This is the fifth of a multi-part series “Waiting for a Real Reckoning on 1971″ by Naeem Mohaiemen. Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV Beyond “settled” facts, histories produced in 1971 were burdened with the propaganda impulse in a struggle that played out both domestically and internationally and included superpower proxy rivalries. One document in...
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This is the fourth of a multi-part series “Waiting for a Real Reckoning on 1971″ by Naeem Mohaiemen. Part I | Part II | Part III The Indian recollection of 1971, particularly in West Bengal, plays a role in shaping the way the story of the war was presented on the world stage. The West Bengal intellectual class operated...
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This is the third of a multi-part series “Waiting for a Real Reckoning on 1971″ by Naeem Mohaiemen. Part I | Part II Partition resulted in the creation of two Pakistans, and from the beginning relationships between the two wings were strained and distant. At many key junctures after 1947, the attitude of the...
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NBC News report from 1/7/1972 that shows video of Pakistani soldiers executing students, professors and workers at Dhaka University on March 26, 1971 CBS News report from 2/2/1972 shows evidence of mass graves and widespread killing in Khulna. Approximately 100,000 people were killed in Khulna. NBC News reports on 2/20/1972 on genocidal rapes of...
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This is the second of a multi-part series “Waiting for a Real Reckoning on 1971” by Naeem Mohaiemen. The first segment is here. In 1993, I began an oral history project on the war through the Thomas J. Watson Foundation. Although oral history work on 1971 was still relatively new at that time, an...
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National remembrances of 1971 have thus far failed to acknowledge the war’s extraordinary human losses. A renewal of our human values and the capacity to bear witness to the truth is critical for delivering justice to survivors of the war–and for effecting positive change in the subcontinent. Every year on December 16, in Pakistan,...
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I remained in the (insane asylum) for six months in 1973. What drove me mad? Well, I felt the collective guilt of the Army action which at worst should have stopped by late April 1971. —Colonel Nadir Ali, Pakistan Army, “A Khaki Dissident on 1971,” Viewpoint, December 17, 2010 Our fathers committed a deadly mistake,...
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