Covering Bangladesh vote & the history we still avoid

Tarique Rahman introduced to Pakistani audiences as the son of a decorated Pakistan Army officer, forgetting 1971

Bangladesh's 13th parliamentary elections have concluded, and Tarique Rahman is now poised to become the country's next prime minister. Whether this signals the continuation of dynastic politics or the fading of Gen Z's political aspirations is not the focus of this piece.

In the days before the vote and immediately after the results, Pakistani television channels and a visible number of seasoned anchors as well as younger YouTubers offered sweeping commentary.

A 40-member Pakistani media delegation travelled to Dhaka, was hosted at Pakistan House by High Commissioner Imran Haider, and received briefings on the evolving political climate and prospects for a bilateral reset.

The coverage was energetic, confident, and at moments celebratory.

Tarique Rahman was repeatedly introduced to Pakistani audiences through a familiar frame: the son of a decorated Pakistan Army officer, a Hilal-e-Jurat recipient from the 1965 war. It is factually correct that his father, Ziaur Rahman, fought in that conflict and received the award. But history does not pause at 1965.

The same officer later announced Bangladesh's declaration of independence and became central to the political order that emerged from the dismemberment of Pakistan.

Many observers including scholars outside our community argue that his later role in the "liberation movement" placed him in direct opposition to the state he once served, and they associate elements of that period with documented violence against pro-Pakistan civilians in what was then East Pakistan. Even raising the question of whether those events constitute genocide provokes immediate and intense reactions, both offline and online.

To recall only the earlier chapter while muting the later one is not historical rectification; it is selective emphasis. It produces a persona more emotionally comfortable for Pakistani audiences and risks teaching a new generation that history can be curated to suit present diplomatic moods.

Absolute moral seriousness demands that we acknowledge suffering across communities rather than rank it by ethnicity. Justice cannot be ethnic. Memory cannot and should not be selective.

Nineteen seventy-one was not simple. It was traumatic for Bengalis in general and for pro-Pakistan Bengalis in particular. It was far more traumatic for non-Bengalis especially Biharis who faced reprisals, targeted killings and displacement in the aftermath of this blood-soaked "liberation war". Some Bengalis had believed in a united Pakistan. Many who associated with Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh later faced political trials and social marginalisation during Sheikh Hasina's tenure, yet they remained within Bangladesh's citizenship framework. The Urdu-speaking Biharis, by contrast, became the most prolonged human residue of the rupture.

Approximately 324,000 Urdu-speaking Biharis continue to live in densely-populated settlements across Bangladesh. Over the decades, court rulings have recognised limited citizenship rights for many, particularly those born after 1971. Yet implementation has been uneven. Documentation disputes, barriers to passports, unresolved property claims under "enemy property" frameworks, and persistent economic marginalisation continue to define daily life for countless families. Generations have grown up in spaces that were meant to be temporary.

If Pakistani journalists can travel to Dhaka to analyse cabinet formations and coalition prospects, they can also take a short detour to settlements where families still negotiate identity, belonging and exclusion. They can ask what a new government under Tarique Rahman might mean for those who have waited decades for either voluntary repatriation to Pakistan or full, unambiguous integration into Bangladesh. They can ask whether a diplomatic reset will include the most inconvenient stakeholders.

These realities received almost no attention in mainstream election coverage. A few YouTubers, reportedly funded or supported by Bihari diaspora members, interviewed camp residents and earned views. Yet the depth of pain, suffering and historical destruction could not be effectively conveyed, because neither the "suddenly minted Bangladesh expert" journalists nor the middle-aged and younger residents of those 4×4–7×7 camp quarters fully knew or articulated the complex past.

There are longstanding accounts suggesting that some of the most disturbing footage documenting violence against pro-Pakistan civilians in 1971 was never broadcast. Whether withheld out of political caution or institutional calculation, the result was the same: certain images never entered the national archive of memory. Half a century later, the danger is not censorship but omission. We discuss geopolitics and electoral arithmetic, but rarely the unresolved human consequences of state rupture.

Reconciliation is not about reversing history. It is about addressing its unresolved consequences. If Pakistan and Bangladesh are serious about a new chapter, that chapter must include a structured framework for those Biharis who still wish to relocate to Pakistan. It must equally ensure full and equal citizenship rights in Bangladesh for those who choose to remain, including secure documentation, mobility and economic opportunity. It must address property restitution or compensation transparently. It must formally recognise that suffering in 1971 and its aftermath crossed communal lines, and that dignity denied for five decades corrodes moral credibility on both sides.

This is not an indictment of individual journalists, nor is it an attempt to reopen wounds for rhetorical effect. It is a question directed at collective priorities. When we present only the reassuring fragments of history, we may create momentary goodwill, but we also train Gen Z to inherit an edited memory. They deserve complexity. They deserve to know that 1965 and 1971 are linked, that heroism and rupture can coexist in a single biography, and that states can fail some of their own.

Bangladesh has completed another election cycle. Pakistan has completed another round of commentary. If a reset is truly underway, it will be tested not by smiles and statements but by whether it includes those who have waited more than half a century for recognition, restitution and dignity.

History does not disappear because it is inconvenient.

It waits quietly in settlements, in court files, and in the conscience of those who decide what enters the frame and what remains outside it.