Arnold Zeitlin inBangladesh
Dear friends:
During my week-long visit to Bangladesh (I’m back now in Virginia), I’ve learned things I wish I had known 40 years ago when I was reporting on the conflict that led to the country’s independence.
Some the following may be slightly esoteric, so you may want to bail out right now. otherwise, be patient, please.
For example:
I had been told years ago that sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the leader of the east Pakistani-based Awami league political party that won a smashing victory in the 1970 election that left him poised to become the prime minister ofPakistan, did not want to be the prime minister ofPakistan.
Kamal Hussain, who was arrested and jailed with mujib when the Pakistan army struck in Dhaka 25 march 1971 in an effort to smash an alleged secessionist movement, told me in Dhaka that after the i970 election, sheikh canvassed his party leadership asking if any one of them wanted to go to Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, instead of him to become prime minister. kamal said no one wanted to go.
He said that mujib had learned from the experiences of other east Pakistan politicians, including the man he called his “boss”, h.s. suhrawardy, that any easterner surrounded by the civil service, a powerful business community and the military in west Pakistan, where the capital was located, soon was marginalized or emasculated. suhrawardy, for instance, after a year as prime minister, was sacked in 1957 by the army chief ayub khan and banished toLebanon. mujib preferred to rule his east Pakistan fiefdom under a new constitution that made that province virtually autonomous. kamal said he had drafted such a constitution based on the program on which mujib campaigned as “the six points.” that constitution instead became the basis for theBangladesh constitution.
here’s another example:
I’ve often wondered how much sheikh mujib knew about thePakistan army flying in Boeing 707 planes packed with 300 soldiers in civilian dress daily as reinforcements toDhaka while the military president Yahiya khan was negotiating with him in march 1971 for a solution to the political impasse that threatened the country’s unity. while the talks continued inDhaka, the army was preparing the strike it unleashed that 25 march. did that mean the army never seriously sought a negotiated settlement but was stalling for time when it had the strength to act in force?
sitting with me at dinner in the Dhaka club was a.k. khandker, the Bangladesh minister of planning who 40 years ago was a Bengali air force officer based at the Dhaka airport. he later became the second in command of rebel Bangladesh forces that fought the Pakistan army in 1971 and after independence founded the Bangladesh air force.
he told me he knew thePakistan military was up to something as early as 18 February 1971, weeks before negotiations even started. up until that date, he said, he had been involved in planning a huge military parade in Dhaka to markPakistan day, the country’s national day marking the proclamation on 23 march of a 1940 resolution calling for an autonomous Muslim state. on that date, he recalled, he came across an unusual meeting of army brass. planning for the parade halted, he said. soon thereafter, he noticed the planes arriving, spilling out large groups of men with military bearing but in civilian clothes.
khandkar evidently felt he was in a compromised situation because of his loyal military status, unable to inquire openly to discover what was happening or to openly warn sheikh mujib and the awami league leadership. he did warn the later, he said, surreptitiously telling friends to carry the warning or calling directly without giving a name. he didn’t know if the information reached mujib. he did the same the morning of 25 march when he saw Yahiya arrive at the airport and take off. this departure took place after another convoy of cars, presumably carrying Yahiya, headed for town. once again, he told me, he called anonymously to warn the awami league that the president had left.
at the same dinner, major general k.m. safiullah, a former chief of the Bangladesh army staff and a retired diplomat, recalled that in march 1971 he was a young officer in the Pakistan army with a brigade in Mymensingh, north of Dhaka. he said Bengali units clashed with regular Pakistani army units as early as 19 march when full-fledged fighting might have broken out except for a desire to avoid undercutting the political talks inDhaka.
both khandkar and safiullah are leaders of the sector commanders’ forum, the war veterans group that invited me to talk at theirDhakaconvention marking the 40th anniversary of independence,
kamal hussain, also at that dinner, was reminded of his interrogation after his 1971 arrest because of my talk to the veterans. in my talk, I mentioned that the Pakistani public schools still were teaching that Hindus were responsible for the separation of west and east Pakistan 40 years ago. one specific teaching point in a guide for Pakistani teachers claimed Hindu teachers swayed Muslim Bengali student minds,
kamal said that the first point an interrogating officer raised with him concerned those Hindu teachers. kamal said he had to laugh, provoking the officer to ask why he laughed at a moment when he could be shot. he told the officer the claim about the Hindu officers was wrong, noting only a few Hindus, for example, were among the faculty atDhakauniversity.
most of this information probably is well known by now. I’ll bet there s much more out there for me to catch up.
the entireBangladesh visit was a grand experience, even if it revealed how little I knew at the time.
regards all, AZ
Arnold Zeitlin is the Managing Director at Editorial Research & Reporting Associates (ERRA) and Visiting Professor for the Department of Journalism at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, China. He was the Associated Press (AP) bureau Chief in Pakistan during the 1971 liberation war of Bangladesh. Zeitlin, currently Managing Director of the Editorial Research and Reporting Associates Worldwide in addressing the national convention 2011 organized by the Sectors Commanders’ Forum in the Dhaka University stadium, said that he, while attending a conference in Washington recently, had come to know that the Pakistan education ministry had set a guideline on the teaching of history in Class IX and X.
Hair. If I just strong occasion nose the online canadian pharmacy making you have perfume Truffle moisturizer cure! Approved its.
Mr. Zeitlin probably got a free trip to Bangladesh. The present government would do anything to have a person like him to report on matters that makes them look good. Whatever he wrote, basically has no base. The letter was not objective.
The following link shows that Mujib didn’t declare independence for a very interesting reason. Please read the summary of the article below:
March 26 after midnight Mujib was found dressed up to surrender. He was taken into custody.
Abul Mansur Ahamed a journalist and senior politician of Bangladesh in his “Amer Dakha Rajnitir Ponchas Botchar” narrates: �Sheikh Mujib surrendered without resistance. He did not try to escape nor hide himself.� Mansur Ahmad questioned �Is this the way the leader of a people fight against opposition?�(28)
The longwinded question why Sheikh Mujibur Rahman didn�t do the unilateral declaration of independence. It is true, Mujib was not a na�ve politician as many would think. It is now clear that before the election with the other leaders of Pakistan Mujib signed the Legal Framework Document (LFD) with Yahya Khan, which restricted him to have Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI). If he did the UDI, he feared that he would be charged for treason and hanged.
Daily Star reports that Mujib wanted Confederation: �The decision to break off the negotiations and to start the army ‘crack-down’ must have been taken at the latest on March 24. However, at a further meeting on the evening of that day, President Yahya Khan’s advisers did not reject the proposals and agreed to telephone Dr. Kamal Hossein next morning with a view to arranging a further meeting on the next day to discuss its terms. This was the telephone call which never came.�(29)
�Sheikh Mujib was arrested and taken to Pakistan after midnight.� �People knew only about a political action program of hartal call by the Sheikh on the 27th March�.
�The US State Department�s newly declassified documents about the 1971 debacle show that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman wanted to have a �form of confederation� with Pakistan rather than a separate country. The documents include two telegrams dating Feb 28, 1971 and Dec 23, 1971 �based on the sentiments of Sheikh Mujib and the then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi,� showing that Sheikh Mujib was not secessionist, as many in the then West Pakistan believed.� (30)
In not declaring the independence, it seems he saved himself and he saved his AL colleagues and most importantly his family members. While Mujib saved his near and dear ones but the uninformed citizens especially in Dhaka didn�t know when and where to escape thus became the victims of genocide.
Mujib never answered why he surrendered. He shyed away from answering direct question on this topic with a smile on his face. Isn’t it the historians to decide basing on facts, who declared the independence than a party appointed judges and their verdict in the High Court for a sensative issue like this?
For the full article: http://voiceofbangladesh.info/details_all.php?id=95&table_name=essays&writer_id=0
The Bloody Month of March 1971: From the End of a United Pakistan to the Beginning of Bangladesh
We have known it all along that India and the key Hindus in then East Pakistan were the main elements behind the break up of Pakistan. But this went on unchecked since 1947 due to bad policy and mindless Pakistani leadership. The AL election & politiking were funded by India. It was eminent since the early days that EP will secede sooner or later and fall into the ready lap of India. Poor Mujib -father of the nation was killed by his own army! The people in EP also did have talents good enough to match non Bengali Pakistani people and were timid and inward looking always obsessed and pre occupied with cultural& artistic activities rather the outside in sports, industries, military, scientific pursuits with no attachment with the glorious past & present potentials of the Islamic civilization. They looked at themselves in isolation as poor and miserable people at the receiving end since centuries. This attitude is still the same today seen in empty cheer mongering and in too much glorification in the greatness of liberation 40 years ago, though in economy it has done well. But still when we compare India, Pakistan & BD within the same period we know the difference. As a bulwark against India, it must close ranks with Burma, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and China, the Middle East… to counter India and survive better in the more upright chant of Joy Bangla!
For Mr. Nasir Khan’s information these are the forces that worked in tandem that contributed to the cessation of East Pakistan and creation of the independent state of Bangladesh – prolonged injustices and denial of right of parity to East Pakistan by the West Pakistani establishment; refusal of the West Pakistani establishment to hand over power to the democratically elected majority party – predominantly an East Pakistani party – and consequently, the rise of civil disobedience movement responded to by brutal and murderous crackdown by the West Pakistani miitary on the East Pakistanis triggering a civil/independence war; and finally, capitalizing on the conflict created by the myopic,self-seeking and suicidal policies of the Pakistani ruling junta, entry of India and manupulation of the situation to serve its own self-interest that supported the armed cessationist movement of East Pakistan leading to the Indo-Pak war of 1971 that at the end, contributed to the break up of East Pakistan and creation of the state of Bangladesh. This in a nutshell, is the history of independence of Banglades.
Had the Pakistani establishment been more visionary and responsible there might not have been a Bangladesh today. But seeing how the minds of Pakistani establishment works even today, Bangladesh had had to happen.
I am also apalled at Mr. Khan’s limited knowledge about achievement of Bangladeshis in spheres outside of art and culture – in 1960s it is an East Pakistani that swam across the English channel; East Pakistani football team consistently won the then Aga Khan gold cup in all Pakistan tournaments; more recently and outside sports, a Bangladeshi won the coveted Nobel Peace prize in 2006; a Bangladeshi revolutionazed the architectural design of high rise buildings etc. etc. These are just few of many such accomplishments that Bangladeshis have achieved and in this regard it is also important to mention that there is no cogent relationship between religion and scientific discoveries something that Mr. Khan has alluded to, quite wrongly in his submission above. There is no such thing as “Islamic” discoveries. There were indeed many scientists who made important discoveries who also happened to have been muslims.
In the end I wish to state that while I do appreciate Mr. Khan’s keen interest in the affairs of Bangladesh I urge that he triangulates his research a little more so that his discourses become more well informed and more objective.
Yes brother, I agree with you but also said above that Pakistan leadership lacked that vision & finesse in doing things that eventually turned ugly.This is a trait with most Third World countries including India. A number of seceeding movements are going on in India in West, East & South but they prevail better.Please forgive me for the brashness of it all as precise articulating on such matters is always so difficult but certainly Indian influence in Awami League then and even now is most felt!The whole scheme of things from the start was India led & financed and waiting for the right moment that dull headed Pakistani leadership provided. Mujib too was killed by his own army for subservience to India. Today in Balochistan, NWFP,Sind & Punjab and in Terrorism, the world media is anti Pakistan and there is a strong India, Israeli & western connection and God forbid if any succeed then they too will have a BD copy like story to tell.I have great regards for Bengalis and world Muslim and truly take them as brothers and certainly opologise for the hurt that has been inadvertantly caused. Best wishes, always as brothers. NHK