We do know about Bangladesh as it was a part of Pakistan before its independence and was known as East Pakistan (the eastern provincial wing of Pakistan between 1947 and 1971). But what we rarely know is the story of its independence and the black night of genocide happened there in 1971. If we see apart from religion, the culture and language was different in West Pakistan and East Pakistan, also the regions of both provincial wings of Pakistan was far away from each other. As a result, the central government of Pakistan (worked from western wing) was very less concerned about their people of eastern wing. For example- on 12th November 1970, a major cyclone “Bhola Cyclone” struck the East Pakistan and devastated almost everything included insfrustructure, transport and other services along with people in which thousands were dead and millions were displaced. But the central government responded as low concerned, even government was blamed for misusing the funds that time and this made people of eastern wing outranged.
In the middle of this, on 7th December 1970 the Awami league political party of East Pakistan won their remarkable victory under the leadership of “Sheikh Mujibur Rahman” with clear majority by campaigned on the platform of Bengali autonomy. Although, at the same time in the western wing (west Pakistan) the most successful political party was Pakistan People Party (PPP) headed by “Zulfikar Ali Bhutto” and he was against the Mujib’s demand of autonomy. Therefore, political deadlock happened and due to that the former president of Pakistan “Yahya Khan” (1970) delayed the convening of the assembly. When Sheikh Mujibur Rahman understood this political deadlock, he called for an Independence of East Pakistan on 7th March 1971.
To stop Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and people of East Pakistan from seeking independence, Yahya Khan declared martial law, banned the Awami league and ordered to arrest Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and other Bengali activists. It was clearly planned because Yahya Khan had soft corner for Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
After declaration of martial law by President, Pakistan army launched Operation Searchlight against it’s own citizens of eastern wing on 25th March 1971. Army executed this operation on the sleeping citizens of Dhaka and killed around 7,000 people in a single night included students, literally Dhaka was burning by the midnight. The same night, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was arrested and taken to West-Pakistan. Before his arrest, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman declared that East-Pakistan was to become Bangladesh – an Independent sovereign country. The declaration of independence was transmitted throughout East-Pakistan via an E.P.R. transmitter. Although the declaration was made on the 25th of March, it transmission took place after midnight. Since then, the 26th of March is celebrated as the Independence Day of Bangladesh.
The Pakistan army was targeting the intellectuals and academics, cultural figures, media workers, even sports figures – anyone seen to be at the vanguard of Bengali identity and culture and Hindus. Following the “Black Night” of 25th of March, the atrocities of the Pakistani military aggravated.
The “liberation war of Bangladesh” (26 March 1971- 16 December 1971) started in which each citizen fought for the freedom of their country to pakistani army. The Bengali Nationalists assembled a shallow armed force called “Mukti Bahini” (The Force of Independence). The Bengali military officers of East-Pakistan took charge over the military operations of the Bengali nationalists. They divided East-Pakistan in 11 sectors in order to conduct their guerrilla operations against the West-Pakistani military. In the meantime, the Provisional Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh was created in Mujibnagar by some political leaders of East-Pakistan.
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman who was a prisoner of the West-Pakistan government during that time was made the President and Tajuddin Ahmed was made the Prime Minister of Bangladesh. This event led to the official declaration of Bangladesh as an independent country.
During the liberation war, around 200,000 to 400,000 women became victims of rape and sexual slavery. The president of Bangladesh ‘Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’ called all the women who were oppressed during the war as his daughters and Government of Bangladesh gave a title Birangona to all these women to honor them. Yet many of them committed suicide, some were dead during the abortion process and some left the country.
According to Bangladesh, there were 3,000,000 were dead during this war as Sheikh Mujibur Rahman pointed this in his speeches many times. But according to Pakistan, there were 26000 people died. Pakistan never admitted it was a genocide and nor apologized ever.
This is a genocide which US don’t remember but Bangladesh can never forget. India can never forget. Bangladesh received continuous moral support from India since the beginning of the Liberation War. Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India during that time, was able to secure support from the Soviet Union, The United Kingdom and France to ensure that there would be no directives in favour of Pakistan in the United Nations Security Council. When West-Pakistan launched attacks against India on the 3rd of December 1971, the Indian military forces joined Bangladeshi guerrilla forces to fight against the West-Pakistani military. On 16th December 1971, Pakistan army surrendered. Hence, In India we celebrate Vijay Diwas on 16th December and In Bangladesh, people celebrate victory day on 16th December.
On 25th March, every year Bangladesh remembers their lost people and denotes it as national genocide day. On 25th March 2021, there was a one minute blackout in Bangladesh to mark genocide day. It seems to me that, world should recognise the Bangladesh Genocide 1971, we should recognise the people who were killed without any fault just because they want freedom from brutality. As an Indian citizen, I believe India should recognise this in front of other countries and US should also recognise this.
I am numb while completing this.
Complete Time Line
Stay Strong.
Srishti Sangwan 
Leave a comment