Not at the cost of Muktijuddho, no way
The December 2024 edition of Chhatra Shibir's mouthpiece,
the monthly Chhatra
Sangbad (meaning student news) was themed after the mass uprising
that loosely translates to "the bloody chapter of victory" (bijoy er roktakto oddhyay).
One article in that magazine, discussing the downfall of tyrants through the
ages (juge juge shoirachar
o tader korun porinoti), states at one point, "Some Muslims
participated in the Liberation War without fully comprehending the
consequences. It was their failure and lack of foresight. May the Almighty
forgive them."
Chhatra Shibir, which is the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, has expressed its
regrets and withdrew the article and recalled the magazine. It is not available
online or offline anymore. The fundamentalist students' organisation went on to
say in a note of apology that the article had been published
"inadvertently" and further that the views expressed in the article
were the writer's own.
The explanation and apology might have been acceptable if
it were any other organisation. But Shibir, and its parent organisation Jamaat,
had violently and actively opposed the 1971 Liberation War. Shibir used to be
called Islami Chhatra Sangha in 1971 and resurfaced in 1977 under this current
name. Jamaat and its student wing are held responsible for a large number of
atrocities committed by the notorious vigilante militia groups like Razakar,
Al-Badr and Al-Shams, which consisted of members and activists of Jamaat and
its student wing.
Neither Jamaat,
nor its student wing has ever come clean regarding its role in 1971. Still
deeply revered within the party, several Jamaat leaders have been tried,
convicted and executed for their crimes against humanity. But the party and its
student wing have never come forward to apologise for their role or admit to
the atrocities their predecessors had committed out of their supposed
conviction for a united Pakistan. Instead, both the party and its student wing
continue to attempt to justify and vindicate their roles during the Liberation
War. And sometimes, they test the waters to see how far they can go in public.
This recent publication was one such instance.
The implicit suggestion of Shibir's response to the widespread criticism of the
article is that the editorial board of the magazine had not vetted each article
carefully before they were approved. This is not at all expected from an outfit
as disciplined as Shibir. The insincere apology, because it does not own up to
its misdeed (which is befitting its historical trend), only came about once the
lines went viral on social media and Jamaat's student cadres realised they were
fast losing support among the public. Almost as if they were dangling their
feet to test the waters and pulled out sensing that the time was not yet ripe.
Just like in
1971, the article in question conflates religion with the inspiration for
freedom. In fact, the writer is apologetic for even having waged war and begs
forgiveness of the Almighty.
It is also
important to take note of other omens. Take the Constitution Reform
Commission's proposal for instance. It proposes the following two paragraphs in
the preamble, "We, the people of Bangladesh have, in a historically
persistent struggle for the emancipation of the masses of this land, achieved
independence through a people's war (jonojuddho) and built a united resistance against autocratic and
fascist rule;"
"We pledge, most respectfully remembering the supreme sacrifice of all
martyrs, that the great ideals of equality, human dignity, and social justice
that united the people of Bangladesh in the War of Independence in 1971 and the
ideals of democracy and equity that united them against the fascist rule in
2024 shall be established in the state and society;"
The existing
preamble had enshrined the Liberation War as a sacrosanct basis of the new
republic born on March 26. The first graph reads, "We, the people of
Bangladesh, having proclaimed our independence on the 26th day of March, 1971
and through a historic struggle for national liberation, established the
independent, sovereign People's Republic of Bangladesh."
The proposed
draft states "jonojuddho"
(people's war) which is not the same as Liberation War or muktijuddho. The language
recognises the mass uprising of 2024 and the war of independence of 1971 in the
same breath! One was a full-blown war which gave birth to a new country. The
other was a people's uprising of a kind that Bangladesh had not seen before and
must be given their due credit. But certainly not by belittling the Liberation
War; And yet, there has been very little criticism amid the post uprising
dispensation where Jamaat and Shibir, having usurped significant sway, appear
to influence much of the narrative post August 5.
The Liberation
War is a unique event in Bangladesh's history. It will never happen again.
Attempts to equate it with any other movements or campaigns reflect either a
lack of wisdom or a deliberate effort to distort history. Unlike any political
movement, the Liberation War was a struggle for existence, identity, and
sovereignty. It was a full-scale war against a well-trained military machine.
It was a national resistance against systematic genocide, oppression—in which
Jamaat and its student collaborated with the perpetrators. Comparing it to any
democratic movement insults its glory and undermines the sacrifices of millions
who fought and perished for an independent Bangladesh.
Mass uprisings
and popular campaigns, however significant, cannot be placed on the same
pedestal as the Liberation War. Democratic struggles implicitly predicate the
existence of an established nation-state. The 1971 War was about the very birth
of that state. Any comparison trivialises that War and plays into the hands of
those who seek to rewrite (read distort) history and change the narrative for
their gain.
We have heard
many more such phrases that liken 2024 with 1971 in the last several months.
This new Bangladesh had to be rebuilt from scratch, everyone said. Proclamation
of revolution was mentioned in the beginning. The Mujibist constitution had to
be done away with and in a bid to rid it of Mujibism, the proposed draft of the
constitution now trivialises the 1971 War.
The rhetoric of
a new beginning in the post August 5 dispensation often carried an unspoken
suggestion, a fleeting allusion that it is all "as opposed to 1971."
There is almost an instinctive feeling that there is an ever so subtle attempt
to not just rewrite history, but delete it. A second liberation it can very
well be, but that does not make it equal to the first one, when the country was
born.
Attempts to
equate the Liberation War with other political movements, or belittle it, can
no longer be shrugged off as adolescent aberration or dismissed as youthful
ignorance.They are not.
Tanim Ahmed is digital editor at The Daily
Star.
Md Abbas is a journalist at The Daily Star.
He can be reached at md.abbas@thedailystar.net.
















