Unheard Voices

More on this revisionist historian Sarmila Bose, as she says, Pakistan army should have been recognized for their heroism in 1971. I am debating how to accept these new arguments. On one hand, as Afsan bhai says historian’s job is to be unemotional, unbiased and objective, on the other hand, even if she has documents, this kind of stuff is hard to accept. Its like doing an analysys of Hitler’s army’s performance and calling them gallantry. In reality Pakistan broke every single convention of war and committed genocide on innocent civilians. If this is called gallantry by objective historians, I am sorry to say that I don’t care much for that history.

No matter how traumatic the outcome of 1971 for Pakistan, the Eastern command did not create the conflict, nor were they responsible for the failure of the political and diplomatic process. Sent to do the dirty work of the political manoeuvrers, the fighting men seem to have performed remarkably well against overwhelming odds. It is shocking therefore to discover that they were not received with honour by their nation on their return. Their commander, Niazi, appears to have been singled out, along with one aide, to be punished arbitrarily with dismissal and denial of pension, without being given the basic right to defend himself through a court-martial, which he asked for.

The commission set up allegedly to examine what had happened in 1971 was too flawed in its terms of reference and report to have any international credibility. However, even its recommendations of holding public trials and court-martials were ignored. There is much for Pakistan to come to terms with what happened in 1971. But the answers don’t lie in unthinking vilification of the fighting men who performed so well in the war against such heavy odds in defence of the national policy. Rather, in failing to honour them, the nation dishonours itself.

Full Article