E-Bangladesh

Today marks 37 years of independence for a tiny country I love, a country that gave me birth before it was itself born, a country founded on the belief that freedom is precious and worth dying for, a country of brave martyrs and brave survivors, a country of unfulfilled promises called Bangladesh.

Thirty seven years ago today the Pakistan army and their Islamist allies launched a campaign of genocide against 75 million of its own citizens. The army was intent on massacring into submission 75 million Bengalis who had committed a singularly unforgivable crime. Months earlier the Bengalis had gone to the polls and voted for a candidate of their choice to become the next Prime Minister of Pakistan. The Pakistan army responded to the vote with a genocide. In the name of “God and a united Pakistan” the killing began.

In the end, the Pakistan army failed in its purpose. Nine months later, an army that had engaged in the killing of millions of its citizens surrendered in humiliation to the Indian army and Bangladeshi freedom fighters. An army that was so adept in machine gunning unarmed civilians proved to be no match for men and women who could shoot back.

A new nation was born. But at great cost. Up to three million Bengalis were killed in nine months of genocide. Two hundred thousand to four hundred thousand Bengali women were raped. Ten million refugees had fled to India. Cities were devastated, villages had been razed, and the new country’s intellectual class had been massacred in a last minute frenzy of madness.

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Our heartfelt congratulations to everyone involved in this mammoth initiative. A solid contribution indeed; one of the decisive early steps that would take us a long way towards justice for 1971. As said, it is a “continuing and collaborative” project. So in the end it is up to all of us to make sure that this archive excels. Let us all support this initiative with everything we have. Let us all make sure that this archive becomes the first point of credible reference for any research on 1971 genocide in Bangladesh. Let us fill every page of this site with stories of courage and sacrifice of our martyrs and freedom fighters. Let us fill the pages with evidence of war crimes and with details of the criminals who perpetrated them against our nation. This is a sacred burden for our generation we all must share with pride, dignity and resolve.

Here is the link: http://www.genocidebangladesh.org

If you are reading this post and is outraged enough by the war crimes that have been perpetrated against our people 37 years ago, if you are one of them who always felt frustrated for not being able to do anything about it–here is your chance to do something:

• Circulate the link to everyone you know;
• If you own a website or a blog, then please create a link on your site pointing to the archive;
• Find materials on 1971, on atrocities, on war crimes and send them to the archive administrators for consideration. Do not just assume that the archive administrators might have the materials already.

We do not know whether we would see the war criminals tried in our lifetime, but we surely can try to make this website one of the highest ranking ones on Bangladesh. We surely can do something to ensure that the evidences of misdeeds dangle on the face of all the Razakars and their offsprings whenever they Google the word “Bangladesh”.

If you are wondering why I was not blogging last couple of month as frequently as before, I confess now I was engaged in a mammoth project.

It all started after the much discussed denial - Jamaat-e-Islami’s leader Ali Ahsan Muzahid’s statement that “Jamaat did not work against the Liberation War in 1971 and there are no war criminals in the country.” Soon other apologists joined the procession of denials terming the war of liberation as a civil war. Even scholars like Sharmila Bose tried to deny a lot of thing with faulty research.

Some fellow bloggers notably Mashuqur Rahman and Tasneem Khalil stressed that we need a proper archive to tackle these issues. Since I was reading and compiling a list of all available content on liberation war since long, I came forward to gather contents for an archive. I started work in December 2007 and it was a learning experience for me to study and revisit our glorious history of liberation.

I have listed in this archive the International newspaper clippings, events, documentations, audio, video, images, media reports and eyewitness accounts of the 1971 Genocide in Bangladesh all with workable links to judge the truth for yourself. I have compiled views of Pakistanis, Indians, US Government with articles, documents and provided many rare known facts. I am not an historian nor I am here to distort the history. But I hope this archive will help the seekers of truth. For an example you can refute Jamaat’s statement from the facts in this page (in Bangla) alone.

As I wrote in the about section of the Bangladesh Genocide Archive:

“The plot is so huge that no one person can tell the story. Many books were written, video footage was taken and words are passed from generation to generation. But due to lack of information in one place and platform many truth were distorted. The struggle for Bangladesh’s liberation and the efforts of the Pakistani army to cull the resistance resulted in one of the worst genocide in the World history. This was interpreted in many different ways. To many Bengalis it was a struggle for liberation, to many Pakistanis a armed rebel to be quashed, to the US govt. Pakistan’s internal affair. However it was in the US the peace loving people arranged the first ever aid concert for the people of Bangladesh.

Politicians tried to bank on these in the past and will be doing this in the future. The new generation is baffled as text books were rewritten to instill superiority of the visionaries of the political governments over rivals. People are forgetting that it was a mass effort and prompting to disrespect the catalysts and the father of nation, who was the inspiration.

That is why this site is born.”

Actually its a repository of all the information available online listed in one place. From here you will be able to navigate to the original contents in their original locations. I will try to include all valid viewpoints with authenticated sources and let the readers/viewers be the judge.

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