In memory of the martyrs of March

People light candles at the ‘Shaheed Bedi’ in memory of those killed by the Pakistani army on the night of March 25, 1971, at Jagannath Hall on Tuesday, Mar 25, 2015. Photo: Mustafiz Mamun/ b

In the midst of dismal and devastation due to the pandemic, the year 2021 has especial appeal for the University of Dhaka – the country's oldest and most prestigious institution of pedagogy and learning – celebrating its centenary. The university is inevitably intertwined with and has taken part in all the major historical events that shaped the history of making of the Bengali nation, its intellectual nucleus and ultimately independent Bangladesh – also celebrating its golden jubilee of independence. The year 2021 is also momentous from another account for the university and the nation — it marks the 50th anniversary of the genocide committed by the Pakistani Army who coined the infamous military operation codenamed Operation Searchlight that began on a dreadful night of Mar 25 in 1971 targeting amongst others the University of Dhaka – which became an epicentre of the genocide of that black night.

On that vicious night, the Pakistani Army targeted particularly the student dormitories to annihilate the student leaders and the students in general whom they thought to be the lifeblood of the liberation movement and hence a threat to the very idea and existence of Pakistan. After all, they were the ones who took the lead in protests against all sorts of discrimination and oppression by the Pakistani regimes for 24 years; took part in creating and nurturing the idea of Bangladesh under the leadership of the founding father of the nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman – a state that would encompass the ideologies of secularism, cultural harmony, socialism and democracy – the ideals for which Bangabandhu has fought through his entire life. They were the ones who first hoisted the very first flag of Bangladesh on Mar 2, 1971 on the university campus, sending a strong message to the Pakistani regime that "Bangladesh is coming!" It was therefore no surprise that the student dormitories of the university became the primary target of the Pakistani military forces to carry out their Operation Searchlight on the dreadful night of Mar 25. The genocide took place in the dormitories and staff quarters of Shaheed Sergeant Zahurul Haque Hall (the then Iqbal Hall), Jagannath Hall and Ruqayyah Hall, and some teachers' quarters and residences where some of the professors were killed.  Such genocidal acts committed by any force in history in universities or student dormitories are unprecedented. The exact account of the mass killings that took place at the university on the dark night of Mar 25 is yet to be scripted.

Not only that such attacks on student dormitories are exceptional, but attacks on female dormitory is unheard of. But the question remains why a female dormitory and its staff quarters became a prime target of the Pakistani military. The answer can be found from the secret telegrams of Archer K Blood, the then US consul general in Dhaka, who informed the highest officials of the US government about the brutal Operation Searchlight. From Blood's own words, "Rokeya Hall, a dormitory for girl students, was set ablaze and the girls were machine-gunned as they fled the building. The attack seemed to be aimed at eliminating the female leadership since many girl student leaders resided in that hall." (Archer K Blood, The Cruel Birth of Bangladesh – Memoirs of an American Diplomat.  The University Press Limited, 2002, p. 207).

Over the last fifty years, very little research has been done on the Ruqayyah Hall genocide on the black night of Mar 25, 1971. But thanks to two researchers, Md Al-Amin and Bashar Khan who have done a comprehensive work not only documenting the oral pieces of evidence of those who have witnessed and survived the horror of that dark night at Ruqayyah Hall but also compiling the available news reports of the March massacre in 1972 just after independence (Md Al-Amin and Bashar Khan, "Ruqayyah Hall Gonohotta: Ahhoto O Protokkhodorshider Bhassho" – Ruqayyah Hall Genocide: Testimony of Wounded and Witnesses. Kagoj Publication, 2020). Their book is truly commendable and it will serve as a valuable resource for future researchers who wishes to further investigate the mass murder of March at the staff quarter of Ruqayyah Hall. From their book, we get the testimony of two female survivors who were severely injured but lost their dear ones. Eight eyewitnesses have shared their experiences of the barbaric attacks of the Pakistani Army. The book enlisted at least 45 people who were brutally killed, including 12 staffers of the hall and their family members irrespective of their age and gender. The martyred staffers of the hall as they have documented in their book at that time were employed as a security guard, liftman, gardener, darwan/guard, pion, bearer and washerman/dhopa. None of them was an active participant in the liberation movement; all the victims and survivors were commoners and unarmed innocent civilians. The gruesome stories of the survivors tell us the dreadfulness of that night. We get to know the terrible tale of Phul Banu, a young bride that time (who lost her husband Abdul Khaleq, a gardener of the hall and her younger sister) who was brutally shot and left lying on the floor for the whole night over the blood of her husband and sister; we get to know about Raushan Ara who was severely injured with other family members and lost her mother and two brothers and still suffers from the trauma of that ruthless night; the frightful experience of freedom fighter Farida Khanom Saki (now a member of parliament), who was a resident student of the hall in 1971, tells us how the house tutor Sahara Khatun saved the lives of seven female students by locking them in a storeroom that night; from Gias Uddin Dewan's (a liftman of the hall in 1971) testament, we get to know how he survived by hiding in a drum for two nights! We come to know the aching stories of eyewitnesses who had seen their own dear ones die in front of them. The survivors tell us how the dead bodies were buried in mass graves near the Shamsunnahar Hall and many more of such merciless stories.

There are several memorial plaques on the campus for the martyrs who were associated with the university. But one was missing at the premises of Ruqayyah Hall, the largest and oldest female dormitory of the university which played a crucial role in ensuring female participation in the liberation movement and nation-building process. On the bright Monday morning of Mar 1, 2021, a memorial plaque at the hall premises was inaugurated by Vice-Chancellor Professor Md Aktaruzzaman, ending the long wait to have such commemoration for the martyred staffers of the hall on that brutal night. A note of appreciation must go to Provost Professor Dr Zeenat Huda, for taking a personal initiative and arrange with the hall's internal resources the construction of the plaque to commemorate the martyrs. Although it took half a century to have a proper plaque for the martyrs of the Ruqayyah Hall genocide, the provost got it very right – it is never too late to do the right thing!

In this short piece, I brought up Dhaka University and Ruqayyah hall genocide not just because I have personal affiliation with these two institutions, or to express my note of appreciation for these efforts at personal levels, but to depict only a single episode of that vicious night out of countless of such atrocities. I also wanted to highlight the fact that, sadly how much inattention has been paid even after 50 years to mark the mass graves within the university premises and preserve them and to document the testimonies of the survivors and witnesses for the sake of historical account and have a proper memorial plaque to show our respect, and preserve the history of our Liberation War for our next generations. But certainly, I do not intend to stop here.

The murderous madness carried out by the Pakistani Army was not an act of insane frenzy but was an act of deliberate, premeditated, conscious imposition of the Pakistani desires. This is evidenced not only from the voices of their military officials but also from the reaction of their political leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who after witnessing the horrors of Mar 25 in his own eyes in Dhaka, in most amoral manner uttered, "Thanks to God that Pakistan could have been saved." (Banglapedia/Operation Searchlight). Ironically within less than seven years, God did not show any interest to save Bhutto from the death sentence staged by the very Pakistani Army whom he once shamelessly applauded for their gruesome genocidal acts to 'save Pakistan' in 1971.

TS Eliot wrote, "April is the cruellest month" (The Waste Land), but for the Bangladeshis, it is difficult to say which the cruellest month in the year 1971 was. The mayhem that the Pakistani Army started in March through Operation Searchlight was followed by recurrent genocidal carnages engineered and executed for the next nine months. A reign of military terror followed. The Pakistani Army committed genocide of three million people, forced 10 million people to become refugees in India, raped more than 200,000 women, vandalised and burned villages after villages and displaced millions leaving an indelible mark on every Bangladeshi mind who has experienced and witnessed the horror. There are very few families in Bangladesh who is not directly or indirectly affected by the destructions caused by the Pakistani Army in 1971. The final blow came on Dec 14, 1971 when the Pakistani Army and their local collaborators in a well-planned manner killed the intellectuals, the brightest sons of this soil, just two days before our final victory. The Pakistani Army, their local collaborators and their paramilitary auxiliary forces (the Razakars, Al-Badr and Al-Shams) did not spare by their havoc and misdeeds any of the criteria that satisfy such acts as 'genocide' as per the official definition of Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 1948 (Genocide Convention). Despite the extent of such scale and brutality it is so unfortunate and a matter of shame for the international community which is yet to recognise the Bangladesh genocide.

While every genocide bears the same degree of the havoc of death and destruction, the Bangladesh genocide is particularly unique in some aspects. While most of the genocides that human history has experienced, is either targeted at ethnic groups (Rwandan genocide) or religious groups (Nazi Holocaust), the Bangladesh genocide was aimed at eliminating at the same time three different target groups, including the Bengali (ethnic group), the Hindu (religious group) and the leaders and supports of the Awami League (political group). It aimed to eradicate a political ideology. Most importantly the notorious military action carried out that night gave the immense impetus to the nation for the liberation movement and changed overnight the course of our struggle for freedom from all kinds of exploitations. As rightly pointed out by Syed Masud Reza, our national narrative of 'right to self-determination" also premises upon the genocide of Mar 25, which has challenged the academic discourse of international law on 'right to self-determination' beyond the colonial paradigm (Syed Masud Reza, "Operation Searchlight in the national self-determination narrative" The Daily Star, Mar 26, 2019). If a genocide of such importance, magnitude and gravity is not recognised as 'genocide' by the international community, I just wonder what else should be?

While a formal apology from Pakistan or seeing Pakistan's own chapter of the Nuremberg Trial remains a far cry, the international community also has shown their failure to recognise our genocide and we also have for a long time failed to prosecute the local perpetrators of 1971. Although the trial process started just after independence by enacting the Bangladesh Collaborators (Special Tribunals) Order 1972 and the International Crimes Tribunal Act, 1973, these efforts came to an end with the brutal assassination of Bangabandhu along with his family members on another dark day of our nation's life on the early morning of Aug 15, 1975. Less than six months after his assassination the Collaborators Act was repealed on Dec 31, 1975. After the assassination of Bangabandhu not only that the nation experienced a baleful silence on the issue of prosecuting the war criminals and inertia to attain any kind of international recognition of this genocide, but also painfully experienced the state-sponsored patronage of rehabilitation of the local war criminals in the highest positions of the country. A masterful mishandling of the true facts of the 1971 genocide was carried in this country for a long time since 1975. Though the demand for bringing the local perpetrators of 1971 remained alive under the leadership of Shaheed Janani Jahanara Imam, it was not until 2010, after a long wait of 39 years when the trial started in Bangladesh under the International Crimes Tribunal Act, 1973. After such a long wait, the nation realised one simple thing – it only takes a bold political will, commitment and leadership to try the perpetrators who have committed genocidal acts, war crimes and crimes against humanity against their own countryman. A special note of appreciation must go to our Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who went for the extra miles beyond her call for duties when it came to upholding the spirits of our Liberation War and paying homage to the ones who sacrificed their lives for the independence, and bringing the local perpetrators of 1971 genocide to justice. In future, Hasina's legacy will remain not only for the fact that she has achieved some remarkable milestones for the nation in terms of economic and development indexes and turned the country, which once brusquely called the 'basket case' by the former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger (strangely he himself was a Jewish refugee who fled Nazi Germany with his family, but became patron of the Pakistan Army's genocide in Bangladesh) to an economic 'bull case'; but her legacy will remain more importantly for the fact that she has shown the utmost political determination despite all 'international pressures' to end the 'culture of impunity' for the highest crimes committed by our own countrymen in this country during our Liberation War. But the initiatives from the current government for global recognition of the Bangladesh genocide were still missing. Though quite long overdue but the government finally passed a parliamentary resolution to observe Mar 25 as Genocide Day on Mar 11, 2017 (Parliament passes motion to mark March 25 as Genocide Day, The Daily Star, Mar 11, 2017) and took the initiatives to make an effort to get recognition from the international community. Though this initiative came quite late, as I said earlier – it is never too late to do the right thing!

Going back again to the massacre at the Dhaka University, though here I have highlighted few stories only from Ruqayyah Hall genocide on Mar 25, similar narratives of murderous madness, cruelty and brutality can be found from experiences of Zahurul Huq Hall and Jagganath Hall and other places of the country during that dark night and the following nine months. Similar echo of atrocity, brutality and horrendous incidents can be found in stories from other genocides -in the Nazi holocaust, in Rwanda, in Bosnia, in Syria, and in Myanmar and many more. Therefore, recognition of the genocide is not merely a matter of national interest but rather is an international one. Humanity has paid too much price for the international community's failure to recognise past genocidal acts, evidenced from the fact, when Adolf Hitler, addressing his commanding generals in 1939, brutishly remarked, "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?" Hitler could show such audacity since the world did not talk much about the Armenian genocide until the evils and atrocities of the Nazi holocaust came to light.

With the ongoing efforts to get global recognition of Bangladesh genocide, parallelly the mass graves in the country need to be identified and preserved; stories of genocides must be told; testimonies of the survivors and witnesses must be documented; memorial plaques must be built. As the holocaust survivor novelist Eliezer Weisel wrote, "…for the dead and living, we must bear witness" – memoirs must be preserved -for us and for our future generations and more importantly for a nation which has seen the attempts in the past to distort the history of our Liberation War. By preserving the memories of the Bangladesh genocide, the nation is not simply retelling its own tales of its painful past, but reverberating with the rest of the world the pledge that was taken after the Nazi holocaust – "Nunca Mas"- "Never Again"!