Manas Ghosh, the writer, says it’s a pity that efforts by Indian diplomats to secure support for the cause of the war hardly find space in the history books of Bangladesh.
Almost half a century ago, Manas Ghosh, a brilliant reporter, walked the talk in the bloody killing fields of what was then East Pakistan, chronicling news reports of the war for the Statesman, then a staple morning diet for many in Calcutta.
As a school student, I grew up reading Ghosh’s brilliant reporting, and it was obvious I would pick up his brilliantly written book, Bangladesh War: Report from Ground Zero (printed by Paper Missile, a wing of Delhi’s Niyogi Books). Ghosh spent days, weeks, months covering the war with a handful of other reporters, among them Udipi Ramraj Kalkur and Gopal Krishna Roy of UNI. The latter earned more fame because he penned a book on Suchitra Sen, Bengal’s answer to Greta Garbo.
It all happened in 1971—Indira Gandhi was India’s powerful Prime Minister and Bollywood made iconic movies like Hare Rama Hare Krishna, Kati Patang and Anand. The war ended in December after 90,000 Pakistani troops surrendered to Indian troops. That’s all known, and now part of history books. But Ghosh’s reportage took news reports in the Statesmen to a different level because he knew the mind of those opposing the soldiers of East Pakistan—famously known as Mukti Joddhas that translates into Freedom Fighters—and also the mind of diplomats from India who were trying their level best to secure support for the cause of the war. Ghosh says it’s a pity that such efforts hardly find space in the history books of Bangladesh. I am not aware if there are popular textbooks in India bothered to mention such incidents for students. Consider this one, a very powerful segment in the book: “The silent, behind-the-scenes and relentless diplomatic moves by the Indian envoys to secure support for Bangladesh’s cause is little known. Unfortunately, they do not figure anywhere in Bangladesh’s history books. At a time when the world’s two biggest democracies, the United States and the United Kingdom, were openly discounting the Pak army’s atrocities and not condemning General Yahya Khan for refusing to keep his commitment to lift martial law and restore democracy by handing over power to a party which had secured an overwhelming popular mandate, the Indian envoys were single-handedly projecting and promoting the Bangladesh case.”
And then, almost immediately, Ghosh writes a very strong line; I am picking a portion of it: “Almost 70 percent of the UN members opposed an independent Bangladesh around March, 1971. They included Ceylon, Burma, Indonesia and Malaysia, among others.”
Ghosh writes that he often travelled with the freedom fighters in flimsy boats and steam locomotives, also overnight steamers. He wanted to see the massacres of 1971, the brutal rapes and destruction heaped on East Pakistan by Gen Yahya Khan’s soldiers. Ghosh had several conversations with people who lived in the towns and villages. He knew who to ask. Ghosh was horrified to see the scale of deaths. And the rapes of over 200,000 women, as mentioned by a UK-based documentary filmmaker. The ordeal of those women—for decades—remained hidden from public view. Those hapless women endured decades of shaming and isolation, and also mass discrimination that even affected their next generation.
Ghosh’s book is a reporter’s diary and does not complicate things like history books. His simple, heroic narrative of the genocide of over three million people is an easy read. I am sure he must have encountered difficulties in filing his news reports. Those were the days of crackling landlines and unreliable telex machines. But going by the book, I am convinced Ghosh managed to get his reports out on a daily basis, highlighting scenes of cruelty and confusion. He says in simple words how to repress a popular rebellion in East Pakistan, an army from West Pakistan slaughtered the civilian population—bloated corpses clogged the rivers for days—until India intervened to secure independence. Ghosh writes in his book about one battle that raged in Pabna between freedom fighters and a well-entrenched Pakistani army: “The tough battles they (read freedom fighters) had fought against the Pak military for two continuous days had become important milestones in the annals of the liberation war.”
The book is a revelation. It talks about Naxalites infiltrating the liberation war and spreading messages to subvert the war effort of the Bengalis, calling Sheikh Mujibur Rehman a “running dog of India”, extolling Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Gen Khan as the “lions of Pakistan and dear friends of China”.
This was not all, Ghosh says there were protests in East Pakistan over Indian soldiers training the freedom fighters. Many argued why not “Made in Bangladesh” freedom fighters? But then, such voices of dissent drowned. “One of the best known facets behind the Mukti Bahini’s emergence as a dreaded guerilla force happens to be the excellent rapport that the likes of Major General Shahbeg Singh and Brigadier Sant Singh were able to establish with the recruits.”
Ghosh walks back and forth with his reporting. He highlights how a friend from Dhaka called him to say Maj Gen Shahbeg Singh had died in the Golden Temple in Amritsar during Operation Bluestar. Ghosh also highlights the role of a significant portion of Indian Muslims who were against India’s intervention in East Pakistan and New Delhi’s moves to create a new nation, Bangladesh.
Writes Ghosh: “Indian jawans had started trickling into Dacca from the morning of 15 December. On the 16th morning, there were about 3000 Indian troops in the city whereas the strength of the Pakistanis was beyond 25,000. Repeated ultimatum served to the Pakistanis by Gen Sam Manekshaw to surrender had demoralised them so much that putting up any further resistance to the Indian advance was beyond their realm of possibility. That they would capitulate and surrender in a matter of hours had almost become a certainty.”
Thanks to his reportage, many bloodbaths in East Pakistan no longer remained a secret. Ghosh’s eyewitness testimony—spread all over the book—remains impressive. I feel sad that the truth about the liberation war has never been chronicled well by scholars and historians. And it is only now books on the 1971 wars are hitting stores, also featuring on the Kindle list.
A brilliant read, will the Indian government make this book a compulsory read in schools and colleges? Only India’s Education Minister can answer.