Bangladesh Liberation Research Articles

Tracing Memory, Trauma, and Childhood: The Bangladesh Liberation War in Sorayya Khan’s Noor

This article addresses the representation of childhood memory and trauma in Sorayya Khan’s novel Noor (2003) against the backdrop of the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. It discusses how personal recollections of public events contribute to the collective memory of the nation-state. The exploration includes the intergenerational transmission of trauma, employing Marianne Hirsch’s concept of ‘Postmemory,’ which describes how traumatic experiences are passed down, particularly in the context of the Holocaust. This framework has been contextualized within the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War and its aftermath on children, carrying the memories of war trauma forward, as illustrated in the novel through Noor and Sajida’s experiences. Through a close reading of the novel, this article aims to extricate the underlying patterns of childhood war memory and personal experiences that often get subsided in historical representations and emphasizes the pertinence of reading a representational narrative of the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War even after half a century.

India-Bangladesh Conflict: An Overview

Abstract: The India-Bangladesh conflict primarily revolves around historical, territorial and resource-related disputes that have shaped the bilateral relationship between the two neighbouring South Asian countries. Emerging from the Partition of British India in 1947 and the subsequent creation of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), tensions escalated during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, which resulted in Bangladesh's independence with Indian military support. Key areas of conflict have included the demarcation of borders, particularly over the disputed enclaves, the maritime boundary in the Bay of Bengal, and the sharing of transboundary river waters, such as the Ganges and the Teesta. While the Land Boundary Agreement of 2015 resolved several border issues, the water-sharing disputes remain unresolved, particularly concerning the Teesta River, which is critical to Bangladesh’s agriculture. Additionally, non-traditional security concerns such as illegal migration, cross-border insurgencies, and trafficking continue to challenge bilateral relations. Nevertheless, India and Bangladesh have strengthened their cooperation in recent years, particularly in trade, energy and regional security, while both countries seek to balance their national interests within a framework of diplomacy and economic interdependence. This overview highlights that while conflict persists in certain areas, India and Bangladesh have made significant strides in resolving disputes and fostering collaboration, although challenges remain in ensuring equitable resource distribution and addressing mutual security concerns.

THE PLIGHT OF BANGLADESHI UNDERTRIAL PRISONERS IN INDIA: A CRISIS OF JUSTICE

The largest group of foreign national inmates in India is Bangladeshi inmates. Bangladeshis made up 68.8% of the 5,168 foreign national prisoners housed at the end of 2018, according to data provided by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). It is important to consider the high number of prisoners from Bangladesh in India when considering their shared history, as well as the frequent movements and social interactions across their porous borders. Following India's partition in 1947 and again during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, there was a significant migration from Bangladesh to India. The Assam Accord was signed in 1985 as a result of the significant outcry over the flood of Bangladeshi migrants in Assam. In the 2005 case of Sarbananda Sonowal v. Union of India, the Supreme Court of India invalidated the Illegal Migrants (Determination of Tribunal) Act, 1983, which established the processes for identifying and removing illegal migrants from Assam. The court ruled that the Act violated Articles 14 and 355 of the Indian Constitution. The publication of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam on August 31, 2019, which excluded 1.9 million people as citizens of India, has brought the topic of detention and deportation of illegal migrants back into the public eye. This research paper is an attempt to examine the reasons behind the imprisonment of Bangladeshi undertrial prisoners in India particularly in some cases even if they have completed more than half of the sentences provided under the law for those offences and to find out some remedial measures for those who for some reason have came to India and thereafter, have never been able to return to their country of origin.

Redrawing Gender Boundaries in Selina Hossain’s River of My Blood

This study seeks to examine and reinterpret gender roles shown in the book River of My Blood (Hangor Nodi Grenade, titled in Bangla) by Selina Hossain. Hossain's (2016) work is a compelling story that questions conventional standards by emphasizing the changing experiences of its three central female characters, Boori, Nita, and Ramija. These people live in a society allegedly to be puritanical and misogynistic, in which women have little independence. They are faced with thoughtful questions on the political and sexual persecution of women as well as the differences in political processes. The book, set against the backdrop of the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, offers an authentic and detailed account of a significant historical event. Through the characters in this book, the author, Selina Hossain, demonstrates her skill in examining the issue of identity while questioning stereotypical gender norms. This study examines the book's potential to inspire readers by challenging gender stereotypes and presenting perspectives on identity and social roles. This study employed a qualitative research approach, with thematic analysis being the primary method used for data collection. The study showed how the book challenges gender stereotypes and presents perspectives on identity and social roles.

Bangladesh-Pakistan Conflict: An Overview

The Bangladesh-Pakistan conflict, rooted in the events of 1971, marked a pivotal moment in South Asian history. The conflict emerged from deep-seated political, economic, and cultural disparities between East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and West Pakistan (now Pakistan). Despites East Pakistan's larger population, political power was concentrated in West Pakistan, leading to widespread discontent. In the 1970 general elections, the Awami League, led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, won a majority but was denied power, igniting demands for autonomy in East Pakistan. The situation escalated on March 25, 1971, when the Pakistani military launched Operation Searchlight, a brutal crackdown aimed at quelling the independence movement. This resulted in mass atrocities, including killings, rapes, and the displacement of millions. The ensuing Bangladesh Liberation War saw the emergence of the Mukti Bahini (Liberation Army), with significant civilian support for independence. India's intervention, both in terms of support for the Mukti Bahini and direct military involvement, was crucial in the conflict's resolution. The war ended with the surrender of Pakistani forces on December 16, 1971, leading to the creation of Bangladesh as an independent nation. The conflict caused extensive loss of life and destruction, leaving a legacy of strained Bangladesh-Pakistan relations and ongoing efforts to address the war's human rights violations.

Literature Review of Research on Biharis Issue in Bangladesh

During the partition of India, approximately 1.3 million Urdu-speaking Muslims, suffering communal riots, migrated to the former East Pakistan (Bangladesh). They were known as Biharis. The Pakistan ruling class prefered Biharis due to their Muhajir status. Therefore, they supported Pakistani domination consciously. Some Biharis joined the Pakistan army during the Bangladesh Liberation War. With the establishment of Bangladesh, all Biharis were considered traitors.A number of Biharis opted for Pakistan. Despite a repatriation process lasting over 20 years, many Biharis still stranded in Bangladesh. The Biharis were granted Bangladeshi citizenship in 2008. However, they continue to face challenges integrating into mainstream in terms of education, employment, travel and residence in Bangladesh.Since the 1970s, extensive research has been conducted by the international academic community on various aspects related to the origin of Biharis, repatriation efforts, identity issues and human rights. With the influence of international academics, there has been an increasing focus within Chinese academics on the plight of Biharis in Bangladesh.The Biharis issue in Bangladesh remains further study from various perspectives and angles. We can understand nation-state construction processes of Bangladesh as well as examining geopolitical dynamics within South Asia from an ethnic perspective.

Patriotism in the Poetry and Songs of Poet Daloar

Poet Daloar is a prominent Bengali poet. He is known as the "Poet of the Masses" because his poetry reflects the thoughts and emotions of ordinary Bangladeshis. Daloar's work is filled with patriotism, especially evident during the Bangladesh Liberation War. His poems and songs depict the love for the country and its people. He believed that poetry has the power to influence and inspire people. Daloar's work, infused with socialist ideals, calls for equality and justice, drawing inspiration from global leaders like Mandela and Lenin. Despite personal hardships, his writings remained a steadfast source of patriotic fervor. Daloar's legacy endures through his poems and songs, which continue to resonate with themes of national pride and the fight for human rights. Daloar's transformation played a significant role in both national and international platforms.

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's 7th March Speech: An Analysis Through Performance Study Lens

This paper critically examines Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s 7th March speech from a performance studies perspective. It argues that the speech, delivered at a crucial juncture in the Bangladesh Liberation War, utilized performative language and embodied performance techniques to galvanize the Bengali population. This paper analyzes how Mujib's rhetoric transformed social realities and mobilized a nation towards independence by applying theories from performance studies, including those of J.L. Austin, Judith Butler, Erving Goffman, and Richard Schechner. The findings suggest that Mujib’s strategic use of pronouns, emotive expressions, rhetorical questions, and repetitive phrases, along with his dynamic body language, created a powerful performative act that effectively united and motivated the audience. Concluding comments emphasize the enduring impact of Mujib's speech on the formation of Bangladeshi national identity. Research implications highlight the importance of viewing political speeches through the lens of performance studies to understand their broader social and cultural impacts. Limitations of the study include the reliance on textual analysis without incorporating audience reception data, which could provide a more comprehensive understanding of the speech's impact.

East Bengal-Mohun Bagan football fans and Indian politics: parochialism and nationalism in simultaneity?

ABSTRACT The footballing rivalry between East Bengal and Mohun Bagan in Kolkata, India, explicates important facets of the politics of nation-building and identity formation through sport. The sporting nationalism of the colonial era gave way to narrow parochialism in post-independent India where the cultural differences of Bangals (original Hindu residents of East Bengal in colonial India and Hindu migrants from East Bengal/East Pakistan in postcolonial India) and Ghotis (original residents of western parts of Bengal in colonial India and of West Bengal in postcolonial India) emerged as the key linchpin of expressing allegiance to their respective club football teams particularly in the aftermath of immigration of refugees which took place as a result of the partition of 1947 and the 1971 Bangladesh liberation war. However, the legislations pertaining to Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 and National Register of Citizens (NRC) have propelled fans of these clubs to forego their sub-cultural differences and act in unison to express their grievances against the new regulations of the Indian state. The anti-NRC protest by the fans hinges on the link between football and the debates pertaining to the idea of citizenship in contemporary Indian politics. The displaying of Tifos by the fans that exhibited significant social messages bears semblance with the Ultras of European football.

The Journey of the Dalit Refugees in Bengal: A Comparative Study of Allen Ginsberg and Jatin Bala’s Poetry

Dalit literature seeks to present the struggles and experiences of the oppressed. Bengali Dalit literature has become a powerful tool for social and political action. It provides counter-narratives that talk about their experiences and realities. Bangla Dalit literature depicts the lives of refugees with sensitivity and empathy, emphasizing the struggles and resilience of those displaced from their homes and communities due to political, social and economic factors. The term “refugee” refers to a person who has been forced to flee their country of origin. A large part of the population had to leave their homes and migrate from East Bengal to West Bengal as part of the Partition of Bengal, mainly due to the communal tension. However, most of the refugees who migrated to West Bengal during the Bangladesh Liberation Movement in 1971 were mainly Dalits or other marginalized communities who faced discrimination and oppression in their homeland. Jatin Bala, one of the eminent Dalit writers and one of the refugees, himself reflected the pain and suffering of these Bengali Dalit refugees, on the other hand, Allen Ginsberg, the famous American writer Ginsburg, who visited Bangladesh amid the conflict, he also paints a sad picture of the loss of these Bengali refuges in his long poem “September On Jossor Road”. This study aims to carry out a comparative study of the representations of the two authors about these refugees.

Bangabandhu’s Bangladesh Foreign Policy

In the intricate milieu of the Cold War, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the architect of Bangladesh, played a pivotal role in shaping the foreign policy of the newly independent nation following the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, which was of utmost importance in establishing Bangladesh's identity and securing international recognition. This article investigates the foreign policy of Bangladesh during the tenure of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman through the perspective of International Relations. However, Bangabandhu's foreign policy efforts and activities have been assessed utilizing secondary data. The study finds that Bangabandhu was quite successful in creating and implementing Bangladesh's foreign policy in securing national interest of Bangladesh, which is still applicable in Bangladesh's current situation in conducting international relations.

Vernacular animalities: reading multispecies ethics in Hasan Azizul Haque’s short stories

This essay foregrounds new vernacular aesthetics of multispecies ethics through close readings of two short stories – “Shokun” (“Vulture”) and “Amrityu Ajibon” (“Till Death, Through Life”) – by Bengali writer Hasan Azizul Haque (1939–2021). Postcolonial literary criticism has predominantly focused on Haque’s incisive portrayal of the consequences of the Partition of India and Bangladesh Liberation War on affected minorities, but his depictions of other-than-human subjects and interspecies relationalities implicated in postcolonial power dynamics have not received the critical attention that they merit. This essay draws on the analytical frameworks offered by interdisciplinary animal studies to demonstrate the agential roles of animals in Haque’s stories. Through literary speculations on animal alterities and entangled human–animal vulnerabilities, the short stories studied in this essay articulate the impact of feudal economic structures and inter-class hierarchies on landless peasants and debt-bonded labourers in post-Partition Bengal. They elaborate the mechanisms through which vernacular knowledges about human–animal coexistence, communication, and co-constitution provide textual corollaries for subaltern consciousness, resistance, and moral upliftment. I argue that the material and semiotic dimensions of literary animal figures in the stories produce unique narrative instances of recuperative animal agencies through sustained attention to the corporeal dynamics and affective logics of interspecies interactions. I also argue that while the material aspects of interspecies relationships are manifested through embodied affect, their symbolic aspects become conspicuous through the textual preeminence of metonymic animals over their metaphoric configurations. I show that through different textual iterations of transspecies relatedness stemming from (but not limited to) two kinds of physical contiguity – a vulture’s peck and a snake’s bite – Haque’s short stories critique both uncritical consolidation and outright disavowal of interspecies difference.

The Poetics of Borderlands: Reflections on Oral Folk Poetry from Assam’s Barak Valley during Bangladesh Liberation War

In 1971, the civil war in the Pakistani state and consequent genocide in present Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan) led to a great influx of refugees who were desperately crossing the porous borderlands of the eastern states of India. Despite the abject living conditions in the saturated refugee camps and the stringent regimentation of the youth camps and muktijoddhā (Liberation Warrior) training sectors in West Bengal, Tripura and Assam borderlands, the space inhabited by the refugees was charged with powerful national imaginaries laced with an eclectic blend of emotions – resistance, hope, nostalgia, desire, aspiration. Drawing on ethnographic and anthropological research, the essay aims to explore various folk forms of poetry which emerged out of these refugee camps and guerrilla army training sectors during the war, such as kabigān (a form of lyrical oral poetry where the poet spontaneously composes verses to be performed at a public gathering) or hāture kabitā (poems to be read aloud in the middle of a hāt or marketplace) written and performed by refugees from Assam’s Barak Valley in North-East India, and later collected by Bangladeshi historian Shahid Quader Chowdhury. Besides problematising aesthetic practices and their relationship to the idea of border-crossing, refugeehood and national identities, to what extent do these poems – loka kabitā or oral folk poetry, open up a discursive space where shared cultures, histories and memories play a momentous role in political mobilisation and in the creation of a radical alterity within the “national” culture and history? To what extent do these aesthetic registers succeed in combating the irrepresentability of violence, injustice and trauma? These are primarily the questions that this essay aims to ask and resolve.

Resilient women: transnational homes and identities in Tahmima Anam's A Golden Age

ABSTRACT Foregrounding theoretical expositions of the home and identity, this paper examines historical novel by Bangladeshi author Tahmima Anam entitled A Golden Age (2007), which explores gendered roles within familial separation during political unrest. Using a transnational lens, it addresses shifting meanings of home and identity amidst nation-fragmentation during the politically fractious period of Bangladesh liberation war. Deploying a historico-literary imagination, the novel's emphasis on women's intimate struggles to keep family intact offer insights into meanings of home in terms of mother–child ties and geopolitical tensions that shape new borders within domestic and national spaces. As a point of departure, Kuah-Pearce's concept of transnational identities is applied to make sense of private and communal selves of female characters whose articulations of (un)homely affiliations in times of transnational crises are a means to redefine their resilience, and critique the practices of discrimination and segregation that disrupt the space of the home.

Women Breaking the Silence over Violence: Revising Historiography through Sorayya Khan’s Novels

ABSTRACT The partition of British India in 1947 and the Bangladesh liberation war of 1971 witnessed violence that changed the cartography of the Indian subcontinent. This article explores a connecting thread between the history of violence during these epochal events and the commonality that both were followed by a conspicuous silence in the official historiography. It probes the disjuncture in the unreconciled history where silences corroborate official historiography and the unhealed wounds of victims of violence can be traced in the literary historiography produced by Sorayya Khan. This article is an analysis of her thematic choices and her treatment while writing about the victims of nationalist violence and its perpetrators. It examines her relentless effort to break this collective amnesia and silence of a society that witnessed, violated, massacred, and assaulted millions of its citizens to secure its borders. Her writing needs attention as it fills silent gaps in the historiography of Pakistan, and unlike most of the writers, she challenges the pervasive perception of men as heroic soldiers or perpetrators of violence and women as victims. She posits women as agents for breaking the silence over violence and thereby revises the official historiography.

Exploring the Contribution of Music to the Bangladesh Liberation War: An Investigation into the Documentary Film the Songs of Freedom (Muktir Gaan)

In the analysis of the emergence of Bangladesh nation-state, particularly in the discussion of the country’s liberation war in 1971, the multi-facet role of cultural revolution has not received sufficient attention; the contribution of music in the liberation war is still largely unexamined. This article highlights the crucial role that music played as a political and cultural weapon in the Bangladesh’s liberation war in the light of the documentary film the Songs of Freedom or MuktirGaan. Analyzing the songs of this film from a communication and media perspective this investigation concludes that music played the role of a great catalyst in the consolidation of solidarity among the freedom fighters, creation of ethnocentrism and extreme nationalism, and serious instigation to the armed struggle. This article will contribute to understanding the multidimensional nature of Bangladesh liberation war.

1971 Killing of the ‘Bengali’ Intellectuals: An Analysis from the Perspective of the 1948 Genocide Convention

The lessons of the history of past genocidal incidents expose that the educated and the leaders, collectively called ‘intellectuals’, have often been a distinct target by the perpetrators. Bengali intellectuals were also targeted and killed by the Pakistani military and its local collaborators during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. As the Bangladesh genocide, committed by the Pakistani military and its local collaborators, is still internationally overlooked, the issue of killing the Bengali intellectuals during such genocide has not obtained much attention. This study identifies the killing of the intellectuals as one of the genocidal policies employed by the Pakistani military and its local collaborators during the war. The massacre of the Bengali intellectuals in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War is examined in this article from the perspective of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The authors have critically analyzed the killing of the Bengali intellectuals in light of the definition of ‘genocide’ and the travaux preparatoires of the Convention to explore whether it forms a genocidal policy.

Genocide, ethical imperatives and the strategic significance of asymmetric power: India’s diplomatic and military interventions in the Bangladesh Liberation War (Indo-Pakistan War of 1971)

This paper seeks to understand if the political, legal and ethical imperatives of a humanitarian war justified Indian military intervention in East Pakistan. It examines the asymmetric, dynamic national power equations that shaped the Bangladesh Liberation War and the genocide that preceded the conflict. At the height of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, this conflict was a key flashpoint in South Asia. This research was undertaken through a qualitative literature review with the help of declassified archival documents and media from numerous national archives and government databases across the world. Aided by emerging insights, perspectives and research, this paper seeks to evolve, extend and expand our existing understanding of events as they unfolded within the overall matrix of this conflict. The results show that India’s ability to align its foreign policy and media narratives to its military objectives while adroitly managing big power rivalry holds lessons for how smaller states might compel strategic concessions from big powers and global institutions. This requires them to navigate both the asymmetry of national power and the asymmetry of attention during a conflict to secure their interests. In conclusion, recent times have seen an increasing trend for major global powers and alliances to declare war in the name of humanitarianism. The political and ethical imperatives of a humanitarian war in 1971 dovetailed seamlessly with larger Indian strategic goals and was one of the catalysts for the eventual unanimous adoption in 2005 of the global political commitment known as Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in the United Nations.

Calcutta cabaret: dance of pleasure or perversion?

ABSTRACT The 1970s dawned upon unanticipated political reversals in Bengal – the violent spate of the Naxalite movement, followed by the Bangladesh Liberation War and a fresh flux of refugees from the other side of the border – together triggering disruptive turmoil within its already volatile landscape. While the National Emergency of 1975 witnessed a severe crackdown on civil liberties, Bengal voted to power a new Left Front government in 1977, eliciting a radical turnaround in political culture, redefined in terms of progressive and anti-capitalist movements. By the late 1970s, the cultural politics of the state, however, gained a new twist when a new polemical rhetoric called ‘apasanskriti’ or pervert culture came to hold its sway over the official discourse on culture, imbricated with obsessions on sexual morality and cultural decadence. The protracted tussle between culture and corruption, pleasure and politics was nowhere as stark as it was in the realm of commercial theatre, where ‘obscene’ cabaret dancing in ‘mundane’ family dramas invited strident flak and threats of state censorship for allegedly selling sleaze on stage. One name that emerged as a visceral symbol of moral decadence was that of ‘Miss Shefali’ – the iconic cabaret queen of postcolonial Calcutta. Sitting within the critical interface of the second and third wave feminist movements, my paper locates Shefali as a conscious agent of the politics of pleasure, whose erotic dance had torn apart the binaries between good/bad, victimhood/agency, coercion/choice, challenging simultaneously the dominant stereotypes of the nation. Played upon by a patriarchal system that consumed her body, Shefali too claimed to have consumed the market economy by resisting, twisting, and subverting it. If the power of desire serves as an antidote to the theory of commodification, Shefali dared to be ‘bad’, turning her dancing body into a site of fantasy and pleasure. As the crusade against apasanskriti by the liberal democratic state shut out many such bodies-marked as lewd and libidinous-from the gentrified spaces of performance, this paper privileges the voices of disenfranchised dancers who talked back against the moral policing and sexual double standards of the leftist intelligentsia and the state, for denying them rights to livelihood, occupation, and erotic labour in a changing market economy.

Traumatic History and Transcultural Memory: A Reading of Numair Atif Choudhury’s Babu Bangladesh in the context of Nation formation

In the age of interdisciplinary studies Literary and Memory Studies is an emerging field of interest to young scholars and researchers. The manner in which Memory Studies interlink across various disciplines as history, geography, literature, psychology is worthy of exploring. Cultural memory entails convergence of fields such as cultural history, social psychology, media archaeology, political philosophy, comparative literature and relate past to the present. It is bifocal in nature since it leads to both remembering and forgetting. There are diverse ways in which Memory studies can be located in literary and media studies. My focus is to highlight how an exploration of memory studies further leads to a study of psychological trauma buried deep in the memory of an individual as well as its culture. The experience of undergoing the two World Wars, Holocaust, 9/11 episode, 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, political strife in Afghanistan are major areas that can be studied with the aid of memory studies. I shall highlight on this specific area of memory studies by contextualizing how memory operates by its twin process of remembering and forgetting to bring out the trauma of the civilians of East Pakistan who had witnessed the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. For this purpose Numair Atif Choudhary’s Babu Bangladesh (2019) is chosen to elucidate how the process of nation building is intrinsically connected to the present and past lives of its citizens. The narrative of formation of a new nation is continually questioned and reframed by the oral narratives of the generations of people who have witnessed its creation.