At 51, Bangladesh fails to honour pledges made to its citizens
Presently, Bangladesh has gradually slid from secularism, pluralism, elective democracy, gender equality, and reducing the disparity between the rich and poor, something that was imbued in the “Declaration of Independence”.
Saleem Samad
Today Bangladesh celebrates its 51st anniversary after the bloody liberation war which tore it from the Islamic Republic of Pakistan in 1971.
After the surrender of Pakistan’s military in December, the occupation forces left behind a war-ravaged country and the infrastructure in ruins. The scares of the genocide of 3 million, war crimes, crime against humanity against Hindus, and rape as a weapon of war caused widespread resentment, depression and anger among the survivors.
The brutal birth of Bangladesh had created more than 10 million war refugees, the largest since the Second World War. It was indeed a burden on resource-starved India to provide food, shelter and healthcare to millions. The rehabilitation of the refugees trekking home from scores of camps in the neighbouring states of India was a major challenge for the new government of the nascent Bangladeshi state, as well as for and aid agencies with limited resources.
Dark Clouds in the Horizon
The eyes of the radical student leaders sparkled when Shiekh Mujibur Rahman also lovingly called Bangabandhu (Friend of Bangladesh), the leader of the East Pakistan Awami League was imprisoned in 1968 for conspiring for an independent Bangladesh with the help of India. The infamous sedition case is known as the “Agartala Conspiracy Case”. It invited violent student protests against Pakistan’s military junta in 1969. The street violence later spread to the rest of Pakistan. The anti-government agitation brought an end to a decade-long military dictatorship of General Ayub Khan.
Sheikh Mujib led Awami League won a landslide victory in the first-ever general elections in Pakistan in December 1970 in both the provincial and federal assemblies. Thus, Mujib was poised to be the head of the government of Pakistan.
However, just days after the elections, a fear of the unknown ran through the spines of the military hawks in Rawalpindi GHQ of the Pakistan Army.
In early March 1971, all the opposition leaders from the provinces of Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and North-West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) pledged allegiance to Mujib’s much talked about Six-Point political agenda which sought regional autonomy for the provinces in Pakistan.
The military hawks could see dark clouds on the horizon. They feared Mujib’s Six-Point agenda if passed by the parliament would lead to the breakup of the Islamic Republic. In fact, Balochistan nationalists were already in the independence movement since 1948 when the nation was forcibly annexed by Pakistan, with full knowledge of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who founded Pakistan.
Operation Searchlight
Lt Gen Sahabzada Yaqub Khan, Chief of General Staff, Eastern Command and Admiral Syed Mohammad Ahsan, the Governor of East Pakistan were shunted out by frustrated Gen Yayha Khan, President of Pakistan before the brutal crackdown ‘Operation Searchlight’. Later Gen Raja was also shown the door.
Weeks before the genocidal campaign on 25th March, most of the officers and soldiers of East Bengal Regiment and border guards’ East Pakistan Rifles (EPR) revolted and firefights erupted in most military garrisons. It was again a judgment of error.
The rebel officers and soldiers joined by hundreds of border guard troops (EPR) and policemen after brief skirmishes with enemy soldiers made a strategic retreat to India to return to attack the Pakistan soldiers. The rebel officers held a crucial meeting on 12 April at Teliapara Mukti Bahini HQ, Sylhet. The Mukti Bahini (Bangladesh Liberation Force) was formed under the command of Colonel (later General) MAG Osmany.
The Mukti Bahini officers decided to launch guerrilla tactics instead of conventional war, like in Vietnam to demoralise and weaken the morale of the pillaging Pakistan troops. Thousands of students, youths and farmers including women joined the Mukti Bahini after the experience of genocide and rape which provoked them to take a meaningful reprisal.
A celebrated political historian Mohiuddin Ahmad argued what could have happened if India did not open the borders to shelter panic-stricken refugees and Mukti Bahini guerrillas were not provided with any military help. In such an adverse situation, the pains, agony and miseries would have aggressively heightened. The graphs of genocide figures would have crossed more than three million and the targeted persecution of Hindus would have further aggravated.
Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi promptly extended her good office to establish the Bangladesh government in exile in Kolkata and appointed a politician and a diplomat Durga Prasad Dhar, who is considered a chief architect of the Indian intervention in the 1971 Bangladesh independence.
In nine months to freedom, besides the success of the barefooted, half-naked Mukti Bahini who encountered the ragtag Islamic militia recruits by Pakistan forces had softened the enemy’s position. No liberation war in the world was as decisive as in the case of Bangladesh’s struggle for independence.
Finally, the dark clouds cleared out when the 93,000 Pakistan forces and civilians when they surrendered at Dhaka on 16 December, was indeed a conclusive battle fought after the Second World War.
From Ashes to New Light
Triumphant Sheikh Mujib, after his release from Pakistan prison in January 1972 took charge of a war-ravaged country. He dealt with corruption, famine and rebuilding the country from ashes.
The country which was once dubbed as a “bottomless basket” by Dr Henry Kissinger, the United States National Security Advisor has turned around and made outstanding progress in economic emancipation and human development.
The daughter of Bangladesh independence hero Sheikh Hasina took the reign after three decades of autocratic regimes in 2009. The country was riddled with corruption and appalling human rights record, she began to make significant strides and pulled the image high.
Thus Bangladesh became the second-largest exporter of readymade garments. Also, exports pharmaceutical products to 147 countries and frozen fish and foods to Europe, North America, the Middle East and Australasia destinations. Employing 8 to 9 million workers and 70% are women employees who toil in the factories with poor facilities and unsafe conditions.
The last election to the parliament in December 2018, according to poll observers was not free, fair, credible and inclusive. The donor community and international organisations, despite strong reservations, had to agree to continue a relationship with Bangladesh as development partners, to reduce inroad to Chinese investment. Indeed Bangladesh made tremendous achievements in meeting the target of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and was also lauded by the Economist magazine.
Sheikh Hasina, thrice elected as Prime Minister and holding the office for 12 years has been globally appreciated for hosting more than a million Rohingya refugees, who fled the persecution in Myanmar by the military.
Unfulfilled promises
Her government’s image has been slightly dented, after a series of sectarian violence against Hindus in mid-October marred the secular fabric of the country’s much talked about freedom of religion and tolerance. In fact, the citizen groups blamed the ruling party’s ‘golden boy’ as the one who has fanned the violence raging from hate against the Hindus.
Prof Robaet Ferdous of Dhaka University, an outspoken defender of religious freedom, said, “It’s not a failure of the local administration, police or the ruling party to protect the Hindus, but I see the collapse of the society during a national crisis, which contradicts the legacy of the glorious liberation war in 1971 which promised to establish secularism, pluralism and freedom of expression in Bangladesh.”
The phenomenon of the majoritarian Sunni Muslim is to dominate the society, religious minorities and Adivasis (ethnic communities). Besides the Muslims, 12.73 million of the population are Hindus (8.5%), the rest are Buddhists, Christians and ethnic communities.
Rights groups claim that since 1972 none of the perpetrators responsible for sectarian violence against religious minorities, vandalism of temples, desecration of deities, arson and plunder, namely Hindus, Buddhists and Adivasis in the Chittagong Hill Tracts faced the music of the court. Apparently, the perpetrators enjoyed impunity from subsequent regimes.
The victims also never received justice or adequate compensation for the loss of properties and lives in the racial violence.
Draconian Cyber Security Law
For an unknown reason, on the eve of the 2018 general elections, the authority deliberately ignored the human rights groups, civil society and journalists’ bodies in enacting the draconian Digital Security Act (DSA), which throttled freedom of expression and escalated self-censorship.
Surprisingly, none of the Islamic evangelists who spew hate speech against women’s empowerment, elective democracy, abrogation of the constitution and suggest Quran and Sunnah should govern the state was ever booked under the controversial cyber security law.
Thousands of videos uploaded on YouTube, the hate-mongers demand to change the country’s flag with a crescent of the moon, and the national anthem, because it’s written by a ‘Hindu’ poet (Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore).
In three years, 1,516 cases filed under the repressive law have netted politicians (194), journalists (142), students (67) and teachers (35), according to the Centre for Governance Studies.
Spirit of the Liberation War
Bangladesh has transgressed from the liberation war pledge. In five decades, the lists of martyred intellectuals killed by marauding Pakistan military and their henchmen Al Badr, a death squad remains a far cry. The authority has yet to make a non-controversial registration of liberation war veterans (mostly Mukti Bahini).
Presently, Bangladesh has gradually slid from secularism, pluralism, elective democracy, gender equality, and reducing the disparity between the rich and poor, something that was imbued in the “Declaration of Independence”.
Saleem Samad is an independent journalist and columnist based in Bangladesh. A media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter: @saleemsamad
