The liberation war narrative must include people’s ownership of the war

This is the first month of March after the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s government. While commemorating this month of independence in the changed Bangladesh, there is need to give thought to the liberation war narrative. After Awami League went to the extremes of authoritarianism and then collapsed in the face of a mass uprising, an opportunity has opened up before us. It is essential to use this opportunity to revive the glory and ownership of the liberation war. Rather than being held by any single party or individual, due credit for the people’s war must be returned to the people.

Awami League had created a grand narrative regarding the liberation war, establishing their singular control over the history, leadership and events of the liberation war. According to this narrative of their singular contribution to the liberation war, the party leaders felt only Awami League was entitled to rule the country. In the same vein, any critics of the party were dubbed as critics of the liberation war. In this manner, the contribution of everyone was obfuscated by the single narrative of Sheikh Mujib in the status of a ‘god’, an ‘incomparable and flawless leader’.

Narratives in politics are nothing new. There is a famous saying, “Those who tell the tale, rule the society.” This indicates how spinning narratives are connected to ruling the country. A narrative is a tale that attempts to justify power, authority and social norms. That is why narrative construction is an integral part of state power. The same interpretations are required to hold on to state power. As a narrative is hugely dependent on history, it becomes necessary to interpret history in their own interests. Jean-François Lyotard describes grand narratives as narratives that provide ideologies with a legitimating philosophy of history. That is why the grand narrative attempts to place various events and incidents of history in one broad overreaching narrative. The problem is that this just presents one single discourse of history, highlighting the same narrative, accrediting one single person or party.

It was Awami League that created the grand narrative regarding Bangladesh’s liberation war. People from all walks of life had built up the armed resistance of the independence struggle. The force comprised people from the villages, the cities, of all ages and classes. But after the war, the ownership of the liberation war gradually went from the hands of the people to one person and one party. During Awami League’s rule, the liberation war became a sort of irrevocable religion rather than a historical event. Alongside making the single narrative of the liberation war irrefutable and beyond question, a law was even enacted to establish unquestionable allegiance towards the great leader of the liberation war and his family.

In this project to weave a grand narrative, history was constructed according to the wishes of the ruler. It is not what occurred that mattered. What mattered was what fit into the narrative. Rather than the truth, what was more important was what was “comfortable” for the narrative. That is why it is taboo to mention Sheikh Mujib’s tireless efforts to establish Pakistan as a Muslim League worker and later his dreams being shattered. That is why when discussing history, the narrative jumps abruptly from the 1947 partition of the subcontinent to 1971.

This narrative is discordant with the fact that there are freedom fighters within the opposition political parties. Ziaur Rahman was one of the main commanders of the liberation war, but this narrative reduces him to an “agent of Pakistan.” Other than Awami League, the contribution of those with other political ideologies, rural and marginal communities and even leftist freedom fighters, is totally evaded. It is the grand narrative that decides on who is the “genuine” freedom fighter and who should be considered a freedom fighter or not.

What actually transpired during the liberation war, who actually took part in the war, and such facts are often obscured. More importance is given to who accept, support and imbibe the history as spun by the single narrative.
The grand narrative does not only determine who are the freedom fighters or set a benchmark for that, it also determines who are the razakars (collaborators against the war) of various generations. According to this narrative, Awami League is the guardian of the liberation war and so when anyone opposes the programmes of this party or its leaders, this is simplified as an opposition to the liberation war. That is why anyone who opposed Awami League leaders were tagged as “razakars”, “Jamaat-Shibir” or “razakarer bachcha (son of the razakar)”, etc.

Two social movements rose up in 2013 — one was the Shahbagh movement and the other was the Hefazat movement. These two movements aided in creating a new narrative for the liberation war, helping Awami League to reap political benefits. It is interesting that the Shahbagh movement was sparked off an anti-government movement, but later became a movement that served Awami League’s interests.

The movement began from a suspicion that an understanding was being hatched between Awami League and Jamaat-e-Islami. These suspicions arose when a death sentence for collaborating with the Pakistani forces and aiding and abetting in crimes against humanity during the liberation war, was changed to a life sentence.

To understand how an anti-government movement turned into a movement that was supported by the government, one must understand the construction of grand narrative and the enemy. The grand narrative maintains that Awami League is the sole guardian of the liberation war and is entitled to uphold it, and so they eventually pocketed the movement for themselves. The manner in which over an extensive period of time Awami League wove the narrative of its monopoly, in many instances even their opponents unwittingly swallowed this narrative of Awami League’s ownership of the liberation war.

Just at the time when there was need for discussion and protest about how the government became a party to the Shahbagh movement, the hardline Islamist group Hefazat took up a movement. The meaningless believer-atheist debate of Hefazat drew attention away from the actual issue. While Awami League used force to foil Hefazat’s Dhaka sit-in, it took them no time to turn around and draw them close. Initially Awami League supported the self-proclaimed atheist bloggers, but later attested them, filed cases against them and forged strong bonds with Hefazat. Thus Shahbagh and Hefazat, two ostensibly opposite streams of extreme nationalism and religion, instigated a culture of hatred in Bangladesh. A binary divide and polarisation was created. Awami League, known as “secular” in this unhealthy divide, in the name of resisting Islamists, justified them for the sake of staying in power at any cost.

After 5 August, vain attempts were made to use the mass uprising to obscure the glory of the liberation war. But on a note of hope, first BNP and then the newly formed NCP stood up against this attempt to overshadow the liberation war. Other than Jamaat-e-Islami and certain other extremists, all political parties in Bangladesh agree that 1971 and 2024 are not in confrontation, but are just a continuity of the struggle for freedom. This consensus must be used to smash the monopolised grand narrative and take the liberation war from Awami League’s hands and return it to the people. There needs to be more study and research to this end on the contribution and sacrifice of the common people to the liberation war.

* Saimum Parvez is senior researcher at Oslo’s Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society (Associate Professor)
* This column appeared in the print an online edition of Prothom Alo and has been rewritten for the English edition by Ayesha Kabir