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http://www.nytimes.com/1972/01/30/a...ndus-say-if-you-have-been-bitten-by.html?_r=0
By KHUSHWANT SINGH JAN. 30, 1972
THAT opening of the story “The Longest Night,” by the East Bengali writer Abou Ahmed, sums up the feelings of the people of Bangladesh. “There is not one family in the country which has not lost some relative, or had its home burned or looted or its womenfolk insulted,” said Abdus Salam, editor of The Bangladesh [formerly Pakistan] Morning News. “They will pay a heavy price for it,” he added bitterly.
“Where are you going, Abba?” asked 5‐year‐old Akbar of his father.
“I am going to the mosque to pray.”
“Pray to whom, Abba?”
“To Allah, of course!”
“Allah! Haven't the Pakistani soldiers killed Him?”
The ricksha puller who took me through the maze of Dacca's bazaars pointed out places where razakars (a paramilitary force raised by the Pakistani Government) had gunned down people suspected of being supporters of Sheik Mujibur Rahman. “We have caught many of these swines. We will teach them a lesson,” he said. A cabby who drove me to distant suburb, where in a derelict brick kiln three rotting corpses lay sprawled in the mud, said, “Here the Al Badr [right‐wing Moslem fanatics] killed a hundred teachers, doctors and newspapermen. Relatives have taken away other bodies; these three are beyond recognition. The Al Badr will he destroyed like vermin.”
At a store reputed for its collection of silk saris, the owner apologized for the poor selection. “Pakistani Army officers took the best. Many ran an account with me, but my bills were seldom paid.” Back at the Hotel International, the boy who came to do my room talked excitedly of the crimes perpetrated by the Biharis (by which he meant all non‐Bengalis). “Now it is our turn to take badia [revenge]. These Biharis will be exposed like frogs in a dry season.”
Two words I heard more than any others in Bangladesh were the English “genocide” and the Hindustani “hadla.” No one is sure how many perished in the genocide. But they have no doubt who will answer for the crimes: “You Indians look after the Pakistani soldiers. We'll take care of the others. We know who they are.”
At the time everyone was agitated about the Pakistani plan to eliminate Bengali intellectuals. The slaughter of 125 men in the brick kiln I had visited was said to have been the first of these planned executions. The rest were frustrated by the capture of Dacca by the Indian Army.
A lingering tragedy grows out of the mass rapes that took place. Accurate figures are hard to come by. Bangladesh officials put the figure as high as 200,000; most social workers give 50,000 as “a conservative estimate,” though the Roman Catholic relief agency Caritas puts it as low as 4,000. When Indian forces entered Dacca, they found 564 girls in the military cantonment. Their hair was cropped and, instead of saris, they wore shorts. They explained that after some girls had used their braids to strangle themselves, they had been shorn and deprived of garments with which they could commit suicide.
Particularly among Moslems, deep shame attaches to a woman who has been ravished. Sheik Mujibur and other Bangladesh leaders have appealed to the people to ac cept innocent victims back into their homes, but women who have become pregnant or diseased have slight hope of being accepted. The unmarried have as little chance of finding husbands as those who have been widowed. “That this should have been done by Moslems to Moslem women shows what little there is left of the great teachings of Islam in Pakistan,” said Matia Chowdhry, a well‐known woman leader of the community. “Our women come from an orthodox society. Their dishonor is than death.”
JASIMUDDIN is the bestknown intellectual of Bangladesh. His poems have been translated into several European languages. The road on which ‘he lives is named after him. The poet is 70. His wife, Mumtaz Begum, a matronly, good‐looking woman, is in her early 60's. They have six children. At the time I called on them they were celebrating the visit of their son, Kamal Anwar, who works with German television in Hamburg. The Jasimuddins reside in a neighborhood whose winding lanes and ancient banyan trees proclaim its age and respectability. It is an upper‐middle‐class residential area consisting of bungalows surrounded by small gardens. Jasimuddin has named his villa “Pains Bari” (abode of the flame of the forest).
Jasimuddin embraces me warmly and introduces me to his family. I shake hands and greet them with‐"Salam valaihum” (“Peace be upon you”). They are pleased with the Moslem greeting and respond warmly, “Valaikum assalam” (“And upon you also be peace”). We sit in their drawing room. It is like the drawing room of any litterateur in India—shelves crammed with books and art objects, mainly consisting of statuettes of Hindu gods and goddesses, a marble head of Buddha and old prints of Calcutta on the walls. “How were you allowed to get away with all these emblems of idolatry?’ I ask him.
“The Saviour is more powerful than the killers,” replies Jasimuddin with a smile.
The Jasimuddins use a language replete with proverbs, poetic allusions and epigrams.
“He didn't save the four chaps who were bayoneted on the race course,” I say, referring to the public executions of razahars the day before.
“They were collaborators,” answers Kamal Anwar. “It is only the beginning of the night of long knives. We have a saying in Bengali: ‘Felled timber awaits the fire.’ “
“It will take a lot of scrubbing to wash the charcoal stains off the faces of the perpetrators of these heinous crimes,” adds his sister, Anna.
“Scrubbing” is another word for vengeance that is being meted out to collaborators.
“How many were killed in this genocide?” I ask.
“Who knows!” replies Kamal Anwar. “They did not kill in tens or twenties, but in hundreds and thousands. Our streets ran with human blood.”
“Who do you think was responsible for it?”
For some time the question floats in the air. The Jasimuddins look at each other before the father replies. “At first it was the Pakistani Army. Then it was the army and the razahars. Finally it was the army, the razakars and the Al Badr. Which of these committed what crimes would be hard to tell. They were like black fowl flying in the night. It was not easy tb distinguish between them.”
Continue reading the main story
The Jasimuddins have come out of the holocaust unscathed. Kamal Anwar explains, “It was because Daddy is too well‐known.” His father lists the names of his friends who have disappeared and adds, “Not since the days of Hitler has the world known anything of its kind., It was nine‐month nightmare which began on the 25th of March and ended on the 6th of December with the liberation of Dacca. It is hard to believe it is over.”
“How will the refugees be rehabilitated in this state of turmoil?” I ask.
“Why not? Thousands have already returned. Bangabandhu [Bengal‐friend—i.e., Sheik Mujibur Rahman] will see that every one of the 10 million gets back his home and property.”
The poet suggests names of people whom I should meet. One has been underground for many months and surfaced only a few days ago. Others are Hindus who had fled to India and have come back. take my leave.
MY escorts are two young Moslems. Khalilur Rahman is a staff reporter on The Bangladesh Observer; Faziul Karim Majumdar is an insurance salesman in Narayanganj, 12 miles down the river Burhi Ganga. He also owns a small Fiat. In Dacca cabs are scarce and expensive.
We drive to the main street, named Jinnah Avenue after the founder of Pakistan. At one end is the magnificent mosque called Baitul Mukarram. Facing it is an oval stadium with shops on the ground floor. The roads are full of rickshas, cycles and pedestrians. On the pavements hawkers have spread out their wares. The commodity in greatest demand is the green‐andgold flag of Bangladesh. Every car, scooter, ricksha and cycle flies it. Most people wear it on their caps or lapels. Two Sikhs in Indian Army uniform stride along having their hands shaken by passers‐by. “A Pakistani soldier would not have dared to walk unarmed through the bazaar,” says Rahman, “and look at it today!” He shouts “Joi Bangla” (Victory to Bangladesh) to the Sikhs. The Sikhs wave
We enter a Bengali‐Moslem restaurant with the un‐Bengali name of Cafe Rex. It is a meeting place of writers, poets and journalists. My escorts wave to their friends. They come over and join our table. They vie with one another in offering me cups of tea and biscuits. The only topic of conversation is atrocities committed by the Pakistani Army, the razakars and the Al Badr. One man tells us how one evening a Pakistani officer came to his family's house and asked his elder brother to accompany him to the cantonment. He stops talking, covers his face with his hands and starts to cry. Another tries to fill the embarrassed silence. He tells us of his neighbor, who had a pretty daughter training to be a nurse. A Pakistani Army doctor came and demanded that she report for duty at his hospital. The father knew what he went inside and shot his daughter. The narrator does not tell us what they did with the father. He begins to sob into his handkerchief. A third one starts with his story. It is like a goblet full of tears being passed around the table.
We leave the Cafe Rex. The bazaar looks more crowded than before. If the Pakistanis really killed two million people and ten million fled to India, the loss of the twelve million is hardly noticeable. Bangladesh still remains one of the most crammed countries in the world, 2,000 people to a square mile. We drive through narrow lanes full of
“It is a warm, golden afternoon... swamps grown over with water hyacinth fields with stubs of harvested rice and jute. ‘Beautiful country,’ I remark. The monsoon has washed away the blood.”
people. After some searching we arrive at Gandaria and locate the street where Hindu emigrants are said to have recently returned to their homes.
There is nothing to indicate that we are in a Hindu neighborhood. In India entrances to Hindu houses have some religious emblem like a swastika painted on the door, or an idol of the elephant‐headed god Ganesa in a niche, or at least a string of mango leaves hung over the entrance. Here it seems that Hindus are reluctant to display their religious identity. Men wear the same dress as the Moslems. They do not smear caste marks on their foreheads. Their women do not wear a red dot between the eyes nor vermilion in the parting of their hair to indicate their married status. As a matter of fact, the only way I discover that we are in a Hindu and not in a Moslem locality is that I notice a group of urchins bathing under a municipal tap. They are not circumcized.
A crowd gathers around me. “Are you Hindus?” I ask them. They answer in chorus, “Yes. We are fisherfolk.” A dark man with white stubble on his chin pushes the others back and introduces himself. “I am Kishto Malar. We are 16 fami lies of Hindus living here.” He explains why and when they left. “We heard what the Pakistani Army did to those boys and their teachers at their colleges last spring. We were very frightened. Then news came that they were looking out for Hindus. Our Moslem neighbors advised us to go away for a while. So we went across the Burhi Ganga. We did not have much trouble. We sold our catch to Moslem fishermen who sold it in Dacca. As soon as we heard that the Pakistanis had been defeated we returned to Gandaria.”
“Did you lose anything?”
Kishto Malar smiles. “What has a naked man to lose? All they could take from us were our loin cloths.” Everyone is amused by his answer,
“You have no fear living in a Moslem locality?”
It is not a fair question. Kishto Malar looks around at the crowd. “They are our brothers, and there is Bhagwan [God] above,” he replies pointing to the sky.
WE leave Gandaria amidst shouts of “Joi Bangla.” We go eastward along the Burhi Ganga. It is a warm, golden sunny afternoon. Sailboats float lazily on the broad bosom of the river. A paddle steamer crammed with passengers sloshes its way upstream toward Dacca. On the other side of the road are swamps thickly grown over with water hyacinth. And beyond the swamps, stretching up to the palm‐fringed horizon, are square after square of flat fields with stubs of harvested rice and jute.
“Beautiful country,” [ remark. “Sonar Bangla,” replies Majumdar and begins to hum the national anthem, “Amur Sonar Bangla” (My Golden Bangladesh). Rahman interrupts him to resume the tales of rapine, rape and murder. They point to villages where all this had taken place. There is little evidence left. The monsoon has washed away the stains of blood. Mud huts with thatched roofs have been rebuilt.
We arrive in Narayanganj, the town of Vishnu. The temple stands on the main road, but the image of the Preserver God was smuggled out to India to avoid desecration at the hands of Pakistani vandals. Narayanganj (population 56,000) is largely Moslem. The city boasts of the biggest jute mill in Asia, some textile mills and a thriving cottage industry to make hosiery. Many of the mills’ executives, foremen and workers are Biharis. They and their families have been moved into the compounds of two mills which are guarded by Indian soldiers against the wrath of militant Bengalis.
We are led through a narrow, winding lane. Every time a cycle‐ricksha sounds its bell I have to stand astride an open sewer to let it pass. My escorts tell me we are in a Hindu neighborhood. Here, too, I discern no emblems of Hinduism on any building. We are conducted inside an emporium and introduced to its owner, Debesh Chandra Fotdar. He asks us to be seated on the floor and orders tea to be served. Though Fotdar is a Hindu, he has no pictures of Hindu gods on his walls, not even a joss stick burning. The only way I can tell that this is not the home of a Moslem is that it does not have pictures of Mecca or sayings from the
Fotdar tells me his and his neighbors’ story. The news of what had happened in Dacca on the night of March 25 trickled to Narayanganj by the morning. They waited another two days. They heard that the Pakistani Army was out for Hindu blood. On March 28 they shut their shops and stole out of Narayanganj. They traveled by night avoiding roads and crossed over into India at Agartala. They spent nine months in a refugee camp.. Fotdar and three other Hindus have come as a reconnaissance party to find out if it is safe for the others to return. During their absence their houses and shops were occupied by Biharis. As the Indian Army advanced toward Narayanganj, the squatters fled, taking everything with them. Bangladesh authorities sealed the empty houses to hand them back to their true
“We have to restart from nothing. Although we were given free food and shelter by the Indians, there were so many other expenses. We have no money left. All banks are closed; there is no one else we can turn to for a loan. In any case, we have no security to offer.”
“Do you know who was in your house when you were away?”
Fotdar keeps quiet, but his Moslem friends reply: “They were those Bihari shalas [brothers‐in‐law—a term of abuse]. Bangabandhu will make them give back what they have stolen.”
I am taken on a tour of the neighborhood to see what were once homes of Hindus. Many have been padlocked and sealed by the Government. Those that are open consist of bare rooms and verandas; not a bed, chair or stool has been left. Some even have has their doors and windows ripped off.
While we are still on our rounds we hear the roar of thousands of voices yelling, “Joi Bangla,” and see people running down the lane toward the railway station. A trainload of Pakistani prisoners of war is halted at a siding. Platoons of Indian soldiers with drawn bayonets are keeping the surging crowd at a safe distance. The crowd vents its spleen in hurling abuse at their erstwhile tormentors and then breaking into a thunderous chant of “Joi Joi bangla."
An officer permits me to go through the cordon. “Talk to anyone you like,” he says, “but don't say who gave you permission to do so.” The Pakistani prisoners are a sullen lot. I find some who are from my home district, Sargodha (now in West Pakistan). After an exchange of courtesies, I ask Group Capt. Ahmed Nawaz how it was they “began like the Israelis and ended like the Egyptians.” He does not like the analogy but explains how they were outmaneuvered and their air force destroyed in the first three days. “But it was these Mukti Bahini boys [Bangladesh liberation forces] who kept sneaking behind our lines which made it impossible to
fight your chaps.” “How do you explain your total alienation from the Bengalis?"
“They are a race of namak haramas [bastards untrue to their salt],” replies Nawaz. “They'll betray you as they betrayed us.” I protest that the Indians have not come to stay. He does not believe me. “The Bengalis talk of atrocities committed by your men, of dishonoring their women. How else can you explain this hatred against you?” I ask, pointing to the crowd. “If the Indian Army was not here, they would lynch you.” Nawaz remains silent, but one of the older soldiers replies: “They have magnified a whisper into a roar. Some of our chaps may have misbehaved —not all fingers of the hand are the same size. They've given us all a bad name.” Nawaz glowers at the man. He shuts up. We change the subject. I extend my hand and say, “Let's hope next time we meet as brothers and not as enemies.” They shake hand but do not respond; to the sentiment. WE return to Dacca. I have a date with Bengali journalists At the Dacca Press Club I am introduced to Khondarkar Ghulam Mustafa. His name had been mentioned by the editor Abdus Salm and the poet Jasimuddin.
Mustafa looks much younger than his 47 years. “That is because I have dyed my hair. I grew a long beard which also dyed black. Even my friends could not recognize me. The Pak police did their best to catch me. If they had, I wouldn't be here talking to you today.”
Mustafa's father is a religious leader of a Moslem sect in Sirajganj. Mustafa was raised as an orthodox Moslem and sent to Islamic College in Calcutta. He became an ardent member of the Moslem League, which subscribed to the view that Moslems and Hindus could not live in the same state. While studying for his degree he also began to write for the Bengali monthly Azad (Independence) supporting the demand for an independent Pakistan. He became a leader of Moslem students and led many strikes in his college.
When Pakistan came into existence in August, 1947, he continued to live in Calcutta to organize Moslem trade unions. Indian police found his presence irksome and compelled him to leave India. Mustafa continued his union activities in Dacca.. In January, 1949, he joined Sheik Mujibur Rahman in leading a strike of government employes and was sent to prison for six months. Thereafter, his life alternated ‘between jobs with a succession of Bengali periodicals and going to jail. Newspaper owners were reluctant to employ him because of his trade‐union activities. In later years, it was his wife, Sabera Khatun, a professor of Bengali literature, who supported the family. In May, 1971, he went to Lahore to attend a meeting of the Journalist Wage Board. He utilized the opportunity to tell West Pakistani newspapermen of the reign of terror that the Pakistani Army under Gen. Tikka Khan had let loose in East Pakistan. On his return to Dacca he was interrogated by the military police. He was ordered to report again next ‘morning. A sympathizer in the intelligence department warned him that ‘he had been marked out for execution. The next day, his wife dyed his white hair black and he slipped out unnoticed from his house. When the police came for him, ‘his wife said blandly, “How many husbands ‘tell their wives where they are going in the evening?”
“I never stayed in the same place for more than one night,” Mustafa told me. “I never went to friends’ houses because I knew the police were watching them. I let my beard grow and kept dying my hair and beard regularly. Not even members of my family could recognize me. I did not see my wife and Children for four months.”
Mustafa spent most of the four months underground in Dacca and the neighboring towns. “Would it not have been safer for you to have gone to India?” I asked him.
“With my record?” asks Mustafa with a broad smile. “In the eyes of the Indian police I am probably still registered as a Pakistani agitator. They might have clapped me in gaol. I had no thought of leaving Bangladesh. We have a saying in Bengali: ‘However high a paddybird soars it always settles on a buffalo's back.’ “ He continues, “The razakars and the Al Badr were looking for me, but the people never betrayed me.”
“Would lit have been the same if you had been Hindu?”
Mustafa thinks for a while before he answers. “I can't say. But our views have changed. We now believe in a secular state. Hindus and Moslems will have to live as brothers.”
“Do you think Hindu refugees will be rehabilitated in Bangladesh?”
Mustafa again pauses a long time before he answers. “It is going to be a very big problem. But I am sure Bangabandhu will be able to solve it. He is the only one who can do it.”
EVERYONE in Bangladesh pins his hopes on Sheik Mujibur Rahman. Even Biharis (estimated at between one or two million) now living in terror of reprisals, hope that he will restore law and order; those actually guilty of collaboration with the Pakistanis will be separated and the innocent allowed to resume their occupations. Biharis have no choice except to live in Bangladesh or perish. India will not take them; 1,800 miles of sea separate them from Pakistan.
As pressing as the problem of the Biharis is that of the refugees. More than nine million who fled from East Pakistan to India are Hindus. Hindus had never felt secure in Pakistan and had been migrating to India long before the planned genocide and mass expulsion launched in the spring of 1971. Will they feel any easier now that the Pakistani Army and the razakars are out of the picture? I returned to India to find out the answer.
SIX months ago the big refugee encampment near Calcutta was known by the name of the locality, Salt Lake. It has since then been shifted three miles farther from the city and is today known as the Joi Bangla Camp. The track leading to it is made of red bricks stuck in soft sand. If the wind is in the right direction you can smell the camp long before you can see it. In any case, when the encampment looms into view it is advisable to cover your nose with a handkerchief.
Groups of urchins are always at the entrance gate to watch the coming and going of visitors. One remark they have picked up and repeat in an impeccable American accent is, “Oof! It stinks!”
And well it might! The settlement (50,000 refugees) is ringed with latrines. But most of the refugees prefer to relieve themselves alfresco in the adjoining fields. Running cross‐oross through the rows of shelters are sewers with stagnant, dark‐green slimy ooze along which children squat and defecate. As you tiptoe warily avoiding blobs of human dung, they laugh and shriek joyfully, “Oof! It stinks!"
The camp already wears the look of a circus after its last performance. Some tents have been pulled down. Trucks lined along the road are being loaded with bed rolls and cooking utensils. A man stands on a chair yelling through a megaphone. He is reading out names of people who must leave for Bangladesh the next day. A few yards away, three officials are seated at a table scribbling in their registers. Facing them are serried waves of human beings patiently waiting to be called. When their names are called, they walk to the table and turn in their identity cards. In return they get bundle of clothes—a dhoti for the sari for the woman, shirts and shorts for the children—and a ration card for 15 days’ (food for the journey. “It is the dowry Indira Ma [Mrs. Gandhi] is giving us,” they say.
IT is not easy to find out how they feel about it. I go to the ubiquitous tea stall. Two men and a woman with a child in her lap are sitting at the tables (talking. I ask the stall owner if he is a refugee. “We are all refugees,” he replies. “I am from Kulsar Village, District Jessore.” The others volunteer information as though I had ordered them to do so. “I am Krishna Pada Pal from Bagarhat, District Khulna. I am a tailor.” “I am Hari Das Sen from Bagna, District Khulna. I am a teacher.” The woman with the child speaks very softly. “I am Ranjana Kitania from Kadaur Bad, District FaridMy man is fanner.”
I order tea for everyone and give the woman's child a palmful of nickel paisas. “When are you people leaving?” I ask them.
The stall owner, Rang Lal Bhowmik, answers for all of them: “When it is safe for us Hindus ‘to go back.”
“I have just come back from Dacca. It is safe,” I tell them. They are ‘not reassured. They ask me if I have met any people who have returned. tell them I have. “They must be Moslems; it is different for them.” I assure them that have met some Hindus and that the Pakistani Army and the razahars are behind bars. “It is your own Government. How long do you expect to live off charity?” I ask them.
They are stung by my remark. “I earn my living,” says Bhowmik. “And I mine,” adds the tailor, Pal. “I can teach here in India as well as I can in Bangladesh,” says Hari Das Sen. “What will we go back to?” asks Ranjana Kitania. “They burned down our houses in front of us. They killed nine Hindus and told us that if we ever came back, they would kill us too.”
I repeat that the Pakistanis and the razahars are in jail. “They were not Pakistanis or razahars or Biharis who killed and looted in our villages, they were Bengali Moslems,” says Ranjana Kitania. The men agree with her. “Who will protect us from the Moslems? Will your army remain in Bangladesh?”
“No, the Indian Army will return within a few months. Haven't you been told you have to leave? Your rations will be stopped. This camp will be demolished within a few weeks,” I say in a tone of exasperation. “The Moslems who drove you out are not the same.”
“How can a Moslem change?” demanded the stallowner. “Can you make a crow white by washing it with rose water?”
“That is no way to talk,” admonish him. “In India we have 60 million Moslems and we live in peace with them. You must learn to do likewise. You have to because the Government will not allow you to stay here any longer.”
They look very dejected. Ranjana Kitania says very sadly, “We know we have to go. But, you understand, once your house is burned, you are even frightened by the red in the sky.”
Rang Lal Bhowmik has the last word. “If you have been bitten by a snake you are scared of a rope. We have to tread very warily. We have sent some of our men to Bangladesh to find out the conditions. Let us see what Bangabandhu will do.”
By KHUSHWANT SINGH JAN. 30, 1972
THAT opening of the story “The Longest Night,” by the East Bengali writer Abou Ahmed, sums up the feelings of the people of Bangladesh. “There is not one family in the country which has not lost some relative, or had its home burned or looted or its womenfolk insulted,” said Abdus Salam, editor of The Bangladesh [formerly Pakistan] Morning News. “They will pay a heavy price for it,” he added bitterly.
“Where are you going, Abba?” asked 5‐year‐old Akbar of his father.
“I am going to the mosque to pray.”
“Pray to whom, Abba?”
“To Allah, of course!”
“Allah! Haven't the Pakistani soldiers killed Him?”
The ricksha puller who took me through the maze of Dacca's bazaars pointed out places where razakars (a paramilitary force raised by the Pakistani Government) had gunned down people suspected of being supporters of Sheik Mujibur Rahman. “We have caught many of these swines. We will teach them a lesson,” he said. A cabby who drove me to distant suburb, where in a derelict brick kiln three rotting corpses lay sprawled in the mud, said, “Here the Al Badr [right‐wing Moslem fanatics] killed a hundred teachers, doctors and newspapermen. Relatives have taken away other bodies; these three are beyond recognition. The Al Badr will he destroyed like vermin.”
At a store reputed for its collection of silk saris, the owner apologized for the poor selection. “Pakistani Army officers took the best. Many ran an account with me, but my bills were seldom paid.” Back at the Hotel International, the boy who came to do my room talked excitedly of the crimes perpetrated by the Biharis (by which he meant all non‐Bengalis). “Now it is our turn to take badia [revenge]. These Biharis will be exposed like frogs in a dry season.”
Two words I heard more than any others in Bangladesh were the English “genocide” and the Hindustani “hadla.” No one is sure how many perished in the genocide. But they have no doubt who will answer for the crimes: “You Indians look after the Pakistani soldiers. We'll take care of the others. We know who they are.”
At the time everyone was agitated about the Pakistani plan to eliminate Bengali intellectuals. The slaughter of 125 men in the brick kiln I had visited was said to have been the first of these planned executions. The rest were frustrated by the capture of Dacca by the Indian Army.
A lingering tragedy grows out of the mass rapes that took place. Accurate figures are hard to come by. Bangladesh officials put the figure as high as 200,000; most social workers give 50,000 as “a conservative estimate,” though the Roman Catholic relief agency Caritas puts it as low as 4,000. When Indian forces entered Dacca, they found 564 girls in the military cantonment. Their hair was cropped and, instead of saris, they wore shorts. They explained that after some girls had used their braids to strangle themselves, they had been shorn and deprived of garments with which they could commit suicide.
Particularly among Moslems, deep shame attaches to a woman who has been ravished. Sheik Mujibur and other Bangladesh leaders have appealed to the people to ac cept innocent victims back into their homes, but women who have become pregnant or diseased have slight hope of being accepted. The unmarried have as little chance of finding husbands as those who have been widowed. “That this should have been done by Moslems to Moslem women shows what little there is left of the great teachings of Islam in Pakistan,” said Matia Chowdhry, a well‐known woman leader of the community. “Our women come from an orthodox society. Their dishonor is than death.”
JASIMUDDIN is the bestknown intellectual of Bangladesh. His poems have been translated into several European languages. The road on which ‘he lives is named after him. The poet is 70. His wife, Mumtaz Begum, a matronly, good‐looking woman, is in her early 60's. They have six children. At the time I called on them they were celebrating the visit of their son, Kamal Anwar, who works with German television in Hamburg. The Jasimuddins reside in a neighborhood whose winding lanes and ancient banyan trees proclaim its age and respectability. It is an upper‐middle‐class residential area consisting of bungalows surrounded by small gardens. Jasimuddin has named his villa “Pains Bari” (abode of the flame of the forest).
Jasimuddin embraces me warmly and introduces me to his family. I shake hands and greet them with‐"Salam valaihum” (“Peace be upon you”). They are pleased with the Moslem greeting and respond warmly, “Valaikum assalam” (“And upon you also be peace”). We sit in their drawing room. It is like the drawing room of any litterateur in India—shelves crammed with books and art objects, mainly consisting of statuettes of Hindu gods and goddesses, a marble head of Buddha and old prints of Calcutta on the walls. “How were you allowed to get away with all these emblems of idolatry?’ I ask him.
“The Saviour is more powerful than the killers,” replies Jasimuddin with a smile.
The Jasimuddins use a language replete with proverbs, poetic allusions and epigrams.
“He didn't save the four chaps who were bayoneted on the race course,” I say, referring to the public executions of razahars the day before.
“They were collaborators,” answers Kamal Anwar. “It is only the beginning of the night of long knives. We have a saying in Bengali: ‘Felled timber awaits the fire.’ “
“It will take a lot of scrubbing to wash the charcoal stains off the faces of the perpetrators of these heinous crimes,” adds his sister, Anna.
“Scrubbing” is another word for vengeance that is being meted out to collaborators.
“How many were killed in this genocide?” I ask.
“Who knows!” replies Kamal Anwar. “They did not kill in tens or twenties, but in hundreds and thousands. Our streets ran with human blood.”
“Who do you think was responsible for it?”
For some time the question floats in the air. The Jasimuddins look at each other before the father replies. “At first it was the Pakistani Army. Then it was the army and the razahars. Finally it was the army, the razakars and the Al Badr. Which of these committed what crimes would be hard to tell. They were like black fowl flying in the night. It was not easy tb distinguish between them.”
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The Jasimuddins have come out of the holocaust unscathed. Kamal Anwar explains, “It was because Daddy is too well‐known.” His father lists the names of his friends who have disappeared and adds, “Not since the days of Hitler has the world known anything of its kind., It was nine‐month nightmare which began on the 25th of March and ended on the 6th of December with the liberation of Dacca. It is hard to believe it is over.”
“How will the refugees be rehabilitated in this state of turmoil?” I ask.
“Why not? Thousands have already returned. Bangabandhu [Bengal‐friend—i.e., Sheik Mujibur Rahman] will see that every one of the 10 million gets back his home and property.”
The poet suggests names of people whom I should meet. One has been underground for many months and surfaced only a few days ago. Others are Hindus who had fled to India and have come back. take my leave.
MY escorts are two young Moslems. Khalilur Rahman is a staff reporter on The Bangladesh Observer; Faziul Karim Majumdar is an insurance salesman in Narayanganj, 12 miles down the river Burhi Ganga. He also owns a small Fiat. In Dacca cabs are scarce and expensive.
We drive to the main street, named Jinnah Avenue after the founder of Pakistan. At one end is the magnificent mosque called Baitul Mukarram. Facing it is an oval stadium with shops on the ground floor. The roads are full of rickshas, cycles and pedestrians. On the pavements hawkers have spread out their wares. The commodity in greatest demand is the green‐andgold flag of Bangladesh. Every car, scooter, ricksha and cycle flies it. Most people wear it on their caps or lapels. Two Sikhs in Indian Army uniform stride along having their hands shaken by passers‐by. “A Pakistani soldier would not have dared to walk unarmed through the bazaar,” says Rahman, “and look at it today!” He shouts “Joi Bangla” (Victory to Bangladesh) to the Sikhs. The Sikhs wave
We enter a Bengali‐Moslem restaurant with the un‐Bengali name of Cafe Rex. It is a meeting place of writers, poets and journalists. My escorts wave to their friends. They come over and join our table. They vie with one another in offering me cups of tea and biscuits. The only topic of conversation is atrocities committed by the Pakistani Army, the razakars and the Al Badr. One man tells us how one evening a Pakistani officer came to his family's house and asked his elder brother to accompany him to the cantonment. He stops talking, covers his face with his hands and starts to cry. Another tries to fill the embarrassed silence. He tells us of his neighbor, who had a pretty daughter training to be a nurse. A Pakistani Army doctor came and demanded that she report for duty at his hospital. The father knew what he went inside and shot his daughter. The narrator does not tell us what they did with the father. He begins to sob into his handkerchief. A third one starts with his story. It is like a goblet full of tears being passed around the table.
We leave the Cafe Rex. The bazaar looks more crowded than before. If the Pakistanis really killed two million people and ten million fled to India, the loss of the twelve million is hardly noticeable. Bangladesh still remains one of the most crammed countries in the world, 2,000 people to a square mile. We drive through narrow lanes full of
“It is a warm, golden afternoon... swamps grown over with water hyacinth fields with stubs of harvested rice and jute. ‘Beautiful country,’ I remark. The monsoon has washed away the blood.”
people. After some searching we arrive at Gandaria and locate the street where Hindu emigrants are said to have recently returned to their homes.
There is nothing to indicate that we are in a Hindu neighborhood. In India entrances to Hindu houses have some religious emblem like a swastika painted on the door, or an idol of the elephant‐headed god Ganesa in a niche, or at least a string of mango leaves hung over the entrance. Here it seems that Hindus are reluctant to display their religious identity. Men wear the same dress as the Moslems. They do not smear caste marks on their foreheads. Their women do not wear a red dot between the eyes nor vermilion in the parting of their hair to indicate their married status. As a matter of fact, the only way I discover that we are in a Hindu and not in a Moslem locality is that I notice a group of urchins bathing under a municipal tap. They are not circumcized.
A crowd gathers around me. “Are you Hindus?” I ask them. They answer in chorus, “Yes. We are fisherfolk.” A dark man with white stubble on his chin pushes the others back and introduces himself. “I am Kishto Malar. We are 16 fami lies of Hindus living here.” He explains why and when they left. “We heard what the Pakistani Army did to those boys and their teachers at their colleges last spring. We were very frightened. Then news came that they were looking out for Hindus. Our Moslem neighbors advised us to go away for a while. So we went across the Burhi Ganga. We did not have much trouble. We sold our catch to Moslem fishermen who sold it in Dacca. As soon as we heard that the Pakistanis had been defeated we returned to Gandaria.”
“Did you lose anything?”
Kishto Malar smiles. “What has a naked man to lose? All they could take from us were our loin cloths.” Everyone is amused by his answer,
“You have no fear living in a Moslem locality?”
It is not a fair question. Kishto Malar looks around at the crowd. “They are our brothers, and there is Bhagwan [God] above,” he replies pointing to the sky.
WE leave Gandaria amidst shouts of “Joi Bangla.” We go eastward along the Burhi Ganga. It is a warm, golden sunny afternoon. Sailboats float lazily on the broad bosom of the river. A paddle steamer crammed with passengers sloshes its way upstream toward Dacca. On the other side of the road are swamps thickly grown over with water hyacinth. And beyond the swamps, stretching up to the palm‐fringed horizon, are square after square of flat fields with stubs of harvested rice and jute.
“Beautiful country,” [ remark. “Sonar Bangla,” replies Majumdar and begins to hum the national anthem, “Amur Sonar Bangla” (My Golden Bangladesh). Rahman interrupts him to resume the tales of rapine, rape and murder. They point to villages where all this had taken place. There is little evidence left. The monsoon has washed away the stains of blood. Mud huts with thatched roofs have been rebuilt.
We arrive in Narayanganj, the town of Vishnu. The temple stands on the main road, but the image of the Preserver God was smuggled out to India to avoid desecration at the hands of Pakistani vandals. Narayanganj (population 56,000) is largely Moslem. The city boasts of the biggest jute mill in Asia, some textile mills and a thriving cottage industry to make hosiery. Many of the mills’ executives, foremen and workers are Biharis. They and their families have been moved into the compounds of two mills which are guarded by Indian soldiers against the wrath of militant Bengalis.
We are led through a narrow, winding lane. Every time a cycle‐ricksha sounds its bell I have to stand astride an open sewer to let it pass. My escorts tell me we are in a Hindu neighborhood. Here, too, I discern no emblems of Hinduism on any building. We are conducted inside an emporium and introduced to its owner, Debesh Chandra Fotdar. He asks us to be seated on the floor and orders tea to be served. Though Fotdar is a Hindu, he has no pictures of Hindu gods on his walls, not even a joss stick burning. The only way I can tell that this is not the home of a Moslem is that it does not have pictures of Mecca or sayings from the
Fotdar tells me his and his neighbors’ story. The news of what had happened in Dacca on the night of March 25 trickled to Narayanganj by the morning. They waited another two days. They heard that the Pakistani Army was out for Hindu blood. On March 28 they shut their shops and stole out of Narayanganj. They traveled by night avoiding roads and crossed over into India at Agartala. They spent nine months in a refugee camp.. Fotdar and three other Hindus have come as a reconnaissance party to find out if it is safe for the others to return. During their absence their houses and shops were occupied by Biharis. As the Indian Army advanced toward Narayanganj, the squatters fled, taking everything with them. Bangladesh authorities sealed the empty houses to hand them back to their true
“We have to restart from nothing. Although we were given free food and shelter by the Indians, there were so many other expenses. We have no money left. All banks are closed; there is no one else we can turn to for a loan. In any case, we have no security to offer.”
“Do you know who was in your house when you were away?”
Fotdar keeps quiet, but his Moslem friends reply: “They were those Bihari shalas [brothers‐in‐law—a term of abuse]. Bangabandhu will make them give back what they have stolen.”
I am taken on a tour of the neighborhood to see what were once homes of Hindus. Many have been padlocked and sealed by the Government. Those that are open consist of bare rooms and verandas; not a bed, chair or stool has been left. Some even have has their doors and windows ripped off.
While we are still on our rounds we hear the roar of thousands of voices yelling, “Joi Bangla,” and see people running down the lane toward the railway station. A trainload of Pakistani prisoners of war is halted at a siding. Platoons of Indian soldiers with drawn bayonets are keeping the surging crowd at a safe distance. The crowd vents its spleen in hurling abuse at their erstwhile tormentors and then breaking into a thunderous chant of “Joi Joi bangla."
An officer permits me to go through the cordon. “Talk to anyone you like,” he says, “but don't say who gave you permission to do so.” The Pakistani prisoners are a sullen lot. I find some who are from my home district, Sargodha (now in West Pakistan). After an exchange of courtesies, I ask Group Capt. Ahmed Nawaz how it was they “began like the Israelis and ended like the Egyptians.” He does not like the analogy but explains how they were outmaneuvered and their air force destroyed in the first three days. “But it was these Mukti Bahini boys [Bangladesh liberation forces] who kept sneaking behind our lines which made it impossible to
fight your chaps.” “How do you explain your total alienation from the Bengalis?"
“They are a race of namak haramas [bastards untrue to their salt],” replies Nawaz. “They'll betray you as they betrayed us.” I protest that the Indians have not come to stay. He does not believe me. “The Bengalis talk of atrocities committed by your men, of dishonoring their women. How else can you explain this hatred against you?” I ask, pointing to the crowd. “If the Indian Army was not here, they would lynch you.” Nawaz remains silent, but one of the older soldiers replies: “They have magnified a whisper into a roar. Some of our chaps may have misbehaved —not all fingers of the hand are the same size. They've given us all a bad name.” Nawaz glowers at the man. He shuts up. We change the subject. I extend my hand and say, “Let's hope next time we meet as brothers and not as enemies.” They shake hand but do not respond; to the sentiment. WE return to Dacca. I have a date with Bengali journalists At the Dacca Press Club I am introduced to Khondarkar Ghulam Mustafa. His name had been mentioned by the editor Abdus Salm and the poet Jasimuddin.
Mustafa looks much younger than his 47 years. “That is because I have dyed my hair. I grew a long beard which also dyed black. Even my friends could not recognize me. The Pak police did their best to catch me. If they had, I wouldn't be here talking to you today.”
Mustafa's father is a religious leader of a Moslem sect in Sirajganj. Mustafa was raised as an orthodox Moslem and sent to Islamic College in Calcutta. He became an ardent member of the Moslem League, which subscribed to the view that Moslems and Hindus could not live in the same state. While studying for his degree he also began to write for the Bengali monthly Azad (Independence) supporting the demand for an independent Pakistan. He became a leader of Moslem students and led many strikes in his college.
When Pakistan came into existence in August, 1947, he continued to live in Calcutta to organize Moslem trade unions. Indian police found his presence irksome and compelled him to leave India. Mustafa continued his union activities in Dacca.. In January, 1949, he joined Sheik Mujibur Rahman in leading a strike of government employes and was sent to prison for six months. Thereafter, his life alternated ‘between jobs with a succession of Bengali periodicals and going to jail. Newspaper owners were reluctant to employ him because of his trade‐union activities. In later years, it was his wife, Sabera Khatun, a professor of Bengali literature, who supported the family. In May, 1971, he went to Lahore to attend a meeting of the Journalist Wage Board. He utilized the opportunity to tell West Pakistani newspapermen of the reign of terror that the Pakistani Army under Gen. Tikka Khan had let loose in East Pakistan. On his return to Dacca he was interrogated by the military police. He was ordered to report again next ‘morning. A sympathizer in the intelligence department warned him that ‘he had been marked out for execution. The next day, his wife dyed his white hair black and he slipped out unnoticed from his house. When the police came for him, ‘his wife said blandly, “How many husbands ‘tell their wives where they are going in the evening?”
“I never stayed in the same place for more than one night,” Mustafa told me. “I never went to friends’ houses because I knew the police were watching them. I let my beard grow and kept dying my hair and beard regularly. Not even members of my family could recognize me. I did not see my wife and Children for four months.”
Mustafa spent most of the four months underground in Dacca and the neighboring towns. “Would it not have been safer for you to have gone to India?” I asked him.
“With my record?” asks Mustafa with a broad smile. “In the eyes of the Indian police I am probably still registered as a Pakistani agitator. They might have clapped me in gaol. I had no thought of leaving Bangladesh. We have a saying in Bengali: ‘However high a paddybird soars it always settles on a buffalo's back.’ “ He continues, “The razakars and the Al Badr were looking for me, but the people never betrayed me.”
“Would lit have been the same if you had been Hindu?”
Mustafa thinks for a while before he answers. “I can't say. But our views have changed. We now believe in a secular state. Hindus and Moslems will have to live as brothers.”
“Do you think Hindu refugees will be rehabilitated in Bangladesh?”
Mustafa again pauses a long time before he answers. “It is going to be a very big problem. But I am sure Bangabandhu will be able to solve it. He is the only one who can do it.”
EVERYONE in Bangladesh pins his hopes on Sheik Mujibur Rahman. Even Biharis (estimated at between one or two million) now living in terror of reprisals, hope that he will restore law and order; those actually guilty of collaboration with the Pakistanis will be separated and the innocent allowed to resume their occupations. Biharis have no choice except to live in Bangladesh or perish. India will not take them; 1,800 miles of sea separate them from Pakistan.
As pressing as the problem of the Biharis is that of the refugees. More than nine million who fled from East Pakistan to India are Hindus. Hindus had never felt secure in Pakistan and had been migrating to India long before the planned genocide and mass expulsion launched in the spring of 1971. Will they feel any easier now that the Pakistani Army and the razakars are out of the picture? I returned to India to find out the answer.
SIX months ago the big refugee encampment near Calcutta was known by the name of the locality, Salt Lake. It has since then been shifted three miles farther from the city and is today known as the Joi Bangla Camp. The track leading to it is made of red bricks stuck in soft sand. If the wind is in the right direction you can smell the camp long before you can see it. In any case, when the encampment looms into view it is advisable to cover your nose with a handkerchief.
Groups of urchins are always at the entrance gate to watch the coming and going of visitors. One remark they have picked up and repeat in an impeccable American accent is, “Oof! It stinks!”
And well it might! The settlement (50,000 refugees) is ringed with latrines. But most of the refugees prefer to relieve themselves alfresco in the adjoining fields. Running cross‐oross through the rows of shelters are sewers with stagnant, dark‐green slimy ooze along which children squat and defecate. As you tiptoe warily avoiding blobs of human dung, they laugh and shriek joyfully, “Oof! It stinks!"
The camp already wears the look of a circus after its last performance. Some tents have been pulled down. Trucks lined along the road are being loaded with bed rolls and cooking utensils. A man stands on a chair yelling through a megaphone. He is reading out names of people who must leave for Bangladesh the next day. A few yards away, three officials are seated at a table scribbling in their registers. Facing them are serried waves of human beings patiently waiting to be called. When their names are called, they walk to the table and turn in their identity cards. In return they get bundle of clothes—a dhoti for the sari for the woman, shirts and shorts for the children—and a ration card for 15 days’ (food for the journey. “It is the dowry Indira Ma [Mrs. Gandhi] is giving us,” they say.
IT is not easy to find out how they feel about it. I go to the ubiquitous tea stall. Two men and a woman with a child in her lap are sitting at the tables (talking. I ask the stall owner if he is a refugee. “We are all refugees,” he replies. “I am from Kulsar Village, District Jessore.” The others volunteer information as though I had ordered them to do so. “I am Krishna Pada Pal from Bagarhat, District Khulna. I am a tailor.” “I am Hari Das Sen from Bagna, District Khulna. I am a teacher.” The woman with the child speaks very softly. “I am Ranjana Kitania from Kadaur Bad, District FaridMy man is fanner.”
I order tea for everyone and give the woman's child a palmful of nickel paisas. “When are you people leaving?” I ask them.
The stall owner, Rang Lal Bhowmik, answers for all of them: “When it is safe for us Hindus ‘to go back.”
“I have just come back from Dacca. It is safe,” I tell them. They are ‘not reassured. They ask me if I have met any people who have returned. tell them I have. “They must be Moslems; it is different for them.” I assure them that have met some Hindus and that the Pakistani Army and the razahars are behind bars. “It is your own Government. How long do you expect to live off charity?” I ask them.
They are stung by my remark. “I earn my living,” says Bhowmik. “And I mine,” adds the tailor, Pal. “I can teach here in India as well as I can in Bangladesh,” says Hari Das Sen. “What will we go back to?” asks Ranjana Kitania. “They burned down our houses in front of us. They killed nine Hindus and told us that if we ever came back, they would kill us too.”
I repeat that the Pakistanis and the razahars are in jail. “They were not Pakistanis or razahars or Biharis who killed and looted in our villages, they were Bengali Moslems,” says Ranjana Kitania. The men agree with her. “Who will protect us from the Moslems? Will your army remain in Bangladesh?”
“No, the Indian Army will return within a few months. Haven't you been told you have to leave? Your rations will be stopped. This camp will be demolished within a few weeks,” I say in a tone of exasperation. “The Moslems who drove you out are not the same.”
“How can a Moslem change?” demanded the stallowner. “Can you make a crow white by washing it with rose water?”
“That is no way to talk,” admonish him. “In India we have 60 million Moslems and we live in peace with them. You must learn to do likewise. You have to because the Government will not allow you to stay here any longer.”
They look very dejected. Ranjana Kitania says very sadly, “We know we have to go. But, you understand, once your house is burned, you are even frightened by the red in the sky.”
Rang Lal Bhowmik has the last word. “If you have been bitten by a snake you are scared of a rope. We have to tread very warily. We have sent some of our men to Bangladesh to find out the conditions. Let us see what Bangabandhu will do.”
