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POST script
DECEMBER 11, 2011

SEVEN SISTERS

LAFFAIRE literary
Indian soldier who has ever surrendered to a militant? Professor Ray alleges that Bose is biased in her use of sources. "Her sources are primarily Pakistani. She has interviewed many Pakistani officers, but not those who were fighting them," he says. Particularly upset with Sarmila Bose are Bangladesh's vast numbers of freedom fighters men from various walks of life who joined the Mukti Fauj to fight the Pakistanis in 1971. "How can a Bengali, and that too from the family of the great Netaji Subhas Bose, write such a horrible account that tries to defend Pakistan's brutal army? This is simply unacceptable," says Haroon Habib, a freedom fighter who later rose to head the country's government-sponsored news agency, Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS). No bookseller has so far put Dead Reckoning on their shelves in Bangladesh. Even in Calcutta and other Bengali-dominated cities in India, the book is not to be seen. "Bengalis across the border will only have hate for her," says Bimal Pramanik, a freedom fighter who now lives in India and runs a centre for research on IndiaBangladesh relations. "She is untruthful and with a purpose." Sarmila Bose denies all charges leveled against her and says she has only "tried to correct the course of contemporary history". A claim few in Bangladesh or West Bengal or the huge Bengali diaspora will endorse. Rubaiyat Hossain's Meherjaan is innocuous by comparison, but it has generated as much angst. Bangladesh after all, is a country which takes prides in its Bengali heritage and where the atrocities of the Pakistani army are still recent memory. Bangladesh's official history says nearly three million Bengalis Hindus, Muslims and Christians died in the 1971 civil war, and nearly half a million women were raped. "I liked the movie, but since I am a freedom fighter and scores of my friends disliked the film, I decided to withdraw it from cinema halls in Bangladesh," says Habibur Rehman Khan, the distributor of Meherjaan. That means the film will make no money, despite starring well known Bollywood actors like Jaya Bachchan and Victor Banerji, both Bengalis. Bangladeshi feminist groups say the film trivialises the atrocities on women by the Pakistani army when it runs the story of Meher, a Bengali girl who falls in love with a Pakistani soldier, and is then humiliated by her family when this is discovered. "I was raped several times by Pakistani soldiers, and I cannot stand this soft corner for Pakistanis in the film," says sculptor Ferdous Priyabashini. Rubaiyat Hossain is candid about her woes. "I tried to break out of the stereotype of the Bengali hero versus Pakistani brute in the backdrop of the 1971 war, and that is what my countrymen are so upset about," she laments. "What she thinks is stereotype is actually the truth. Pakistanis killed us like flies and raped our women like beasts. They even massacred our intellectuals just before they surrendered," said Awami League's minister Jehangir Kabir Nanak. Unlike Japan or Germany apologising for their military excesses during World War II, Pakistan has not apologised for the atrocities of its army in 1971. Many liberal Pakistanis, including cricket hero Imran Khan, want Islamabad to do so and bury the bad blood of 1971. But the top brass Pakistani army refuses to oblige. Until that happens, neither Dead Reckoning nor Meherjaan will find admirers in Bangladesh or in Indian Bengal.. T

FIFTH

WALL
UDDIPANA GOSWAMI
Literary Editor

A book, a film and the birth pangs of a nation

Two mediums, two portrayals of the Bangladesh liberation war. Neither does justice to the pain of birth of the country, finds Subir Bhaumik
SUBIR BHAUMIK
Editor, Seven Sisters Post

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Joy Bangla!

N 16 December, neighbouring Bangladesh celebrates its Victory Day. The country has traveled a long way from political subjugation and ethno-cultural domination. When it finally won independence after the Liberation War of 1971, it became an inspiration for the many small and big nationalities fighting for selfdetermination everywhere in the world. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Northeast where insurgencies against the Indian States step-motherly policies have mushroomed since the 1970s. It is a different matter that most of these erstwhile revolutionaries have today turned mercenaries of peace and war. In Bangladesh, the glorious legacy of the countrys liberation has also been besmirched by religious fundamentalists who work against its raison d'etre. A lot of blood, tears and turmoil went into its inception. To forget these travails is to belittle the sacrifices of those who chose to be culturally emancipated rather than be fanatics for a faith. They died for their conviction. The poet Gobinda Halder promises, Ek sagar rakter binimoye Banglar sadhinata anle jara Amra tomader bhulbo na (You who brought freedom to Bangladesh through a sea of blood, we shall not forget you). The political climate has now changed in Bangladesh. The spirit of 1971 is back in politics and hopefully will bring with it other socio-cultural changes. Problems of course persist. The voices of ethnic minorities are not heard as much as they should be; there is poverty and underdevelopment; years of insinuating religious fundamentalism into prevalent institutions has not been easy to counter and the Bengali ethos of the country continues to face the threat of radical Islamisation. But there is hope still, and an immense pride among the people of the nation. Often, this pride and a whole bunch of sentiments adhering to the horrors and the harvest of 1971 instigates strong reactions towards any attempt to revisit the Liberation War. In this issue, our editor Subir Bhaumik, who saw Bangladesh fight its way to independence as a schoolboy in his border hometown of Agartala, examines how the real face of the country comes alive in its reaction to a book written and a film made against the backdrop of the War. Many in the western world had stood by Bangladesh in its hour of need. George Harrison sang in the Concert for Bangladesh, My friend came to me, with sadness in his eyes. He told me that he wanted help, before his country dies. The country lives on, but how does the Western world view it today? We take a close look at David Lewis book Bangladesh: Politics, Economy and Civil Society to find a few answers. We also bring you an extract from Tanveer Ahmeds memoir, The Exotic Rissole. The author who migrated to Australia as a child, gives us a glimpse of life inside Bangladesh during the Liberation War through an account of the courtship between his parents. S Bangladesh turns 40 and millions cherish the memories of winning independence through a sea of blood, two Bengali women are in the eye of a storm for writing a book and producing a film. One is an Indian Bengali from the family of the great Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, while the other is a Bangladeshi filmmaker who believes love at the time of war is a great thing. The book and the film have upset both Bengali nationalists and Indian officials, but given some relief to the Pakistani military. Dead Reckoning, written by Indian researcher Sarmila Bose, questions the historical narratives of the 1971 civil war that broke up Pakistan, but Bengali nationalist groups describe her as an apologist for Pakistan's brutal military. Meherjaan, directed by Bangladeshi filmmaker Rubaiyat Hossain, is about the love of a Bengali woman for a Pakistani Baloch soldier in the backdrop of the 1971 war but feminist groups in Bangladesh allege that the film distorts the historical context of the liberation war.

PAKISTAN has not apologised for the atrocities of its army in 1971. Many liberal Pakistanis want Islamabad to do so and bury the bad blood of 1971
over 93,000 Pakistani soldiers surrendered to the Indian army in December 1971. They were all handed back to Pakistan. That is thrice the number Bose suggests, so is she fudging figures deliberately to prove that the number of rapes were much lower than suggested?" Professor Ray questions. Bangladesh's anti-fundamentalist campaigner Shahriar Kabir says that Red Cross officials in 1971 testified to treating nearly 200,000 rape victims. "Many more women did not report for treatment out of shame and embarrassment," Kabir claims. "They bore their indignities silently." A Calcutta-based Bengali channel, Mahua TV, recently ran a fullhour discussion on the book, bringing together Bengalis from India and Bangladesh. Hundreds of listeners from both sides of the border called in to join the authorbashing. The channel's executive editor, Subir Chakroborty, says Sarmila Bose's mother, Krishna Bose, a former member of Indian Parliament, refused to join the panel. "She told us her views on the liberation war were already known to everybody, so we put up in front of our cameras her newspaper article on the Bangladesh war. That was very sympathetic to the victims of 1971," Chakroborty said. While Bangladeshis and Indian Bengalis are upset with Bose for playing down the Pakistani atrocities, Indian officials are angry with her contention that India was the only aggressor in 1971. "We intervened militarily only after all possibilities of stopping the bloodbath failed. And when our forces entered East Pakistan, the Bengalis complained that we had been so late," says former chief of India's eastern fleet, Vice Admiral Bimalendu Guha. "How can she call us an aggressor?" fumes Guha. "The Bengalis actually wanted us to intervene earlier to save them." Former chief of staff of India's eastern army, Lieutenant General JR Mukherjee, goes a step further to say: She has very good reasons to defend the honour of the Pakistani army, which she describes as a professional and brave force. Can I ask her why these brave soldiers surrendered to India in such huge numbers? Even now, Pakistani troops keep surrendering to the Taliban and other militants. Can you show me one

Illustration: Amrith Basumatary

FRONTIS PIECE
The book and the film have hit the market on the eve of the 40th anniversary of Bangladesh, when the Awami League-led government has set up special tribunals for trying the war criminals of 1971 and decided to write the countrys history books afresh to highlight the glorious but bloody liberation war. After years of military rule and governments run by Islamists out to undermine the legacy of 1971, Bangladesh is waking up to a new dream of turning itself into a moderate Islamic nation, one more proud of its cultural (Bengali) identity than its religious makeup. Shamsul Arefin, a member of the war crimes tribunal, told Seven Sisters Post that though Bengalis who collaborated with the Pakistani army are the ones to be actually tried, names of Pakistani soldiers and officers are likely to crop up with regard to massacres, mass rapes and arson during the trial. "That will expose the real character of the Pakistani army which is now seen in the West as a key ally in the war on terror. We have reasons to believe that there is a concerted campaign by Pakistani intelligence to disrupt and dilute our war crimes trial. I will not be surprised if they are commissioning projects like Sharmila Boses book to distort the realities of our liberation war," Arefin told Seven Sisters Post. He is the author of a magnum opus on Bangladesh elections. Sharmila Bose promptly dismisses this strong charge. "I am only trying to question the existing narratives of the 1971 war in view of data I have gathered while working on the book," Sarmila Bose told the audience at the Woodrow Wilson Centre in USA, where the book was launched. The entire book launch programme is available on the Internet. Bose, a Bengali herself, is the granddaughter of India's independence war hero Subhas Chandra Bose, and is a senior research fellow at Oxford. Her brothers,

Sugato and Sumantra Bose, teach history and politics at Harvard and London School of Economics. "I am only pointing to obvious exaggerations about the number of people killed or number of women raped by the Pakistani army. A war narrative is always the narrative of the victors, and 1971 was no different," Sarmila Bose said at the book launch. But some of her data is clearly suspect. Dead Reckoning suggests there were only 20,000 Pakistani troops at the beginning of the civil war in East Pakistan, and that rose to 34,000 towards the end of the war. "Bangladeshi narratives claim 400,000 women were raped by Pakistani troops during the civil war between March and December 1971, but how can 34,000 soldiers rape so many women in eight months?" contends Sarmila Bose. Indian historian Jayanta Ray, whose 1968 book Nationalism on Trial predicted the breakup of Pakistan, is furious at how an Oxford researcher like Bose could get basic facts wrong. "Archival records and contemporary newspaper reports indicate that just

CLOSE READING
argues that the global community needs to pay much more attention to Bangladesh nor can one disagree with the reasons he brings to bear in support of his contention. Lewis is Professor of Social Policy and Development at the London School of Economics. He specialises in development policy, especially in rural development, and management as well as organisational issues in development agencies, NGOs and civil society. An anthropologist by training, he usually approaches development from an anthropological standpoint. He has undertaken extensive field research in South Asia, particularly Bangladesh, and that is where his knowledge of the country originates. In this book, he takes us back to the countrys past and also brings us a picture of its present socioeconomic and political scenario. Contesting the notion of the country as a failed state, Lewis tells us why and how Bangladesh is growing in importance for the international community. Four decades after Bangladesh achieved its independence wading through a sea of blood, one would feel this is the right time to assess the impressive transformations made by it, overcoming its 'basket case' status of the 1970 and 80s, and to con-

Rethinking Bangladesh
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NEW PRINTS
THE PERIPHERAL CENTRE: VOICES FROM INDIAS NORTHEAST
Preeti Gill (ed.) Zubaan, 2011 (Reprint) `595, 397 pages Hardcover/Non-fiction

FOR those who lead the global efforts against terror, Bangladesh is a key link
sider the many lessons the country may now offer the rest of the world. There are many reasons why it is important that we look more closely at Bangladesh today. Its population is overwhelmingly Muslim. Yet, unlike other Muslim majority countries of the world, it is making good progress building a stable democratic system. It is also achieving increased economic growth and human development. Over and above this, the country has long served as an incubator for many key development ideas that have emerged over the past 40 years. It is a useful case study into understanding the way globaliza-

BANGLADESH: POLITICS, ECONOMY AND CIVIL SOCIETY

David Lewis Cambridge University Press, 2011 55, 308 pages Hardcover/ Non-fiction
I SYED BASHIR

0 YEARS after its independence, Bangladesh gets much less importance in the South Asian context as compared to India and Pakistan. No one can disagree with David Lewis when he

tion affects people in the world's poorer countries, and how they cope with these ill effects. Despite its poverty in many sectors, present day Bangladesh is taking a leading role in dealing with climate change. One could add to this list geographically, Bangladesh sits midway between the Islamic or Muslim-predominant nations of West Asia and Southeast Asia. The country is therefore considered strategically placed by the pan-Islamic radical forces. So for those who lead the global efforts against terror, Bangladesh is a key link. For their purposes, it should never be allowed to become the playing field for those who uphold the legacy of Bin Laden. It is therefore that the world supports the forces of secular democracy in Bangladesh. The liberal elements within the country and outside it do not encourage the people, organisations and factors that promote radical Islam openly or covertly. Perhaps David Lewis could have dwelt on this aspect in more details in his book. T

ollection of essays by writers like Temsula Ao, Monica Banerjee, Sanjib Barua, Rupa Chinai, Mamang Dai, Esther Syiem, CS Lakshmi, Freny Manecksha, questioning issues like identity and alienation of the region.

THE MUDDY RIVER

PA Krishnan Tranquebar, 2011 `250, 247 pages Paperback/Fiction

S
WINGS OF DESIRE

tory of a bureaucrat caught in the corruption and politics of Assam in his efforts to save an engineer kidnapped by militants.

Hitesh Deka Parag Dasgupta (Translator) Chandra Prakash, 2011 `180, 152 pages Hardcover/Novel

ranslation of the authors first novel Ajir Manuh, the book reveals his love for Assamese rural life and humanity.