Remembering the Bangladesh Genocide of 1971: Reflections by Youth from West Bengal (Issue 66)
Remembering the Bangladesh Genocide of 1971: Reflections by Youth from West Bengal (Issue 66)
Posts tagged ‘Bangladesh Liberation War’
Apr 4
Issue Editor’s Note: The Bangladesh Genocide of 1971: Remembrance versus Denial
By Navras J. Aafreedi
Growing up in Lucknow even from the little that I heard about the events in Bangladesh in 1971 I was sensitive enough to be able to discern that the sympathies of the Urdu speaking Muslims of Lucknow largely lay with the perpetrator rather than the victim.
Politicisation and Abuse of Memory: The Genocide in Bangladesh and the Failure of the International Crimes Tribunal
By Neellohit Roy
But putting the numbers game aside, there is no denying the fact, that the Bangladeshi Liberation War saw a gross violation of human rights and crimes committed against humanity of the most horrific kind. So ominously massive was the scale of women raped by the Pakistani army during the war that the Bangladesh government had to adopt the world’s largest state sponsored abortion programme immediately after its independence.
Women’s Suffering during the Bangladesh Genocide of 1971
By Shreya Saha
The 1971 genocide in erstwhile East Pakistan (present day Bangladesh) is not an exception in this regard, but rather helps to unravel different aspects of the feminine experience encountered during and in the aftermath of the genocide.
Locating the Woman in Nationalism: The Birangonas of Bangladesh
By Titas Mitra
Women have been used to lend legitimacy to the political projects and aspirations of nations since time immemorial. The image of the woman as a mother is a dominant symbolic imagery through which women become visible in national project and is crucial for mobilisation processes.
The Wayfarers of the Missed Train: Migration and Massacre
By Arghya Protim Bala
The Marichjhapi Incident alludes to the coercive removal which occurred in the year 1979 of the refugees from East Bengal on the Marichjhapi Island, which is located in the Sundarbans, West Bengal. A large number of people died on account of starvation or ailment or police gunfire.
Primo Levi’s ‘If This is a Man’ (1947) and Sufia Kamal’s ‘Ekattorer Diary’ (1989): A Comparative Analysis
By Soumik Sarkar
The author Sufia Kamal was a survivor in the first place and she gives an account of her experiences in diary format. She writes about the political turmoil that started shaping in the initial months of 1971, and the conflict between the Awami League and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
The Massacre of Bengali Intelligentsia during the Bangladesh Genocide of 1971
By Mridul Banik
In the last stage of war, they targeted the Bengali intelligentsia. In December 1971 Pakistani army and its collaborator ferreted out Bengali intellectuals, artists and cultural icons and killed them brutally. This intellectual genocide was meticulously planned.
May 20, 1971: The Massacre of Bengali Hindus in Chuknagar
By Bramhi Dey
There was constant migration from East Pakistan to West Bengal since 1954 which gained massive proportions by 1971. The suffering, the sorrow and the distress of these Bengali migrants and refugees from East Pakistan became the subject of poignant poetry, fiction, and journalistic stories.
The Vicious Cycle of Violence: Bangladesh and its Internal Strife since its Genesis
By Shourjya Das
The Muslims who formed the bulk of the population of Bengal have long faced the dilemma of cultural identity. On the one hand, they have been drawn by religious bond with the Islamic world for centuries and on the other they retained their indigenous cultural belongingness which tied them closely to the local Hindu populace. In fact, the characteristic feature of the Bengali Muslims has been their cultural isolation.
Feb 24
I took this profoundly disturbing picture of a man carrying his cholera-stricken wife during the Bangladesh war in 1971. Ten million people crossed the East Pakistan border into India to escape the horrors of this bloody war.Photographs are a shadow of the past but they can also be a ghost of the future. If we go on trapping the sun’s heat in the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels, ice on land will melt, eventually causing sea levels to rise – potentially by 50 metres. If the sea level rose by just one metre it would make 20 million people homeless in Bangladesh and India alone. Where will they go?We have been heralding weak and largely substanceless global accords to limit greenhouse emissions as great achievements but the reality is that governments have failed to act in proportion to the problem. They have been responding to our quiet clamour with hypocrisy and deception, with schemes that seem to promise something for nothing. Credit: MARK EDWARDS / Still PicturesConditions of useHard Rain press pictures may only be published in connection with the Hard Rain exhibition. Only two images may be used in any one feature. The use of additional images may be negotiated with the Hard Rain Project office 199 Shooters Hill Road, London SE3 8UL. ++ 44 (0) 20 8858 8307” data-medium-file=”https://cafedissensus.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/bangladesh_civil_war_1971.jpg?w=300″ data-large-file=”https://cafedissensus.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/bangladesh_civil_war_1971.jpg?w=1024″/>
The Genocide of 1971 in Bangladesh: Lessons from History
By Srimanti Sarkar
For Pakistan, recollection of 1971 has always been an arduous episode of genocide denial; whereas for Bangladesh, till date, the recollection of the Genocide of 1971 is as much a celebration of her struggle for independence as it is an anguished rumination of her national devastation. However, this recollection of the much eulogised nationalist history, impregnated with barbaric violence, is rather problematic.
Outraged and Ostracized: The Bangladesh Genocide Retold
By Nabanita Mitra
Women and nation have often been viewed as related concepts. Thus, when the West Pakistani militia, together with Bihari and Bengali Razaker militias from the Jamaat-e-Islami group, failed to break the backbone of the East Pakistani nation, it sought to clamp down on the best alternative it had – that of launching diabolical pogroms on its womenfolk.
Café Dissensus 