United we stood, divided we fell

History does indeed have a tendency to repeat itself, but the fact that it did so 43 years apart on the same day is uncanny. December 16 of 1971 and 2014 will be remembered for distinctly different reasons, but the common factor will remain that the blood of Pakistanis was shed by the river-load. There are, however, some stark differences. Forty six years ago a nation was divided by bloodshed, but three years ago it was united because of it.

In 71, the death toll may have been in thousands, but few will forget where they were and what they were doing when news of the 2014 massacre of over 140 schoolchildren fell on them like a tonne of bricks. December 16 tends to weigh heavily on the hearts and minds of all who are still alive or old enough to comprehend the magnitude of the Fall of Dhaka and the Army Public School attack.

People from my generation were not born when India’s Commanding-in-Chief of the Eastern Command, General Jagjit Singh Arora, stripped Pakistan’s General Niazi of his uniform decorations at the surrender ceremony in Dhaka, but the memories are still fresh in those who lived to see the day. Nobody could have ever imagined that the country would see a darker hour on a given day; yet, in 2014, it did.

Television screens opened in the early morning to the crackling sound of gunfire, whirring of helicopter propellers and images of bullet-ridden walls. Some of us were in the unenviable position of being exposed to images of crimson classrooms and shoes filled with children’s blood. Education was under attack from a force that was out to avenge the death of people they felt were upholders of a faith.

It was perhaps a similar madness which led to the massacre of thousands in the days leading to December 16, 1971, as people, who once stood united for a nation, were divided by their very own creation. At the time, murderous mobs roamed the streets, ready to cleanse them of anyone who belonged to a different cast, creed or held a different opinion. That madness had to stop and the division of a nation is what brought it to a grinding halt. The Pakistans that once surrounded India to the East and West were reduced to one. The remaining one, and particularly its armed forces, hung its head in shame and continues to do so to this day at the very mention of the day Dhaka fell.

However, it was a different story on that morning of 2014. The sacrifice of hundreds of schoolchildren was a uniting factor for Pakistan. The nation threw all its weight behind its armed forces, several members of which had lost their beloved offspring in the brazen assault. At the time, a rumour circulated that one of the senior-most figures in the military kept a picture of a student’s body being carried away from the scene of the massacre. Those in the know, say it served as his inspiration to wipe out the scourge of terrorism.

With a single voice, the nation supported its armed forces. The same army, which hung its head in shame 43 years ago to the day, was now the nation’s only hope for salvation. That salvation came in the form of Operation Zarb-e-Azb and even tribesmen of Fata, who had been treated like stepchildren by the government, were willing to leave their homes to allow the army to free their lands from the clutches of the murderers of children. Even the greatest advocates of dialogue with anti-state elements had to change their rhetoric.

With its people behind it, the army went to work, clearing the tribal belt of militants to the best of its ability. Perhaps for the first time in its history, the military was seen as a source of pride for the nation, rather than an entity which brought shame. The years 1971 and 2014 will be remembered for entirely different reasons, but so will the outcomes. While December 16 of one year tore a nation apart, in 2014 it brought it together in its darkest hour.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 18^th, 2017.

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