- Information
- AI Chat
Anis Ahmed Paper Operation Searchlight-with-cover-page-v2
Bangladesh Studies (GEN201)
University of Dhaka
Recommended for you
Preview text
Accelerat ing t he world's research.
Anis Ahmed Paper Operation
Searchlight
####### Saptarshi Basu
Related papers
East Pakist an Crisis Violat ion of Humanit arian Law in 1971 Monirul Islam Rahul
Genocide in Bangladesh aminur rahma
Is Genocidal Rape A Weapon Of War - T he Case of Bangladesh War Tanzia Ahmed
Download a PDF Pack of t he best relat ed papers
Bangladesh 1971: War Crimes, Genocide
and Crimes against Humanity
Operation Search Light: The Targets
Anis Ahmed
Introduction
The genocide committed in Bangladesh in 1971 is widely considered to be one of the worst genocides in recent history. But this genocide, despite the indiscriminate killings of a huge number of innocent men, women and
children was also very much target oriented. Hence the fact that this military operation was code-named Operation Search Light is self explanatory in the definition and the scope of the operation itself. But this is in no way to imply that because it was a targeted killing, it was any less than genocide rather on the contrary it was the worst kind of genocide for two very specific reasons. Firstly the targets were mostly civilians and secondly although Bengali paramilitary forces (East Pakistan Rifles) and police were attacked right on the night of March 25 1971 when the
operation started, the attack was an undeclared war on the basis of ethnic identity. Therefore although the objectives and operation were well defined and the target of killings and tortures of all degree and dimensions were preplanned, this in no way reduces the responsibility of causing genocide in Bangladesh from March 25,1971 till December 16, 1971 must be remembered that the broader target was the entire Bengali population in the erstwhile East Pakistan.
According to Asia Times, ' at a meeting of the military top brass Yahya Khan declared," Kill three millions of them , the rest will eat of our hands". Accordingly on the night of 25 March , the Pakistani Army launched Operation Searchlight to crush Bengali resistance in which Bengali members of military services were disarmed and killed, students and the intelligentsia systematically liquidated and able bodied Bengali males just picked up and gunned down. According to various sources three million people were killed by the Pakistani Armed Forces and their
accomplices in Bangladesh. It was one of the largest genocides in the modern known history. I must admit that the scope of discussion on this genocide is too wide to be encompassed in this discussion within this short time. I will, therefore, specifically focus on two targets of Operation Searchlight namely the students and the women.
Reasons for Students as Principle Targets
If we take a look into the making of Bangladesh and the struggle the Bengali nation had to go through soon after the creation of Pakistan in August 1947, we must say that the students in the erstwhile East Bengal played a vital role. Whether it was in opposing Muhammad Ali Jinnah's unilateral declaration in March 1948 that "Urdu and Urdu alone shall be the state language of Pakistan ", or subsequently in demonstrating for making Bengali as one of the National Languages of Pakistan or eventually getting shot by the police on 21 February 1952 , the students were
found everywhere in their struggles and sacrifices for the nation. Students in Bangladesh were forward looking progressive bunch of young men and women who supported Bengali Nationalism not because they were narrow nationalistic but Bengali Nationalism to them meant a freedom from the shackles of an artificially imposed sense of
sent another telegram which recounted atrocities against girls. Blood wrote: "Six naked female bodies at Rokeya Hall, Dacca U. Feet tied together. Bits of rope hanging from ceiling fans. Apparently raped, shot and hung by their heels from fans." Small notes they may be ,but they bear a very big footmark of the atrocities of the Pakistani Army and their collaborators in crime.
It may be mentioned that during the early days of Operation Searchlight Pakistani army killed students instantaneously by shooting or by launching rockets in the dorms. But when the dorms were emptied and the surviving students fled this Operation Searchlight intensified and was extended even to remote villages. Students were rarely shot at sight, on the other hand they were caught , interrogated if they had links with the Freedom Fighters or Mukti Bahini and even if they had not any link or it was not proven , the innocent students were tortured and slowly killed.
A Personal Experience in 1971
Here I may add a brief anecdote , although it is neither funny nor fictitious, which would prove that despite my teen age I was targeted in those days, questions briefly and was then let go. Fortunately I was not subjected to usual
atrocities owing to my very proficient use of Urdu Language. In 1971 I was scheduled to take my Secondary School Certificate but during the non-violence non-cooperation movement on March 22, many SSC examinees gathered at Dhaka Stadium gate and vowed not to take the exam unless Bangladesh became an independent country. After the army crackdown on the night of 25 March 1971, the situation took a u-turn and the surviving people inside Bangladesh were turned into merely captive. In an apparent show of normalcy during the operation searchlight the
government wanted educational institutions to be functional and wanted a huge number of examinees to take the School Final Exam. In the second week of April 1971, we wrote and cyclostyled several leaflets asking the students not to take the upcoming exam as silent protest against the occupation forces of Pakistan. I took some of these leaflets in my pocket and started off for my school, PAF Shaheen School. On the way Pakistani army started
questioning me, about my school, background etc. As I looked smaller than my age , I did not say that I was a possible examinee, I rather said I was in grade Nine. The entire interaction took place in Urdu and at the end my blood chilled when they said to each other, "Let's leave him. He is not Bengali. Bengalis don't speak Urdu so well. Little did those Jawans know that in less than 30 minutes time I was to enter the premises of the Air Force School in my mad pursuit to convince my friends not to take the examination.
Bengali Women as Target of Torture & Atrocities in 1971
Women in an essentially male dominated society, even to this day , have always been a vulnerable section of the populace and their vulnerability was adequately exploited by Pakistani Junta and their collaborators. They were made targets of torture in either of two ways:
a. Directly through Rape and Subjugation b. By Applying Gendercide where able Men in the family were killed leaving the Women helpless
During the nine months of military crackdown on the entire Bengali civilian population in Bangladesh, according to Bangladesh Government at least 200,000 Bengali women of all ages were raped and ravished. After the Liberation of Bangladesh Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman , the founding father of the country tried to honor these dishonored girls and women by naming them the War Heroines and had ordered to prepare of list of these persons
who were subjected to sexual torture of the highest degree. A Ladies' Hostel in Dhaka was established to initially start rehabilitating these women and girls. However, due to social stigma against a woman who had sexual relationship outside the wedlock , unwillingly though, very few tortured women responded to this call and recognizing the social stigma Sheikh Mujib had to ask later to destroy the lists of these women so that in their own society , in a free country , they are not considered untouchables. This is how the exact number of tortured women are lost now. In the meantime, many of them committed suicide and some of them who were pregnant by the Pakistani soldiers or their associates left for Pakistan where they thought they would remain unidentified beyond the boundary of their own sociery. Shahriar Kabir , in his book , Tormenting Seventy One quotes Professor Nilima Ibrahim, former Head of Bengali in Dhaka University and Director , Bangla Academy saying that 30/40 raped women were leaving country along with the War Detainees who were going to India in 1972 met the women and requested them to stay in Bangladesh. But they were determined to leave their own country as they were not accepted by their own kins. Shahriar Kabir mentions in his book about a teen- aged pregnant girl who, despite requests by Neelima Ibrahim, decided to go to Pakistan for the fear of social criticism. Susan Brownmiller in her book Against Our Will: Men Women and Rape writes, "An Asian relief secretary for the World Council of Churches called a press conference in Geneva to discuss his two-week mission to Bangladesh. The Reverend Kentaro Buma reported that more that 200,000 Bengali women had been raped by Pakistani soldiers during the nine- month conflict, a figure that had been supplied to him by the Bangladesh authorities in Dacca. Thousands of the raped women had become pregnant, he said. And by tradition, no Moslem husband would take back a wife who had been touched by another man, even if she had been subdued by force. "The new authorities of Bangladesh are trying their best to break that tradition," Buma informed the newsmen. "They tell the husbands the women were victims and must be considered national heroines. Some men have taken their spouses back home , but these are very, very few." She adds, " 200,000, 300,000 or possible 400,000 women (three sets of statistics have been variously quoted) were raped. Eighty percent of the raped women were Moslems, reflecting the population of Bangladesh, but Hindu and Christian women were not exempt. As Moslems, most Bengali women were used to living in purdah, strict, veiled isolations that includes separate, secluded shelter arrangements apart from men, even in their own homes. The Pakistanis were also Moslems, but there the similarity stopped. Susan Brownmiller also mentions about Hit and Run Rape committed by Pakistani Army and their collaborators in Bangladesh also mentions about the Biharis and the Razakars taking active part in the rape of Bengali women and girls. Brownmiller writes, " According to victims, Moslem Biharis who collaborated with the Pakistani Army - the hireling razakars – were the most enthusiastic rapists.
The accepted figure of pregnant women through rape by the Pakistani army and their paramilitary forces with Bengali and non Bengali collaborators is estimated around 25,000. Many were able to go for abortion ,some well to do went to Kolkata , many were treated by rural quakes resulting in deaths and sterility amongst women. Brownmiller writes , "Dr. Geoffrey Davis of the London-based International Abortion Research and Training Centre who worked for months in the remote countryside of Bangladesh reported that he had heard of "countless" incidents of suicide and infanticide during his travels. Rat poison and drowning were the available means. Davis also estimated that five thousand women had managed to abort themselves by various indigenous methods, with attendant medical complications". Planned Parenthood, in co-operation with the newly created Bangladesh Central Organization for Women's Rehabilitation, set up clinics in Dacca and seventeen outlying areas to cope with the unwanted pregnancies. In its first month of operation the Dacca clinic alone reported doing more than one hundred terminations. Perhaps the story of this torture where women and girls were target alone could go on for ever.
However, apart from direct raping of women , Pakistani Army and their collaborators also committed a crime of gendercide. In additon to calling it a genocide, the killing could also be termed as genderecide where selective killings were done amongst the adult male Bengali population. The war against the Bengali population proceeded in classic gendercidal fashion. According to Anthony Mascarenhas, "There is no doubt whatsoever about the targets of the genocide":
They were: (1) The Bengali militarymen of the East Bengal Regiment, the East Pakistan Rifles, police and para- military Ansars and Mujahids. (2) The Hindus -- "We are only killing the men; the women and children go free. We are soldiers not cowards to kill them ..." I was to hear in Comilla [site of a major military base] [Comments R. Rummel: "One would think that murdering an unarmed man was a heroic act" ( Death By Government , p. 323)] (3) The Awami Leaguers -- all office bearers and volunteers down to the lowest link in the chain of command. (4) The
Anis Ahmed Paper Operation Searchlight-with-cover-page-v2
Course: Bangladesh Studies (GEN201)
University: University of Dhaka
