Bangladesh genocide

The **Bangladesh genocide** was when Bengalis in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) were subjected to mass killing and driven from their land because of their ethnicity. It took place during the Bangladesh Liberation War. The Pakistan Army and the Razakar militia did it.

It began on 25 March 1971. West Pakistan (now Pakistan) started a military operation called Operation Searchlight. Its goal was to use force to control the Bengali people in East Pakistan. Bengalis made up most of the population there, and they had been asking to be free from Pakistan. Yahya Khan, who was president of Pakistan at that time, wanted to stop the Bengalis from seeking freedom. He approved a large military action. In the nine months of war that followed, Pakistani soldiers and local pro-Pakistan militias carried out mass killing of between 300,000 and 3,000,000 Bengalis. They also raped between 200,000 and 400,000 Bengali women. These mass killings and rapes were done as part of a planned campaign of mass murder and genocidal rape.

West Pakistanis were told by the news that the military operation was carried out because of a "rebellion by the East Pakistanis." Many things that happened at that time were kept hidden from them. These included the rapes and the ethnic cleansing of East Pakistanis by the Pakistani military. Most of the victims were Bengali Muslims. However, Hindus were targeted especially.

The International Commission of Jurists, based in Geneva, looked into the genocide. They found that Pakistan's campaign also tried to kill or drive away a large part of the country's Hindu population.

The West Pakistani government made laws that were not fair to East Pakistan. The government claimed Hindus were behind the revolt of the Mukti Bahini (Bengali resistance fighters). It also said that fixing the "Hindu problem" there would end the conflict. So Khan's government and Pakistan's leaders saw the crackdown as a planned action they needed to take. The campaign was backed by words that called for genocide. Pakistani men believed that killing Hindus was needed to fix the country's problems. In the countryside, Pakistan Army moved through villages and specifically asked for places where Hindus lived before burning them down.

To find out who was Hindu, they checked if a man was circumcised. They also made people say Muslim prayers. Those who could not were identified as Hindu. Because of this, about eight million people left East Pakistan and went to India. Most of them were Hindus. Around 80 to 90 out of every 100 were Hindu. Both Muslim and Hindu women were targeted for rape. West Pakistani men wanted to "purify the nation", which they believed was "corrupted by Hindus". They thought sacrificing Hindu women was needed, so they viewed Bengali women as Hindu or Hindu-like.

What Pakistan did during the Bangladesh Liberation War made India send its military to help the Mukti Bahini. This started the Indo-Pakistani War. That war began on 3 December 1971. The war and the genocide ended on 16 December 1971. On that day, the joint forces of Bangladesh and India accepted the Pakistani Instrument of Surrender. Because of the war, about 10 million East Bengali refugees fled to India. East Pakistan had 70 million people in total. Out of these, as many as 30 million were displaced but stayed inside the country.

## Background
 University marching on Language Movement Day, 21 February 1953.]]

### West Pakistan and East Pakistan 
In 1947, the United Kingdom split British India into two countries: India and Pakistan. The idea was that Hindus would live in India and Muslims would live in Pakistan. But it was not so simple. Pakistan had two parts: East Pakistan and West Pakistan. They were about  apart, with India in between. The two parts were separated not only by distance, but also by culture. Leaders in West Pakistan thought the Bengali Muslims in the East were "too Bengali." They also thought their way of being Muslim was "inferior and impure." Because of this, they believed the Bengalis were not truly reliable as fellow Muslims. The leaders of Pakistan also saw Hindu influences in Bengali language and culture. So they tried many times to lessen or get rid of those influences.

Politicians in West Pakistan made a plan. They wanted to force Bengalis to change their culture and religion. The ruling class in West Pakistan had power over East Pakistan. They looked down on Bengali Muslims. Colonialism played a role in this. They also believed light skin was better. They thought East Pakistanis had darker skin than West Pakistanis.

There were fewer West Pakistanis than East Pakistanis, but West Pakistanis controlled most of the government. 

For a long time, the government did not want to make Bengali the second national language. This made people in East Pakistan angry and started the Bengali language movement. People began to support a new party called the Awami League, which was started in the East to challenge the ruling Muslim League.

In 1952, people held a protest in Dhaka, the capital of East Pakistan. The government used force to stop it, and several protesters were killed. Bengali nationalists called them martyrs, and the violence made some people call for independence.

The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 made people even angrier. The military did not send extra troops to defend East Pakistan. Bengalis worried that their land was not protected if India attacked. They also believed that Ayub Khan, the President of Pakistan, was willing to give up the East if it meant he could get Kashmir.

The Bhola cyclone struck on 12 November 1970. The government was slow to help the people. Many people think this slow response played a part in how people voted in the general election held in December 1970. 

The Awami League was based in East Pakistan and led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. It won a national majority in the first democratic election since Pakistan was created, sweeping all the seats in East Pakistan. But the West Pakistani establishment stopped them from forming a government. President Yahya Khan, encouraged by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, banned the Awami League and declared martial law. The Pakistani Army demolished Ramna Kali Mandir temple and killed 85 Hindus. On 22 February 1971, General Yahya Khan said "Kill three million of them, and the rest will eat out of our hands."

### Bengali independence movement 
Some Bengalis wanted Pakistan to stay united and did not want to break away. According to Sarmila Bose, an Indian academic, the Bengalis that supported unified Pakistan were a large minority. The Islamic parties were among them. Also, many people voted for the Awami League wanted more self-rule for the province, but they may not have wanted to leave Pakistan.

Also, some Bengali officers and soldiers stayed loyal to the Pakistani Army. India took them as prisoners of war, together with other soldiers from West Pakistan. So, according to Sarmila Bose, some Bengalis were on the Pakistani government's side. These Bengalis killed and hurt the fighters who wanted freedom.

Gary J. Bass is an American writer. He believes that the breakup of Pakistan did not have to happen. He says that for Bengalis, the idea of a united Pakistan ended on 25 March 1971. That was when the military operations started.

According to John H. Gill, there was a deep split during the war between Bengalis who supported Pakistan and Bengalis who wanted freedom. That division still affects the politics of modern-day Bangladesh.

## Operation Searchlight 
In March 1971, the Pakistani Army had a plan called Operation Searchlight. They did it to stop the Bengali nationalist movement in East Pakistan that wanted to separate from Pakistan. The Pakistani government said it started Operation Searchlight because Bengalis attacked Biharis in early March. The government in West Pakistan ordered this operation, which came after Operation Blitz that had started in November 1970. Then on 1 March 1971, the governor of East Pakistan, Admiral Syed Mohammad Ahsan, was replaced because he did not agree with using military force there. The next governor was Sahibzada Yaqub Khan. He quit because he said no to using soldiers to stop a mutiny. He also did not agree with using military force in East Pakistan.

According to Indian academic Sarmila Bose, the government postponed the National Assembly on 1 March. This set off lawlessness by Bengali protesters from 1 to 25 March, and the government lost control over much of the province. Bose says Bengalis attacked non-Bengalis and Pakistani troops during that time. She and journalist Anthony Mascarenhas say the military showed restraint until Operation Searchlight began on 25 March. Bose also wrote about the crimes the Pakistani Army did in her book. Anthony Mascarenhas said the Pakistani Army did things that were "altogether worse and on a grander scale" than what Bengalis did.

On the night of 25 March 1971, the Pakistani Army began Operation Searchlight. *Time* magazine called General Tikka Khan the "Butcher of Bengal" because of what he did in that operation. The operation went after several places, including Jagannath Hall, which was a dormitory at Dhaka University for nonMuslim students, as well as Rajarbagh Police Lines and Pilkhana, the main building of the East Pakistan Rifles. Around 34 students were killed in the dormitories at Dhaka University, and the army also attacked parts of old Dhaka where many Hindus lived. American journalist Robert Payne said that 7,000 people were killed and 3,000 were arrested that night. The Pakistani Army killed teachers at Dhaka University during the operation. On 25 March, the Pakistani Army arrested Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Ramna Kali Mandir was broken by the Pakistani Army in March 1971.

The original plan was to take control of the major cities on 26 March 1971, and then remove all political and military opposition within one month.  Pakistani planners did not expect the Bengalis to resist for so long. The main part of Operation Searchlight ended in mid May. That was when Bengali forces lost the last major town they held. Still, the two sides were almost evenly matched in the countryside.

The first report about the Bangladesh genocide came out on 13 June 1971. It was written by a West Pakistani journalist named Anthony Mascarenhas. It appeared in *The Sunday Times* in London, and the title was "Genocide". He wrote: "I saw Hindus, hunted from village to village and door to door, shot off-hand after a cursory 'short-arm inspection' showed they were uncircumcised. I have heard the screams of men bludgeoned to death in the compound of the Circuit House (civil administrative headquarters) in Comilla. I have seen truckloads of other human targets and those who had the humanity to try to help them hauled off 'for disposal' under the cover of darkness and curfew."

This article helped turn world opinion against Pakistan and pushed India to intervene. On 2 August 1971, a *Time* magazine dispatch described the destruction in East Pakistan. The dispatch said that in Dhaka, Pakistani soldiers set parts of the Old City on fire and shot many people as they tried to escape. It also said that whole sections of other cities were damaged by shelling and bombing. A US official called it the most calculated thing since Nazi times.

## Number of people killed
People disagree about how many people died.  According to the Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center, it could have been as few as 500,000 or as many as 3 million. It was during the Cold War and so different groups said more or fewer people had died depending on their own political ideas and goals. The Soviets, who supported Bangladesh, said that it was 3 million. The CIA said it was 200,000. Pakistan was then an ally of the United States, and the West Pakistani soldiers used weapons given by the Americans. India, which was also pro-Soviet, and Bangladesh state that nearly 3 million had been killed.

In 1997, R. J. Rummel wrote the book *Statistics of Democide: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900*. In Chapter 8, ''Statistics Of Pakistan's Democide - Estimates, Calculations, And Sources'', he noted:
:In East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) [General Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan and his top generals] also planned to murder its Bengali intellectual, cultural, and political elite. They also planned to indiscriminately murder hundreds of thousands of its Hindus and drive the rest into India. And they planned to destroy its economic base to insure that it would be subordinate to West Pakistan for at least a generation to come. This despicable and cut throat plan was outright genocide.

Rummel called it an act of killing specific groups of people: "Consolidating both ranges, I give a final estimate of Pakistan's democide to be 300,000 to 3,000,000, or a prudent 1,500,000."

## Pro-Pakistan Islamist militias 
The Jamaat-e-Islami party and some other pro-Pakistani Islamists opposed Bangladesh's fight for independence. They helped the Pakistani government and army because of "Islamic solidarity."

Pakistan's secret service worked with the political party Jamaat-e-Islami to make militias such as Al-Badr ("the moon") and the Al-Shams ("the sun"). These groups carried out operations against the nationalist movement. These militias attacked civilians. They also raped people and did other crimes. Local helpers called Razakars also took part in the crimes. Today, the word "Razakar" is used as an insult, similar to calling someone a "Judas" in the West.

Some political parties lost the election. These included the Muslim League, Nizam-e-Islam, Jamaat-e-Islami, and Jamiat Ulema Pakistan. They worked with the military and acted as spies. Members of Jamaat-e-Islami and some of their leaders helped Pakistani forces do rapes and targeted killings. The crimes of Al-Badr and Al-Shams were known around the world. News agencies wrote about the mass killings and rapes.

## Violence 
West Pakistani soldiers killed Hindus, Bengali Muslims, smart people, students and politicians in order to kill them all. They went to schools and killed everybody there. The soldiers killed college professors at Dhaka University and other intellectual leaders because they thought they were the ones encouraging other East Pakistanis to want to be a separate country.  They especially killed Hindu leaders.  Then they killed young Hindu men because they thought young Hindu men would want to fight against them.

### Rape of Bengali Women 
During the nine months of war, the number of women raped is generally put between 200,000 and 400,000. Both Muslim and Hindu women were targeted. West Pakistani men believed that Hindus had corrupted the nation and that they needed to sacrifice Hindu women. Bengali women were seen as Hindu or Hindu-like. Some religious leaders in West Pakistan issued a fatwa saying Bengali women could be treated as “war booty”.

The Pakistani Army and their local helpers (razakars) kept Bengali women as sex‑slaves inside military camps. Many became pregnant. After the war, Bangladesh’s leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman called these women *birangona* (“heros”) to help remove the stigma they faced.

Most rapes were committed by Pakistani soldiers and their allies. The Mukti Bahini and Indian Army also committed some abuses, but far fewer and not as part of a systematic campaign.

The Pakistani Army’s commander in the east, General Niazi, was known to make offensive remarks about Bengalis. One witness later said: “The troops used to say that when the Commander was himself a rapist, how could they be stopped?” Even Niazi himself complained in a secret memo about troops committing rape, saying that on 12 April 1971 two West Pakistani women were raped.

### Mass murder of Hindus 
An article in *Time* magazine on 2 August 1971 said: “The Hindus, who account for three-fourths of the refugees and a majority of the dead, have borne the brunt of the Muslim military hatred.”

The government wanted to kill or drive out Hindus. Then their property could be given to middle‑class Muslims. Colonel Naim said Hindus “undermined the Muslim masses.” He claimed that Bengali culture was Hindu culture. “We have to sort them out,” he said. In April 1971, Major Rathore told a journalist: “Now under the cover of fighting we have an excellent opportunity of finishing them off. […] Of course […], we are only killing the Hindu men.”

US government cables said Hindus were specific targets. Chuknagar, and Shankharipara.

Senator Edward Kennedy wrote in 1971: “Hardest hit have been members of the Hindu community who have been robbed of their lands and shops, systematically slaughtered, and in some places, painted with yellow patches marked ‘H’.” Buddhist temples and monks were also attacked.

Journalist Sydney Schanberg reported that after the war, homes of Hindus still had yellow “H”s painted by the Pakistani Army. Missionaries told him massacres happened almost every day. In Barisal, over a thousand Hindus were killed in one day.

## Legacy
Most agree that the atrocities were a genocide. Far-right Islamic fundamentalists in Pakistan say that is "Bengali Lies." Bangladeshi authorities and some independent organizations say that one to three million people were killed. Another 10 million ran away from the country to be safe in the Indian province of West Bengal.

## Trials
No people involved in the genocide were put on trial until 2011. Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunals convicted 26 people for genocide and crimes against humanity. Some were executed, but international organizations stated that the accused had not been tried fairly.

## References
## Other websites
*1971 War - Myths and Realities- The Free Library
*Behind the Myth of 3 million  February, 1996 (Dr. M. Abdul Mu’min Chowdhury)