Dead reckoning of a Total Victory

William L. Shirer, author of the celebrated book 'The Rise and Fall of Third Reich', wrote a brilliant prologue for the book. Among other things, he dedicated the lion's share of prologue to the question as to why is it too early still to write about WW II. He maintained that a decade is not enough to take a dispassionate look at WW II, devoid of propaganda, but “I am still making this attempt”. There is no doubt that 'The Rise and Fall of Third Reich' is a brilliant take on WW II. But as much as I love it, I still maintain that it is definitely not a dispassionate book even after heartfelt attempts by the author to make it so. There are commas and other punctuations that betray the author. At more than few occasions, the author diverts from the line of story to specially censure Hitler and his aides. Opinions, suddenly crop up in between chronicle narrative. Alert readers will notice it. It is not to say that William L. Shirer was reasonably biased. It is just that, 10 years is not a time to take a dispassionate look at a subject.

1971 Indo-Pak War and the civil war in East Pakistan that preceded it is definitely a watershed event in the propaganda discourse in South Asia. For India, it was a total victory—militarily, diplomatically, propaganda, and otherwise. Naturally, the discourse that followed was set by India and newly independent nation of Bangladesh. It started as a capsule and slowly became the official history of war. After zillion repetitions, it even managed to set the discourse among the academia and journalists too. Here it entered a dangerous phase where questioning it became a sacrilege. Doubting it was blasphemy. Such profound was its impact that even Pakistanis, the people on the other side of this discourse, started believing it, although not the actors. So when Pakistani columnist Ejaz Haider rued that India has defeated Pakistan in the battle of discourse because not only did it manage to convince the world that its discourse is the true history, it managed to convince a lot in Pakistan too, he hits the bull's eye.

Under the circumstances, Sarmila Bose's 'Dead Reckoning: Memories of The 1971 Bangladesh War'  comes as a book that not only attempts to take a dispassionate look at the series of events but also tries to question some long-held beliefs with scientific and analytical reasoning. Clearly, the approach seems to have worked well and has managed to dispel myths.

Bangladeshi Bengalis are impressed by their 'independence movement', and they are justifiably so. The sacrifice and the emotional investment that has gone into that movement needs to be respected. And it is precisely for these reasons that it becomes essential to extract truth from legend that has all the elements in it to dent the credibility of the movement itself.

Primarily, the book questions four aspects of the events and the discourse that followed. First, it was in no way a fight between good and evil as Indian and Bangladeshi propaganda machinery tried it to present, and successfully. Second, it was not a non-violent resistance as it was presented to be. Third, there has been huge play and exaggerations with numbers. And fourth, there is a need for questioning the lexicon that drives the discourse.

The author carefully examines all these aspects in a dispassionate way and has managed to get unlimited access to archive in all the parties involved. That, coupled with hundreds of testimonials, interviews and field visits have made this book a document that is not only extremely hard to ignore but almost impossible to refute. 

Bose questions the basic narrative that it was a fight between good and evil and present a clearly complex picture where both the parties are equally accused of war crime and unbending stand. While the war crime committed by Pakistani army is well documented, the atrocities and massacre committed by Mukti Bahini and Awami League against Biharis or the Urdu speaking population never saw much coverage in mainstream media. And this was done with more than little help from India. The author also takes into accounts numerous claims of massacres and finds out that in almost all the cases, the number reported are exaggerated. More than anybody else, it dents the credibility of  truth itself. As author argues, if one wants to prove that Pakistani army committed war crimes, it can be proved by just putting the real figures into play, there is no need for exaggeration. In that regard, the mythological figure of 3 millions killed and several hundreds of thousands raped come out as nothing but exaggeration with little or no support in terms of proof. 

The book has come at a time when Awami League government is trying to try people for war crimes. The target obviously are Razakars or local militia that helped Pakistani army quell the rebellion during the conflict. However, the sheer absence of those Awami League cadres from trial who committed massacres against Biharis or Urdu speaking people, makes the whole event a joke.

And also comes into question the Indian role in the entire event. Not that people did not know, but it will surprise and infuriate the right-wing 'Vande Matram' types that India was actively involved in training and supplying arms to Mukti Bahini long before the war broke out. That coupled with training of LTTE finally takes the debate on the use of militia as a strategic asset out of the ambit of the holier-than-thou, moral high ground halo that we so love to propose and puts it into the basic debate of pros and cons of such tactics in foreign policy initiative. That it levels the ground between India and Pakistan will obviously not be liked by majority of Tiranga waving Indians. 

The book also takes into account the vulnerability of western media that fell easily to war propaganda in absence of reporters having even the functional knowledge of either Bangla or Urdu/Hindi. A few who tried to tell the truth, faced number of hindrances, mostly man-made.

The book is questioning and infuriating at the same time. Not only has it managed to convincingly quash the popular narrative of 1971 conflict and take it out of the propaganda domain, it essentially asks people to question any narrative that fails the test of fact and analysis, specially the one floated by ones own government.

Book: Dead Reckoning: Memories of The 1971 Bangladesh War;  Author: Sarmila Bose; Imprint:   Hachette India;  Page Extent: 250;  Binding: Hardcover;  ISBN: 9789350093047; Price: 495