On December 12, Bangladesh, already in the throes of political uncertainity in the run-up to national elections on January 4, plunged into further chaos with the execution of Abdul Quader Mollah, Islamist leader convicted of war crimes in the nation’s 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.
2013 has been a most disturbing year for Bangladesh, even by Bangladeshi standards. It has seen the culmination of efforts of activists to provide final closure to a most dark chapter in the country’s history - its very birth.
More than forty years ago, in 1971, the now-executed Mollah, along with thousands of others in the then East Pakistan had tried to prevent the birth of Bangladesh. Mollah and others like Delwar Hosshein Sayeedee and Abul Kalam Azad, all belonging to the East Pakistani wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing, the Islami Chatra Sangha, had ganged up with the Pakistani Army and its assistant militias like the Razakars, the Al Badr and the Al Shams to kill 3 million Bengalis, rape half-a-million Bengali women and make 10 million flee their homes across the border into India across a period of nine months.
While the League may have led its supporters and opponents to believe that British India’s Muslims were a monolith, bound by the glue of Islam and a ‘nation apart’ from the majority Hindus, the reality was different. It raised its ugly head first in the 1937 Lucknow session of the Muslim League, where Bengali Muslim delegates refused to accept Urdu as the lingua franca of a separate Muslim state, whenever it was formed.
There was more to come. In 1948, Pakistan founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah declared that “Urdu and only Urdu” could be the national language of Pakistan. This led to the Bengali Language Agitation in East Pakistan in the early 1950s.
But language was only part of the problem. The main issue was the underlying racial hatred which the Punjabi-dominated western wing harboured for the east. For West Pakistanis, especially Punjabis, Bengalis were a “lesser race”. They were not ‘martial enough’ like the Punjabis, the Baloch and the Pashtuns. Their language and culture was too ‘Hinduised’ and they were not ‘Muslim enough’. Consequently, Bengali Muslims were under-represented in all strata of Pakistani society, including the military and the police.
Things came to a head in 1970. In national elections, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party swept West Pakistan while Sheikh Mujib-ur Rehman’s Awami League took the east and got the highest percentage of votes overall.
But Pakistan’s General Yahya Khan never invited Mujib to form the government, after howls of protests from Bhutto and the others. The west’s refusal to share power had one underlying cause: their naked anti-Bengali sentiment.
Protests broke out across the east. The situation became so perilous that it was reported that the Pakistani Army’s writ had been restricted to just the cantonments and a few towns.
It was then that Yahya Khan took a decision that would change the course of events. Despite warnings from a few well-intentioned advisors, he ordered a military crackdown in the east on fears that the situation was threatening to go out of control for the Pakistani government. The objective of the crackdown was to put the authority of the government back in place.
‘Operation Searchlight’, as the crackdown was code-named, began on March 25, 1971. The Pakistani Army, consisting almost exclusively of Punjabi, Pashtun, Baloch and Sindhi men began efforts to break the back of the Bengali resistance. They were assisted by members of the Urdu-speaking Bihari community that had migrated to the east during the Partition.
Surprisingly, there were also many pro-Pakistan Bengalis helping the Army. Most of them were the members of the Jamaat and the three militias formed by the Army. These men were mostly madrassa-educated and strongly believed in the sanctity of Pakistan’s existence. To them, the Bengali nationalism of Mujib’s Awami League was abhorrent. And they would go to any lengths to preserve Pakistan.
The Pakistan Army, the militias and the Jamaat’s targets were clear: Bengali intellectual including writers, teachers, professors, scientists, engineers, doctors and journalists, students, women and East Pakistan’s large Hindu minority.
Mollah’s personal (and very ghastly) role is well-documented. According to testimonies of eye-witnesses, he ‘beheaded a poet, raped an 11-year-old girl and killed 344 other civilians’. His counterparts, Sayeedi, Azad and others committed similar atrocities.
The genocide was declared an act of war by Sheikh Mujib and the Awami League, who promptly declared independence. As Pakistan sent more troops, a ferocious guerilla war was begun by the newly-formed Mukti Bahini, with terrible slaughter and retribution on both sides (Pakistani and Bengali).
On December 3, after the Pakistani Air Force unilaterally attacked it, India entered the war. In their finest hour ever, Indian soldiers, sailors and airmen overran East Pakistan, culminating in the historic surrender of 93,000 Pakistani troops 13 days later on December 16.
In the aftermath of the war, due to acts of concession, many of those who had committed war crimes in Bangladesh either managed to flee the country or were pardoned. But the issue of war crimes never disappeared and stuck out like a sore thumb.
Fast-forward to 2008. It was election time and Sheikh Hasina, Mujib’s daughter and Awami League chief, promised the Bangladeshi public that were here party and its partners elected, she would start the process of bringing war criminals to justice.
The League swept the polls that year. True to her promise, Hasina helped the formation of of the International Crimes Tribunal to try and convict men like Mollah and Sayeedi.
In 2011 and 2012, the tribunal had indicted two leaders of the main opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP) led by Khaleda Zia (of which, the Jamaat is a partner) and eight leaders of the Jamaat itself.
In January this year, the tribunal convicted Azad and sentenced him to death. In February, Mollah was convicted but handed a life-sentence. Later in the month, Sayeedee was convicted and sentenced to death.
Bangladesh erupted over Mollah’s sentencing. In what have now become known as the ‘Shahbag protests’, people from all sections of Bangla society gathered in a central square in Dhaka, Shahbag, and demanded that Mollah be hanged. The protests soon spread to the other parts of the country, but a few months later, they had dissipated.
One would have thought that Mollah had escaped. But in early December, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh handed him a death sentence, followed by his execution on December 12.
Bangladesh is at a very critical juncture right now. Even as it tries to bury the past, the important question is, would it be able to? The biggest impediment in the sentencing of war criminals is the Jamaat. It has always defended its leaders against allegations of war crimes. And whenever efforts have been made to the contrary, it has protested violently. In reaction to Shahbag, it had started a parallel movement of its own. More worryingly, it had clashed with the police and disrupted law and order in the aftermath of the January and February convictions and sentencings.
That is not all. The Jamaat is the leader of the Islamist parties of Bangladesh, who envision an Islamic state based on Sharia law, instead of a moderate, secular state - a total antithesis of Bangladeshi Islam, which was spread by Sufi Pirs like Shah Jalal and is heavily syncretic.
Will Mollah’s execution cause more disturbances? Is it the first of many executions? Will Bangladesh be able to exorcise its demons? A country that is the domicile of Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus of Grameen Bank fame, in recent years, Bangladesh has shown tremendous improvement in socio-economic indicators. Given the opportunity, it can improve its lot and be a shining example to the whole region and the world.
Besides the war criminals issue, the country also faces political instability. Its two warring begums have long prevented the establishment of a stable democratic system. Already, there is large discontent and disagreement over the forthcoming elections. How the polls pan out remains to be seen.
Bangldesh is at a cross-roads today. It is fighting a life-and-death battle. From here, it can go only two ways: Either it can become a moderate, model Islamic nation on the lines of Turkey, Malaysia and Indonesia, a country equally proud of its religious and ethnic identity. Or it can go the way of the country it was once part of and become a failed state. The choice is Bangladesh’s. The world will be watching it.
2013 has been a most disturbing year for Bangladesh, even by Bangladeshi standards. It has seen the culmination of efforts of activists to provide final closure to a most dark chapter in the country’s history - its very birth.
More than forty years ago, in 1971, the now-executed Mollah, along with thousands of others in the then East Pakistan had tried to prevent the birth of Bangladesh. Mollah and others like Delwar Hosshein Sayeedee and Abul Kalam Azad, all belonging to the East Pakistani wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing, the Islami Chatra Sangha, had ganged up with the Pakistani Army and its assistant militias like the Razakars, the Al Badr and the Al Shams to kill 3 million Bengalis, rape half-a-million Bengali women and make 10 million flee their homes across the border into India across a period of nine months.
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The roots of the Bangladesh genocide, as it is known today, go back to the early years of the twentieth century. At the time, as the Muslim League championed the cause of a separate homeland for the Muslims of the subcontinent on the basis of the writings of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, Allama Muhammad Iqbal and Chaudhary Rehmat Ali, cracks were already developing in their narrative.
While the League may have led its supporters and opponents to believe that British India’s Muslims were a monolith, bound by the glue of Islam and a ‘nation apart’ from the majority Hindus, the reality was different. It raised its ugly head first in the 1937 Lucknow session of the Muslim League, where Bengali Muslim delegates refused to accept Urdu as the lingua franca of a separate Muslim state, whenever it was formed.
There was more to come. In 1948, Pakistan founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah declared that “Urdu and only Urdu” could be the national language of Pakistan. This led to the Bengali Language Agitation in East Pakistan in the early 1950s.
But language was only part of the problem. The main issue was the underlying racial hatred which the Punjabi-dominated western wing harboured for the east. For West Pakistanis, especially Punjabis, Bengalis were a “lesser race”. They were not ‘martial enough’ like the Punjabis, the Baloch and the Pashtuns. Their language and culture was too ‘Hinduised’ and they were not ‘Muslim enough’. Consequently, Bengali Muslims were under-represented in all strata of Pakistani society, including the military and the police.
Things came to a head in 1970. In national elections, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party swept West Pakistan while Sheikh Mujib-ur Rehman’s Awami League took the east and got the highest percentage of votes overall.
But Pakistan’s General Yahya Khan never invited Mujib to form the government, after howls of protests from Bhutto and the others. The west’s refusal to share power had one underlying cause: their naked anti-Bengali sentiment.
Protests broke out across the east. The situation became so perilous that it was reported that the Pakistani Army’s writ had been restricted to just the cantonments and a few towns.
It was then that Yahya Khan took a decision that would change the course of events. Despite warnings from a few well-intentioned advisors, he ordered a military crackdown in the east on fears that the situation was threatening to go out of control for the Pakistani government. The objective of the crackdown was to put the authority of the government back in place.
‘Operation Searchlight’, as the crackdown was code-named, began on March 25, 1971. The Pakistani Army, consisting almost exclusively of Punjabi, Pashtun, Baloch and Sindhi men began efforts to break the back of the Bengali resistance. They were assisted by members of the Urdu-speaking Bihari community that had migrated to the east during the Partition.
Surprisingly, there were also many pro-Pakistan Bengalis helping the Army. Most of them were the members of the Jamaat and the three militias formed by the Army. These men were mostly madrassa-educated and strongly believed in the sanctity of Pakistan’s existence. To them, the Bengali nationalism of Mujib’s Awami League was abhorrent. And they would go to any lengths to preserve Pakistan.
The Pakistan Army, the militias and the Jamaat’s targets were clear: Bengali intellectual including writers, teachers, professors, scientists, engineers, doctors and journalists, students, women and East Pakistan’s large Hindu minority.
Mollah’s personal (and very ghastly) role is well-documented. According to testimonies of eye-witnesses, he ‘beheaded a poet, raped an 11-year-old girl and killed 344 other civilians’. His counterparts, Sayeedi, Azad and others committed similar atrocities.
The genocide was declared an act of war by Sheikh Mujib and the Awami League, who promptly declared independence. As Pakistan sent more troops, a ferocious guerilla war was begun by the newly-formed Mukti Bahini, with terrible slaughter and retribution on both sides (Pakistani and Bengali).
On December 3, after the Pakistani Air Force unilaterally attacked it, India entered the war. In their finest hour ever, Indian soldiers, sailors and airmen overran East Pakistan, culminating in the historic surrender of 93,000 Pakistani troops 13 days later on December 16.
In the aftermath of the war, due to acts of concession, many of those who had committed war crimes in Bangladesh either managed to flee the country or were pardoned. But the issue of war crimes never disappeared and stuck out like a sore thumb.
Fast-forward to 2008. It was election time and Sheikh Hasina, Mujib’s daughter and Awami League chief, promised the Bangladeshi public that were here party and its partners elected, she would start the process of bringing war criminals to justice.
The League swept the polls that year. True to her promise, Hasina helped the formation of of the International Crimes Tribunal to try and convict men like Mollah and Sayeedi.
In 2011 and 2012, the tribunal had indicted two leaders of the main opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP) led by Khaleda Zia (of which, the Jamaat is a partner) and eight leaders of the Jamaat itself.
In January this year, the tribunal convicted Azad and sentenced him to death. In February, Mollah was convicted but handed a life-sentence. Later in the month, Sayeedee was convicted and sentenced to death.
Bangladesh erupted over Mollah’s sentencing. In what have now become known as the ‘Shahbag protests’, people from all sections of Bangla society gathered in a central square in Dhaka, Shahbag, and demanded that Mollah be hanged. The protests soon spread to the other parts of the country, but a few months later, they had dissipated.
One would have thought that Mollah had escaped. But in early December, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh handed him a death sentence, followed by his execution on December 12.
Bangladesh is at a very critical juncture right now. Even as it tries to bury the past, the important question is, would it be able to? The biggest impediment in the sentencing of war criminals is the Jamaat. It has always defended its leaders against allegations of war crimes. And whenever efforts have been made to the contrary, it has protested violently. In reaction to Shahbag, it had started a parallel movement of its own. More worryingly, it had clashed with the police and disrupted law and order in the aftermath of the January and February convictions and sentencings.
That is not all. The Jamaat is the leader of the Islamist parties of Bangladesh, who envision an Islamic state based on Sharia law, instead of a moderate, secular state - a total antithesis of Bangladeshi Islam, which was spread by Sufi Pirs like Shah Jalal and is heavily syncretic.
Will Mollah’s execution cause more disturbances? Is it the first of many executions? Will Bangladesh be able to exorcise its demons? A country that is the domicile of Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus of Grameen Bank fame, in recent years, Bangladesh has shown tremendous improvement in socio-economic indicators. Given the opportunity, it can improve its lot and be a shining example to the whole region and the world.
Besides the war criminals issue, the country also faces political instability. Its two warring begums have long prevented the establishment of a stable democratic system. Already, there is large discontent and disagreement over the forthcoming elections. How the polls pan out remains to be seen.
Bangldesh is at a cross-roads today. It is fighting a life-and-death battle. From here, it can go only two ways: Either it can become a moderate, model Islamic nation on the lines of Turkey, Malaysia and Indonesia, a country equally proud of its religious and ethnic identity. Or it can go the way of the country it was once part of and become a failed state. The choice is Bangladesh’s. The world will be watching it.