Commentary: Why should we celebrate this verdict?
Because it helps us to understand what Bangladesh is supposed to be
There are millions of reasons why we should celebrate last Monday's
verdict, the first against the perpetrators of crimes against humanity
in 1971. There are as many reasons to rejoice today as there are martyrs
of the period, and as there were instances of rape, torture, burning of
villages, looting, arson, arrests, etc. For every freedom fighter
killed, maimed, tortured, and women raped there were several members of
their families who suffered silently in anger and grief over the last 42
years. For all of them, and for the whole nation that waited for law to
catch up with the perpetrators of genocide in 1971, there is an
indescribable joy in our heart today and an inexpressible reason to
celebrate, the thanks for which must go to the prime minister
personally, and to the Awami League government. We have said it before,
and have no hesitation in repeating, that no other government would have
done it. We commend both Sheikh Hasina and all those who have worked
hard to make it happen.
Each of the crimes that Abul Kalam Azad
(Bachchu) is accused, and has been found guilty of, are considered most
serious crimes even under ordinary laws, applied in peacetime. All of
them are punishable with the harshest of sentences. Murder, rape,
torture and abduction are of the highest categories of criminal acts and
punishment ranging from death sentences to long prison terms are handed
out regularly in such cases.
A death sentence is only but
natural for the crimes committed. As long as due process of law was
followed, and the evidence as presented to the tribunal, which was
widely reported in the free and independent media, constituted
sufficient evidence the sentence is but a natural culmination. There is
of course the appeal process but it can be only availed if the convict
surrenders before the law and seeks redress. But such relief is not
available to an absconder.
As freedom fighters, and there are
hundreds and thousands of us, there is a very special reason to
celebrate. There is an irrepressible sense of getting even, for many of
our comrades in arms were mercilessly slaughtered by them -- personally.
Many of us are witnesses to seeing innumerable bodies floating down a
river, not all the handy work of Pakistani soldiers but of people like
Bachchu. There are endless stories of their murder, torture and
betrayal. The cruellest ones were those where they pretended to help the
women and then led them to the Pakistani soldiers quarters to be
physically assaulted at will and for as long as they wished, which in
many cases turned out to be till the end of the war.
What can be
a greater example of their brutality than the killings of
intellectuals, many from Dhaka University, just two days before their
defeat? They knew that their game was up, yet they killed. This was the
work of only collaborators and razakars symbolised by Bachchu, and their
like.
Then there were the instigations to kill. I can recall
hearing the voices of razakars and prominent collaborators, broadcasting
over radio Pakistan, that all freedom fighters were Indian agents and
as such traitors, deserving nothing better than death. We were supposed
to have strayed away from the path of Islam, and “Hinduised”, and like a
bad “infection” should be eliminated before we “spoilt” the rest. They
were the early “ethnic cleansers” the fore-runners of those in Serbia
and Herzegovina.
Everything about Bengali culture was supposed
to be of Hindu origin and as such needed to be “purified” to bring us
back to the right path. Exhortations resounded from their continuous
haranguing over the radio to eliminate us the moment we could be seen.
They even quoted from religious texts as to what an act of “true Muslim”
it would be if they either handed us to the Pakistani butchers or
killed us themselves. Bachchu did just that.
We celebrate the
verdict because it starts a process of accountability that will
eventually lead to a greater understanding what our Liberation War stood
for and the various types of forces we had to defeat to win our
independence.
We celebrate the verdict because it helps to
restore our ownership of history. (Though many of us have serious
problems with Awami League's present version of it, which is over
personalised, pays lip service to the role of ordinary freedom fighters,
eliminates the contribution of local leaders, and all but ignores
contribution of those who played seminal roles like Tajuddin Ahmed and
other leaders of our government in exile. But still it is a far closer
version to truth than that propagated by BNP).
We recall with
shame, and it is our collective shame (that we allowed it to happen and
also tolerated it for many years), that after the murder of Bangabandhu
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, a well planned state level effort was set afoot
to distort our history. Just so that the contribution of the political
leadership of the day, and that of Sheikh Mujib could be gradually
eliminated from people's mind, the true significance and extent of our
free struggle was systematically played down. We had the absurd period
when we couldn't name the country and the army that perpetrated the
genocide and had to refer to them as “Hanadar Bahini” (the marauding
force).
The whole struggle from 1947 to 1971 was reduced to a few
paragraphs of deprivation, never mentioning by whom, with the sudden
crescendo of everybody joining the war after hearing Maj Zia's call to
fight for independence. The cultural aspect of our struggle never
occupied any thinking of the post-Bangabandhu regimes.
This all
too brief narrative is relevant because BNP's distortion of our history
provided the opening for the re-entry of opponents of our freedom
struggle into our political space, with the “salt” in our wound being
provided by Khaleda Zia's last government awarding ministerial posts to
those well known for their genocidal role during 1971. The BNP chief
just didn't seem to care that there is a tremendous pent up resentment
among the public against those who were well known for their role
against our independence. It was truly “rubbing the nose on the ground”
of those who took pride in their being freedom fighters.
We know
politics makes strange bedfellows. However, to be so oblivious to the
history of independence and to be so accommodative about those who
opposed it required an arrogant dismissal of what our struggle stood for
or meant to the rest of us. Khaleda Zia never seems to have truly
internalised the sufferings, the sacrifice, the pain, the joy and most
importantly the pride that the events of 1971 symbolised to the nation,
though her husband was an integral part of it. The truth, however
ironic, is that her husband himself started the process.
We
celebrate the verdict because we love our freedom. We celebrate the
verdict because we are proud to have an independent country. We
celebrate the verdict because it correctly, irrevocably, legally and
historically sets out the role of those who opposed our war, committed
genocide against our people and crimes against humanity that not only
we, the Bangladeshis, but the freedom loving and justice seeking world
needs to recognise and applaud us for.
The writer is Editor and Publisher, The Daily Star.
Source: The Daily Star, Dhaka, 23 January 2013; link: http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=266329
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