Looking for more : Bangladesh Liberation War

[Dante80]

A question. I am looking for links, PDFs or other material regarding the Bangladesh War of Independence. I'm interested in both the conflict and the general history that culminated to it.

The wikipedia page citations provide a starter for the subject at hand, I would love to read some more though. Could you provide if you can any links to additional information online (written in english)?

Any help would be vastly appreciated, cheers..C:

 

[Jackdaws]

You just opened a Pandora's box.

 

[Dante80]

You just opened a Pandora's box.

Not looking for arguments really, I just want some direction for researching this further myself. As a history buff.

 

[Jackdaws]

Not looking for arguments really, I just want some direction for researching this further myself. As a history buff.

Put in "1971 war" in YouTube. For neutral accounts, see the videos by various Western news channels and wire news services.

 

[Talwar e Pakistan]

A question. I am looking for links, PDFs or other material regarding the Bangladesh War of Independence. I'm interested in both the conflict and the general history that culminated to it.

The wikipedia page citations provide a starter for the subject at hand, I would love to read some more though. Could you provide if you can any links to additional information online (written in english)?

Any help would be vastly appreciated, cheers..C:

Victors write the history, the "general narrative" was very much different from what had actually happened.

 

[Hamza913]

A question. I am looking for links, PDFs or other material regarding the Bangladesh War of Independence. I'm interested in both the conflict and the general history that culminated to it.

The wikipedia page citations provide a starter for the subject at hand, I would love to read some more though. Could you provide if you can any links to additional information online (written in english)?

Any help would be vastly appreciated, cheers..C:

TL;DR:

The Bengalis started rebelling/rioting and attacking Urdu speakers. The Pakistani military launched a crackdown. The Bengalis then engaged in warfare. The Pakistani military then engaged in genocide. The Indian military then invaded, and failed to conquer West Pakistan but managed to cause the Eastern command to surrender. The POW's were eventually repatriated to Pakistan, Bangladesh gained independence, and India and Pakistan mostly returned the land they took from each other along the Western sector. Many Urdu speakers as well as West Pakistanis established in Bangladesh packed their bags and went to the mainland of Pakistan. In terms of casualties, Bengali casualties may have numbered in the millions, whereas Pakistani and Indian casualties were a few thousand each. Indians also finally had a single military victory against Muslims that they could gloat over.

 

[Vapnope]

A question. I am looking for links, PDFs or other material regarding the Bangladesh War of Independence. I'm interested in both the conflict and the general history that culminated to it.

The wikipedia page citations provide a starter for the subject at hand, I would love to read some more though. Could you provide if you can any links to additional information online (written in english)?

Any help would be vastly appreciated, cheers..C:

Dear Dante,
You can read this books for understanding the 1971 war,
East Pakistan The end game by Brig AR Siddiqui (PDF available)
Battle of Hussainiwala and Qaiser i Hind by Lt Col. Habib Ahmad (PDF not available)
Conflict & Diplomacy By Jaswant Singh and SP Bhatia (PDF available)
How Pakistan got divided by Rao Farman Ali
For articles,
https://www.dawn.com/news/845111/blunders-of-the-1971-war
https://herald.dawn.com/news/1153304

 

[Kambojaric]

Dead Reckoning: Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War by Sarmila Bose.

It is considered "controversial" because it seeks to present both sides of the picture, whereas the mainstream narrative written by the victors of the war and still perpetuated in western media is completely one sided.

Take the "3 million people killed" propaganda figure which is still cited by western media outlets like BBC and CNN although this has been debunked many times by even Bengalis and Indians. (
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/may/24/mujib-confusion-on-bangladeshi-deaths
is one example)

I would recommend Sarmila Bose's book therefore if you want to read the narrative of both sides.

 

[Dante80]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I'm glad I picked up this subject. It is fascinating.
Decided to start from the beggining - more or less - and I'm currently reading about the Language Movement.

It is utterly baffling to me why Jinnah decided to exclude Bangla/Bengali from being an official language in Pakistan. Given the situation at hand, this decision was almost certain to backfire badly. And Jinnah was known to possess both the foresight and the acumen to see that it would.

 

[Hamza913]

It is utterly baffling to me why Jinnah decided to exclude Bangla/Bengali from being an official language in Pakistan.

Because Bengali is no more special than Punjabi, Pashto, Balochi, or any other language spoken by people living in Pakistan (in fact, I personally find it to be a much weaker language). Not only that, but by making Bengali an official language, the nationalists would be even more empowered and would have tried to obtain even more. We could not give them an inch, otherwise they'd demand a kilometre.

 

[Kambojaric]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I'm glad I picked up this subject. It is fascinating.
Decided to start from the beggining - more or less - and I'm currently reading about the Language Movement.

It is utterly baffling to me why Jinnah decided to exclude Bangla/Bengali from being an official language in Pakistan. Given the situation at hand, this decision was almost certain to backfire badly. And Jinnah was known to possess both the foresight and the acumen to see that it would.

Urdu was chosen as the national language because it is neutral. No ethnic group native to Pakistan and Bangladesh spoke Urdu as their mother tongue. The official language was and is English, again a neutral alternative along with Urdu. If Bengali was made a national language, then it would be unfair to all the other ethno-linguistic groups in the country. Why are Bengalis more special than Sindhis, Punjabis or Pashtuns?

If anything Jinnah was showing great foresight when he decided to opt for a neutral option. No ethnic group was supposed to dominate the others in Pakistan.

 

[EasyNow]

A question. I am looking for links, PDFs or other material regarding the Bangladesh War of Independence. I'm interested in both the conflict and the general history that culminated to it.

The wikipedia page citations provide a starter for the subject at hand, I would love to read some more though. Could you provide if you can any links to additional information online (written in english)?

Any help would be vastly appreciated, cheers..C:

For all the detail, the entire matter comes down to a few truths:

- Pakistan was a geographical impossibility, held together only by collective will power

- in time the collective will was eroded by numerous factors - there was no longer a uniting enemy, there was a divergence of cultures, there was outsider meddling and unfair distribution of wealth.

- W Pakistan could have still controlled EP by brute forced - due to a lack of military resources developed on that side - but India ensured that this was not allowed - to Bangladesh and India's own benefit.

 

[Hakikat ve Hikmet]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I'm glad I picked up this subject. It is fascinating.
Decided to start from the beggining - more or less - and I'm currently reading about the Language Movement.

It is utterly baffling to me why Jinnah decided to exclude Bangla/Bengali from being an official language in Pakistan. Given the situation at hand, this decision was almost certain to backfire badly. And Jinnah was known to possess both the foresight and the acumen to see that it would.

Jinnah tested the water for the East Pak’s commitment to Islam and Muslims!! And, he found out they are the friends of Pak’s enemies. And, this is the ultimate foresight!!! He could see what would be coming in the following 100 years time...

By the by, getting rid of the East Pak turned out to be a strategic boon for Pak proper!!! With a baggage like this under the constant Indian threat would have undermined Pak’s acquiring nukes. Moreover, the East Pak would have been a the biggest hurdle against Pak’s strategic gains like defeating both the USSR and USA in Afganistan, whose ultimate objectives were to destroy Pak....

Pak’s ultimate objective is to be a central power in the Muslim world based on the historical precendences and geographic locations. Original dreamers of Pak put no room for the current BD in this grand scheme...

As for the Civil War in 71, it was the most successful RAW ops as per the Indian officials. And, it was one with the full armaments, planning, logistics, diplomatic etc support from the USSR. And, she had to repay dearly for it...

Bengal has always been an invader’s paradise!!! Even 17 Turkic horsemen could conquer Bengal without chopping a single head off in the 13th century!!! Only 200 British soldiers defeated a 70K strong army as they betrayed their king and stood idle during the Battle of Plassey in 1757!! Even now if the Burmese Army marches up to BD’s capital they won’t be able to fire a single shot with an air gun for the entire command structure of the BD army has been purposefully destroyed...

BD is by/for/of India. Pak has no business with her....

 

[Species]

A question. I am looking for links, PDFs or other material regarding the Bangladesh War of Independence. I'm interested in both the conflict and the general history that culminated to it.

The wikipedia page citations provide a starter for the subject at hand, I would love to read some more though. Could you provide if you can any links to additional information online (written in english)?

Any help would be vastly appreciated, cheers..C:

There is hardly any proper academic research on this war, which is sad since it's arguably the most significant event in modern South Asia. I've read accounts of all three POVs from Bangladesh, Pakistan and India and have gathered a bit of neutral and comprehensive view on the war. I'll explain it when I come back.

EDIT: Okay here is my view.

Causes of the war
The causes are actually multi-dimensional, ranging from cultural, economic to political disputes. There are tons of threads on economic discrimination/deprivation of East Pakistan in the Bangladesh section, you can read them if you are interested. From cultural perspective, there is a popular belief that the Bengali language movement between 1948-52 was the main precursor to the liberation war in 1971. However, if we dig deeper, many of the language movement veterans were in fact staunch supporters of united Pakistan. The movement itself was started by Tamaddun Majlis, an "Islamic organization" based in Dhaka. Bengali was recognized as the second official language of Pakistan after the movement anyway. Though it's true that the movement manifested the strong sense of ethnic/cultural identity of Bangladeshis.

Personally, I believe the political issues were the prime reasons behind the secession of Bangladesh. So I'm gonna mostly discuss from political perspective.

The Pakistan Movement (movement in the erstwhile British Raj to achieve an independent and sovereign country for Muslims in the subcontinent) was mainly spearheaded by Bengali Muslims from present day Bangladesh and the Muslims from Northern India (who are collectively known as Muhajirs or migrants in Pakistan as they migrated from India). In 1947 when Pakistan became independent, the political sphere of the country began to be mainly dominated by Bengali Muslims of East Pakistan, partly because they were the most experienced (along with Muhajirs but they were not natives, hence, not as popular as Bengalis) and partly because Bengalis constituted the majority of the population of Pakistan. Almost all the Prime Ministers of the early years of democratic Pakistan were Bengalis.

In the late 1950s, military took over full control of the state through the coup by Ayub Khan. Even though a dictator, Ayub Khan was a development-oriented leader and initiated several development projects in both wings of the country (the disparity though was still quite stark). Despite the development works, people were not really willing to support the dictatorship and the resistance to the dictatorship was much more severe in East Pakistan than in the West. In the mid 1960s, all the opposition leaders united to support Fatima Jinnah (sister of Muhammad Ali Jinnah) to become the head of the state in a presidential election which Ayub Khan eventually won with votes on gun-point. This made the politicians, particularly in the East, to be more dejected.

By this time, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman emerged as the undisputed opposition leader in the East as the head of Awami League party. He was an experienced politician, being a stalwart of the Pakistan Movement, Language Movement as well as the resistance protests to Ayub Khan's dictatorship. In 1966, he initiated the 6-point Movement, mainly calling for provincial autonomy of East Pakistan under a federal republic of Pakistan. The govt. immediately arrested him and other leaders of Awami Leage on charges of treason and filed a case known as 'Agartala Conspiracy Case' which alleged that Mujib and his associates from Awami League were involved in a conspiracy against the Pakistani state to dismember it with the help of India; the conspiracy, according to the govt., was planned in the Northeast Indian town of Agartala. Sheikh Mujib's arrest instigated a massive uprising in East Pakistan, culminating into the release of the political leaders as well as the end of Ayub Khan's dictatorship who was succeeded by Yahya Khan in 1969 as the Martial Law administrator.

At the same time, another ambitious leader emerged in the West, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Bhutto was a close associate of Ayub Khan and gradually rose to power to emerge as the most popular leader in West Pakistan. An interesting difference between Sheikh Mujib and Bhutto was that Mujib had a humble family background and emerged right from the grassroots, while Bhutto belonged to a well-known feudal family.

Yahya Khan announced to hold the general elections in Pakistan in December, 1970. Right before the elections, a devastating cyclone hit East Pakistan with unofficial estimates of almost 500,000 people killed. This further alienated the Yahya Khan-led military junta and reinforced the popularity of the Awami League party. In the West, Bhutto and his party PPP was campaigning on full swing with the slogan 'Udhar tum, idhar hum' (you stay there, we stay here) mainly referring to Awami League that it should only stay in the East. Bhutto's slogan became successful as Awami League failed to secure a single seat in the West, however, they achieved absolute majority in the East with occupying 160 out 167 seats allocated to the East. This meant Awami League will be assuming power by winning 160 out of 300 seats of Pakistan's parliament.

Bhutto was clearly shocked and declined to take part in the assembly and also threatened his party members from going to the first assembly session to be held in Dhaka. Manipulated by Bhutto, Yahya Khan kept deferring the date of first parliamentary session which further frustrated Sheikh Mujib. On 7th March, 1971, Sheikh Mujib gave an inspiring speech in Dhaka calling Awami League activists to be ready to initiate a mass protest/strikes. On 15th March, Yahya Khan along with Bhutto came to Dhaka to participate in a dialogue with Sheikh Mujib. Meanwhile, there was a sudden massive troop mobilization being carried out in East Pakistan by the Pakistan Army. Seeing these suspicious activities, some pro-Soviet leaders within Awami League began to mount pressure on Sheikh Mujib to declare independence and initiate a civil war, Mujib refrained and said he was not in favor of secession. On 25th March, Yahya Khan and Bhutto left Dhaka without any conclusion of the dialogue while at night Sheikh Mujib handed himself over to the military and was later flown to West Pakistan. The same night, Pakistan Army started what became known as 'Operation Search Light' to kill Awami League activists in East Pakistan. However, in the process numerous civilians got killed, the most notable incident being that in Dhaka University where several students and teachers were massacred. The news of this incident and other killings of the operation spread like a wild fire. On 26th March, a defected Bengali officer from Pakistan Army, Major Ziaur Rahman, occupied a station of East Pakistan radio in Chittagong and declared the independence of Bangladesh on behalf of Sheikh Mujib that started the liberation war.

Note that, during the preceding events to the Operation Search Light, there was a small ethnic riot in a factory in Khulna, a city in southwestern Bangladesh, between its Bengali and Muhajir workers. Since, Bengalis were the majority, Muhajirs suffered the most casualties in that riot. Some later historians tried to justify the Operation Search Light by arguing that Pakistan Army was there to save Muhajirs living in East Pakistan referring to this riot.

@Dante80 it looks like my post has become a bit too large, hope you have the time.

I will explain the actual military conflict and the atrocities in my next post.

 

[Hamza913]

The Pakistan Movement (movement in the erstwhile British Raj to achieve an independent and sovereign country for Muslims in the subcontinent) was mainly spearheaded by Bengali Muslims

Talk about historical revisionism...

Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Rehmat Ali, Muhammad Iqbal, Syed Ahmad Khan, Aga Khan, Shabbir Ahmad Usmani, Liaquat Ali Khan, Muhammad Zafarullah Khan and Fatima Jinnah are easily some of the most prominent and dominant members to spearhead the Pakistan movement. None of these individuals were Bengali.

Were there Bengalis involved in Pakistan's creation? Yes. Were they important? Yes. But they were not the main spearhead.