1971 All Over Again

When you dig a bit deeper in the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine you can’t help notice the similarity with the Bangladesh Genocide that happened fifty one years ago. At that time West Pakistanis who spoke mostly Urdu and had fairer skin didn’t want to transfer power to Bengali-speaking East Pakistanis after they had won a general election even though both sides were overwhelmingly Muslim. 

Now, West Ukrainians don’t like East Ukrainians because they speak Russian although 80% of the population of the country are Christians. Russia has also moved in Ukraine because Ukraine hinted at joining NATO and this is an unacceptable security risk for the biggest country in the world. The above video is from the Kremlin-sponsored RT but a 2015 documentary by French journalist Anne Laure Bonnel essentially corroborates its content.

50 Years Ago, Tens of Millions of Muslims Free Themselves From Pakistan

On 26 March 1971, East Pakistan declared independence from Pakistan after armed forces perpetrated a massacre at Dhaka University. A few months earlier, the Awami League of Mujibur Rahman, a party in what is now Bangladesh, secured enough seats in the first free and fair general election in the country after the 1947 independence to form the government of Pakistan. But Ali Bhutto and the political/military leaders in West Pakistan, current day Pakistan, didn’t want to transfer power. Instead they eventually sent in the army with the objective to “kill three million of them and the rest will eat out of our hands”.

As a result of the chaos 10 million people fled to India creating a mammoth humanitarian crisis – the largest refugee camp in human history – in an already overpopulated country that was slowly emerging from a devastating British Raj. This led to India’s RAW training some of these refugees and sending them across the border to fight back the oppressors. Nevertheless the Pakistani army went on a massive killing spree for almost nine months. An estimated 3 million people died, 300,000 women and girls were raped. This event is known as the Bangladesh genocide. 

It ended after Pakistan bombarded India and the latter retaliated and won the war in 13 short days. Which explains why Indian PM Narendra Modi was the chief guest in the capital of the 87%-Muslim 160-million-people country today. But in 1971 it was an “avatar of Goddess Durga” who was at the helm of the subcontinent.