Wed 10 Oct 2007
In September Iranian President Mahmud Ahmedinejad delivered a speech at Columbia University amidst much protest. The protests stemmed from his views on the Holocaust. Under questioning Ahmedinejad conceded that the Holocaust had indeed happened, but he was calling for further “research” to “approach the topic from different perspectives”. In doing so, Ahmedinejad was engaging in the modern form of Holocaust Denial. Ahmedinejad’s “different perspectives” were on display last year when he called for a conference on the Holocaust. At the time, his spokesman declared “I have visited the Nazi camps in Eastern Europe. I think it is exaggerated.”
Modern Holocaust Denial has three key elements. The Deniers argue that the Nazis did not kill five to six million Jews; that the Nazis did not have a systematic policy of killing Jews; and, that the genocide was not carried out in extermination camps. Ahmedinejad and others call for further “research” to investigate one or more of these key elements. Their goal is to diminish the genocide by, first, questioning its extent and then by arguing that whatever killings took place were part of the normal savagery of war and not as a result of any systematic campaign by the Nazis. Holocaust Denial is anti-Semitism in the cloak of “scholarship”. Over a half century after perhaps the most well-documented act of genocide in the history of mankind, Holocaust Deniers still persist in trying to diminish its horrors.
Holocaust Denial is an example of the phenomenon of genocide denial that crops up to challenge almost every accepted case of genocide. The genocide committed by the Pakistan army during the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 is no exception. Because of the scale of the atrocities in 1971 against a civilian population of 70 million people it has proved impossible for genocide deniers to claim that the atrocities did not occur. Instead, they have focused on two tactics used to try to deny the Holocaust: that the scale of the genocide was not that great, and that the Pakistan army had no systematic policy of genocide.
Most estimates of the 1971 genocide put the death toll between 300,000 and 3 million Bangladeshis dead, with between 200,000 to 400,000 women raped. R.J Rummel, in his book Statistics of Democide: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900, puts the death toll at around 1.5 million. According to Gendercide Watch:
The number of dead in Bangladesh in 1971 was almost certainly well into seven figures. It was one of the worst genocides of the World War II era, outstripping Rwanda (800,000 killed) and probably surpassing even Indonesia (1 million to 1.5 million killed in 1965-66).
Susan Brownmiller, in her book Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, puts the number of women raped by the Pakistan military and their local collaborators, the Razakars, between 200,000 and 400,000. She writes:
Rape in Bangladesh had hardly been restricted to beauty. Girls of eight and grandmothers of seventy-five had been sexually assaulted … Pakistani soldiers had not only violated Bengali women on the spot; they abducted tens of hundreds and held them by force in their military barracks for nightly use.
On March 25, 1971 the Pakistan army unleashed a systematic campaign of genocide on the civilian population of then East Pakistan. Nine months later a defeated Pakistan army left in its wake one of the most concentrated acts of genocide in the twentieth century.
After the Bangladesh Liberation War the government of Pakistan produced a report on the actions of the Pakistani army during 1971 known as the Hamoodur Rahman Commission Report. While the report acknowledged that the Pakistani army had indeed committed atrocities in Bangladesh, it downplayed the extent of the atrocities and denied that there was any systematic policy of genocide:
31. In the circumstances that prevailed in East Pakistan from the 1st of March to the 16th of December 1971, it was hardly possible to obtain an accurate estimate of the toll of death and destruction caused by the Awami League militants and later by the Pakistan Army. It must also be remembered that even after the military action of the 25th of march 1971, Indian infiltrators and members of the Mukti Bahini sponsored by the Awami League continued to indulge in killings, rape and arson during their raids on peaceful villages in East Pakistan, not only in order to cause panic and disruption and carry out their plans of subversion, but also to punish those East Pakistanis who were not willing to go along with them. In any estimate of the extent of atrocities alleged to have been committed on the East Pakistani people, the death and destruction caused by the Awami League militants throughout this period and the atrocities committed by them on their own brothers and sisters must, therefore, be always be kept in view.
32. According to the Bangladesh authorities, the Pakistan Army was responsible for killing three million Bengalis and raping 200,000 East Pakistani women. It does not need any elaborate argument to see that these figures are obviously highly exaggerated. So much damage could not have been caused by the entire strength of the Pakistan Army then stationed in East Pakistan even if it had nothing else to do. In fact, however, the army was constantly engaged in fighting the Mukti Bahini, the Indian infiltrators, and later the Indian army. It has also the task of running the civil administration, maintaining communications and feeding 70 million people of East Pakistan. It is, therefore, clear that the figures mentioned by the Dacca authorities are altogether fantastic and fanciful.
33. Different figures were mentioned by different persons in authority but the latest statement supplied to us by the GHQ shows approximately 26,000 persons killed during the action by the Pakistan Army. This figure is based on situation reports submitted from time to time by the Eastern Command to the General Headquarters. It is possible that even these figures may contain an element of exaggeration as the lower formations may have magnified their own achievements in quelling the rebellion. However, in the absence of any other reliable date, the Commission is of the view that the latest figure supplied by the GHQ should be accepted. An important consideration which has influenced us in accepting this figure as reasonably correct is the fact that the reports were sent from East Pakistan to GHQ at a time when the Army Officers in East Pakistan could have had no notion whatsoever of any accountability in this behalf. [Emphasis added by me.]
The Report’s estimate of 26,000 dead stands in stark contrast to every other study of the death toll, which put the death toll between 300,000 to 3 million. The Report was an attempt by the Pakistani government and army to dictate the narrative before the true extent of the genocide became evident to the world. The Pakistani Report has nonetheless stood as the document of last resort for most 1971 genocide deniers.
Following up on her 2005 paper denying the extent of the 1971 genocide published in the Economic and Political Weekly, Sarmila Bose has now published a paper denying the extent of the rapes of Bangladeshi women by the Pakistan army and the Razakars. In her paper entitled “Losing the Victims: Problems of Using Women as Weapons in Recounting the Bangladesh War” she states in the introduction:
That rape occurred in East Pakistan in 1971 has never been in any doubt. The question is what was the true extent of rape, who were the victims and who the perpetrators and was there any systematic policy of rape by any party, as opposed to opportunistic sexual crimes in times of war.
At the very beginning of her paper, she lays down the two tactics familiar to all genocide deniers: she questions the extent of the rape and questions whether there was any systematic policy of rape. Ms. Bose argues that claiming “hundreds of thousands” were raped trivializes “the possibly several thousand true rape victims” of the war. She however does not offer a good explanation as to how she reached the “several thousand” number other than saying that so many rapes would not be possible by the size of the Pakistani army in 1971. She also, unsurprisingly, quotes the passage from the Hamoodur Rahman Commission Report that I cited above to support her assertion that so many rapes could not have occured.
To try to bolster her argument that the Pakistani forces in Bangladesh could not have raped so many women, she claims:
The number of West Pakistani armed forces personnel in East Pakistan was about 20,000 at the beginning of the conflict, rising to 34,000 by December. Another 11,000 men – civil police and non-combat personnel – also held arms.
…
For an army of 34,000 to rape on this scale in eight or nine months (while fighting insurgency, guerrilla war and an invasion by India), each would-be perpetrator would have had to commit rape at an incredible rate.
The actual number of Pakistani forces at the end of the war, and taken POW by the Indians, was 90,368, including over 54,000 army and 22,000 paramilitary forces. It is not unreasonable to conclude that a force of 90,000 could rape between 200,000 to 400,000 women in the space of nine months. Even if only 10% of the force raped only one woman each in nine months, the number of rapes are well over “several thousand” claimed by Ms. Bose. Since Ms. Bose does the math in her paper, I will do the macabre calculation for the total force here. To rape 200,000 Bangladeshi women a Pakistani force of 90,000 would have to rape 2 to 3 women each in nine months. Not only is this scale of atrocity possible by an army engaged in a systematic campaign of genocide, it also has parallels in other modern conflicts (for example, the rape of between 250,000 to 500,000 women in Rwanda within 100 days).
Ms. Bose also paints a picture of the Pakistani military as a disciplined force that spared women and children. She writes:
During my field research on several incidents in East Pakistan during 1971, Bangladeshi participants and eyewitnesses described battles, raids, massacres and executions, but told me that women were not harmed by the army in these events except by chance such as in crossfire. The pattern that emerged from these incidents was that the Pakistan army targeted adult males while sparing women and children.
However, her field research is contradicted by all available evidence. From the early days of the war, women and girls were targeted for rape and killed. On March 30, 1971 the American Consul General in Dhaka, Archer Blood, sent a telegram to the State Department recounting the Pakistani atrocities in Dhaka. In it he wrote:
Major atrocity recounted to him took place at [R]okeya Girls’ Hall, where building set ablaze and girls machine-gunned as they fled building. (USIS local who lives nearby confirms girls gunned down.) Girls had no weapons, forty killed. Attacks aimed at eliminating female student leadership, since army apparently told girl student activists resided there. Estimated 1,000 persons, mostly students, but including faculty members resident in dorms, killed.
On March 31, 1971 Archer Blood sent another telegram which contained the following chilling account:
Atrocity rales rampant, including those of reliable eyewitnesses. Bengali businessman not AL supporter saw six naked female bodies at Rokeya Hall, Dacca U. Feet tied together. Bits of rope hanging from ceiling fans. Apparently raped, shot and hung by their heels from fans. Workmen forced to dig mass graves at Dacca U. Report 140 buried within. Other graves equally as large. Japanese report they told 400 killed there.
The reports from the American Embassy in Dhaka give us a small window into the systematic killing spree that was Operation Searchlight, the code name the Pakistani army gave to the first stage of the genocide operation.
Ms. Bose continues to paint the Pakistan military as a disciplined force not capable of systematic rape. She cited a memo written by the Pakistani general leading the army in its campaign, General Niazi, who reminds his officers that they have a “code of honor” and as “gentlemen and officers” they should abide by it. She then writes that Pakistani officers she spoke to were “indignant” at charges of large-scale rape and claimed these charges are false:
During my research, some Pakistan army officers who had then been junior officers serving in East Pakistan, told me of occasional opportunistic cases of rape or attempted rape by army personnel, such as when on patrolling duty. Usually, the accused soldier was put through the army’s disciplinary process and jailed if found guilty. In some cases officers on the field meted out exemplary punishments themselves – such as thrashing the offender in front of other troops and locals.13 Officers reporting the occasional cases were indignant at the accusations of large-scale rape, which they said were false.
Ms. Bose follows a similar pattern throughout her paper. She gives credence to the stories told to her by the Pakistani military, the perpetrators of the rapes, and dismisses as “alleged” and not credible the accounts of the rape victims. However, contemporaneous news reports from 1971 tell a different story. For example, an October 25, 1971 Time Magazine article detailing the Pakistani military atrocities reports on women and girls held captive and raped at Pakistani military headquarters in Dhaka:
One of the more horrible revelations concerns 563 young Bengali women, some only 18, who have been held captive inside Dacca’s dingy military cantonment since the first days of the fighting. Seized from Dacca University and private homes and forced into military brothels, the girls are all three to five months pregnant. The army is reported to have enlisted Bengali gynecologists to abort girls held at military installations. But for those at the Dacca cantonment it is too late for abortion. The military has begun freeing the girls a few at a time, still carrying the babies of Pakistani soldiers.
Among the countless other reports of systematic rape by the Pakistani army is this report from August 1, 1971 that appeared in the New York Times. It details interviews with some of the 10 million Bengali refugees that fled to India to escape the Pakistani army’s brutality.
Having portrayed the Pakistani military as a benevolent force, Ms. Bose then attempts to discredit a handful of accounts of rape victims as a way of casting doubt on the rapes committed during the 1971 genocide.
She begins by trying to cast doubt on an eyewitness to rape named Rabeya Khatun who she dismisses as illiterate:
She is illiterate, as her signature is a ‘tip-sohi’ or finger imprint. Khatun, therefore, is not in a position to verify what is written in her name.
Ms. Bose then dismisses accounts of two other corroborating witnesses because their testimony is similar to hers and they too are illiterate:
Indeed, the language in this part of the statement is strikingly similar to the statement of Rabeya Khatun’s, raising the possibility that the same person wrote the two testimonies. The language is not what would be used either by illiterate sweepers or by educated Bengalis in everyday conversation.
She then finds refuge in the account of a Pakistani Lt. Colonel Taj who, unsurprisingly, “categorically denied that any molestation of women had taken place at Rajarbag by his men.” Ms. Bose then informs us Lt. Col. Taj was not actually present at Rajarbag after the first night of military action. Yet, she felt the need to inject him as a fact witness. Then she dismisses Ms. Khatun’s account as “highly dubious”:
Still, the account given by Rabeya Khatun is highly dubious. Being a busy police headquarters in the capital city, whatever happened at Rajarbag would have had many witnesses. It is quite possible that sexual violence occurred at Rajarbag – police stations across south Asia are notorious for such offences, but until and unless other, credible witnesses come forward, the hellish account attributed to one illiterate woman simply will not suffice.
It is one of the tragedies of the Third World and of Bangladesh that a large portion of the population is illiterate. However, the Pakistani military did not discriminate between illiterate and literate classes in its campaign of killings and rape.
Ms. Bose then tries to cast doubt on the account of rape victim Ferdousi Priyabhashini, an educated woman and well-known sculptor. Ms. Bose’s argument here is somewhat muddled, but it appears that she is claiming that Mrs. Priyabhashini was less of a rape victim and more of a willing participant. Ms. Bose writes, “It is highly unusual for someone of her background to admit to have been a rape victim, especially in the conservative societies like Bangladesh.” Ms. Bose goes on, “According to her own account, in 1971, Ferdousi Priyabhashini was a mature woman, a divorced mother of three, working for many years.” After a muddled discussion of Mrs. Priyabhashini’s account of rape by Pakistani soldiers, Ms. Bose concludes:
A final inconsistency in Ferdousi’s account is that as the Indian army and Bangladeshi freedom fighters approached Dhaka, she was warned by a non-Bengali clerk in her office that she would be killed and should flee. Ferdousi makes much of the threat to her life – but as Bangladesh became independent, only those who were perceived to have willingly fraternised with the Pakistani regime were at risk of the wrath of freedom fighters, not victims of the regime. [Emphasis added by me.]
I gather Ms. Bose is asserting that since Mrs. Priyabhashini feared for her life, she must have consented to having sex with Pakistani soldiers. I think even a rudamentary understanding of the effect of rape on the victim casts doubt on Ms. Bose’s argument.
Ms. Bose goes on to try to cast doubt on the account of Akhtaruzzaman Mandal who was a freedom fighter who accompanied Indian soldiers as they took control of a Pakistani position and took 30 to 40 Pakistani soldiers captive. There Mr. Mandal states that he saw the dead body of the Pakistani Captain in charge lying beside a dead Bengali woman who showed signs of rape. Mr. Mandal also states that four naked women were discovered locked in a building and one of the women was six months pregnant. Another 16 women were also discovered locked in an adjacent high school, some showing signs of torture.
In discounting Mr. Mandal’s account, Ms. Bose writes that she interviewed two Pakistani officers who told her that only four or five soldiers had been captured. One of the Pakistani soldiers said that dead Captain was “humane” and had only recently arrived at the location. She writes:
The picture painted of Captain Ataullah by this fellow officer,who knew him, completely contradicts the one given by Mandal, who appears to have only seen his dead body. Clearly, if Captain Ataullah had been based in Nageshwari and only gone up to Bhurungamari the day that the Indian attack started, he could not have been responsible for whatever might have been going on in Bhurungamari. Mandal offers no corroborating evidence for his character assassination of an officer who had died defending his country, and therefore, cannot speak in his own defence. [Emphasis added by me.]
Ms. Bose once again is ready to accept the word of the Pakistani soldiers, the perpetrators of rape. There are many cases of rapists in this world who appear to be “humane” to those who know them.
In critiquing accounts of seven rape victims describes in Neelima Ibrahim’s book Ami Birangona Bolchhi, Ms. Bose notes that four of the seven women were abducted by Bengalis and one by a Bihari before being handed over to the Pakistani army. Some of the women were raped by their initial abductors before being handed over to the Pakistani army to be held in barracks and raped. Ms. Bose neglects to mention that those who abducted the women were local collaborators, or Razakars, working with the Pakistani military. Nonetheless, she makes this bizarre observation:
The allegation that the army maintained “comfort women” – even if the numbers were nowhere close to Bangladeshi claims – is a serious charge and merits further inquiry. However, Ibrahim’s book reveals that in most cases the abductors and rapists of Bengali women were Bengali men, who later passed them on to the military. For the majority of these women, therefore, even if the Pakistan army had done nothing, they would still be rape victims. [Emphasis added by me.]
The point of course is that the Pakistani army had done something - they had raped these women. I feel compelled to make the obvious point that in a gang rape situation, all rapists are considered rapists and are culpable, not just the first one. In another attempt to humanize the rapists, Ms. Bose writes of one rape victim in Neelima Ibrahim’s book who went to Pakistan and married her rapists. Ms. Bose then points out that the rape victim then “had a son by her Pathan husband in Pakistan. When the son grew up, he joined the Pakistan army.”
In this latest paper Sarmila Bose tries mightily to diminish the atrocities committed by the Pakistani military in 1971. She, however, offers very little of substance to back up her assertion that the existing research and documentation of the 1971 genocide overestimates the death toll and the rapes. Her claim that, in her words, the “unsubstantiated and implausible” claims of hundreds of thousands of rape victims distracts attention from the “true rape victims” and “insult the true victims by trivialising their suffering” is itself an insult to the victims of rape in Bangladesh. The number of rape victims does not diminish the suffering of any individual rape victim; the vast number of rapes only demonstrates the heinous magnitude of the Pakistani campaign. If there is any insult, the insult lies in not acknowledging all the victims of the Pakistani army’s rapes by trying to dehumanize the rape victims further by asserting that these rapes did not take place.
In her attempt at denial she relies on the Pakistan government’s report on the atrocities and the accounts of Pakistani soldiers. She overlooks news reports from the time, eyewitness accounts, academic works and case studies. In the end, her paper is neither scholarly nor neutral. It is an apologia for the Pakistan army and for the genocide it perpetrated against the Bangladeshi people in 1971.
[Cross posted at E-Bangladesh]
October 10th, 2007 at 1:08 am
The problem is that the post-independence Bangladesh government found no urgency to document the war atrocities. It shouldn’t have been all that difficult or expensive for the government to find out how many were killed in each villages and towns and tally the numbers. Each person thus documented would have a story, a family and life that would have been collectively the nation’s shared ‘71 experience.
Instead, all we have is to rely on are individual experiences of the generation that went through the war and the estimates from 200,000 to 3 million made during the liberation war by foreign publications– each of which can be challenged by the doubters as either slanted or biassed.
I am afraid that with the passing of the generation like ours which lived through ‘71 as adults or near adults, the stage has been set for revisionists to come out in full force and create alternate set of concocted history that would fit their political needs or bias. Already, many young Shibir activists of today know India to be the villain behind the 14th December intellectual killings–I suppose this what their older brothers told them.
October 10th, 2007 at 1:24 am
[...] [Cross posted at E-Bangladesh and Drishtipat] [...]
October 10th, 2007 at 2:32 am
Excellent Analysis.
October 10th, 2007 at 5:04 am
Mash, thanks for your detailed post on the very igniting topic, I differ with you in many of your views, though.
I don’t see any problem with the call of Ahmmedinejad for objective research. Striving to reach the truth should always be welcomed. Denial and exaggeration both are bad and fall short of truth.
And anything, trangression truth is sin and injustice. Only truth guarantees justice, not inflation and deflation of facts.
Thanks.
October 10th, 2007 at 5:32 am
Shame on Sharmila Bose.
October 10th, 2007 at 8:53 am
Well done again. I am appalled that such shoddy research methodology actually gets acceptance in such reputable journals like EPW. MS. Bose wrote the first article in 2005 which was thoroughly debunked by Nayananika Mookerjee in another EPW piece. We covered it here:
http://www.drishtipat.org/blog/2005/07/05/sarmila-boses-paper/
It almost seems like the research conclusion was pre-set and then interview quotes were placed to fit that conclusion rather than facts and figures and interviews leading up to a conclusion. For someone who has names of Harvard and Oxford spread all over her CV, this is a travesty.
October 10th, 2007 at 9:38 am
Thanks for the hard work Mash. Excellent job.
I do believe in the existence of academic arrogance. But Ms Bose should be made aware that it is an intellectual crime to hurt the most sensitive corner of a nation merely out of an intellectually fixed mindset.
October 10th, 2007 at 10:20 am
Thanks Mash for the analysis. Ms. Bose most probably just wanted some attention with her papers and I think we have all given her enough. She is just a spoilt brat but what is most surprsing that she managed to get her papers published.
October 10th, 2007 at 10:44 am
As soon as I hear the politicisation of the word denial, I reach for my (spud)gun. Article would have made more sense if it wasn’t coupled onto the holocaust denial hook, though maybe its to broaden the reach of the article.
I am with Prime Minister Ahmedinejad when he discussed the importance of science and wisdom, the need for scientists to be pure and pious and the consequences of their misuse for personal, group or party interest. I would be a great loss if people, Muslims of this Age especially, were to dismiss all of the content of his speech because of the intermediary propaganda of those with axes to bear on frankly quite secondary issues.
Know that Iran has made strides in fields of fiqh, philosophy, aeronautics, genderchanging, sociology etc. Know that we got the idea of Banglapedia from them. The full text can be read here.–>
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/hourlyupdate/202820.php
The outrageous President of Colombia University was the one in the wrong, the discourteous and arrogant host probably was trying to keep the gangs of New York at bay by innoculating his audience.
On keeping the book open and hoping for a better understanding from the future, I must agree. Academic arrogance spawns a social arrogance.
I must also agree with the point that we must become a society with precise timely records.
Forcing a complex manifold truth to suit your local topology is probably human nature, but it is silly and in this case a dishonour to those who went through great sorrow, as well as those who lived before and after them.
Personaly i feel this subject is stuck in the mud somehow. Some one bangladeshi, with a stake in uncovering more of the truth should breathe new life into it and supplement the publically stated.
October 10th, 2007 at 11:32 am
Here is a compilation of research papers surrounding women of 1971 that we created when we campaigned for them in 2003
http://www.drishtipat.org/1971/war.htm
October 10th, 2007 at 11:32 am
Sarmila Bose is taking a page straight from the book of David Irving, the British academic and Holocaust Denier who has recently completed his prison term in Austria (for Holocaust Denial!). Both her research techniques and methodology is “Irvian” in her quest to deny genocide. She is probably acutely aware that the controversy will win her publicity (and publishing contracts) and the lack of counter-research presents her with an easy goal.
Mash has done a great job in highlighting the techniques and sleight-of-hands that these academics use to revise history.
Mash, we owe it to ourselves to defend our history from revisionists such as Ms Bose, if only for respect to the women who were raped and killed in 1971.
We’re grateful to you.
October 10th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
fugstar:
I am with Prime Minister Ahmedinejad when he discussed the importance of science and wisdom, the need for scientists to be pure and pious and the consequences of their misuse for personal, group or party interest.
I like the spin. Ahmadinejad is “pure and pious” when he calls for revising Holocaust Denial. As if that isn’t anything other than a blatant politicisation of Israeli relations. Why is always one rule for me and another rule for others in Islamic politicisation?
The sad thing is that as a Muslims are pressured to feel obliged to defend the sleazy politics of Ahmadinejad’s genocide denial because it’s the “Muslim” thing to do.
Why does Islamic politics always think it’s useful to deny someone or another’s genocide? Jamaat - Bangladesh, Iran - Holocaust. It’s utterly shameful.
October 10th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
‘Lack of counter research’.
As in primary excavation NOT compilations. As time goes by the potential primary data becomes skewed as old folks pass on, old folks who provide historical continuity, perspective and counterintuitive, unprocessed views on the past.
October 10th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Brilliant! Are you sending this rebuttal to EPW?
October 10th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
The posting contradicting Sarmila Bose is excellent and draws upon contemporary sources. I think it would be good to send it to epw as well as to the organisation in Oxford that SB is associated with. I think people need to know the poor quality of her research.
October 10th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Sidi Sid,
Label me as you like. It won’t bring back our lost talents, relations, potentials and it wont sweeten the bitterness laced all over your prose.
You’ve got holocaust on the brain as a primary issue wrt the Prime ministers visit. I think thats mistaken, and i ‘get’ why you would make that mistake, i wouldnt know where to start with consoling a Holocaust survivor protesting at the Uni who has enemised iran and thinks of Ahmedinejad as the new hitler.
Iran’s problem with nuclear power is the domination of science by some hegemonic forces that dont want them to know. To me thats the issue of interest, but i understand why some would take the secondary scraps (antisemetism, same-sex attraction issue) thrown at them. This politics of knowledge issue also relates, (non symetrically) with the holocausts extension programme.
Irans acheivements in science need to be understood before being cheap about their present leader of sorts. You have me wrong and you have his purpose wrong.
The Holocaust point he was making, and this is not so important wrt him represetning his country, and the one i hold is.
‘Hang on so why are you taking it out on Palestine.’
He who has oodles on money and sophisticated political will control and nurture the growth of science and humanities research. How anoying for poor folks with confused political setups.
If you’d like to discuss why bangladeshis in bangladesh, who probably havent ever met jewish people before, espouse liberal secular democratic values in (western)public, are so genetically antisemetic and racist, please feel free.
Asif S,
4 years on, if you were to put together a new compilation of research (or creative product) being done about this all over the world, how much more stuff (non derivative) would there be? (golden age and matir moina assumed)
October 10th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Mash: Congratulations on yet another piece of detailed work! I agree with Ms Hossain that you should seriously consider sending copies not only to the EPW, but also to colleagues and board of governors of the Oxford thinktank Ms Bose is “directing” at present. The people at these kinds of institutions do recognize the power and the value of the blogosphere. EPW will probably find an excuse not to publish such a long rebuttal — so when they do reject it, send them an abridged version with the URL of the original.
October 10th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Thanks Mash for taking the time to create this document. Numbers without proper documentation done by independence authorities would cast shadow of doubt, whether it is holocaust or ’71 atrocities. Yet there are people who still may not accept the number either by reason of commonsense or just plain denial. It is troubling to see that no body is willing give a chance to alternative views. Jumping the gun by fanatics should not be acceptable in any reason; regardless of the fanatic is the president of a university, sufferer of holocaust, or muktijodha.
No Bangladeshi doubts the ’71 atrocities. But if you ask an individual to name some victims, only a few names may come up. One may check it by asking how many victims one knows. It is probably true for others too. It is the number what is in question, not the atrocities. Sheer exaggeration brought the doubt in peoples’ heart.
It is unfortunate that no government in BD actually tried to investigate and document the facts of independent war. Consequentially, we see different reports coming out with different counts of the war. It shouldn’t surprise anyone if someone questions the ’71 atrocities all together in future.
Winners write history. All the genocide and atrocities are documented in accordance to the interest or affiliation of the people involved in the process. In this regard, except the Rwanda genocide all other atrocities probably were biased (!). Research should be done factually not emotionally. I believe it is still possible to properly document the events of independent war, but it should be an academic undertake not a political one.
October 10th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
fugstar, it’s amusing to see you tie yourself up in self-contradictory logical and doctrinal knots.
This thread is about the denial of genocide and as far as I can see, Ms Bose is carrying out, to the letter, Ahmadinejad’s pleas to academics of the Holocaust to be “judicious” in their search for the truth. This is code for denial.
And yet this topic is not about Ahmadinejad. It’s about one academic’s crusade to deny the extent of the Bangladeshi genocide. The parallels with Holocaust Denial are plain to see, and there are lessons to be learnt for Bangladeshis in how Jewish people have reclaimed their history from the revionists.
On that level, we have more solidarity with the Jewish people than with the anti-Semitic Iranian regime. I’m sorry you feel you need to contextualise and defend a bigot because I know you are not one.
You need to take a deep breath, have lie-down in a darkened room and think yourself out of this intellectual predicament.
October 10th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
its hardly a crusade, and tbh people blowing hot and cold over minor things is quite telling cf their own holy cows.
so i sat in a darkened room awaiting to break my fast and have made up a new word, just for you sidi sid
i prefer khatami. but tbh dont get off on amebic disentary. my objection is with the polemical tying in of the warmongering emotional games with iran, and the BD issue.
Reason i have time for Bose, is because her ancestor was one of those incredibly unbeleivable political types of yore. Also it makes a space onthe dark side of the liberation forces, where i also have questions. I can ask question about the mock trials and executions conducted by Dhaka University students who some idolise.
Im not interested in denying peoples suffering. I understand ‘why’ certain forces see this as a canard against their own ideology, but i want the finestructure to come out and be as visible, because there are many signs in it.
Bangladesh is still suffereing from reaction over reaction cascades from that time, there is a discontinuity that needs smoothing. The manner in which a lot of people approach resembles clumsy scab picking with pitch forks, rather than healing.
October 10th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
“Winners write history. All the genocide and atrocities are documented in accordance to the interest or affiliation of the people involved in the process. In this regard, except the Rwanda genocide all other atrocities probably were biased (!). Research should be done factually not emotionally. I believe it is still possible to properly document the events of independent war, but it should be an academic undertake not a political one.”
abuwardha, given that any future research will also be conducted by the winner of the war, ie. Bangladeshis, exactly how will you know that it is an “academic” undertaking and not political? Any criterions?
October 10th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
The politics in Bose’s EPW piece, from either a feminist or humanist perspective, is reprehensible, but we can put that aside, since people have a right to follow different political perspectives and agenda. To me, what is worse, especially as she’s an academic, is her analysis and methodology: reliance on one-sided sources, failure to verify critical information and data, failure to incorporate major evidence, dubious historiography, profoundly weak definitions and concepts (including the definition of rape), failure to distinguish between what was possible and what was probable, and spurious conclusions.
Thanks for posting an excellent rebuttal of the shoddy ’scholarship’ published by Bose.
October 10th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
Dr. Hossain, J, Nirbashito and others, I will try to restructure the post for further publication. I expect there will also be rebuttals from Bangladeshi academics and others.
This post, it seems to me, is a kind of Rorschach test. Genocide denial follows a very familiar and well-worn pattern - dont deny the event if all else fails, just deny its magnitude. Often it is couched in sympathetic terms to help “honor the victims”, etc. A lot of people say genocide deniers simply argue from ignorance. Maybe.
abuwardha at #18, you say:
I guess it depends on who you ask - perhaps you are asking all the wrong people. Following your logic, I suppose if you asked the adult population of Bangladesh from the time and they gave you only one unique victim each, that would be about 30 million victims. Math is a bitch sometimes.
I live in the United States and, beyond my own family, I don’t have to travel far to find evidence of victims of genocide. My Bengali neighbor who lives on the next street has a black and white picture hanging on her wall of a young man who was taken away by the Pakistani army - his body was never recovered. So his older sister has a picture on her wall instead of her brother. Anecdotal evidence aside, the mass graves of 1971 are not an illusion that can be swept away with a few keystrokes. Too many people are eyewitnesses and there were just too many bodies.
abuwardha, I should also note that in the crime of “genocide” there is not a “winner” and a “loser”, there are the perpetrators of the genocide and the victims of the genocide. So I am not clear what you mean by your statement about history being written by winners and all genocides except for Rwanda being biased?!? As a resource, please review this list of genocides to see if your statement holds true.
October 10th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
#20 Asify
Self interest driven researchers often try to establish the notion they are paid for. In 60’s or 70’s, researchers encouraged people to smoke claiming it was good for health. Now everyone knows, it was a work of hired researchers. Academics usually look at historical events to get knowledge or get the truth, not to give credit or discredit anyone, though people may judge for themselves from these works.
Without any survey or research, people were told how many people died in the war. As a result, these numbers are challenged over and over, and it became a cause of embarrassment for a nation that paid a very high price for freedom.
There are academic standard for anthropological research. It could start with public survey. The way Muktijodhas are identified, the same applies for the victims of ’71. Excavation of mass graves could help as well. But the best way would be to ask people, during voters’ registration, to name the family members who were victims of the war.
Politician failed to create national consensus in Bangladesh. They could not even agree on who first declared the independence. Some politicians were too greedy for credits, while discredited others. This problem created a cycle of blame games for everything one could think of. It is given that party associates would blame political opponents if get a chance.
October 10th, 2007 at 10:25 pm
Mash, the question is “too many” is how many?
Too many is not too many millions.
Questioning blind statement and wild guess don’t equate with denial. Even the criminals or prepatrators have the rights of getting the justice if they are ever to face trial. Demanding the correct number of killings and rapes is justified and also the necessity for the true history. Bengali proverb says, “Dushto Gaurur cheye Shunay Goyal Bhalo. Likewise, no history is better than distorted history.
The Pakistani army did the systemic atroicities and killings. And I don’t agree with Hamdour Rahman report. There were systemic killings especially with the minority Hindu Commuinity. The criminal psychology of the Pakistani was that if Pakistan had survived in the erstwhile East Pakistan evicted hindus didn’t dare to come back. So Hamdour Rahman report about systemic killing was blatantly wrong. But his questioning about the validity of alleged number is valid.
The number 3 million is just a slip of tongue by late leader of independence Mr. Sheik Mujibur Rahman.
By the way, war crimes had also been committed by the Muktijoddahs during and immediate after liberation, not in the extent Pakistani army perpetrated on us, though.
Thanks.
October 10th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
#22 Mash
My uncle too a mortar of ’71. By all mean, it wasn’t a try to undermine the atrocity of ’71. It is not a question of emotion to me but a logical one. I have visited the list. Question still persist how the number is generated. It is the responsibility of people and government of Bangladesh to prove the number is correct, not a fiction.
Because, there was no clear process and documentation were fallowed to obtain the number of victims a shadow of doubt hanged over the claim. For the future generation, Bangladesh need to document all of these atrocities the way holocaust was documented. It is not too late to start this process. Otherwise, we would be challenged by academics like Ms. Bose.
Holocaust memorial has the list of victims, in detail. No body can doubt the event except the number. Holocaust created sympathy for the Jews people and they have ripped the benefits. All propaganda was designed to achieve a goal, to get a homeland. By creating fear in the hearts of ordinary Jews, Zionists were able to horde them to a place and they have a homeland now. The Jews people were the victim of Holocaust but with the help of their friends they were able to write the history the way they wanted. Genocide doesn’t have any winners but there are people who rip benefits from every occasion.
October 10th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
One more point: can any one find out about (or contact) the Australian doctor/volunteer who was working right after December 71 with an NGO helping out our rape-victims (in essence providing free abortion clinics)? I vaguely recall reading about her (or was it his?) experiences in one of our BD discussion groups online and that she might be a valuable resource in this regard. Also, as for evidence of “systematic rape”, there is Shahriar Kabir’s other compilation, Tormenting ‘71, based on interviews and first-hand accounts, of the victims and witnesses at the Rajarbag Police Line torture/rape/concentration camp.
As for Dr. Bose, I don’t understand why some of us are referring to her as an “academic.” I thought she was just a hack! (see def 2, noun)! Other than a couple of articles here and there, most of it obviously not peer-reviewed, she doesn’t have a credential as such, much less a track record as a regularly appointed faculty member at an academic institution, does she? (Think-tanks are not academic inst, not even if they have Oxford stamped on their letter-head.) Not that it’s critical here: but I thought we should be careful about not generating yet another myth out of this travesty.
EPW is going subscription only, and I know why I won’t sign up…
October 10th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
Bitterboy, #25,
The number 3 million was a slip of tongue by General Yahya Khan,
On 22nd february, 1971, Pakistani generals decided to crush awami league and its supporters
in a conference.’Kill three million of them,’ said President Yahya Khan at the February conference, ‘and the rest will eat out of our hands.’ (source Robert Payne, “Massacre”, page 50.)
October 11th, 2007 at 1:04 am
Has anyone looked into why Sarmila Bose may be driven by personal interests? Her husband is Alan Rosling, CEO of Tata India. So, could there be a conflict of interest? Tata trying to do deal with old BD govt where Nizami was industry minister. Or trying to get investment in Pakistan.
Fugstar, why is it that “someone Bangladeshi” (#9) has to dig into this? The key parameter is someone honest, sincere and academically diligent, not someone of the right color, as it were. On that logic, Ahmedinijad should keep quiet about Jews and Palestinians as he is neither. But perhaps he has a right to talk about the gays …
October 11th, 2007 at 1:08 am
abuwardha, you say:
Then you go on to say:
Then you go on a rather bizarre tirade about reaping benefits by being victims of genocide. Given your little tirade and your apparent doubts about the extent of the Holocaust even after conceding that the Holocaust was documented, I find it difficult to believe that any amount of documentation about the 1971 genocide will suffice for you.
Perhaps you should reread the beginning of my post about genocide denial.
bitterboy, available estimates of the death toll range from 300,000 to 3 million. Rummel has a good breakdown of the various estimates and sources - he puts the mean of the research at 1.5 million dead. If you want to deny the extent of the genocide and the available research, you will have to do better than just say so. Perhaps you should consider writing a paper like Sarmila Bose did.
Getting back to this post. It was about Sarmila Bose’s attempt to deny the extent of the rapes in 1971. As often happens with these attempts at denial, once you get past the title of the paper, the “research” turns out to be quite lacking.
October 11th, 2007 at 5:00 am
Mash,
this is an off-putting title you chose for your post.
I dont have time to read your long post but I am sure you can do better than this.
This is year 2007, not 1971.
October 11th, 2007 at 5:41 am
Did the admins allow #31 for comic relief?
If this is the same Hasib that is posting on Mash and Zafa’s blogs, let me quickly say this is a new LOW! “I don’t have time to read your long post but I am sure you can do better than this” - simply AMAZING! One word of advice Hasib bhai: don’t be a school teacher.
October 11th, 2007 at 5:51 am
#24,
I am well aware of self-serving researchers.
1) Which researcher on the birongonas of 1971 (preferrably one cited by Mash here) do you think was self-serving?
2) In whose interest is it to exaggerate these figures?
3) And are the people in #2 funding the research?
Please clarify.
But thank you for presenting at least ONE criteria for us to judge solid research: where the funding is coming from.
But it leads us to several thorny questions: Who in your opinion should fund such research? The GoB? The “people of Bangladesh”? The accused of 1971? Don’t all these parties have a “self-serving” motive in exaggeration and under-estimation?
Thank you for pointing out the lack of original research done on the victims of 1971 and the lack of political will. This is true of all political parties I’m afraid.
October 11th, 2007 at 9:38 am
Mash, your article is a good start. When I was young, there was a science publication in “Anu” for teen-agers in Bangladesh. I remember one in ‘Anu’ by a physicist, which basically said why it is not responsibility of science to disprove every superstition. If someone claims, seeing a blue moon in Barisal, all the astro-physicists in the world don’t jump from their chairs and run to Barisal to disprove her. We can take that approach to Dr. Bose. I am with #27, Nirbasito, academic research is completely different from jokers in some think tanks even with the limitations of the quality of many academic research. We have seen plenty of these jokers prior to Iraq Invasion, so called “Middle East expert” who even does not know the difference between Shia and Sunni. Those jokers have drawn big paychecks and poor Bush is paying the price.
The other approach could be two types of rebuttal, short term and a long term one. DP can use the power of collective research, in a very short term every reader can contribute with references from publications, public interviews, 71 world wide news media etc. Mash can strengthen this response by compiling references, like #15 suggested and go for rebuttal with a heavy gun so that we can embarrass the publisher.
In the long term, can we sponsor some academic research at DU or any other capable place to have some systematic research on 71-genocide? I am not suggesting mere listing of the names, but discovering the records of systematic Rape of Bangladesh.
October 11th, 2007 at 10:22 am
#Abuwardha, #Bittereboy
Search for the truth is great. But again, genocide just 36 years back does not need to be “scientifically proven”. I would doubt the intention of finding numbers and names now. Those truth seekers probably know that when 100s and 100s were killed in Sajahanpur, Malibagh, Khilgaon’s bastis (some pictures still available) on the night of 25th March, there is no way of getting their names. It will probably be true in a larger scale too.
#Bitterboy, though you might not have any bad intention but the following claim is too dangerous- “There were systemic killings especially with the minority Hindu Commuinity.” It was RAPING (Hasib #31, read it and it is 2007, too early to forget it!) of Bangladesh not any particular community.
When discussing the genocide, you bring in:
“By the way, war crimes had also been committed by the Muktijoddahs during and immediate after liberation, not in the extent Pakistani army perpetrated on us, though.”
What is the point you are trying to make? Is not it the same strategy that Mash mentioned in this article, “start the denial process by attacking the extent”? Is this a trial attempt to minimize Pakistani Military’s atrocity by citing “war crime” of Muktijoddahs in the same breath?
October 11th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
I said someone bangladeshi, because i’d be proud. I know india, iran, the US or whoever have intellectual ordanance factorys. It would say something about the calibre of our academic culture.
The who is very importance, at least that what i find reading through theses on BD. Sometimes who somebody is means they havent got a chance of finding anything out, and this is confirmed as you leaf through their pages.
I have given up on DU, iA i hope jahangirs nagar will deliver some goods in the years to come.
The indian bredthren can call their holy cow, Gandhi, a spade for harijanising vast quantities of them, without being annihilated. We aren’t that mature.
Thats why rational debate on this is rather impossible and it appears to some just to be an emotional and political instrument and Nirmul fodder.
October 11th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
Good job on the piece Mash.
I agree with Hameeda Hossain (#15) that (with some sourcing and tighter editing) it might actually be up for publication in EPW as a rebuttal.
To start with though, you may want to take out the holocaust denial and Ahmedinejad hooks. The former gets people twisted up in other politics, and the latter brings out the fruits and nuts.
I must say I also disagree with Akku Choudhury (#8) but only partially, Ms Bose may deserve our contempt, but we should give her more rather than less time. Sunlight is often the best disinfectant after all.
October 11th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
#28 Borsha
Only killing may not be the goal of the war. If war lasted long enough, in order to crush the drive to independence, many more then 3 million Bengalis (not AL) might have been killed.
#30 Mash
People need convincing if there is not enough convincing evidence. Why are we still fighting critics? Shutting off critics is easier then gathering convincing documents. Unfortunately, no critic doesn’t mean no dissenter.
#31 Asify
Those Birongonas are my sisters as well. Women are the biggest victims of every war. Unfortunately, nobody research the extent of brutality of ’71. Leader just picked a number without any research, and we are struggling to protect the number ever since.
There are many beneficiaries of this exaggeration. Instead of naming them, listing some of the targeted benefits might be more agreeable. Benefit of proving to Bangladeshis, how in the name of Islam Muslim brethren brought brutality upon them. Disconnecting Bangladesh form the rest the Muslim world will keep the hope alive for future integration to its neighbor. L. G. Manek Shaw commented on Bangladesh Independence that ‘who knew Bangladesh will look to Mecca for inspiration, not to Delhi.’ Boosting heroic stature of AL and continuous blaming opportunity for political gain was also a motive.
This research needs to be done for Bangladesh to live as a nation. If a group of credible academics take charge to research this most important aspect of Bangladesh history, funding might not be a problem. As you said, only needs political will.
#34 SC’s idea of sponsoring academic research at DU or any other capable place could work just fine.
October 11th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
“There are many beneficiaries of this exaggeration. Instead of naming them, listing some of the targeted benefits might be more agreeable. Benefit of proving to Bangladeshis, how in the name of Islam Muslim brethren brought brutality upon them. Disconnecting Bangladesh form the rest the Muslim world will keep the hope alive for future integration to its neighbor. L. G. Manek Shaw commented on Bangladesh Independence that ‘who knew Bangladesh will look to Mecca for inspiration, not to Delhi.’ Boosting heroic stature of AL and continuous blaming opportunity for political gain was also a motive.”
Once again abuwardha, you are evading my direct questions. You say that MORE research needs to be done because the previous research was tainted. From the above I take it you think that all previous research was funded by the Indians and/or AL. Have you any proof of that?
I don’t know about India, but permit me to say that in any discussion of 1971 AL will always come out looking good. Take this from someone who’s been very critical of current AL (visit my blog if you don’t believe it). So that is something you need to reconcile.
Lastly, though I don’t believe in “grand Indian conspiracies” to “disconnect Bangladesh from the Muslim world”, but let me take you up on the dangerous path you’ve started going down: investigating the crimes of Muslims does not “endanger Islam” or whatever other rallying cry you want to give it.
If anything it strengthens the image of Islam as a religion of justice. It is this same false cry that has been raised to cover the crimes that Saddam perpetrated against the Kurds (also Muslims), the Punjabis against the Balochis (predominantly Muslim) and Bengalis (majority Muslims) and recently the Sudanese against the people of Darfur (again Muslim).
All these instances have seen someone or the other come by and claim that a non-Muslim power is trying to destroy Islam by investigating its crimes. Please don’t repeat that mistake.
October 11th, 2007 at 9:34 pm
I don’t think anyone tried to take glory away from AL. Justice should be charged regardless who ever is paying. I only suggested keeping drama out of the process. You are right on not choosing a path that only leads to bitterness. Your claim of not believing in conspiracy does not eliminate the conspiracy theory from the heart of majority of Bangladeshis.
Please let put the argument a side. Only point needed across is the necessity of a qualified research. I hope you took that from this argument.
October 11th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
I didn’t regard this as an argument, but as a way to get some solid criterions with which we can judge research present and past. Funding was a good criterion. “Drama” on the other hand is neither here nor there. But so be it, this is where it ends.
I’m glad you’ve done a scientific poll that shows that the “majority of Bangladeshis” believe in this conspiracy theory. A majority might be suspicious of Indian intentions (who isn’t?). But to say that the majority regards any large number of 1971 victims as playing into Indian interests is exaggeration. Give Bangladeshis some credit.
But so be it. My “argument” with you ends here. Feel free to have the last word.
October 12th, 2007 at 4:20 am
It is a pleasure talking to you. I never doubted your patriotism. All this talk we had derived from the love of our country. I look forward to have more lively talk in future. Eid Mobarak.
October 12th, 2007 at 6:11 am
And eid mobarak to you too abuwardha!:)
October 14th, 2007 at 2:11 am
“…whatever killings took place were part of the normal savagery of war and not as a result of any systematic campaign…”
This is the approach taken by the revisionists and Pakistan army apologists when it comes to the events of 1971. Failing to argue that the Army didn’t commit any atrocities (even Musharraf has accepted there were ‘excesses’), they argue that: the army was provoked, lot of killings were done by the Mukti Bahini, Indian agents fished in troubled waters, Bengali razakars and Al Badrs killed more people than the army, and private scores were being settled.
Even if all of these were true, and there is probably an element of truth in some of them, this line of argument completely misses one point. Pakistan army was a uniformed force that was supposed to be trained and disciplined. Atrocities committed by them is a different kettle of fish altogether.