by GITA SAHGAL
The 40th anniversary of the liberation of Bangladesh is special not simply because it marks the passing of decades, but because of the current passionate attempt to recapture the founding spirit of the nation. The recent debates on the Constitution and an attempt to return it to its original secular character of 1972 are vital to the future survival of the country. But the hurried changes made, with an ultimate outcome of keeping Islam as the state religion, have disappointed many. In contrast, the war crimes trials that are underway still offer hope.
But I observe that, in London, Bangladeshis seeking justice are isolated and told instead to seek reconciliation, and even that genocide didn’t happen. Further, Bangladesh is criticised for holding the trials in a national court rather than as a Rwanda or Yugoslavia style international process. But the establishment of an International Criminal Court was intended to step in only when national judiciaries failed to act, or collapsed entirely.
The current war crimes trials should be able to provide a basis for future examination of other issues. Ending the impunity enjoyed by those responsible for violence in 1971 will go some way towards reassuring minorities that attacks on them will not be tolerated. As it grapples with one kind of impunity, Bangladesh, which has shown the way on many issues, should be able to tackle the constitutional questions that were avoided earlier. Removing Islam as the state religion is one of the key changes that will begin to ensure full citizenship for all, and a framework for addressing more modern forms of impunity.
My own encounter with 1971 was War Crimes File, a documentary I produced for Channel Four (UK). The film investigated three men of Bangladeshi origin, by then all British nationals, for 1971 war crimes or crimes against humanity. David Bergman was a stubborn and persistent reporter, and he led the research with a large team of Bangladeshi academics, filmmakers and young researchers until we found a trail of information that led to the three accused. We found serious and credible allegations that they were involved in making lists of people to be picked up, ordering killings, being involved with torture centres and participating in the killing of the intellectuals. Many of those we interviewed were eye witnesses, or even targets who had evaded capture.
Our interviewees told us that local collaborators of Jamaat e Islami “not only collaborated with the Pakistani army in the genocide, but had their own scheme of killing.” But recently, a number of recent writings about Bangladesh have obscured this story entirely.
At a December 8th presentation at SOAS, London, Sarmila Bose presented a talk “The legacy of 1971 – 40 years on,” at the invitation of the Center for the Study of Pakistan. During the Q&A session I asked her directly why, in her book Dead Reckoning, she had been dismissive about Razakars, as if it was a figment of fevered Bengali imaginations. She had treated them as a “discourse” rather than a fact on the ground that needs examination. Why was there no discussion of their actions, no mention of peace committees or their political linkages to the Jamaat e Islami? In reply, she simply said that these issues were not her concern and the book dealt with only certain incidents. This evasive response is elaborated in her just-published essay “The question of genocide and the quest for justice in the 1971 war” (Journal of Genocide Studies, November 2011), where she states: “It may be argued that the groups doing the killings were the creation of the regime, but their exact identity and motives remain shrouded.”
Looking at how she responded to various questions at SOAS, she appears to be going through a central shape shifting in the face of mounting criticism of her book. At the time of launch, she claimed Dead Reckoning was groundbreaking, a new account of the war, showing that the major narrative was not merely flawed or incomplete but fundamentally wrong. By now, after months of published criticisms of her book (Mookherjee, Mohaiemen, in EPW, among others), she says it is only a “few incidents” and when key issues like Razakars are brought up, she says these are “not her concern.”
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(Thanks to Robin Khundkar)