Dead Reckoning: Memories of Bangladesh War

Sarmila Bose is Senior Research Fellow in the Politics of South Asia at the University of Oxford and was educated at Bryn Mawr College and Harvard University. Her latest book, 'Dead Reckoning: Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War' makes for an interesting and essential read. The story of 1971 has so far been dominated by the narrative of the victorious side. All parties to the war are still largely imprisoned by wartime partisan mythologies. Bose reconstructs the events via interviews, conducted in Bangladesh and Pakistan; published and unpublished reminiscences in Bengali and English of participants on all sides, official documents, foreign media reports, and other sources. Her book challenges assumptions about the nature of the conflict, and exposes the ways in which the 1971 war is still playing out in the region. In her recent visit to India, TSI's Saurabh Kumar Shahi caught up with her and talked on a range of events that took place in 1971. Excerpts from interview:

TSI: Ijaz Haidar, a Pakistani journalist, and a friend of mine, wrote a column underlining that in modern ideological warfare between nations, the nation that manages to make its version of discourse universally accepted, is the one that wins the war. He went on to write that India managed to convince the world, and several Pakistanis too, to accept its discourse and that has been their greatest win. And 1971 war is one such incident...

SB: As you know, it is said that history is written by the victors. And it has stood true for every conflict. In that respect, it is not unusual for this conflict too. What is unusual is the length of time that it has taken to take a dispassionate and realistic look to be brought upon this conflict. 40 years is a long time. In fact, it has been decades since I started to do things on this issue. Normally, after a decade or two after the conflict, all the parties try to take a fresh look of the conflict departing form inevitable war propaganda. That is why it is much harder in this case to take a dispassionate look at the case. Another problem in this particular case is that many of the eyewitnesses have died. But better late than never; mine is one contribution in this discussion. I am sure many more books will come that will take a dispassionate and unbiased look at the series of events.

TSI: True. It reminds me the brilliant prologue that author William L. Shirer wrote for his celebrated book 'The Rise and Fall of Third Reich'. Shirer writes that 10 years is not enough to take a dispassionate look at WW II but “I am still making this attempt”. But considering the discourse that has been set vis-a-vis incidents of 1971, what reaction do you see among all the parties following this new revelation?

SB: The situation is slightly different in India than in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is still a polarized society and, as I have written, they are in many ways still fighting the demons of 1971 among themselves. Therefore the reaction in Bangladesh has been mixed. A few of them have really been upset as it challenged the old belief system. But many of them have been appreciative too. The problem is, this group is not very vocal. There is an absence of liberal democratic space. So there are anyways few discussions with contrarian point of views. And that is a sad affair of state. I have been told by academicians and others that they fear persecution; that if they discuss anything it might be taken to be in some way critical to the regime of the day. And there does not appear to be much choice apart from the polarized views of the two parties.
 
So whoever is in power tries to push that view. India is different. It has a much broader spectrum. So there might be a set of people who are more sold on the official Indian-Bangaldeshi version of this war. I mean it is not easy to overcome what you have been listening to since your birth. I mean it was not easy even for me. When I started, I wanted to document the version I was brought on with, and it was during that endeavor that I came across so many discrepancies and complications. That is when I decided that I'll have to be more dispassionate. It took me several years to come to terms with the reality of the complex realities of this very bitter war. So I can understand that some people will react. But I am pretty sure that a majority will read the book and try to understand the realities well.

TSI: The punishment to the war criminals and Razakars was the main emotive issue of the last elections in Bangladesh. The reaction was so harsh that Jamaat-e-Islami, the party supposed to be close to Razakars at that point of time, lost majority of the seats. In India too, it is difficult for people to accept that India too used militia as a state policy while intervening in the then East Pakistan way before the official war broke out. That will dent our accusation of Pakistan doing the same in Kashmir...

SB: Again I think there is a difference between Indian and Bangladeshi condition. In Bangladesh there are officially two versions of 1971 incidents. The Awami League version and BNP version. They actually fight with each other to convince people that their particular version is true. Both of them claim that it were they who brought independence to Bangladesh. There is a need for some proper war crime trial, because crimes were committed. We have always been told that Pakistan army committed war crime, and certainly they have, as I have documented in my writings. But the other side has also committed equally horrendous crimes. The need is to try both the parties irrespective of what their ideologies were. A war crime tribunal that meets international standards and has a broad spectrum can do the justice. Unfortunately that is not the case.

The present trial takes in consideration only Razakars, and that boils down to the opposition party. As for India, there is a way to come in terms with what it was doing there in a very positive way. India clearly thought strategic interest in the dismemberment of Pakistan. And if that was the goal then I don't think there should be a problem with the Indian establishment to admit that. So I think it is easier for India to allow people to see the reality of what happened there rather than keeping it under wraps. And it is easy for India because India won all the battles in the entire war in all its manifestations including setting the discourse so thoroughly. India won, diplomatically, politically, strategically, tactically, militarily in every considerable way. So I think India is in a position to delve deeply in its role then, without much difficulty.

TSI: In the war of propaganda, numbers are the biggest tool. Let discuss numbers in this context. There have been repeated allegations that the official Bangladeshi account of 3 million people being killed is exaggerated. And so is the number of rapes. How do you see it?

SB: Numbers are not important in a humanitarian point of view. Of course in a war, people will get killed. But the number of people on both the sides who were killed unlawfully, I mean, non-combatants; people without arms etc, these things are crime against humanity. And even one such crime is too much. Numbers are important from a different point of view. If the numbers that has been initially reported differs from what really was, it affects the nature of the event. So the Bangladeshi claim of more than 3 millions Bengali non-combatants killed comes into question. If we talk about millions killed over a year or less than a year, that is a different kind of event from tens of thousands killed. Even this is a big number, but it affects as to what we are looking for. What sorts of event took place? Because the range is so vast and there is extremely huge difference in numbers reported by both sides, there is a need to arrive at some rough idea as to where we are. I found that there is some unnecessary exaggeration by some section of Bangladeshis in number of people killed by the Pakistani Army. Why I say unnecessary is because if the point was to show that army committed atrocities, that can be easily shown by the real number too. You don't need the figure of 3 million to show or prove that. And I have proved that with real figures. Some of the acts they were done are so ghastly that you don't need any exaggeration to prove them. In fact, those who have exaggerated, especially to an absurd level, have actually harmed Bangladesh by undermining even the truth. Thus it is important to keep all these in mind while handling the numbers. The general trend that prevailed was the exaggeration of numbers killed by the other side and minimizing of numbers killed by one's own side. But even that also does not work that ways all the time. Some people gave exaggerated numbers of people they killed as they thought it was something heroic. But I have tried to arrive to a reasonable estimate. The figure of 3 million I found was not arrived at by some systematic accounting. It is based on hearsay. There is exaggeration in every event I have talked about. With a great deal of confidence I can say that close to 100,000 were killed on both sides.

TSI: In his first speech after being released, Mujib is said to have floated that figure...

SB: He certainly said so publicly and once he said so, it became part of the story and everyone said in line with that in Bangladesh, in India, and elsewhere. It is surprising how this figure was pulled out of thin air.

TSI: One can understand the propaganda machinery going wild in the heat of conflict in India and in Bangladesh, but what about the western correspondents and writers who covered the war?

SB: Western reporters of that time? I looked at several reports of that time and have used a few in my book too. They present a mix picture. Sometime they were unable to do their job properly. Initially many of them were expelled by the military regime. So they could not write from the ground. They had to write from India and other places. The second problem was, they could not speak either of the languages in question; neither Urdu nor Bangla. Under the circumstances, they fall to the propaganda from both sides. Some of them were also sold to the India discourse or idea that it was good versus evil story. If you get caught-up in the politics of a story, your vision becomes clouted. I mean one side had a military regime, the other side was said to be fighting for democracy; so it was easy to fall for that good versus evil question. There are others who have done good job. In fact most of them have done it right when they have written on the basis of what they had seen.

TSI: There also appears to be some controversy regarding 93000 POWs...

SB: There are no controversies regarding the number of POWs. They are around 93,000. The controversy is about the composition of that figure. I mean how many of them were armed personal and how may of them were non-combatants. I also grew up with the figure of 93,000 and people usually say 93,000 soldiers. Initially, before 24th March crackdown, the number was pretty less. The CIA report, East Pakistan gazettes all of them prove that. The reinforcement was brought following the unrest but still the numbers were much less than 93,000. The book of the commander of the Eastern Garrison solved that mystery. It explained the discrepancies that there were 93,000 POWs all right but not all of them were soldiers. In fact only little more than half of that number if you include paramilitary, police and everyone else with arms. The rest are cooks, drivers, and orderlies. Then there were civil servants and families of civil servants.