See the past and the present

From a small window in our midst, some light has started to penetrate.

I remember a time in 9th grade when the only discussion about Bangladesh was a two paragraph blurb in our Pakistan Studies book, with a word salad of conspiracy and treachery tossed together. When I first came to the US, I was surprised (as many others who did not have any family in the former East Pakistan) about events I knew nothing about. That was my own failing. I recognised how much of a bubble I had been living in as a privileged person who had never suffered, directly or indirectly, from the events of 1971 or those that led up to it.

I remember when I went back to Pakistan for the first time after coming to the US, and had asked some people about what I had been hearing from people (and it was not just Bengalis but academics from all backgrounds and nationalities) about what had happened in East Pakistan. I was told they are all liars and propogandists and wish Pakistan ill. Ok – but if what others say is not the truth, then what the truth is, I wondered. But there was no answer.

I tried to read books written by Pakistanis and there the narrative was often contradictory and made no sense. One of the only books available on the topic in the bookstores in Islamabad was by Siddique Salik (I read the Urdu version). The book focused more on military strategy than analysis of the events and left me with more questions than answers. There were simply no answers except pointing to a giant conspiracy, and the people of West Pakistan being the hapless targets of it.

Over the years, I have met many more people who have either experienced the events first hand, or have spent their lifetime studying those. I have never met anyone – including those from Pakistan – who seems to agree with the bombastic narrative that was consistent with what I had read in my 9th grade Pakistan Studies book.

Fast forward twenty something years and there is now more discussion in the public domain. It should not have taken fifty years, or a particular date to do so, but there is some hope that the same “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach is being challenged. Maybe it is social media, maybe a different sensibility. But more people are asking questions a lot earlier in their lives than I did, or my peers did. This is all a good thing. Less good are some new conspiracy theories coming from the older folks which would break the bizarro-meter of any decent person.

Yet – the window that may bring the fresh air of truth and honesty might shut again and create once again an environment of poisonous suffocation if we are unwilling to see the past or the present. By seeing I mean having the ability to see the historical records and archives that remain inaccessible to everyone. If for a second, we agree with the argument that there is a global propaganda against us, and that a near unanimous agreement among historians is because they are biased and wish us ill, then let our own people (historians and otherwise) analyse the archives from that period, and read the reports, diaries, journal entries and commission findings. Let our historians publish papers and have seminars based on the archives.

And let us see a bit of our present as well. Let us go to slums amongst our midst in Karachi to see the terrible state Bengalis live in. The argument that Biharis in Bangladesh are suffering is valid, but irrelevant to how we treat Bengalis among our own. Let us ask the Bengalis in Machhar Colony how the state has treated them in the last fifty years, and let us ask ourselves if we think we are not driven by a warped sense of racial prejudice.

Should we choose to see the past and the present with honesty, we will see a more inclusive and a kinder future.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 21^st, 2021.

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