“Following the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan, the East and West wings were not only separated
geographically, but also culturally. Further, the authorities of the West
Pakistan viewed the Bengali Muslims as "too
Bengali" and their application of Islam as "inferior and impure", and this made them unreliable. To
this extent, the West began a strategy to forcibly assimilate the Bengalis
culturally.
In the next decade and half, Bengalis became gradually
disenchanted with the balance of power in Pakistan, which was under military
rule during much of this time; eventually some began to call for secession. By the late 1960s, a perception had
emerged that the people of East Pakistan were second-class citizens. It did not
help that General A. A. K. Niazi, head of Pakistani Forces in
East Pakistan, called East Pakistan a "low-lying
land of low, lying people".
In December 1970 the first ever elections were held according to which the East
Pakistan's Awami League, headed by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, had won a clear majority. The
West Pakistani establishment was displeased with the results. In Dacca following the election a general
said "Don't worry, we will not
allow these black bastards to rule over us". Soon President Yahya Khan banned the Awami League and
declared martial law in East Pakistan.
With the goal of putting down Bengali nationalism, the Pakistan Army launched Operation Searchlight on 25 March 1971. According to Eric Heinze,
the Pakistani forces targeted both Hindus and Bengali-speaking Muslims. In the ensuing 1971 Bangladesh genocide, the army caused the deaths of
up to 3 million people, created up to 10 million refugees who fled to
India, and displaced a further 30 million within East Pakistan.
The
14th infantry division was the only Pakistan Army division stationed
in East Pakistan in March 1971. This division had four infantry brigades attached to it. These four brigades had 12 infantry
battalions containing purely West Pakistani personnel (mainly hailing
from Punjabi, Baluch, Pathan and Sindhi background) before 25 March 1971.
The attacks were led by General Tikka Khan, who was the architect of Operation Searchlight and was
given the name the "butcher of
Bengal" by the Bengalis for his actions. Khan said—when reminded on 27
March 1971 that he was in charge of a majority province—"I will reduce this majority to a minority".
Bina D'Costa believes an anecdote used
by Khan is significant, in that it provides proof of the mass rapes being a
deliberate strategy. In Jessore, while speaking with a group of journalists Khan was
reported to have said, "Pehle inko
Mussalman karo" (First, make them Muslim). D'Costa argues that this
shows that in the highest echelons of the armed forces the Bengalis were
perceived as being disloyal Muslims and unpatriotic Pakistanis.
According to Peter Tomsen, a political scientist, Pakistan's secret service the Directorate
for Inter-Services Intelligence, in conjunction with the political party Jamaat-e-Islami, formed militias such as Al-Badr ("the moon") and the Al-Shams ("the sun") to conduct operations against
the nationalist movement. These militias targeted non-combatants and committed
rapes as well as other crimes. Local collaborators known as Razakars also took part in the atrocities.
Members of the Muslim League, such as Nizam-e-Islam, Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamiat
Ulema Pakistan, who had lost the election, collaborated with the military
and acted as an intelligence organisation for them. 
During the war, a fatwa in Pakistan declared that the
Bengali 'freedom fighters' were Hindus and that their women could be taken as
the 'booty of war'. Imams and Muslim religious leaders
publicly declared that the Bengali women were 'gonimoter maal' (war booty) and thus they openly supported the
rape of Bengali women. The
activists and leaders of Islamic parties were also involved in the rapes, abduction
of women and also in targeted killings.
During the 1971 Bangladesh war for
independence, between two and four hundred thousand Bangladeshi women were raped in a
systematic campaign of genocidal rape. Scholars have suggested that rape was used to terrorise
both the Bengali-speaking Muslim majority and the Hindu minority of Bangladesh.
Rounaq Jahan alleges elements of racism in the Pakistan
army, who he says considered the Bengalis "racially
inferior—a non-martial and physically weak race", and has accused the
army of using organised rape as a weapon of war. According to the political
scientist R J Rummel, the Pakistani army looked upon the Bengalis as "subhuman" and that the
Hindus were "as Jews to the Nazis,
scum and vermin that best be exterminated". This racism was then expressed in that
the Bengalis, being inferior, must have their gene pool "fixed" through forcible impregnation. Belén MartÃn Lucas has described the
rapes as "ethnically
motivated".
During the war, Bengali males were also raped. The men,
when passing through a checkpoint of Pakistan Army, would be ordered to prove
they were circumcised, and this is where the rapes usually happened.
The writer Mulk Raj Anand said of the Pakistani army
actions, "The rapes were so
systematic and pervasive that they had to be conscious Army policy,
"planned by the West Pakistanis in a deliberate effort to create a new
race" or to dilute Bengali nationalism". Amita Malik, reporting from Bangladesh following the Pakistan armed
forces surrender, wrote that one West Pakistani soldier said: "We are going. But we are leaving our
Seed behind".
The above are only few excerpts of what was
written about the fall of Dhaka in 1971. What is quite evident from the above
is that the establishment of the West Pakistan did not accept the mandate of
the people of East Pakistan and tried to forcefully silence their voice.
Yes, it can be accepted that there were few
persons or group of people (military and political rulers) were biased, but why
the hell did no one else (including the other political and religious parties,
civil society, judiciary and other generals/officers of the army) come forward
to stop the ethnically motivated victimization of Bengali Muslims in the name
of restoring peace?
Unfortunately, almost all of them played its
own filthy role in the separation of East Pakistan that is why the genocide of
Bengalis kept on being committed until the victims asked India for help. However, what seems more unfortunate is that
despite the surrender of more than 90,000 Pakistani soldiers to the Indian army
and also the fall of Dhaka, no lesson was learnt from that.
Today too, minor communities are raising
voice over the injustice and the discrimination they are facing in Pakistan.
But, no one is paying attention to these. Perhaps, once again they are waiting
for more “falls” to occur. So, let`s see what the time brings to us in the days
to come.
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