ACCIDENT OF GEOGRAPHY (16 DEC 1971-FALL OF DHAKA): by Lt. Gen Ghulam Mustafa (Retd) Last Post is sounded on 16 December every year. Very few of us hear it. Even fewer understand it. Most of us continue on our routines as if nothing ever happened. For those of us who were there, or still care, there is new mantra in town- forget the past and move on. Forget your history, at least the unpleasant parts, delete it if possible or replace it with some yarn. Forget that on this day, 43 years ago, our geography was forcibly changed with a view to undoing the historical verdict known as TWO NATION THEORY. That it has not happened so far despite our best efforts and because of other reasons, is also something we do not want to know. Why are we shy of our history? Do we have an authentic, correct version to start with? Unfortunately the answer is NO. On any given day one can pick up as many versions as one likes. One only has to go to the right person. Fact is that we have degraded our history to the level of personality cult. Those without following have been demonized beyond recognition. Those smart enough to have one, have been elevated as saints, forgetting the maxim that all such saints have a past, romanticized for selfish reasons, but ends up in dehumanizing these personalities nevertheless. Such deliberate distortions create flawed perspective. And nation with a wrapped sense of history, protecting few individuals, at its own cost, invariably finds itself on the wrong side. It is quite natural for leadership of such nations to become tyrannical, short sighted and selfish in decision making. We know that starting with Adam till Prophet (PBUH), it took thousands of years to complete The Message and that Quran draws its lessons from the history of different nations. Was it difficult for Allah to start day one with the completed message? Why the need for a correct historical perspective? That 16 December happened, is bad enough. Not knowing why, is worse. Basing ones judgment on part of the story or one’s own version, is probably the worst thing. We suffer from the effects of all the aforementioned conditions. Whatever the immediate causes, the foundations for the breakup of Pakistan were laid much earlier and the story does not begin with Ayub Khan. Have we ever stopped to ponder over questions like: _ Our Constituent Assembly was in position before 14 August 1947 and the Quaid had delivered his guidelines to this assembly on 11 August. Starting then, till Ayub Khan took over in 1958, why did we fail to finalize the constitution? Why did we avoid the elections? _Why was Hussain Shaheed Suharwardy compelled to form his own political party based in former East Pakistan? _Why do we highlight the language issue as the prime mover in this sad development? Is India not surviving till now with a national language which is not original to any of its parts? _How many of us knew the history or socio cultural ethos of our brethren in former East Pakistan? When and why did they embrace Islam? Who inspired them? Do we know that Afghans had reached there in 7th Century after Hijra? _How many of us had studied or understood the demands outlined in the notorious Six Points by Mujib ur Rehman? What is the difference between these demands and the 18th Amendment now in place? _I was there as a young boy in 1958. Our maid would take us to her home in a rickety little boat and nobody ever gave it a second thought. Eleven years later when I landed in Dacca in 1970, I could not go out without an escort. Baring few places, one could feel the tension where ever one travelled. Something had gone wrong terribly. What and why? The worst ever cyclone in October 1970 was used as an excuse to drum up anti West Pakistan/ anti Punjabi feelings even further. Surprisingly all the help from within the country had come from this part of the world. Bengalis themselves were mostly aloof. They would not even bury their own dead. The elections in 1970 giving a landslide victory to Awami League were not above board either. Strong arm tactics employed by specially trained workers of Awami League had played their role. What followed, has mostly been learned from the sources completely hostile to Pakistan in general and Pakistan Army in particular. Our media was ineffective and others who could, had their own agenda in not coming out with the whole truth. Excesses were committed, but by both sides. For example, a place called Santahar was inhibited totally by Urdu speaking “Bengalis”. Do we know that over seventy thousand inhabitants of this town were butchered to the last man and their infants nailed to the trees? Or a young Bengali Officer murdering his own commanding officer, raping his pregnant wife and then killing her? By the way this officer was loved as a son by the unsuspecting couple. We had seven Bengali officers in our unit. Four of them opted to remain with us, fight against India, become prisoners of war and despite repeated offers, leave behind their families for Pakistan? Point is that we were not as bad or Bengalis as innocent as some people claim. How easy it is for some of us to blame Khakis for everything which went wrong in East Pakistan. Some of our Media Greats have also demanded that Pakistan Army should apologize from Bengalis for the excesses attributed to us by Western / Indian media. One can understand their motive. Why are our people so generous? One can understand India telling us to forget this tragedy. Why are some of our people supporting this theme? What kind of nation forgets or distorts its history? What kind of people protect individuals at the cost of their nation? Remember that Germans and Japanese were able to face the demons of their forgettable past and come out stronger. Why can’t we?
Posted on: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 05:34:29 +0000