Among Hasina’s distortions of Bangladesh (BD) history through the Constitution’s Fifteenth Amendment of 2011 is the claim that her father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (BB) was the first and only person, and by implication not Ziaur Rahman, to issue a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI).
This article argues that this claim is incorrect. Also, that a UDI irrespective of who issued it was neither necessary nor sufficient for BD to become independent.
WHY BB COULD NOT AND DID NOT ISSUE UDI
The reasons are a combination of direct and circumstantial evidence.
The Awami League (AL) was a constitutionalist not a revolutionary party, congenitally incapable of organizing or conducting clandestine or resistance warfare. The AL as a party did not undertake military preparations.
But various student groups in 1971 supporting the AL undertook some such activities such as undergoing military training and stealing chemicals to make explosives. But these romanticized actions were “amateurish efforts… did not inspire any confidence…we (Bengalis) were (not) anywhere near prepared for an armed struggle” (Rehman Sobhan, Untranquil Reflections, 335).
BB was fully aware “of the prospective hazards, domestic and global, of proclaiming a UDI…had little opportunity to cultivate the military… never completely sure … Bengali armed elements…have the military capacity…(for) final victory.” Thus, on 23 March 1971, BB pragmatically advised his Chittagong colleague M. R. Siddiqui that he should inform Bengali Brig. M. R. Mazumdar, Commandant of the Chittagong East Bengal Regimental Centre, to refrain from “immediate action…await further signals from him (BB)” (Sobhan, 338-339).
BB’s pragmatism was based on reality and precedent. He had judiciously refrained from issuing UDI at the mammoth public meeting on 7 March 1971 as the Dhaka army authorities had threatened to ‘wreck the meeting… raze Dacca to the ground’ in response (GOC 14 Division Maj. Gen. Khadim Hussain Raja, A Stranger in my own Country, East Pakistan 1969-1971, 62).
BB was acutely conscious that calling upon Bengali servicemen to attack Pakistani military units and installations preemptively would legitimize, or give more than a veneer of legitimacy, to Islamabad’s counterattack. The Bengalis cause would be better served if they became the victims of Pakistani aggression.
This is precisely what happened. The Pakistan Army’s perfidious 25 March crackdown was the last straw that made the struggle for independence inevitable and unavoidable. Citizens rebelled and resisted outside Dhaka spontaneously without waiting for a directive from any civilian or military source. Is it too fanciful to consider this crackdown as the midwife to the birth of the Bengalis armed struggle?
Another valid reason for BB’s caution was his realization, more by instinct than military appreciation, that the balance of military strength favoured the Pakistanis. This is corroborated by the order of battle of Dhaka’s Eastern Command (Lt. Gen. A. A. K. Niazi).
The Bengali regular servicemen were outmanned and outgunned. The force that mattered were the five EBR battalions totaling about 5,000 infantrymen compared to at least twice the number of Pakistani combat soldiers. The EBR were scattered in five locations: 1 EBR in Jessore; 2 EBR in Joydevpur; 3 EBR in Saidpur; 4 EBR in Comilla and 8 EBR (a new unit) in Chittagong. Thus, they were not concentrated; lacked cohesive command and control; and had no heavy weapons (artillery; air power).
Under the circumstances, the success of preemptive Bengali attacks on BB’s orders was not really “open to debate” (Sobhan, 339) but were doomed to failure. This would have had grave negative consequences for the Bangladesh cause at home and abroad. In fact, 2, 4 and 8 EBR that rebelled made some gains initially but retreated to India facing superior Pakistani forces.
That BB was not contemplating UDI is evidenced by his direction to his colleagues over24-25 March 1971 to seek shelter in old Dhaka and to stay close to its outskirts. He would hardly issue this instruction if he was planning an UDI, and that too without consulting his colleagues formally or informally (Kamal Hossain, Bangladesh: Quest for Freedom and Justice, 87; Muyeedul Hasan, Muldhara ’71, 8; and Amirul Islam, Muktijuddher Sriti (Memories of the Liberation War, 12,14).
Whether BB had the time to issue UDI is questionable. Two AL stalwarts Kamal Hossain and Amirul Islam last saw BB at his Dhanmandi house at 1030 p.m. on 25 March. 3 Commando Battalion which arrested BB initiated its action at 11 p.m. that night.
After overcoming some roadblocks on Mirpur Road, the commandos—about forty of them– arrested BB at around midnight 25 March or first hours of 26 March (Brig (Retd) Z. A. Khan, The Way It Was, 266-269). This timeline suggests that it’s difficult to see how BB could have issued the UDI at midnight of 25 March.
The two channels BB purportedly used to proclaim UDI are also open to question. The first is by telephoning the EPR signals unit in Peelkhana. But Peelkhana itself was attacked by Pakistani soldiers around 1130 p.m. or so of 25 March (Islam, 15). It’s debatable whether BB’s message, if received, would have got the attention it deserved in the confused environment.
The second is that he telephoned this message to a middle-ranking Awami League leader Abdul Hannan in Chittagong for action. Assuming the phone services were working at midnight, it’s not at all clear why BB would direct his proclamations to two ineffective institutional and individual nonentities using an archaic communication method for nationwide dissemination? The realistic answer is that he did not.
The final nail in the coffin is BB’s own action of waiting to be arrested by the Pakistanis. On 25 March night, he declined Tajuddin’s request to tape a statement of independence, contending that Islamabad could use this document to try him for treason, punishable by death. Rebuffed, an agitated Tajuddin left Road 32 at around 9 p.m. (Khandker, Hasan and Reza, Muktijuddher Purbapar Katapkathan, Recollections of the Liberation War, 28).
Had BB proclaimed UDI, his surrendering to the enemy defies logic. Against this context, therefore, Hasina can’t have it both ways: claim credit for her father’s proclamation of UDI and reconcile it with BB’s surrender.
Hasina’s insistence that BB was the first to issue UDI is to steal BNP’s thunder that Zia did it first on 27 March 1971. There is incontrovertible evidence that Zia did do so. At the same time, too much should not be made of the UDI by Zia—or any other person, for that matter– in the larger scheme of our liberation movement.
This movement was like a big river fed by numerous tributaries that mostly sprang up after April 1971. The brutal inescapable truth is that the mere fact of declaring independence, however inspirational and resonating profoundly with the aroused Bengali masses, did not mean we would get it. This result required sustained hard work and stamina involving many complex and interlinked factors of which five, amongst others, are significant and described below.
SOME FACTORS BEHIND OUR SUCCESSFUL LIBERATION
The first factor is the activities of the govt.-in-exile authoritatively described in Muldhara’71. Despite internal rivalry from his colleagues (e. g. Mushtaq) and external hostility (e. g. the RAW-raised Mujib Bahini), Tajuddin played a decisive role in the run-up to liberation. His meeting with Prime Miniter Indira Gandhi on 3 April 1971, when she promised full cooperation, is a landmark event (Hasan, 11).
Tajuddin’s sterling contribution has not been sufficiently recognized officially and publicly. It’s about time that it was. The problem in doing so is that it would reveal that BB did not make any physical contribution from 26 March 1971 to 16 December 1971 as he was in jail.
But not to recognise Tajuddin’s legacy is to deny history and reality willfully. It does not diminish BB’s other outstanding achievements but places it in proper context. Our liberation struggle was a large canvas on which more than one portrait can be painted. BB’s face would unquestionably occupy center-stage.
The second factor is the gradually intensifying activities of the Bangladesh niomito (regular) and gono (irregular) resistance. They, together with the pervasive non-cooperation of the occupied population, grievously and progressively sapped the morale of Niazi’s forces. The result was that not only did the Pakistani soldiers not have a cause to fight, but they also lost the will to do so. But guerrillas on their own rarely if ever defeat a regular army.
This is where the third factor fits in. And that was Delhi’s sanctuary, diplomatic and military help. This was realpolitik in action where Bangladesh and Indian core national interests overlapped. Also, India generously sheltered about ten million refugees. There is every reason for Bangladesh to be grateful to India. But not in perpetuity.
The fourth factor is geopolitical. This was the USSR security umbrella to India contracted in August 1971. This substantially resolved Delhi’s dilemma from her military isolation that peaked after Kissinger’s visit to Beijing in July 1971. USSR’s military and diplomatic support realigned and restored the balance of forces to some extent in India’s favour and upped her confidence by neutralizing the potential threat of Beijing joining hands with Islamabad to fight Delhi.
The fifth factor is conjectural but not without a semblance of realism. Unable to quell the Bengalis through brute military force, Bhutto and his fraternal GHQ generals concluded that a military defeat was necessary to ditch unprofitable East Pakistan and provide the rationale for the insanely ambitious Bhutto to assume power in truncated Pakistan.
Supporting this hypothesis is GHQ ordering Gen. Niazi to deploy his forces in penny-packets astride the border areas to avoid giving up an inch of land. The mediocre general was just the man to carry out such an order without questioning its rationale or efficacy, which a more skilled commander might have done. This deployment proved fatal.
RECONSTRUCTING HISTORY
For a nation to stand tall and proud, a proper narration and understanding of its history is vital. This can’t be done by diktat, since interpreting history is a dynamic process. To her everlasting shame, Hasina tried to legislate history and immeasurably weakened the national fabric, morale and identity.
Her departure provides a unique opportunity for all Bangladeshis to reconstruct history rationally with due regard to facts, not self-serving fiction. Let people talk, write and debate basic issues unreservedly and respectfully to reach a rational consensus over time that rightly and rightfully reflects the aspirations for which we fought.
This won’t be easy to begin with but hopefully will become easier over time as partisan passions cool and the unassailable logic of facts prevail.