'We fail to recognise the need to learn from the past'

Authors say the events of 1971 cannot easily be erased from memory

KARACHI: Despite the internal disintegration we are witnessing in Pakistan today, we fail to recognise the need to learn from the past. The split of East and West Pakistan in 1971, said to be a national tragedy, seems to be long forgotten when we consider the current state of Pakistan.

This was the opinion of speakers at the book launch ceremony of 'Blood over Different Shades of Green - East Pakistan 1971: History Revisited,' written by Pathfinder Group chairperson Ikram Sehgal and former Humboldt University professor Dr Bettina Robotka, which was held by Oxford Univesity Press (OUP) at Marriot Hotel on Saturday. A large number of academics, authors and media representatives attended the ceremony.

In a panel discussion about the book, speakers highlighted the need to reconsider the events, factors and forces that led to the split of East and West Pakistan. The speakers included former chief of general staff Lt Gen. (Retd) Ali Kuli Khan Khattak, Sirajuddin Aziz from Habib Bank AG Zurich, Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed, Javed Jabbar, moderator Dr Huma Baqai and the authors of the book.

"The break up of East and West Pakistan deeply hit the people who witnessed it personally," said Baqai, associate dean at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), in her address, adding that reading the book was like revisiting history.

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"The people who lived through the pain of Pakistan breaking into two never talked about it. It took us so many years to get over it and there are still so many sensitivities." It is painful that we lack a narrative on it, she said. "Pakistan's narrative on 1971 is just not there."

The book, according to Baqai, touches on complex issues such as identity, language, civil-military relations and the instances where Pakistan opted for military solutions when it was political solutions that were needed.

Meanwhile, Dr Robotka said that in her six years of teaching history at IBA, she had felt that students here dislike reading history as a subject or a form of literature.

"It is because of the way books have portrayed Pakistan's history," she said, adding that history should not be taught in this way. The book she co-authored with Sehgal was a way to address this.

As a historian, she said, her belief was that people's pasts are important to understand. "The way they are looking at their past gives them a certain view of the present and the future."

For Ikram Sehgal, the past still has an impact. As a prisoner of war, he witnessed the horrors of 1971, he said, and the war is torturous for him to date. "The events of 1971 cannot easily be erased from our memories," he added.

"The real perspective is missing from the different histories we have," he said, claiming there were many misconceptions about the army. "History cannot be changed, but the correct perspective of history will be recorded."

Former information minister Javed Jabbar called the book a rare fusion, bringing the civil and military perspectives together along with an academic perspective.

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"There are multiple histories: the military oriented history, the Indian history, the history in academic curricula," he pointed out. "We know about December 16 and many vital events, but there is much more to be learnt."

According to Jabbar, the book illustrated why people took the actions they did. Referring to the events that catalysed the war, he asked, "Did individuals deliberately opt for extremist postures, or were there other factors that drove them?"

Encompassing the events witnessed by Sehgal and others in 1971, the book sheds light on mistakes and causes that have long been forgotten but need dire acknowledgment.

For the authors, the aim is to make sure the lessons of the war are not relegated to history.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 29^th, 2019.