By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

Jamaatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh Activists

Since the arrest of Dr Asadullah Ghalib (a university professor and one of the top leaders of the Jamaatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh (banned in Bangladesh), there have been sporadic bomb attacks with the latest a definite surprise.

From police interrogations, it appears that more than 1,500 Jamaatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh activists planted the bombs to pressurize the government to release Dr Ghalib and to warn both the ruling and the main secular opposition parties of the dire consequences of not establishing a Sharia-based government in the country. In addition the country has a high level of corruption, including human rights abuse.

The slow process of Islamization in Bangladesh needs to be probed to better understand why Bangladesh has become a nation of bomb makers.

Efforts by Pakistan’s rulers to forge a more or less homogenous Islamic nation did not sit well with the Bengali masses, who resented the West Pakistani tendency to see the East’s cultural affinity with Bengali Hindus as somehow un-Islamic. Some religious leaders from West Pakistan spoke of the need for “purifying” the Bengali Muslims. The state machinery encouraged the imposition of cultural uniformity based on Islam. Pakistan’s nation builders refused to recognize the cultural diversity among Muslims of different regions. The Bengalis felt that their rights and cultural identity were being eroded under the cloak of Islamic ideological nationalism. Moreover, Pakistan’s confrontation with India and the massive defense spending were hurting East Bengal’s economy.  The Bengali Muslim intelligentsia, which in 1947 had actively sought the creation of Pakistan, had started feeling a greater cultural affinity with Hindus in West Bengal than with the Muslims in West Pakistan.

For Bengalis, their exclusion from the military-bureaucratic power structure left politics as the only avenue for seeking socioeconomic justice. Since partition, popular Bengali politicians tended to be secular in outlook and often courted the support of East Bengali Hindus who constituted 20 percent of their province’s population. In the context of democratic politics, this made sense; if the pre-partition principle of separate electorates based on religion had been maintained after independence, East Bengal would have lost its majority within the new country.

The need to dilute East Pakistan’s majority led West Pakistan’s politicians in the early years of the new country to argue for retaining separate electorates.  In their pursuit of a fairer share in Pakistan’s power structure, the East Bengalis within a few years of Pakistan’s independence were moving in a direction opposite to the ideological paradigm created by the predominantly West Pakistani civil-military complex.  Robert Jackson explains that the trajectory of Bengali thinking was quite different from the thinking of Pakistan’s rulers:

Alongside their commitment to Islam they possessed a deep loyalty to their Bengali culture, and they were schooled in parliamentary traditions and the practice of the rule of law. In every way except their common faith, the attitudes of the East Bengalis differed from those of their fellow-Pakistanis in the western provinces. (Anwar H. Syed, “Z. A. Bhutto’s Self-Characterizations and Pakistani Political Culture,” Asian Survey, vol. 18, no. 12, December 1978, p. 1260.) The West Pakistani elite, and particularly the military, responded to Bengali political activism with charges of collusion with India. Almost every leading Bengalioolitical figure after partition was at one time or another accused of working in conjunction with India’s intelligence services. A. K. M. Fazlul Haq, the mover of the 1940 resolution effectively demanding the nation of Pakistan, was impugned. The Awami League’s founder, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, was barred from politics by Ayub Khan. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had also been accused by Ayub Khan’s government of conspiring “to separate East Pakistan through a revolt, which was to have been armed and financed by India.” (Burki, Pakistan under Bhutto: 1971-1977, p. 79.)

The so-called Agartala conspiracy case, which accused Mujibur Rahman of planning an insurgency with the help of India and Bengali officers in the Pakistani army, was dropped on the demand of opposition demonstrators during the last days of Ayub Khan. The decision by Yahya Khan to allow Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the Awami League to participate freely in the 1970 general election was predicated on the assumption istory. As far as national and international opinion was concerned, Yahya Khan was fulfilling the promise he had made upon assuming power:

I have no ambitions other than the creation of conditions conducive to the establishment of constitutional government. It is my firm belief that a sound, clean and honest administration is a prerequisite for sane and constructive political life and for the smooth transfer of power to the representatives of the people elected freely and impartially on the basis of adult franchise. It will be the task of these elected representatives to give the country a workable constitution and final solution to all other political, economic and social problems that have been agitating the minds of the people. (G. H. Khan, Memoirs, pp. 410-11.)

It was difficult to cancel the election results at this stage. Yahya Khan and the military could have withdrawn from the scene gracefully and allowed politics to take its course, but they decided to continue to manipulate the situation. In their minds they could not accept a constitutional arrangement that would have weakened central authority and diluted their ideological predisposition.

At the time, the mandate of the majority of Pakistanis-the Bengaliswas clear. They wanted a radically decentralized Pakistan and a drastic revision of the existing economic arrangements. Neither was acceptable to the West Pakistani establishment. Anticipating “positive” election results, Yahya Khan already had a draft constitution in mind, which would have increased provincial autonomy somewhat but nowhere near what was sought by the Awami League, which was now backed by an overwhelming majority of Bengali people. As for a fairer allocation of national resources, West Pakistani economists argued it would be disastrous for West Pakistan’s economic growth. The Punjabi deputy chairman of Pakistan’s Planning Commission said, “The West Pakistan growth could not be arrested to increase allocations for East Pakistan.” (Shafqat, Civil-Military Relations in Pakistan, p. 89.) Instead of incurring the cost of removing disparities at a faster rate, West Pakistan’s establishment preferred using force and risking the country’s division. Soon after the elections, a general visiting Dhaka told his military colleagues, “Don’t worry ... we will not allow these black bastards to rule over us.” (LaPorte, “Pakistan in 1972,” pp. 187-98.)

Six days after the election, the New York Times published an article titled “Vote Jolts Punjabis.” It contained a remark by a man on the street in Lahore that summarized Punjab’s sentiment: “The Punjab is finished ... We will be ruled by Sindh and Bengal. (“Conversation with Pres. Bhutto Wednesday Evening Dec.  22,” telegram 891, from U.S. embassy, Islamabad, to U.S. Department of State, December 23, 1971, in R.  Khan, ed., American Papers, p. 766) The Awami League leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was Bengali and the PPP leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was from Sindh.

In 1976, the first military despot also hacked the constitution of 1972 when he forced out one of the four preambles - the secularism. Now we know that a nation standing on three pillars is less stable that the one standing on four pillars. The preambles are akin to pillars on which a nation stands. The military man was instructed to take the article of secularism from Bangladesh Constitution.

The shadowy JMB, banned earlier by the Government for terrorizing people in certain pockets of northwestern Bangladesh under the leadership of one “Bangla Bhai”, drew the attention of New York Times correspondent, Eliza Griswold in early this year (“The Next Islamist Revolution?” January 23, 2005). Griswold is not the first Western reporter to draw such an alarmist picture of Bangladesh. In April 2002, Bertil Lintner wrote a similar piece in the Far Eastern Economic Review and the Wall Street Journal, that an “Islamic revolution” was in the offing in this poor, overpopulated and the most corrupt country in the world.

From police interrogations of more than a hundred arrested suspects of the latest bomb attacks, mostly connected with the JMB, it appears that more than 1500 JMB activists planted the bombs with a view to pressuring the Government to release their mentor, Dr Ghalib, and to warn both the ruling and the main secular opposition parties of the dire consequences of not establishing a Sharia-based government in the country.

The JMB is just the youth front of the global jihadi network of Al Mujahideen. There are scores of branches and offshoots of the parent organization in Bangladesh. They often take new names and banners to evade arrest and detection. The Harkatul Jihad, Hizbut Tawheed and Shahadat-i-Hikmah have been some of the offshoots since the mid-1990s.

It is widely known that several ruling party law makers and a minister are directly connected with some of the militants in northwestern Bangladesh. It is widely believed that Islamists of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait (and most probably Taliban sympathizers from Pakistan) have been indoctrinating, arming and financing the JMB for quite some time.  The sharp polarization of the polity between the so-called secular “pro-Independence” and the not-so-secular “Islam-loving” groups has been a contributing factor in the Islamization of the country. Both the “secular” group under Sheikh Hasina and the “Islam loving” group under prime minister Khaleda Zia have been championing the cause of Islam ever since the overthrow of military dictatorship in 1990. It seems, as if the two major parties, Hasina’s Awami League and Khaleda’s BNP, have been competing with each other to prove their Islamic credentials with a view to securing more votes from the God-fearing Bengali Muslims.

Meanwhile, President Ziaur Rahman had formally scrapped “Secularism” and “Socialism” from the Constitution. His successor, General Ershad further Islamized the polity by making Islam the “state religion” through an amendment of the Constitution in 1988. Three successive governments under Khaleda and Hasina since 1991 could neither restore “Secularism” as enshrined in the original Constitution, nor scrap the “state religion” amendment. Realizing the political importance of Islam in this backward and predominantly Muslim country, no major political party champions the cause of secularism by scrapping the “state religion” clause from the Constitution.  It seems, the biggest stumbling block in the way of secularism is the popular culture of the vast majority of the population. Since the immediate post-independence government of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1972-75), regarded by many as the founding father of the nation, miserably failed in delivering the promised poverty free, prosperous Bangladesh in a “secular” and “socialist” authoritarian democracy, most Bangladeshis have become suspicious of secularism and socialism.

And while democracy has remained elusive, the average Bangladeshi Muslim has remained loyal to traditional Islamic and authoritarian values. The changed circumstances of the post-Cold War era – the disappearance of the Soviet style socialism and the advent of market economy and Globalization – also brought Islam in the arena of global politics. This time it appeared not as an ally but as an adversary of the hegemonic West, mainly represented by the US and its allies.

Although Bangladesh emerged as a symbol of freedom and equality, unfortunately, it is only symbolic and historical as since its emergence in 1971, the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer, far faster than anywhere in South Asia. Around 50% of the population is very poor and more than 35% are practically unemployed. The tax evading rich, the absolutely corrupt politicians, bureaucracy and thousands of bank defaulters have accumulated more than $60 billion in “black money” since 1971.  While the rich and powerful get their children educated in English medium schools, at home and abroad, and are the most employable in the country, the fast disappearing middle class send their children to Bengali medium schools and the poor mostly send their children to Islamic seminaries called madrassas.  Besides the stream of the under-employed Bengali medium graduates are millions of unemployed/underemployed madrassa graduates.  No wonder, sections of these frustrated, angry young men have swelled the ranks of the Islamist militants, including the ultra-extremist JMB. The situation is very similar to what Algeria and Afghanistan have been experiencing, the class war between the Western (secular) and vernacular (Islamic) elites.  Islamists’ anger and frustration are reflected in their demand for the introduction of the Sharia law, which has several dimensions. Firstly, the demand smacks of their desire to go back to the utopian Islamic past in the 7th century, presumed to be an era of peace, justice, prosperity and tolerance. There is no denying that thousands of ultra-extremist Islamists do exist in Bangladesh along with millions of frustrated youths, some resigned to their miserable fate while others engaged in criminal activities. However, the mere existence of Islamist terrorists in a country does not necessarily lead to an Islamic Revolution. One may apply Lenin’s classic theory of revolution in rejecting the over-simplified, alarmist views of Lintner, Griswold and others, with regard to their “impending Islamic Revolution” theses.  However, what is possible and most likely is the recurrence of more attacks in the future. Since one single factor did not lead to these attacks overnight, there is no single solution to the problem either.  Nothing would be more futile than trying to find out a cultural solution of terrorism, bypassing the growing economic disparity between the rich and powerful (corrupt and insensitive) and the weak and poor of Bangladesh.

Economically marginalized and politically disenfranchised poor and lower-middle classes must be given better sustenance, including education and healthcare, dignity and respect before someone tries to find out a solution of terrorism. The inverted pyramid of solution, built by liberal-democrat politicians and intellectuals, both within and outside Bangladesh, must be reversed in the following order:

economic-social-political-cultural or religious, not the other way round.

Those who expect normal behavior from sections of the indoctrinated terrorists, must isolate them from the vast majority of the not yet infested hoi polloi, not by resorting to counter-terrorist measures, which are effective in the short-run, but by establishing real democracy ensuring real participation by the vast majority. This, however, does not mean that democracy would only guarantee people’s right to elect their representatives, but they must have the sense of belonging to the state by active participation in the governance. This would eventually narrow the gap between the rich and poor.

In the short-run, unless the “liberal democratic” parties and most importantly, the civil society come forward in unison to fight extremism instead of calling names and vilifying each other as “terrorists and murderers”, there is no remedy against terrorism.  Only lip service to secularism and the “holier than thou” attitude of almost all the political leaders of the country will not de-terrorize the already terrorized polity. Since terrorism is a global factor, its symptoms cannot be eliminated in Bangladesh unless there is a global attempt to contain it.  In sum, we should always keep in mind that terrorism is all about money-power-respect. When individuals or groups, who do not believe in resigning to their miserable fate by turning fatalist either by joining devotional religious groups – Sufi, mystic orders – or, by taking drugs and other intoxicants as modes of escaping, resort to violence.

Small scale violence at local level, not in the name of any ideology – religion or liberation of motherland, Palestine, Kashmir or Chechnya – is called robbery or extortion. When there is an ideology behind such violence we call it “terrorism”. In short, terrorism is a reaction to exploitation, oppression, expropriation and humiliation of people not strong enough to retaliate openly.

Fortunately for Bangladesh, the bulk of the exploited/expropriated/disempowered people have still remained fatalist either by becoming religious – by joining one of the scores of Sufi orders or the pacifist Tableeghi Jamaat – or, by just remaining passive/drug addict to escape the suffering and pain, waiting for death or the paradise to get their respective nirvana. If nothing positive is done to reverse the table, more “fire works” are in the offing. Brace yourself Bangladesh for a long bumpy ride, if not a disastrous crash landing.  To Understand the Background .

In the military’s view, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was an Indian-backed secessionist, although calling for a new constitutional arrangement during the course of elections,,for a constituent assembly could hardly be called secessionism. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman declared immediately after the elections that he would take into account West Pakistani views while writing the new constitution, but that the fundamentals of the constitution would have to be secular and confederal, in accordance with the Awami League’s manifesto, which also called for changing the name of East Pakistan to Bangladesh. By participating in the national elections, and winning them, the League had acquired for itself the right to alter the terms of East Bengal’s inclusion in Pakistan.

Secession is usually the demand of a minority against a majority, whereas the Bengalis constituted the majority within a united Pakistan. Parallels have sometimes been drawn by Pakistani generals with the use of force in the U.S. Civil War and in other countries to prevent secession. The case of East Pakistan-Bangladesh is unique because a majority arrived at through a free election was being denied the right to include its preferences in the country’s constitution. The military’s plans for a democratic facade for military rule had gone awry, and war resulted from the desire of the military and its intelligence services to remain preeminent.

The generals also employed the Islamic parties against both Bhutto and Mujib in an effort to impose their own constitution and deny elected representatives the free hand Yahya Khan had originally promised. The process of inflaming religious sentiment started soon after the election. In January, the official media played up the publication of the Turkish Art of Love, a book apparently written by a Jewish author of Indian nationality, which was alleged to desecrate the prophet of Islam. Violent demonstrations against the book’s publication were orchestrated by religious groups  giving them an opportunity to mobilize cadres that might have been demoralized by the election result. (“Secretary’s Conversation with Bhutto,” telegram 945 from U.S. secretary of state to U.S.  embassy, December 18, 1971, in R. Khan, ed., American Papers, p. 774.)

The author’s ethnicity projected a link between India and an attack on Islam. Because Pakistan’s intelligence services have been known to orchestrate religious demonstrations unrelated to the political issues of the day-to help religious groups flex their muscles as well as to keep religious sentiment within the country on the boil-it has been suggested that during the campaign polarizing Islamists against secularists and socialists, agents provocateurs resorted to shouting slogans against Islam to fire up popular emotion

The riots against the book allegedly desecrating Prophet Muhammad laid the foundation for the return of the Islamists to center stage at a time when political bargaining involving the military regime, the PPP, and the Awami League occupied the nation’s attention.  Yahya Khan on March 1 announced the indefinite postponement of the National Assembly session. The Awami League responded by calling for civil disobedience. For the next several days, the military virtually lost control of East Pakistan to Awami League mobs. Bangladesh flags replaced the Pakistani standard in the province. These developments are described by Bangladeshi scholar Talukder Maniruzzaman:

Sheikh Mujib called for a “non-violent, non-cooperation movement” against the central government of Pakistan for an indefinite period. In an impressive display of unity all government employees (including the judges of the High Court) absented themselves from their offices and promised to continue to do so for as long a period as Mujib chose. At this point Mujib’s residence became the new Secretariat of Bangladesh. principles of the constitution before he would agree to attend an assembly meeting.

In view of the subsequent civil war and Pakistan’s breakup, the circumstances of the postponement of the elected assembly’s first session have been the subject of considerable debate in Pakistan. The military’s apologists as well as Bhutto’s opponents blame Bhutto for adopting an undemocratic attitude when he refused to acknowledge the rights of the Bengali majority party. (“GOP Willingness to Grant U.S. Base Rights,” telegram 505 from U.S. embassy, Islamabad, to U.S.  Department of State, ibid., p. 797.) Bhutto’s associates and some impartial observers, however, blame the military leadership. The overwhelming sentiment among the West Pakistani elite against letting the Bengalis dominate Pakistan made it more likely that Bhutto and the military acted in concert, in the interest of West Pakistan as they perceived it. (“President Bhutto’s Proposals for Closer Military Collaboration,” memo randum from U.S. secretary of state for the president, March 17,1972, ibid., p. 811.)

Later, when the country broke up amid humiliating circumstances, each side had to point the finger at the other for playing the main role in that humiliation. The role of India in supporting the Bengalis is also highlighted in Pakistan’s accounts of the events. Although there is no doubt that India encouraged Bengali nationalism and supported the creation of an independent Bangladesh with arms once civil war started, the slide into civil war in erstwhile East Pakistan was primarily the result of a Pakistani internal power play.

The military liked neither Bhutto nor Mujib, the two leaders with the most votes and the highest number of seats in the newly elected National Assembly. The postelection environment required an accommodation on the part of the generals with someone other than the “Islamloving parties” that had badly lost in the elections. Unlike Mujib, who had vowed to make Pakistan secular, Bhutto’s PPP declared its creed to be “Islam, socialism, and democracy.” Bhutto had served as foreign minister under Ayub Khan, had promised a “thousand-year war” with India, and maintained social ties with several generals. Some generals had even favored him privately out of fear of religious conservatism. (Simla Agreement, July 2,1972, available at www.kashmir-information.com/ LegalDocs/SimlaAgreement.html.)

 

Turkish Art of Love.

The PPP’s founding documents contained a reference to jihad against India.” The party’s public anti-Americanism disturbed the pro-U.S. generals, but that was not enough to disqualify Bhutto in the generals’ eyes as a countervailing force against East Bengali populism. Yahya Khan and his closest colleagues decided to pit Bhutto against Mujib and retain power for themselves. he generals also employed the Islamic parties against both Bhutto and Mujib in an effort to impose their own constitution and deny elected representatives the free hand Yahya Khan had originally promised. The process of inflaming religious sentiment started soon after the election.  In January, the official media played up the publication of the Turkish Art of Love, a book apparently written by a Jewish author of Indian nationality, which was alleged to desecrate the prophet of Islam. Violent demonstrations against the book’s publication were orchestrated by relligious groups, giving them an opportunity to mobilize cadres that might have been demoralized by the election result. Secretary’s Conversation with Bhutto,” telegram 945 from U.S. secretary of state to U.S. embassy, December 18, 1971, in R. Khan, ed., American Papers, p. 774.)

The author’s ethnicity projected a link between India and an attack on Islam. Because Pakistan’s intelligence services have been known to orchestrate religious demonstrations unrelated to the political issues of the day-to help religious groups flex their muscles as well as to keep religious sentiment within the country on the boil-it has been suggested that during; the campaign polarizing Islamists against secularists and socialists, agents provocateurs resorted to shouting slogans against Islam to fire up popular emotion The riots against the book allegedly desecrating Prophet Muhammad laid the foundation for the return of the Islamists to center stage at a time when political bargaining involving the military regime, the PPP, and the Awami League occupied the nation’s attention.

Yahya Khan on March 1 announced the indefinite postponement of the National Assembly session. The Awami League responded by calling for civil disobedience. For the next several days, the military virtually lost control of East Pakistan to Awami League mobs. Bangladesh flags replaced the Pakistani standard in the province. These developments are described by Bangladeshi scholar Talukder Maniruzzaman:

Sheikh Mujib called for a “non-violent, non-cooperation, movement” against the central government of Pakistan for an indefinite period. In an impressive display of unity all government employees (including the judges of the High Court) absented themselves from their offices and promised to continue to do so for as long a period as Mujib chose. At this point Mujib’s residence became the new Secretariat of Bangladesh.

The civil as well as the military officers who had gathered around Yahya Khan goaded him to take action.  In tunilateral declaration of independence for Bangladesh. The military reheir opinion the Awami League did not enjoy the support of the majority of the population of East Pakistan and the people did not have the stamina for prolonged opposition. Therefore, the upsurge of Bengali nationalism and their demands would cool down in a few days after military action.  He was assured that short and harsh action taken would bring the situation under control and the politicians would be cowed down. The killing of a few thousand would not be a high price for keeping the country together. Handing over of power to Mujibur Rahman, a proved traitor would be a blunder and history would never forgive Yahya Khan for this. This advice, unfortunately, coincided with Yahya Khan’s own ideas.  He believed, “show them the teeth and they will be all right. (The generals also employed the Islamic parties against both Bhutto and Mujib in an effort to impose their own constitution and deny elected representatives the free hand Yahya Khan had originally promised. The process of inflaming religious sentiment started soon after the election.  In January, the official media played up the publication of the Turkish Art of Love, a book apparently written by a Jewish author of Indian nationality, which was alleged to desecrate the prophet of Islam. Violent demonstrations against the book’s publication were orchestrated by religious groups, giving them an opportunity to mobilize cadres that might have been demoralized by the election result. The author’s ethnicity projected a link between India and an attack on Islam. Because Pakistan’s intelligence services have been known to orchestrate relgious demonstrations unrelated to the political issues of the day-to help religious groups flex their muscles as well as to keep religious sentiment within the country on the boil-it has been suggested that during the campaign polarizing Islamists against secularists and socialists, agents provocateurs resorted to shouting slogans against Islam to fire up popular emotion .

The riots against the book allegedly desecrating Prophet Muhammad laid the foundation for the return of the Islamists to center stage at a time when political bargaining involving the military regime, the PPP, and the Awami League occupied the nation’s attention.

Yahya Khan on March 1 announced the indefinite postponement of the National Assembly session. The Awami League responded by calling for civil disobedience. For the next several days, the military virtually lost control of East Pakistan to Awami League mobs. Bangladesh flags replaced the Pakistani standard in the province. These developments are described by Bangladeshi scholar Talukder Maniruzzaman:

Sheikh Mujib called for a “non-violent, non-cooperation movement” against the central government of Pakistan for an indefinite period. In an impressive display of unity all government employees (including the judges of the High Court) absented themselves from their offices and promised to continue to do so for as long a period as Mujib chose. At this point Mujib’s residence became the new Secretariat of Bangladesh.

The decision to use force against the Bengali people was not supported by those West Pakistani military officers who had served in the eastern wing for any length of time and therefore knew the local mood. The military governor of East Pakistan, Admiral S. M.  Ahsan, and the military commander of East Pakistan, Lieutenant General Sahibzada Yaqub Khan, both argued that the political situation would not change with military measures. Yaqub Khan explained later that Yahya Khan:
... thought a “whiff of the grapeshot” would do the trick and the reimposition of the rigors of martial law would create no problems ... He remained adamant regarding postponement [of the National Assembly session] unless Mujib could be persuaded to make concessions on the Six Points to enable Bhutto and other West Pakistan leaders to attend the assembly session. (Zaheer, Separation of East Pakistan, p. 141.)

unilateral declaration of independence for Bangladesh. The military regime organized three-way negotiations, among the Awami League, the PPP, and the government, with no settlement. In the course of the negotiations, military strength in East Pakistan was bolstered and plans drawn up to deal with the secessionist threat:

The civil as well as the military officers who had gathered around Yahya Khan goaded him to take action.  In their opinion the Awami League did not enjoy the support of the majority of the population of East Pakistan and the people did not have the stamina for prolonged opposition. Therefore, the upsurge of Bengali nationalism and their demands would cool down in a few days after military action. He was assured that short and harsh action taken would bring the situation under control and the politicians would be cowed down. The killing of a few thousand would not be a high price for keeping the country together. Handing over of power to Mujibur Rahman, a proved traitor would be a blunder and history would never forgive Yahya Khan for this. This advice, unfortunately, coincided with Yahya Khan’s own ideas. He believed, “show them the teeth and they will be all right. (See LaPorte, “Pakistan in 1971,” p. 106, note 40.)

The decision to use force against the Bengali people was not supported by those West Pakistani military officers who had served in the eastern wing for any length of time and therefore knew the local mood. The military governor of East Pakistan, Admiral S. M.  Ahsan, and the military commander of East Pakistan, Lieutenant General Sahibzada Yaqub Khan, both argued that the political situation would not change with military measures. Yaqub Khan explained later that Yahya Khan:
... thought a “whiff of the grapeshot” would do the trick and the reimposition of the rigors of martial law would create no problems ... He remained adamant regarding postponement [of the National Assembly session] unless Mujib could be persuaded to make concessions on the Six Points to enable Bhutto and other West Pakistan leaders to attend the assembly session. (Zaheer, Separation of East Pakistan, p.  141.)

The one-sided contest between slogans and guns, however, did not remain so for long. Many Bengali officers and soldiers of the Pakistan army deserted their units before they were disarmed. They, along with a large number of Awami League activists and East Bengali Hindus, went across to India and with Indian assistance formed the Mukti Bahini (emancipation army). India described the Pakistani military action as genocide of the Bengali people and used the presence of large numbers of Bengali refugees in India as the basis for involvement in internal developments in East Pakistan. Pakistan’s military had succeeded in transforming the political debate about Pakistan’s future constitution into a civil war as well as another contest between Islamic Pakistan and Hindu 4 India. Admiral Ahsan (the military governor who conducted the elections and resigned on the eve of military action) admitted to U.S. officials later that “[p]rior to March at least, separation was not Mujib’s intention” and “India’s position has despite public outcry been relatively moderate and its hands before the events in March were relatively clean.
The Pakistani military aimed its operation against Awami League supporters, which meant an overwhelming majority of East Pakistan’s population in view of the League’s massive support base. Every account of that period speaks of the Pakistan army’s brutality in dealing with people it labeled secessionists, traitors, and Hindu agents. In its editorial on March 31, almost a week after the beginning of the military crackdown, the New York Times pointed out that the brutality in dealing with the Bengali majority seeking a different basis for remaining part of Pakistan was likely to strengthen the secessionist argument: Ahsan and Yaqub Khan both resigned and a new military commander, Lieutenant General Tikka Khan, was brought in to enforce national unity. The attitude of the army was summed up by the general officer commanding, Major General Khadim Hussain Raja, who told an Awami League sympathizer within the hearing of fellow officers: “I will muster all I can-tanks, artillery and machine guns-to kill all the traitors and, if necessary, raze Dacca to the ground. There will be no one to rule; there will be nothing to rule. (Salik, Witness to Surrender, p. 53.)

The military crackdown, codenamed Operation Searchlight, began on the night of March 25,1971. The operation’s basis for planning clearly stated:

A. L. [Awami League] action and reactions to be treated as rebellion and those who support [the League] or defy M. L. [Martial Law] action be dealt with as hostile elements ... As A. L. has widespread support even amongst E. P. [East Pakistani] elements in the Army the operation has to be launched with great cunningness, surprise, deception and speed combined with shock action.

Troops moved with full force against Awami League supporters, students at Dhaka University, and Bengali Hindus. Sheikh Mujibur Rahxnan was arrested and transferred to West Pakistan. Foreign journalists were rounded up and expelled from the province to prevent them from seing the slaughter. Eyewitness accounts spoke of soldiers blowing up newspaper offices and several rooms in the university hostel shouting “Allah Akbar” (God is great)-the Muslim battle cry in the face of enemies of Islam. There is no evidence of the Awami League at this point having any military capability. Siddiq Salik, who worked as an officer in the Pakistan army’s public relations directorate and was present in Dacca cantonment throughout the military operation, offers the following account of the night of March 25, 1971:

The first column from the cantonment met resistance at Farm Gate, about one kilometer from the cantonment.  The column was halted by a huge tree trunk felled across the road. The side gaps were covered with the hulks of old cars and a disabled steam-roller. On the city side of the barricade stood several hundred Awami Leaguers shouting Joi Bangla slogans. I heard their spirited shouts while standing on the verandah of General Tikka’s headquarters. Soon some rifle shots mingled with the Joi Bangla slogans. A little later a burst of fire from an automatic weapon shrilled through the air. Thereafter it was a mixed affair of firing and fiery slogans, punctuated with the occasional chatter of a light machine gun. Fifteen minutes later the noise began to subside and the slogans started dying down. Apparently, the weapons had triumphed. (“Admiral Ahsan on Events in East Pakistan,” telegram 165 from U.S. embassy, Islamabad, to U.S. Department of State, August 17,1971, in R.  Khan, ed., American Papers, p. 643.)

The one-sided contest between slogans and guns, however, did not remain so for long. Many Bengali officers and soldiers of the Pakistan army deserted their units before they were disarmed. They, along with a large number of Awami League activists and East Bengali Hindus, went across to India and with Indian assistance formed the Mukti Bahini (emancipation army). India described the Pakistani military action as genocide of the Bengali people and used the presence of large numbers of Bengali refugees in India as the basis for involvement in internal developments in East Pakistan. Pakistan’s military had succeeded in transforming the political debate about Pakistan’s future constitution into a civil war as well as another contest between Islamic Pakistan and Hindu India. Admiral Ahsan (the military governor who conducted the elections and resigned on the eve of military action) admitted to U.S. officials later that “[p]rior to March at least, separation was not Mujib’s intention” and “India’s position has despite public outcry been relatively moderate and its hands before the events in March were relatively clean.
The Pakistani military aimed its operation against Awami League supporters, which meant an overwhelming majority of East Pakistan’s population in view of the League’s massive support base. Every account of that period speaks of the Pakistan army’s brutality in dealing with people it labeled secessionists, traitors, and Hindu agents. In its editorial on March 31, almost a week after the beginning of the military crackdown, the New York Times pointed out that the brutality in dealing with the Bengali majority seeking a different basis for remaining part of Pakistan was likely to strengthen the secessionist argument: Acting “in the name of God and a united Pakistan,” forces of the West Pakistan-dominated military government have dishonored both by their ruthless crackdown on the Bengali majority ... Any appearance of “unity” achieved by vicious military attacks on unarmed civilians ... cannot ... have real meaning or enduring effect. The brutality of the Western troops toward their “Moslem brothers” in the east tends only to confirm the “Argument of the outright secessionists. (49. Robert LaPorte Jr., “Pakistan in 1971: The Disintegration of a Nation,” Asian Survey, vol. 12, no. 2 (February 1972), p. 102, footnote 24.)

Soon the divide was less between Awami League supporters and the government and more between East and West Pakistan.Controversy continues over the number of civilian casualties resulting from the Pakistan military action. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman subsequently put the number at three million and General Tikka Khan admitted to thirty-four thousand Bengalis’killed.( Matinuddin, Tragedy of Errors, p.  260.) In an interview more, than two decades later, Major General Farman Ali Khan, who was head of civil affairs in the martial law administration of East Pakistan, acknowledged that the Pakistan army might have killed as many as fifty thousand Bengalis. (Muntassir Mamoon, The Vanquished Generals and the Liberation War of Bangladesh (Dhaka: Somoy Prokashon, 2000), p. 89.)

Major General Farman Ali Khan also admitted to a U.S.  official, off-the-record, that as many as six million refugees may have gong to India and that the army wanted to clear East Bengal of all Hindus. (Deputy administrator, U.S. Agency for International Development, memorandum, November 5, 1971, in R.  Khan, ed., American Papers, p. 705.)

The Mukti Bahini engaged in its own carnage, targeting non-Bengali civilians, although this appears to have been in retaliation for actions by the Pakistan military. In August, when the Yahya Khan regime published its White Paper on the Crisis in East Pakistan, it effectively acknowledged that the Bengali atrocities followed rather than instigated the violence by the Pakistani military. The white paper gave a chronological account of major events before and after the military crackdown. The Bengali attacks against non-Bengalis apparently took place after the Pakistani military operation began on March 25. (Siddiqi, Military in Pakistan, pp. 208-9.)

A Pakistani general commented that “elements of the Pakistan army went berserk and took their revenge by spraying bullets at random, setting whole villages on fire and committing wanton acts of murder. (Matinuddin, Tragedy of Errors, p. 260.)

A large number of Bengalis were also killed as they tried to cross into India as refugees.  The commander of Pakistan’s forces in East Pakistan, General Tikka Khan, was soon nicknamed “Butcher of Bengal” in the international media although he was acting neither alone nor without orders. Most of the leading figures in the Pakistan military during that period have written memoirs blaming each-other for cowardice, lack of strategic thinking, or excessive use of force. Lieutenant General A. A. K. Niazi, who took over command from Tikka Khan in April 1971, described the initial military operation:

On the night between 25/26 March 1971, General Tikka struck. Peaceful night was turned into a time of wailing, crying, and burning. General Tikka let loose everything at his disposal as if raiding an enemy, not dealing with his own misguided and misled people. The military action was a display of stark cruelty more merciless than the massacres at Bukhara and Baghdad by Chengiz Khan and Halaku Khan ... General Tikka ...  resorted to the killing of civilians and a scorched earth policy. His orders to his troops were: “I want the land and not the people. .. Major General Farman had written in his table diary, “Green land of East Pakistan will be painted red.” It was painted red by Bengali blood. Niazi, Betrayal of East Pakistan, pp.  45-46. In his memoir, Major General Farman Ali Khan explained that he had just noted down a phrase from the speech of a left-wing leader reported to him over the telephone; see F. A. Khan, How Pakistan Got Divided, pp. 187-88. The Hamoodur Rehman Commission, established to inquire into the circumstances of the separation of East Pakistan, absolved Farman Ali Khan of any wrongdoing and accepted his version of events regarding this phrase.

To this day most Pakistani generals remain unconvinced that their attitudes toward the Bengali population of their country were wrong, and they offer various explanations for the military’s excessive violence against the Bengalis. Lieutenant General Gul Hassan Khan, who was chief of general staff at the time and later became commander in chief, tried to explain General Tikka Khan’s actions in terms of the army’s reaction to insults by the Awami League while it effectively controlled East Pakistan during the phase of civil disobedience:

Prior to the take-over by General Tikka Khan, our troops had been confined to cantonments. Their movement was limited, owing to the insults and abuse heaped upon them and at times they were subjected to attacks by the Awami League followers. To make matters worse, their ration of fresh supplies was discontinued by Bengali contractors and their electricity and water supplies were cut off. This was a totally dismal picture. It was natural that when Army action was ordered the troops could not possibly forget the indignities they were subjected to by the Awami League minions. (Lieutenant General Gul Hassan Khan, Memoirs (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 275-76.)

That the army may have wanted to teach the Bengalis a lesson for not treating it well is confirmed by the conversation between General Yahya Khan and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman during one of their last meetings.  According to Dr. Kamal Hosain, then a close associate of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and later foreign minister of Bangladesh, Yahya, Khan received the Awami League leaders with a large glass of whisky in hand and said, “Sheikh Mujib, tell your boys they cannot treat the army with disrespect. We must all work for the glory of Islam and the integrity of Pakistan together.” Dr.  Hosain was struck by the irony of the invoking of Islam with whisky in hand, given Islam’s prohibition of alcohol . But Yahya Khan was simply identifying the military leadership’s priorities centered on a Pakistani nation, held together in the name of Islam by a military that civilians were not allowed to question even when the civilians had received an overwhelming mandate in a general election. General Tikka Khan was in no way solely responsible for the savagery, and it did not stop after he relinquished command.

Yahya Khan addressed the nation the day after the beginning of the military operation. He accused Sheikh Mujibur Rahman of treason, announced the banning of the Awami League, and imposed press censdrship. Most West Pakistanis, especially the Islam-loving parties, supported his decision. Junior officers of the army expressed satisfaction that “the Bengalis have been sorted out well and proper-at least for a generation. (Salik, Witness to Surrender, p. 78.)

During meetings with military officers in cantonments, Yahya Khan was consistently told by his fellow officers that he “should not concede too much to the politicians. (Lieutenant General S. G. M. M.  Peerzada, quoted in Zaheer, Separation of East Pakistan, p. 158.) Those officers posted in the cantonments in East Pakistan showed no sign of remorse over the murder and mayhem, and their lives were characterized by “evening and latenight parties. (Zaheer, Separation of East Pakistan, p. 174. H)

Only a handful of soldiers suffered from the strain of fighting fellow Muslims and erstwhile Pakistanis.  The behavior of individual officers reflected the corporate thinking of the army at the time, which was the final solution of Bengali nationalism.” Just as Islamic sentiment had characterized Pakistan’s past military confrontations, the war against the Bengali people was also characterized as a war for Pakistan’s Islamic identity.

The Pakistani military projected the conflict in East Pakistan as a counterinsurgency drive, and at home the troops were presented as mujahideen fighting the enemies of Islam. Propaganda emanating from West Pakistan also focused on the Hindu influence and the actions of anti-Muslim forces as responsible for the crisis in the eastern wing. Every statement by India in favor of the Bengalis was cited as evidence of how the Awami League had been an instrument of Indian influence to begin with. India’s intervention had certainly aggravated the situation, but it was hardly the principal cause of the goings-on in East Pakistan.  West Pakistani opinion, however, was being shaped almost exclusively by the government and the Islamist elements that dominated the media.  The impact of the massive propaganda campaign against secularism as kufr and anti-Islam was fresh in the minds of most people. Although they had ignored that campaign at the time of elections, some of its messages resonated with them during the course of a distant war. Moreover, the popular political force in West Pakistan, the PPP, was unwilling to stand up to the military over atrocities in East Pakistan. Bhutto wanted to retain good relations with the ruling generals so that his chances of coming to power in the western wing were not jeopardized. He could not ignore the possibility that after eliminating political opposition in the eastern wing, the military could easily use force against West Pakistan’s elected leadership. For that reason alone, he thought it prudent not to go beyond asking for only a share in political power regardless of his election victory.

When he took over from Tikka Khan, General Niazi cast himself in the mold of a religious zealot:

During his talks to the troops [Niazi] quoted copiously from the Quran, the Sunnah [traditions of Prophet Muhammad] and the history of Islam. [He would say] “The way of life offered by the Quran is known as Islam-another word for peace. Essentially Islam preaches peace under normal circumstances. But being a realistic way of life it realizes that constant maintenance of peace depends on the ability to repel force.”... [He also said,] “As Muslims we have always fought against an enemy who is numerically and materially superior. The enemy never deterred us. It was the spirit of jihad and dedication to Islam that the strongest adversaries were mauled and defeated by a handful of Muslims. The battles of Uhad, Badar, Khyber and Damascus are the proof of what the Muslims could do”... Niazi’s lectures gave a religious tinge to the military operations in East Pakistan ... [He also said,] “We have an enemy whose goal and ambition is the disintegration of Pakistan.

In addition to motivating the troops with religious frenzy, the regime gave the Jamaat-e-Islami, the various factions of the Muslim League, the Nizam-e-Islam Party, and the Jamiat Ulema Pakistan-the parties that had lost the election to the Awami League-a semiofficial role. Members of these parties formed peace committees throughout Pakistan’s eastern wing, at district and even village levels. These parties functioned as the intelligence network of the Pakistan ‘army, especially after the Mukti Bahini launched its guerrilla war against Pakistani force. (Maniruzzaman, Bangladesh Revolution, p. 101.)

Once a semblance of order had been restored in Dhaka and other major cities, the military regime focused on developing a new political strategy. It decided to disqualify a large number of Awami League members of the national and provincial assemblies on grounds that they had collaborated with the enemy or challenged the integrity of Pakistan. Lists for disqualification were prepared by the IB and ISI. Of 160 Awami League members of the National Assembly, 72 were disqualified, leaving the party with only 86 seats in the 313-seat assembly! In the East Pakistan provincial assembly, 191 out of 288 Awami League representatives were disqualified from membership, leaving the party with a minority of 95 seats out of 300.

The vacant seats were to be filled theoretically by special elections, but the military arranged for six Islamist and Islam-loving parties to form an alliance called the United Coalition Party. A special cell headed by Major General Farman Ali Khan then proceeded to allot the vacant seats to different parties, ensuring that the Islamist candidates would be elected unopposed. This apportionment of seats would have given six Islam-loving parties (the three factions of the Muslim League, the Pakistan Democratic Party, Nizam-e-Islam Party, and the Jamaat-e-Islami) 121 seats in the National Assembly, making their inclusion in a future coalition government necessary. The PPP was offered five seats, primarily to prevent it from objecting to this distribution of spoils, although it had not fielded a single candidate from East Pakistan in the general election. The largest share of unopposed seats-fifty-was allocated for the Jamaat-e-Islami, which became a major force in Parliament with fifty-four seats notwithstanding its poor electoral performance and small share of votes barely a few months earlier. (For a detailed discussion of the by-election process, see Zaheer, Separation of East Pakistan, pp. 337-42 and 500-501, notes 25-28.

After fragmenting the elected structure, Yahya Khan proceeded to finalize a constitution for the country with the help of a committee of experts. Constitution writing was no longer to be entrusted to the elected National Assembly. In addition to retaining the offices of president, supreme commander, and commander in chief of the army, Yahya Khan proposed to retain martial law powers. The future constitution gave the military president “special responsibilities for the preservation of the integrity and ideology of Pakistan and for the protection of fundamental rights. (Zaheer, Separation of East Pakistan, p. 342.)

Yahya Khan reportedly believed that “the country needs a ‘Turkish-type’ constitution under which [the] commander in chief of the armed forces would be president and effective leader of the country. (Report of conversation with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, telegram 730 from U.S. consulate, Karachi, to U.S. Department of State, July 6,1971, in R. Khan, ed., American Papers, p. 619.)

The generals had decided to write into the constitution their role as defenders of Pakistan’s ideology.

In addition to altering the makeup of the national and provincial assemblies through an arbitrary reallocation of seats won by the Awami League, the military regime also recruited the Islamists to aid in its counterinsurgency effort. India had closed its airspace to Pakistani planes even before the military crackdown against the Bengalis, making it difficult to airlift large numbers of troops from West Pakistan to East Pakistan. At the beginning of the military operation, there were only twelve thousand West Pakistani soldiers in the eastern wing. (Matinuddin, Tragedy of Errors, p. 247.)

Eighteen thousand Bengali troops of the Pakistan army either had been disarmed or had deserted. Additional troops had to be flown in, via Sri Lanka, raising troop strength to thirty-four thousand. (Niazi, Betrayal of East Pakistan, p. 52.) The Pakistan army needed the bulk of its forces in West Pakistan, however, because Pakistan’s strategic doctrine at the time maintained that “the defense of East Pakistan lay in the West,” meaning that any Indian threat against the eastern wing would have required a Pakistani counterattack from West Pakistan. Logistic difficulties combined with strategic doctrine resulted in a massively outnumbered Pakistan army facing a restive population of some sixty million, thousands of whom had by now taken up arms with Indian training and assistance.

The army decided to raise a razakaar (volunteer) force of one hundred thousand from the civilian non-Bengalis settled in East Pakistan and the pro-Pakistan Islamist groups. The Jamaat-e-Islami and especially its student wing, the Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba (IJT), joined the military’s effort in May 1971 to launch two paramilitary counterinsurgency units. The IJT provided a large number of recruits. (Musa Khan Jalalzai, Sectarianism and Politico-Religious Terrorism in Pakistan (Lahore: Tarteeb Publishers, 1993), p. 258.)

By September, a force of fifty thousand razakaars had been raised. Secular West Pakistani politicians complained about “an army of Jamaat-e-Islami nominees. (Salik, Witness to Surrender, p. 105.) The two special brigades of Islamist cadres were named Al-Shams (the sun, in Arabic) and AI-Badr (the moon).  The names were significant for their symbolic value.  Islam’s first battle, under Prophet Muhammad, had been the Battle of Badr, and these paramilitary brigades saw themselves as the sun and the crescent of Islamic revival in South Asia. General Niazi, commander of Pakistan’s eastern command, later explained the role of the razakaars:

A separate Razakaars Directorate was established ...  Two separate wings called Al-Badr and Al-Shams were organized. Well educated and properly motivated students from the schools and madrasas were put in Al-Badr wing, where they were trained to undertake “Specialized Operations,” while the remainder were grouped together under Al-Shams, which was responsible for the protection of bridges, vital points and other areas.

The Razakaars were mostly employed in areas where army elements were around to control and utilize them ...  This force was useful where available, particularly in the areas where the rightist parties were in strength and had sufficient local influence. (Niazi, Betrayal of East Pakistan, p. 78.)
Bangladeshi scholars accused the Al-Badr and Al-Shams militias of being fanatical. They allegedly acted as the Pakistan army’s death squads and “exterminate [ed] leading left wing professors, journalists, littérateurs, and even doctors.Al-Badr reportedly killed “10 professors of Dacca University, five leading journalists (including the BBC correspondent), two littérateurs and 26 doctors in Dacca alone. ( “White Paper on Performance of the Bhutto Regime,” vol. 3 (Islamabad:
Government of Pakistan, 1977), p. 66. )

Numerous supporters of the Jamaat-e-Islami and Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba lost their lives during clashes with Mukti Bahini. These numbers increased significantly when Bengali nationalists settled scores after the creation of Bangladesh (See Bhutto, If I Am Assassinated.)

The regime was not helped by the political maneuvers, and the military situation on the ground remained precarious for Pakistani forces. India had become fully involved in supporting the Bengali resistance, and international sympathy for the Bengali people was widespread. One of India’s concerns was the radicalization of its own West Bengal state and its northeastern region, which had recently witnessed communist militancy. If Bengali refugees from Pakistan were unable to return to their homes, they might end up as recruits in the communist Naxalite insurgency.  Within East Pakistan there was stalemate. The Pakistan army was unable to eliminate the guerrillas, and the Mukti Bahini on its own lacked the firepower to force a Pakistani withdrawal. The pressure of international opinion could have convinced Pakistan to end repression, release Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and negotiate an end to the civil war with the elected leadership of the Bengali people, but the United States decided to tilt in Pakistan’s favor, making it easier for Yahya Khan to ignore international pressure.

U.S. support of Yahya Khan’s military regime had little to do with the merits of the issue relating to East Pakistan and Bengali nationalist aspirations. It was, as had been the case in the past, a function of Pakistan’s military leadership making itself useful to the United States in its global grand design.  Yahya Khan took the helm in Pakistan in March 1969, two months after the inauguration of Richard Nixon as the thirty-seventh president of the United States.  Nixon had visited Pakistan four times in official as well as private capacities and had “recognized U.S.  interests in Pakistan early. Nixon saw the replacement of Ayub Khan by Yahya Khan as an opportunity to rebuild U.S. relations with Pakistan. Ayub Khan had moved Pakistan closer to China and had allowed the Soviet Union to play the role of peacemaker after the 1965 war with India. Although Nixon was a personal friend of Ayub Khan, he understood that his time had passed and that a new military ruler in Pakistan would probably be keen to get min critical of Pakistan’s conduct. On April 7, 1971, an editorial in the New York Times declared, “Washington’s persistent silence on recent events in Pakistan is increasingly incomprehensible in light of eyewitness evidence that the Pakistani Army has engaged in indiscriminate slaughter.

Members of the U.S. Congress criticized President Nixon’s Pakistan policy. Members of the staff remaining at the U.S. consulate in Dhaka sent a collective “dissent channel” telegram calling for condemnation of the Pakistan military’s repression.  President Nixon was not swayed by criticism in Congress and the media. Instead of heeding the call of his man on the ground, Nixon at one stage ordered the transfer of Consul General Archer Blood. Secretary of State William P. Rogers expressed displeasure that the staff at Dhaka was “writing petitions rather than reports.As the crisis dragged on, the White House ignored proposals for pressuring Pakistan to arrive at a political solution involving the elected Bengali leadership. (Kux, United States and Pakistan, 1947-2000, p. 228.)

Pakistan’s generals interpreted the U.S. tilt as a guarantee of U.S. intervention on behalf of Pakistan. Yahya Khan, confident in his role as secret intermediary between China and the United States, ignored the international clamor over Pakistani atrocities against the Bengalis and adopted a harder line. In an address to the nation in June 1971, for example, he asked the nation to express “gratitude to Almighty Allah” for the army’s intervention in East Pakistan. A British journalist, unaware of the source of Yahya Khan’s excessive confidence, expressed surprise at his arrogance and his insistence on the military’s preeminence as well as the unifying power of religious symbols:

The [Pakistani] President to be sure extended his “fullest sympathy” to those who had been “terrorized and uprooted.” The cause of the suffering of these people, however, was not the Army but “secessionists, anti-social elements, miscreants, rebels, infiltrators, mischief mongers, and saboteurs,” a litany of villains familiar to all students of authoritarian regimes ... Nothing in his address was more eloquent of the bankruptcy of the President’s policies than the constantly reiterated appeal to the faith of the Prophet [Muhammad] ... Bengalis heard the President invoke the threat of external enemies who were doing “their level best to undo our dear country a people whose life is pulsating with the love of the Holy Prophet, whose hearts are illuminated with the light of Iman [purity of Islamic faith] and who have an unshakeable reliance on the help of almighty Allah The constitution, the President said, must be “based on Islamic ideology” and must be “the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan in the true sense.The militant ring of Islam in this context is unmistakable. “Every one of us,” the President declared, “is a Mujahid (holy warrior). (Marvin G.  Weinbaum, “The March 1977 Elections in Pakistan: Where Everyone Lost,” Asian Survey, vol. 17, no. 7, July 1977, p. 600.)

Around the same time, after a visit to Dhaka, the U.S.  ambassador, Joseph Farland, reported, “Army officials and soldiers give every sign of believing they are now embarked on a jihad against Hindu-corrupted Bengalis.” (Ibid., p. 602.) He did not suggest a U.S.  role in dissuading the Pakistan army from pursuing this jihad, arguing instead that “none of the post World War II insurgencies have been ended with a negotiated peace.” In the U.S. ambassador’s view, the “.civil differences” in Pakistan, too, would be resolved only by “the logic of war.”

In July, after the announcement of Nixon’s trip to China and the revelation of the critical role of Pakistan in arranging it, there was euphoria in West Pakistan. Hassan Zaheer, a senior civil servant at the time, wrote later:

Although no one was very clear how the new development was going to help Pakistan extricate itself from the mess, the army’s faith in the omnipotence of U.S.  support was reinforced. The [Pakistani] Foreign Office expected to be rewarded for services rendered, and started dreaming of a Washington-Islamabad-Beijing axis against the evil designs of its neighbor.” (bid., pp. 612-614)

The unrealistic faith in the United States and the Chinese led Pakistan’s rulers to reject political options, and they persisted with a military approach in dealing with the Bengalis. Until fairly late in the year, Pakistani generals continued to believe that they would not have to fight a war with India, which left them free to focus on pacifying East Pakistan.  India, meanwhile, signed a friendship treaty with the Soviet Union. By November, an India-Pakistan war seemed imminent. Indian military incursions into Pakistan’s eastern wing started on November 21, but they fell short of all-out war. On December 3, 1971, Pakistan attacked India from the west in the hope of forestalling the fall of East Pakistan. This gave India an opportunity to directly march into East Pakistan and help the Bengalis create Bangladesh. On December 14, as Indian forces surrounded Dhaka, the Pakistani high command told the besieged garrison that “Yellow and White help expected from North and South shortly”-a reference to imaginary Chinese and U.S.  military help that simply postponed cease-fire and surrender negotiations by the eastern command. (“White Paper on the Conduct of the General Elections in March 1977,” (Islamabad: Government of Pakistan, 1978);

Mazari, Journey to Disillusion ment, pp. 428-38; and M. A. Khan, Generals in Politics, pp. 103-11 for the view that Bhutto himself ordered irregularities in the election.)

Of course, neither China nor the United States intended to enter the war on Pakistan’s behalf even though they continued to support it diplomatically.  General Yahya Khan was simply trying to persuade the eastern command to halt the Indian advance long enough for a UN resolution that would forestall a humiliating surrender of Pakistani troops and the permanent split of the country. Saving face for the West Pakistani military leadership was more important than facing the on-the-ground realities of the military situation in East Pakistan.

President Nixon’s pro-Pakistan tilt failed to’ save Pakistan’s unity. Critics of Nixon’s policy have made the argument that it encouraged Pakistan’s military leaders in their repression against the Bengalis and their persistence with their imposed model of Islamic ideological nationalism:

Kissinger had informed Zhou Enlai that while the US “would strongly oppose any Indian military action” its disapproval could not “take the form of military aid or military measures on behalf of Pakistan.” A statement of this kind to Yahya Khan would have had a salutary effect in two ways. Firstly, Yahya would have been compelled to review his options of either carrying on the barren policy of repression or of initiating some realistic political measures to resume the constitutional process. Secondly, the moderates in the army, though small in number, would have gained greater influence in the inner counsels of the regime for a more practical approach. True, a blunt statement of the US stand on a political settlement would have jeopardized Yahya’s position because he had closed his options by calling Mujib a traitor whom it might have been difficult for him to deal with. But the junta would have found some way to fall in line with U.S.  wishes. In the isolated situation from July onwards, Yahya and his generals were depending entirely on the US to see them through the crisis. It was not correct in the circumstances to assume, as Kissinger did, that the generals would have spurned political pressures of the friendly power which they regarded as their main strength ... Paradoxiçally, the view of the “anti-Pakistan” State Department that Yahya should be made to face political realities would have served Pakistan’s interests better than the friendly drift of the White House.”

Christopher Van Hollen, who was deputy assistant secretary for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs at the State Department from 1969 to 1972 and saw firsthand the U.S. decision making during the Bangladesh crisis, wrote later with the benefit of hindsight:

American interests would have been better advanced in 1971 if Nixon and Kissinger had curbed their penchant to cast the IndoPakistan conflict in superpower global terms and, instead, had adopted the more realistic goal of trying to resolve the dispute in the South Asian regional context. The United States should have issued an early public statement deploring the military repression in East Pakistan and followed with cessation of all U.S. military supply, quickly closing any loopholes that later developed. If these actions had been explained to President Yahya in advance through diplomatic channels-as reflecting the strong humanitarian and human rights concerns of the U.S. public and Congress-they would not have jeopardized the China initiative, which was intrinsically very much in Pakistan’s and China’s interest. U.S. influence was limited both in India and Pakistan but such an initial public position would have increased the bona fides of the Nixon administration in urging restraint upon India; because there were few external options open to Yahya, such a stance should not have reduced U.S. leverage over the Pakistani president in encouraging him to reach a political settlement in East Pakistan.” The United States, however, only pressured India and even ordered the U.S. Seventh Fleet to move to the Bay of Bengal, ostensibly to prevent India from dismembering Pakistan altogether.  The Indian prime minister, Indira Gandhi, ignored these pressures, and the Indian military broke through Pakistani ranks in the eastern wing all the way to Dhaka. Pakistani forces in the eastern wing surrendered to the Indian military on December 16, 1971. Approximately ninety thousand West Pakistani soldiers and civilians were transported to India as prisoners of war. The erstwhile province of East Pakistan had finally become Bangladesh.

In 1976, the first military despot also hacked the constitution of 1972 when he forced out one of the four preambles - the secularism. Now we know that a nation standing on three pillars is less stable that the one standing on four pillars. The preambles are akin to pillars on which a nation stands. The military man was instructed to take the article of secularism from Bangladesh Constitution.

Not being a very bright person he did it and now Bangladesh has become a Mecca for obscurantism, sectarianism, Islamism, jihadism, etc., on top of world’s biggest bomb assembly center. We are glad that the technology transfer never did take place or else Bangladeshi terrorists would have blasted so many powerful bombs that would pale the Iraqi insurgents who are keeping George Bush in a sleep deprived condition while they wreak havoc on American soldiers.

It seems as if madrassahs in Bangladesh have changed their core curriculum to include such high-tech subject as bomb making. With tens and thousands of such “educational” institutions churning out jihadis every year, one thing is certain, there will be no dearth future bomb-makers. A few will surely die while practicing the art of bomb making in madrassah dorms.  Many would remember that hardly 2 years ago or so some powerful blasts rocked Dinajpur city when some madrassah students or teachers were assembling some bombs. The police came too late as madrassah folks took their injured compatriots to undisclosed destination.

It is axiomatic that the bomb making could hardly take place in vacuum. The makers need money for assembling bombs, planting them in strategic locations, and mobilizing the bombers. Where does all the funding come from? One of the fundamentalists minister in Khaleda Zia’s cabinet, Maulana Nizami, brazenly says that there is foreign connection to 8/17 bomb blasts.

Did he mean the Islamic NGOs like Saudi Arabia-based Al-Fallah Azam Development Organization? Not too long ago the government under pressure from Uncle Sam shut down Islamic NGO Al Haramain. The jihadis who are hell-bent on converting Bangladesh into a full-blown Islamic republic with all the tidings of Sha’ria laws were being nurtured by foreign funding. Is that what Bangladesh’s erudite minister Maulana Nizami sensed or does he think 9/17 blasts were the handiwork of a neighboring nation that wants to prove to the world that our motherland has become a failed state.

Why would Bangladesh’s powerful neighbor want to create its own problem? The Northeast India is rife with secessionist movement. Destabilizing Bangladesh would mean much trouble for New Delhi. The fundamentalist minister of Khaleda Zia has it all wrong. In the aftermath of 8/21 bombings, we also read in the newspaper that a foreign power was behind the attack. The one-man commission of Judge Joynal Abedin also hinted the pet theory of the present government in his findings.

In the wake of 8/17 blasts, the Prime Minister cut short her important foreign trip to China and now acting like a big savior of democracy in Bangladesh.  She had reprimanded the Home Minister for law enforcement departments’ laxity in catching the bomb blasters and intelligence’s failure to pick up the news that a spate of massive bombings is about to take place allover Bangladesh. Nothing however could mar the “pristine image” of Khaleda Zia’s government.  Think about how many bombings have thus far rocked the impoverished nation of 145 million.

It hardly disturbs the equanimity of Khaleda Zia. She with her usual condescending smug will smile next time a cameraman takes her portrait. The future historians would label her as the person who single-handedly aided the jihadis to transform this docile nation into a Mecca of bomb making. The news of any nation blasting more than 400 bombs in one-hour time is deserving to be listed in the Guinness Book of Records at least..

Abul Barkat, an economist at Dhaka University, says he's spent the past seven years tracing Jamaat's growing financial power. What he discovered frightened him. "Their central vision is to capture state power," he says, adding the party generates almost $200 million in annual profit, according to his analysis of Jamaat-owned businesses, which he says runs the gamut from banks and insurance companies to technology and media concerns. "They are an economy within the economy - a state within a state," he says, with some profits used to fund militant organizations like JMB.

Kamaruzzaman denies that Jamaat sponsors or patronizes any violent activities: "We have no secret agenda."

Critics like Mr. Barkat see the rise of Islamism as a failure of the democratic process here. Democratic institutions, they say, have been paralyzed by corruption and the enmity between the ruling BNP and the opposition Awami League. Both parties, when not in power, boycott parliamentary sessions and implement nationwide strikes.

"Democracy has gone far downhill since it came in 1991," says William Milam, a former US ambassador to Bangladesh. "Bangladesh is really not a democracy because the government which is elected freely and fairly cannot govern - and that applies to both parties."

Bangladeshi political observers agree, noting that the two parties immediately accused each other after the Aug. 17 attacks, instead of uniting to condemn it, as many had hoped.
 
 

See also: Beyond Bangladesh

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