The myths of 1971

The pangs of separation in 1971, when East Pakistan became Bangladesh, have resulted in a slew of myths about the war, casualties and the number of troops that fell victim to a forced surrender. After the Dionysian frenzy of the orgiastic killings by the putative victors of the war had subsided, an introspection yielded a sobering realisation of the viscerality of a violent separation of the brothers, who had fought cheek by jowl for their liberation from the tyranny of the colonial rule. The common man in East as well as West Pakistan had never wanted the things to come to such a sorry pass that those who fought together to defend their freedoms in 1947-48 and 1965 from an implacable foe (India) should cede a catbird seat to the same foe in the gory drama of separation.

The denouement of the drama had featured the separation of the conjoined twins midwifed by India, whose army chief, Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, had the candour to remark that, “Pakistani troops had fought valiantly but they had no chance in view of an adverse operational environment they were pitted against.” The sin of separation could hardly be expiated by prayers and self-flagellation but the two minarets of the Dacca’s main mosque, from which wafted the captivating notes of prayer call, promised a future rapprochement to many who had lived through the cataclysm of the 1971 War. The 1971 tragedy was begotten out of the womb of a tragedy of errors that spanned nearly three decades. Mistakes in the end were committed both by the West as well as East Pakistan’s elite but the price was paid by the people.

Several myths about the war got traction in perpetuity due to varying reasons. Several bizarre myths got wings as the truth lay obscured in the fog of war due to lack of objective reporting of the events by impartial and professionally competent reporters. The West Pakistan’s leadership was of the opinion that the reports of gory acts and violence against non-Bengalis in East Pakistan could rile up population against East Pakistanis in West Pakistan. The country’s leadership’s egregious failure however lay in blackout of news in East Pakistan due to expelling of foreign reporters from East Pakistan. These reporters were accommodated by the wily operators of Indian intelligence in Calcutta and fed one sided lies about the ground situation in East Pakistan.

On East Pakistan’s part the leadership got caught in the stultifying hold of extremist fringe of the Awami League, the main political party in East Pakistan. The infiltration of Indian spies and the violent militia i.e. Mukti Bahini trained by India made possibility of a political rapprochement difficult and the Rubicon was finally crossed on 25^th March with the launch of Operation Searchlight by army to restore order in an insurgency wracked province. Pakistan Army and paramilitary forces were fighting simultaneously to restore the writ of the government and to quell an internal rebellion, mostly by the East Bengal regiment East Pakistan Rifles.

Though the heavily outnumbered troops fought heroically everywhere laying down 5,866 lives including 354 officers while being scythed down by the pincer movement of three Indian Corps with complete air superiority and mowed down by the fully trained Mukti Bahini guerillas operating out of camps established by Indian Army in West Bengal, Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Assam, Nagaland, Mizoram and Tripura. Over 100,000 Mukti Bahini insurgents and 200,000 Indian troops were pitted against a total of 51,897 troops of Pakistan Army and 32,037 troops of Rangers, FC, and Razakars when on 7^th March 1971 Mujib’s call for civil disobedience movement plunged the whole East Pakistan in paroxysms of a violent uprising.

The Mukti Bahini had declared open season on West Pakistani military and civilian personnel. Gory details of killings of innocent women and children abound in several writings by independent scholars. The most poignant were the killings of West Pakistani women and children. At Cadet College Faujdarghat the West Pakistani Commandant and adjutant of the college were killed and the adjutant, Captain Zuberi’s pregnant wife was beaten and left for dead and was miraculously saved later. Even after the end of war one full year’s general indemnity was granted to Mukti Bahini to exonerate it of its murderous acts. A total of 100,000-150,000 Biharis who were considered sympathetic to West Pakistan were killed with impunity by the rampaging gangs of Mukti Bahini activists, most of them after the war.

A myth was cultivated about 3 million deaths and 200,000 rapes by Pakistani troops. These figures have been debunked by independent academics like Sarmila Bose whose grandfather‘s brother Subhas Chandra Bose is revered in India. She states that the total killed in the war including combatants and the non-combatants, Bengalis and non-Bengalis, ranged between 50,000-100,000. Bangladesh’s first Foreign Secretary Sayyid A Karim has also declared the figure of 3 million casualties quoted by Mujib ur Rehman as a gross misstatement. Anwar ul Islam Bobby, the editor of The Morning Sun Dacca, has proven through simple arithmetic the silliness of Awami League claims. According to him the Pakistan Army embroiled in battle could not have practically killed and dumped 11,236 civilian bodies per day from April 1971 to December 1971. The Peace Research Institute Norway and University of Uppsala Sweden quote a figure of 58,000 killed in 1971 War both from East as well as West Pakistan.

The myth of 200,000 rapes is also a gross fabrication as per Sarmila Bose who has negated claims of 200,000 rapes in her book, Dead Reckoning. According to Qutubud din Aziz, a Bengali writer, when Mujib ur Rehman commissioned an abortion team from Britain in 1972 to prove the rape charges, he found that the workload of abortions did not exceed a little over hundred pregnancies. In a book titled, Behind the Myth of 3 million, Dr Abdul Mumin Chowdury writes that the moral indignation was raised to the level of a national lore to demonise the Pakistan Army. The objective was to exaggerate own achievements and build a revisionist myth of independence from tyranny.

The myth of 90,000 POWs belonging to army has by now been busted through several well-researched works none of which places the number above 51,000 with the actual bayonet strength being 34,000. India deliberately tries to magnify its battlefield gains through obfuscation of facts. According to Asoka Raina, an Indian writer, the Indians ran Mukti Bahini camps and produced 2,000 fighters every six weeks both before and during the war. The US Consul General in Dacca in 1971, Archer Blood, also corroborates the above by mentioning that Indian soil was extensively used to wage a proxy war against Pakistan.

The busted myths and the hidden realities need to be highlighted to honour the memory of all those who lost lives in that fratricidal conflict. That is the best way to assuage the pangs of separation and make a new beginning.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 10^th, 2023.

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