vivid expressions of those were horrifying, shocking, alarming and also disturbing to some extent. If you are soft-hearted, the stories - the real stories - may shatter your belief that we the human beings could sometimes be so cruel. These are disturbing in the sense that the stories - the real stories - may disturb your peace of mind when you will think that people around us committed them."
Ambassador Rehman added that in his opinion the most important element of the book was that it found heroes in ordinary people. He also compared Dr Yasmin Saikia with the first Nobel laureate of South Asia, the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore, who criticized nationalism after seeing its side-effects and instead urged Indian peoples to uphold their humanism. Dr Saikia's book, in Ambassador Rehman's opinion, sought to transform the 'forgotten memory' of individuals into the 'active memory' of nations.
However, he also rejected some opinions of the author.It could not have been a civil war as most West Pakistanis did not even know what was going on in the Eastern "wing"
These opinions included terming the war of 1971 'a civil war between East and West Pakistan', as in the Ambassador's opinion expressions like 'war of independence', 'war of liberation' or even 'state terrorism' were much closer to the reality. Also, it could not have been a civil war as most West Pakistanis did not even know what was going on in the Eastern "wing". Whatever happened happened between the Bangali nation (East Pakistan) and the then-Pakistani (not West Pakistani) military administration.
Ambassador Rehman's second objection had to do with Dr Saikia's presentation of the Biharis' and Bangalis' traumas with equal emphasis in her book. It has, he felt, a risk of diversion from the total picture. To this objection Dr Saikia responded, "My book tells the story of all victims."
Thirdly, Ambassador Rehman took issue with the notion that the Awami League got a majority of seats in East Pakistan while the PPP got a majority of seats in West Pakistan. This, he felt, was misleading. Pakistanis had been told that the Awami League received 160 seats and the PPP received 81 seats out of a total of 300 contested seats in the National Assembly, but this perception had been created by the Pakistani military administration and the PPP to dishonour the verdict of the people and to disregard the result of the general elections.
After stating all these differences, Ambassador Rehman said: "Undoubtedly, the heroes of the war are not the perpetrators. It is satisfactory to see that the author has taken the right initiative to address this issue and put her effort to bring those unheard voices in front."
Professor Dr Yasmin Saikia, who is a professor at Arizona State University, said: "War destroys the vulnerable, and unfortunately the sufferings of non-combatants are rarely highlighted." She said from the day she had taken the initiative of writing this book, she had deliberately tried to avoid a stereotyping history. "I tried to persuade these women to speak up about their personal experiences, including the war babies." She added that some of the women had lost their citizenship - as well as their credibility in the eyes of historians, writers and the masses. Professor Saikia said she wanted to show the women's experience as one of war, and not as a War of Liberation, as is widely believed in Bangladesh.
Dr Saikia also spoke about the problems she had faced while taking into account over 250 interviews in the span of more than 10 years, and how the victims talked to her about the cruelty of the West Pakistani Armed Forces. This included the people who were directly affected by the war, most of them perpetrators of sexual violence. She said that during the interviews and conversations, more than 100 women avoided using the word 'rape' and instead used 'marriage' or 'harassment'. "This was because over 40 years, nobody had addressed their plight with dignity," she said.
A senior Pakistani Army official had admitted to Dr Saikia that the history of the 1971 war was a 'legacy of lies'.
Hassan Naqvi is a journalist based in Lahore
http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta2/tft/article.php?issue=20120113&page=24
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