27 March 2017 World supplement

Analysis
7
Monday, March 27, 2017
DT
Protesters attend a mass candlelight vigil around a portrait of Jahanara Imam, a late political activist pioneer widely known to bring the accused of committing war crimes in the Bangladesh Liberation War to trial,
at Shahbagh intersection in Dhaka February 14, 2013. Thousands of protesters participating in the Shahbagh demonstration demanded capital punishment for Jamaat-e-Islami leaders awaiting a court verdict for
war crimes committed during the 1971 Independence War
REUTERS
By marking Genocide Day, Bangladesh seeks
to remember what Pakistan wants to forget
• Anam Zakaria
Earlier this month, Congress MP
Shashi Tharoor boldly declared
that Britain was suffering from
“historical amnesia”. By censoring
its colonial past, it was ensuring
that younger generations grew up
without an inkling of the atrocities
committed by their ancestors.
Britain’s attempt to shove its colonial
past under the carpet is not
unique.
Belgium has gone through a
similar process, reconstructing
itself as a neutral country, and
thereby becoming the prime candidate
for hosting the European
Union and North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation headquarters, institutions
believed to promote peace
and stability. The country works
hard to avoid exploring its dark
colonial past in Congo and it is not
alone.
But it is not only colonisers that
have ugly histories. Many nations
around the world have violent
pasts that they long to forget. Some
choose to access those histories in
order to heal and move on, while
others diligently work to not only
reconstruct their present self-image
but also manipulate their histories
in the process. Newer, purer
versions are offered, carefully tailored
and packaged to fit the state
narratives. Pakistan’s engagement
– or lack thereof – with its past perfectly
encapsulates this process.
Genocide Day
This March 26, Bangladesh celebrated
its 46th Independence Day.
The date commemorates the fateful
proclamation of separation from
West Pakistan in March 1971. The
night before, the Pakistan Army
had launched Operation Searchlight
in East Pakistan. As the name
suggests, Operation Searchlight
aimed to hunt down any Bengali
who wanted a separate homeland,
after decades of struggling for basic
human rights under oppressive
governments, dominated by West
Pakistan.
Under Operation Searchlight,
terror spread like wildfire in East
Pakistan. Innocent and unarmed
Bengalis were targeted and eliminated
one by one. The army used
the support of Islamist parties and
their paramilitary wings, the likes
of Al Badr and Al Shams, to launch
an accompanying jihad with the
goal of purifying the Bengalis of
Hindu influences and making them
true Muslims and, hence, true Pakistanis.
Mass killings and rape
marked every street and corner. It
is estimated that 3 million Bengalis
and non-Bengalis were killed from
March 1971 onwards. Operation
Searchlight ignited an all-out war
that served a huge blow to the West
Pakistani establishment. By the
end of the year, Pakistan stood utterly
defeated both politically and
militarily. On December 16, 1971,
East Pakistan became Bangladesh.
Those who had fought for their independence
stood victorious but
also deeply wounded by the months
of killings, rape and bloodshed.
On March 11, the Bangladeshi
Parliament unanimously passed
a motion declaring March 25, the
night Operation Searchlight was
launched, as Bangladesh’s Genocide
Day, to commemorate the brutalities
committed by West Pakistan.
Selective memory
Today, just as Britain resists acknowledging
its exploitative and violent
colonial past, Pakistan too remains
mum on the issue. Perhaps the best
way to ensure that the silence is
maintained is by strategically eliminating
any alternative discourse. This
butchered history taints the pages of
state textbooks. The Class 9 and Class
10 Pakistan Studies textbook of the
Federal Textbook Board of Islamabad
portrays all bloodshed and instability
as propagated by Indian-backed
Bengalis, who have been painted as
unruly, uncontrollable and violent.
An excerpt reads:
“Raging mobs took to streets…
banks were looted and the administration
came to a halt. Public
servants and non-Bengali citizens
were maltreated and murdered.
Pakistan flag and Quaid’s portraits
were set on fire… reign of terror,
loot and arson was let loose. Awami
League workers started killing
those who did not agree with their
Six Points Programme. Members of
Urdu-speaking non-Bengali communities
were ruthlessly slaughtered.
West Pakistani businessmen
operating in East wing were forced
to surrender their belongings or
killed in cold blood, their houses
set on fire. Pro-Pakistan political
leaders were maltreated, humiliated
and many of them even murdered.
Armed forces were insulted;
authority of the state was openly
defied and violated. Awami League
virtually had established a parallel
government and declared independence
of East Pakistan.”
Meanwhile, Pakistani leaders of
that time, such as General Yahya
Khan, are shown as making desperate
attempts to negotiate with
these “out-of-control” Bengalis. At
one place, the book states, “Yahya
flew to Dhaka, in a hurry; he wanted
to make a last effort”, but he
was received by “obviously unacceptable”
demands put forward
by Mujibur Rehman. The leader of
the Awami League is dismissed as
impractical and his requests as unrealistic.
Further, far from acknowledging
the atrocities committed by
the Pakistan Army and paramilitary
groups, the textbook states that on
the night of March 25 and March
26, “the Awami League militants
committed a large scale massacre
of West Pakistani families living in
East Pakistan”. Later, the textbook
complains, “Indians and Bengalis
charged Pakistan Army with wholesale
massacre and desecration of
women. On December 19, 1971,
world media teams were shown
the dead bodies of Bengali professors,
intellectuals and professionals
who were allegedly killed during
the said unrest. Large-scale killings
were publicised in the media to defame
Pakistan Army.”
Ideology, not history
No mention is made of the rape and
murder of thousands of East Pakistani
families. No mention is made
of the brutality of West Pakistanis.
Just as Hindus are portrayed as the
sole instigators of violence in 1947,
East Pakistanis are depicted as the
perpetrators in 1971.
As state policy, Pakistan has always
done an exceptional job at
eradicating, distorting and denying
its history. History as a discipline
is replaced by Pakistan Studies in
schools so that it is ideology – and
that too of the Islamic Republic –
and not history that is taught. The
Partition of 1971 is just another victim
in this process. As Bangladesh
celebrates its Independence Day
and, from this year onwards, also
commemorates Genocide Day, a
deafening silence will engulf the
country. The “historical amnesia” of
its coloniser will be embraced tightly
as one of the most powerful legacies
left behind by the British. •
Anam Zakaria is the author of Footprints
of Partition: Narratives of Four
Generations of Pakistanis and Indians.