User:BengaliHindu/Genocide of Bengali Hindus during the Bangladesh Liberation War

During the Bangladesh Liberation War, an estimated 2.4 million Bengali Hindus were massacred. The killings were systematically carried out by the Pakistan Armed Forces, the Razakars, Al Badr, Al Shams, the Peace Committee and other collaborators. An estimated 8 million Bengali Hindus fled Bangladesh and took refuge in India.

On 25 March 1971, the Pakistan Armed Forces launched Operation Searchlight in East Pakistan. The army primarily targeted five groups; (1) the soldiers of the East Pakistan Regiment, East Pakistan Rifles, the police and the paramilitary Ansars, (2) leaders and workers of Awami league, (3) intellectuals, (4) students and (5) the Hindu population. The Bengali Hindus were chosen as special targets by the Pakistan Army, in manner similar to the Nazi treatment of the Jews. There were written and verbal instructions to eliminate the Hindus.

At the trial of the war criminals at the International Crimes Tribunal, the massacres of the Bengali Hindu population has been categorized as genocide.

Background
Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the father of Pakistan, considered Hindus as sub-human creatures with whom it was impossible to live with. During the Partition, West Pakistan was ethnically cleansed of Hindus and Sikhs. However in East Pakistan, inspite of genocides in 1950 and 1964, the Bengali Hindu population stood at around 20% in 1971.

The Pakistan establishment demonized and dehumanized the Bengali Hindus. Eye witnesses testify them to be routinely compared to monkeys and chickens and referred to as rats. The Pakistan Army referred to the Hindus as malauns, an ethnic slur, literally meaning deprived of Allah's mercy and hence destined for eternal hell fire. To the establishment, the Bengali Hindus of East Pakistan were mice and vermin that were best exterminated. The Bangladeshi collaborators of the Pakistan Armed Forces harbored similar mindset, which continues till date. In 2006, Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, a leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, compared the Hindus of Bangladesh to human excreta.

The Hindus were also considered as subverts of Islam. They were viewed as agents of India, which they accused of engineering the autonomy movement in East Pakistan in order to disintegrate Pakistan. They apprehended that if the Awami League was allowed to form the government, the Bengali Hindus would become the iron fist in the velvet glove. Colonel Naim of 9th Division, justified the killings of Bengali Hindu civilians, otherwise he apprehended a Hindu takeover of East Pakistan commerce and culture.

The Bengali Muslims, on the other hand, were not considered pure Muslims because of the influence of Hindu culture on them. Their impurity was due to their interaction with the Hindus. Rao Farman Ali believed that the only way purify the Bengali Muslims was to absolve them from the Hindu influences. When the Hindus would be eliminated by death and fight, their properties will be used as a golden carrot to win over the under privileged Muslim middle classes.

Historically, the Pakistan Army since the time of the Partition, believed that the Hindus have no place in Pakistan. They must go to India. The army therefore adopted the policy of ethnically cleanse East Pakistan of the Bengali Hindus. Major Rathore of 9th Division believed that war gave them an excellent opportunity to finish the Hindus off.

Killings
There were verbal and written instructions to eliminate the Hindus. Major Nadir Ali of 3 Commando Battalion posted at Faridpur recalled that the order to kill the Hindus was given time and again and even reminded of it. He remembered that they were specifically instructed to make sure that there were no Hindus alive. Lt. Colonel Aziz Ahmed Khan, Commanding Officer of 86 Mujahid Battalion received written orders from Brigadier Abdullah Malik of 23 Brigade to kill the Hindus. The superiors were concerned whether their instructions were actually carried on in the ground. They often enquired, how many Hindus were killed or what was the score.

Operation Searchlight
On 25 March 1971, the Pakistan Army launched Operation Searchlight with a mission to capture all the strategic towns of the province. The Operation Searchlight lasted till mid of May; by then all the major towns had been captured by the Pakistan Army.

At 11 pm the army rolled out on to the streets of Dhaka and by midnight the Hindu dominated eastern part of the city was in heavy flames. On 28 March, the non-Bengali Muslim began murdering the Hindus with the support of Pakistan Army. On 30 March, the Pakistan Army set fire to the Hindu areas of Old Dhaka and shot the occupants as they tried to flee. The Hindu quarters were engulfed in huge flames on 30 and 31 March. There were steady gunfire in those areas. Survivors were taken as prisoners to the EPR base in Pilkhana.

Search and destroy
Streets were renamed in Dhaka to remove any traces that smack of Hinduness. Shankharibazar Road, a prominent Hindu locality of Old Dhaka was renamed to Tikka Khan Road. In the initial phase, some of the Bengali Muslims were targeted. However, in this phase the Pakistan Army targeted the Hindu population exclusively. Hindus were deliberately excluded from relief assistance in the cyclone affected areas in Comilla district.

Rape
Pakistan, literally meaning the land of the pure, was meant to be an Islamic state only for the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent. However, in reality there was a huge presence of non-Muslims, mostly Bengali Hindus, in East Pakistan which constituted more than half the population of Pakistan. To the Pakistan establishment, the purity of Pakistan was being corrupted by the continued existence of the Hindu population. They believed that the ravishment of Hindu women was necessary and justified to purify Pakistan.

During the war, the Hindu women were mostly targeted for rape. Dr. Viggo Olsen, a doctor with a Christian mission who served in Bangladesh during the time, has recorded in his memoirs the targeting of Hindu women. He noted that though most of the young Hindu women were killed by the army in the massacres, the most attractive among them were captivated and turned into sex slaves. The Bangladeshi collaborators of the Pakistan army were also involved in captivating and raping young Hindu women. Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, a leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, along with his associate Moslehuddin took a Hindu girl captive in the Parerhat area of present day Pirojpur District and raped her repeatedly.

According to Susan Brownmiller, 80 percent of the rape victims were Muslim women, remaining being minority Hindus and Christians, which according to her was proportionate with the Muslim population. However, recent finding of the War Crimes Fact Finding Committee reveal that an overwhelming 41.66 percent of the rape victims, who remained in Bangladesh were Bengali Hindus. Among the victims who took refugee in India, 44% were unmarried Bengali Hindu women. Most of the rape victims who took refuge in India did not return to Bangladesh.

Refugee influx in India
Immediately after the Pakistan Armed Forces launched Operation Searchlight, an estimated 1,500,000 terror stricken Hindus and Muslims of East Pakistan took refuge in the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura, Assam, Meghalaya and Bihar. Indira Gandhi wrote to Nixon that by 12 May the number of registered refugees stood at 2,328,507 with continuing influx at the rate of 50,000 per day. By the end of May the number stood at 3 million. In the second week of June, fresh waves of Hindu refugees crossed over to India, at the rate of 100,000 per day, bringing harrowing tales of massacre and rape. The US Embassy in India reported a figure of 5.4 million with the rate of influx increasing every day. According to the US Department of State, the refugee flow diminished in late June. A Canadian Parliamentary Delegation press release on 19 July cited a figure of 6.8 million, quoting Indian sources. In first week of August the refugee influx started again. Eye witness reports confirmed large streams of Hindus in Faridpur district proceeding towards the Indian border. On 2 August, the US Embassy in Pakistan put the estimate of the Hindu refugees in India at six million. According to a Time report, the Hindus constituted about 75% of the refugees. A 22 September US Department of State memorandum noted a figure of 8.76 million. It further estimated 7.5 million out of the total to be Hindus, which was roughly 75% of the Hindu population of East Pakistan. On 26 October, the Special Consortium of the World Bank reported a figure of 9.5 million with the influx still continuing. On 5 November, Samar Sen, the Indian delegate to the United Nations General Assembly quoted a figure of 9,608,901, with an approximate daily average influx of 27,000 in September and 17,000 in October.

Out of the 10 million refugees that took shelter in India, 200,000 to 300,000 refugees settled permanently in Kolkata.

Refugee camps
The refugees were sheltered in 87 main refugee camps in present day Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura, Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Bihar. In June, the daily expense of housing and feeding the refugees stood at 1.33 million US dollars. US Senator Edward Kennedy visited refugee camps near Kolkata.

Epidemic and deaths
In West Bengal, polluted drinking water, lack of sanitation and the inability of the health officials to inoculate millions of refugees led to the spread of cholera. The epidemic broke out towards the end of May and by the first week of June there were 3,220 confirmed deaths. The bodies were merely signed with two burning sticks as a token of cremation and left to the dogs and vultures to feed upon. In November, small pox was detected among the refugees at the Salt Lake refugee camp. According to a 23 July press report, the Director of West Bengal Health Services warned that 300,000 refugee children are on the verge of starvation.

Academic
The genocide of Hindus is acknowledged in the academia both in Bangladesh and abroad. Dr. Anish Mondal of Amritalal Dey College in Barisal while questioning the need for a state religion in Bangladesh, has acknowledged that a Hindu genocide took place during the Liberation War. Dr. Wardatul Akmam of Rajshahi University has argued that the killings of Bengali Hindus constituted an act of genocide. According to Professor Sachi Ghosh Dastidar of State University of New York, the killings of Bengali Hindus constituted a genocide, but the killings of Bengali Muslims was not a genocide.

Professor Gary Bass of Princeton University agrees with Archer Blood's conclusion that the killings of the Bengali Hindus constitutes a genocide. He argues that there are substantial evidences and testimonies made before the Hamoodur Rahman Commission to establish a case of Bengali Hindu genocide. Dr. David Narsessian of Boston University too counts the killings of Hindus in Bangladesh as acts of genocide by the Pakistan army. Belgian scholar Koenraad Elst has argued that the Hindus of Bangladesh suffered an attempted extermination by the Pakistan Armed Forces in 1971, which he categorized as 'complete genocide'. According to Samuel Totten, genocide was committed against the Bengali Hindus as per the definition of genocide provided by the 1948 United Nations Convention on Genocide.

Political
Marie Spennare of the Moderate Party of Sweden has officially acknowledged that Hindu genocide took place in 1971 in Bangladesh.

Political
Pakistan maintains that no genocide took place in East Pakistan in 1971. According to the Hamoodur Rahman Commission setup by the Goverment of Pakistan to investigate into the atrocities of 1971, the official death toll is provided as 26,000.

During the Bangladesh Liberation War, the United States received numerous information on the ongoing genocide of Bengali Hindus in East Pakistan. However, the United States continued in its policy of support to Pakistan, hoping that the latter would broker a communication channel with the Peoples' Republic of China.

The genocide of Bengali Hindus in 1971 has never been acknowledged by India. During the genocide, the Indian position was that it was a genocide of the Bengali speaking people of East Pakistan irrespective of their religious affiliation. According to Gary J. Bass, the Indira Gandhi led Congress government suppressed the facts purposefully so as to prevent the Hindu nationalist opposition party Jan Sangh to derive any political mileage out of it.

The genocide of Bengali Hindus in 1971 has not yet been officially acknowledged by Bangladesh. However, the International Crimes Tribunal that has in 2011, started trials of the war criminals of 1971, have acknowledged the genocide of Bengali Hindus.

Memorial
There is no central memorial for the victims of the Bengali Hindu genocide in 1971. Individual memorials have been constructed at the mass killing sites where the Bengali Hindus were killed.