New Age: Victory Day Special

NEW AGE VICTORY DAY SPECIAL SPECIAL

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Unfreedom,
36 years on…

… as and when the constitutional provisions obligating the state to ensure the citizens rights get suspended, the people’s political association called ‘democratic republic’ ceases to exist automatically. Under such a circumstance, the state gets divorced from the people and thus loses political legitimacy, while the managers of such a state, which is not organically owned by the people, can in no way claim to be running the affairs of the state on the basis of people’s mandate. Bangladesh, under a prolonged ‘emergency’ with the constitutional rights of the citizens remaining suspended, is now exposed to a situation where the state does not exist as a republic.

The people of Bangladesh, who secured military victory over the occupational army of Pakistan on this day 36 years ago with a view to politically organising themselves as a democratic republic to realise their political, economic and cultural potentials, are now reeling under the rule of an unelected authority, which is practically accountable to no one. The unelected authority, the ‘non-party caretaker government’ of Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed in other words, has been making decisions on matters of national importance without consulting the people – an idea which is absolutely inconsistent with the notion of democratic republicanism... [ + ]

Muktijuddha chronicles

When your life is at stake, every second is an eternity. The expression multiplied a thousand times portrays the same threat on a national aspect when besides lives, livelihoods and properties even one’s freedom comes under fire. But the people of this nation survived such a seemingly impossible and highly strenuous nine months of dread and suffering in 1971. The misery had reached such a state that even after the birth of Bangladesh’s independence on the December 16, 1971, following nine months of intense labour, the horrors of the war, the dreadful insecurities and the helplessness is still relived by those who had faced the time. The truth behind the statement is apparent through the real-life accounts received from the episodes of Muktijuddha Protidin (Liberation War Days), a regular talk show, conceptualised and hosted by freedom fighter and acclaimed cultural activist Nasiruddin Yousuff and aired on Channel i. Below is an account by Syed Tashfin Chowdhury who summarises a few episodes of the programme

March 25, 1971
Despite a landslide victory, winning 167 seats out of the169 allotted for East Pakistan, when Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was still refused the control of the state, Bangladeshis could not fail to acknowledge the conspiracy bred by the Pakistani military junta the whole time. Numerous incidents in the past showed neglect, callousness and a growing indifference toward the Bangladeshis. Even while Sheikh Mujib held talks with Yahya Khan, regarding a growing conflict prior to this day, Pakistani army platoons were sailing in through the ports of East Pakistan in plain clothes... [ + ]

Finally Hamidur
rests in peace

Saad Hammadi chronicles Birsreshtha Hamidur Rahman’s life and his final journey back home

Thirty six years later when the remains of Bir Shreshtha martyred Sepoy Hamidur Rahman was finally brought to his homeland on December 11 and laid to rest with the highest state honours, his mother Kaisunnesa, who had long desired to practically see her son’s graveyard,
was no more... [ + ]

Are their wounds
any different?

Sanam Amin meets eight birangana women – victims of rape, abuse and physical torture by the Pakistani forces in 1971 and discovers how the treatment by their own people after the war has left bigger scars than the ones left by the occupying forces

‘Am I not your mother?’ asks Hasna Begum, smiling and reaching out to the young man before her, one of the volunteers for the cultural programme held at the Liberation War Museum. He bends his head towards her, almost reverential. ‘Of course you are. You are all our mothers... [ + ]

The Battle of Hilli

VD Gupte, a major of the Indian army and second-in-command of 16 Rajputs in 1971, recalls the Battle of Hilli

A STUDENT of military history studies the grand strategies of war and bold tactical moves by famous generals; the travails of battalion commanders, company commanders and junior officers often go unnoticed. I was involved in the battle of Hilli – from reconnaissance to the end. Months before the actual battle, as the second-in-command of 16 Rajputs, I spent weeks studying the topography and terrain of the enemy area with a view to ascertaining the strength and depth of Pakistani defences. I donned the uniform of the Border Security Force on several occasions to go closer to the border and study Pakistani formations from all possible angles... [ + ]

The battle at Shaldanadi

A guerrilla war in its essence, the Liberation War of 1971 saw few conventional battles between the occupying Pakistani forces and the regular forces of the Mukti Bahini. The battle at Shaldanadi was not only one such rare frontal battle, but also a crucial one — both in capturing a strategic communication point and in hitting the morale of the occupying forces in the way a company-strength (numbering 150 soldiers) Mukti Bahini unit defeated a battalion-strength (900-plus soldiers) Pakistani unit, writes Tanim Ahmed

Seven am, November 12, 1971. Headquarters, Charlie Company at Mondobagh. It was decided at the meeting with all the platoon commanders, including the new commanding officer — twenty-year-old Second Lieutenant Jamilud Din Ahsan — and his seasoned 2IC (second in command) Subedar Abdul Wahab, that they would launch an attack on the Pakistani stronghold of Shaldanadi. The commanding officer (CO) of 4 East Bengal Regiment, Captain Gaffar Haldar, approved of the plan... [ + ]

Letter to a Pakistani diplomat

Reprinted from The Selected Writings of Eqbal Ahmad (Edited by Carollee Bengelsdorf, Margaret Cerullo and Yogesh Chandrani; Oxford University Press, Pakistan; 2006). In this letter to an unnamed Pakistani diplomat, Ahmad, who, according to Edward Said, ‘was perhaps the shrewdest and most original anti-imperialist analyst of the post-war world,’ defends his position against the ‘Pakistani military government’s intervention in East Bengal’ although he ‘did not have any natural sympathy for the Bangladesh movement.’

AFTER the publication of a letter in the New York Times (April 10, 1971) signed by me jointly with three other West Pakistani scholars and after subsequent statements of mine opposing the Pakistani military government’s intervention in East Bengal, several Pakistani officials protested my position. They all pointed out that: (1) the army, under General Yahya Khan, is only protecting national integrity against a secessionist movement which would cause the 70 million people in East Pakistan to break away from the 56 million in West Pakistan; (2) the army intervened only after the Bengali nationalists had started killing West Pakistani residents in East Pakistan and the minority Bihari refugees from India; (3) since the leaders of the Awami League of East Pakistan have pro-Western sympathies and connections, and the Chinese ‘support’ the federal government, anti-imperialist and radical elements should not oppose the military’s action. The following is a reply to one such ‘friend... [ + ]

A tragedy of our time

Naeem Huque watches the Channel 4 documentary ‘Bangladesh, War Crimes File’ and relives the shameless atrocities committed by members of the Jamaat-e-Islam and Al-Badr during the nine months of liberation on their own people

The three men are respected members of the community; one the vice chairman of the East London Mosque, one the head teacher at an Islamic school, and the other the Imam of a mosque in Birmingham. But thirty six years ago, it was a different story. The three were members of the Jamaat-e-Islam and Al-Badr groups in Bangladesh during the war of 1971, collaborators that the Pakistani army used to terrorise the civilian population. Evidence of their brutality can be found from the unnamed bodies found in the Rayerbazar mass grave, to the memories of women who had been shanghaied into being sex slaves for the occupying army. All three are now British citizens, never having been questioned for their crimes. The Channel 4 documentary ‘Bangladesh, War Crimes File’ brings these questions back, literally to their doorsteps, stating ‘they will now have to answer... [ + ]

In the vulture’s nest

Mozammel Haq, Bir Protik, shares his experience with Adnan Khandker about conducting the most dangerous assassination in 1971 and the harassments he still faces for the task, despite all the good that it has done for the Liberation war

July, 1971. The tides of the War of Independence are turning and the Mukti Bahini is becoming a force to reckon with as they are already enjoying success in their operations against the occupying Pakistani army. The Mukti Bahini has managed to infiltrate into Dhaka and are regularly conducting operations with success in different parts of the capital. They seem to have ears at every corner of the city, observing and counter- strategising with every move of the Pakistani forces. The ample and willing sources of information have provided them with an undue advantage over the Pakistani forces... [ + ]

From Kalurghat to Kolkata

by Robab Rosan

In the early hours of the morning of April 3, 1971, Syed Abdul Shaker, a radio engineer; Rashedul Hasan, a technical assistant and Mohammad Rezaul Karim Chowdhury, a technical operator of the Chittagong Centre of Radio Pakistan were working up their sweat trying to reinstall a dismantled transmitter taken from the Kalurghat station, in the depths of the Bagafa Forest in the Indian state of Tripura... [ + ]

Filming liberation

Dyuti Monishita charts the history of movies based on the war of independence and talks to filmmakers about the obstacles faced when creating a war movie

The 1971 war of independence was a turning point in many senses. Not just for Bangladeshi lives and for political identity; books, poetry and songs were written, art was created, and countless dreams were dreamt. The tales of war were framed in the magical dimension of celluloid. Films were made during the period of East Pakistan, but as the war was drawing nearer and the cry for a separate identity was rising. People wanted to tell their stories in the medium of cinema, and see living actors relive their own suffering... [ + ]

Singing free

by Faizul Khan Tanim

Mora ekti phul ke bachabo boley judhdho kori
mora ekti mukh er hashir jonno ostro dhori... [ + ]

HEADLINES

Unfreedom, 36 years on…