Some more thoughts on Bangladesh

By D Asghar

Let us focus on the term 'conspiracy', our pet word, for the moment. We wrap all our shortcomings in this one word and absolve ourselves of any criticism or accountability

People often ask me on social media why I am digging into the past, especially about a chapter like Bangladesh, which we want to overlook. I simply say that you can never gauge your future unless you reconcile with your past. If one looks they will see that one of the major reasons for our disarray is our inability to truthfully face, accept and learn from our past. I am not an academic, historian or a scholar but my observations as a completely lay person and an observer lead me to believe that we as a nation failed miserably in creating a cohesive national identity and fabric, which created a sense of dejection and discrimination within our Bengali brethren. I was a child but saw the condition of the hired help brought into western Pakistani households from the eastern wing. Those poor people were treated like slaves and of course like sub-standard humans. I still remember my parents explaining to me what was happening in our Eastern wing back then, and how our archrival, India, was conspiring by training guerillas called ‘Mukti Bahini’ (liberation army) and so on and so forth. I must admit, until I was in Pakistan, I believed the narrative that was fed to us by the state controlled media. My moment of shock came when a friend here was doing a research paper on Bangladesh during our school days and brought a plethora of information on microfiche from the public library. It was an eye opening experience. Besides the facts, what was just too hard to swallow was the Muslim on Muslim violence. The level of atrocities unleashed on the downtrodden people of Bangladesh is just heart wrenching.

Let us focus on the term ‘conspiracy’, our pet word, for the moment. We wrap all our shortcomings in this one word and absolve ourselves of any criticism or accountability. If you have a window in your house with a crack in it and you do not fix it, any external force such as the wind will eventually impact it and bring dirt and dust inside your house. If you still neglect it, eventually one day, the window will break and you cannot blame the wind to conspire against you. The popular discontent within East Pakistan had been growing for years. Had there been equality, harmony and plurality from the get go, no matter how hard India would have tried, the breakup would have been impossible.

Next, our delusional and completely out of touch with reality General Yahya Khan can be Googled for some more clarity. His addresses to the nation at the initial launch of the 1971 war and at the quick surrender can provide some glaring insight into his state of mind. His speeches are full of rhetoric and fictitious bravado. If you listen closely, his speeches are full of religious clichés and if you compare his speeches to our modern day right-wingers, you will find some glaring similarities. When people blame India for the break up, I laugh. To me that is the stupidest reason and the easiest cop out. We are raised on fictitious narratives. Remember how the British conspired against the Mughals? I always ask, these were the Mughals who supposedly created the wonders of the world and they were so naïve that they were not able to detect a conspiracy? The same logic is applicable to us in this episode as well. The facts are quite shameful. To encapsulate, our rulers were perhaps in some ‘Mughliya delusion’ when it came to East Pakistan. It is said that Mujib had planned the secession way back in 1967. Alright, let me ask: what was the intelligence doing at that point and what kind of political maturity was demonstrated at that juncture? But wait, that was 1967 — back then we were back-pedalling from Operation Gibraltar’ in Tashkent.

Only a defeatist mentality invents conspiracies and conspiracy theories. Mukti Bahinis are viewed as backstabbers at our end. Alright, let me ask the same question I raised on Twitter the other day: if Mukti Bahinis had a sinister plot in their minds then why did it not continue the pattern in West Pakistan, post-independence of Bangladesh? I know some overly patriotic reader will send me a scornful e-mail and remind me of RAW’s involvement ever since in all the upheaval in Pakistan. I always say: do not start a fire in your back yard with the intent to harm your neighbour as the neighbour can ignite a much bigger one, both in his front and back yard to give you a befitting response. Agreed, India supported the Mukti Bahini but the objective was to liberate Bangladesh. I always ask, why did India not annex what was formerly known as East Bengal when it was victorious? To all the hyper patriots, just ponder on that thought for a little while.

To add a bit further, we were the ones who gave the concept of Mukti Bahinis to India in the first place. I know it is painful to face but who raised tribal lashkars (militias) for the liberation of Kashmir in 1947-48? The same blunder was repeated in the form of Operation Gibraltar in 1965 with our infiltration. I know we have learned zero from this shameful episode because we created the world-renowned mujahideen (holy warriros) for the jihad in Afghanistan in the 1980s. I can go on and on but, hopefully, people who use their brains more often than their tongues probably get the picture.