Causes Of The Bangladesh Genocide

When thinking of genocides, the genocide most known around the world is the Holocaust. As it it the biggest genocide that took place and hopefully the last one to take place. However, there have been plenty of genocides that happened after the Holocaust. These genocides have in occur in places like the Middle East, Africa, and South America, where the governments have little connection to the people. These governments, since they are in control, can gain the power to do anything. Sometimes, they have issues with a certain race or religion and they want to wipe them out. In 1971, the Bangladesh genocide or independence war came into full force. It started as a independence war from the East and West Pakistan, but it grew to more. As the eastern

side of Pakistan attempt to gain independence, the western wing, Pakistan, decided to let the military and supporting militias do whatever it takes to gain control. This included the killing of at least 3 million people with genocidal rape. They felt they were superior to the East due to their religion which made them able to do this. Most of the killing and rapes were hidden to the government since they gave the military full control of the situation. The rest of the world did not hear much of this genocide since the government was covering this genocide up. Due to government control, the genocide of millions in and around Pakistan was not uncovered and led to increased violence.
There was always some sort of tension between the people of Pakistan ever since the start of their country that would lead to Pakistan-Bangladesh genocide.

Whether that was because of race or religion, or the fact there was two separate areas of land in Pakistan. There was Western Pakistan that was West of India, that is present day Pakistan. There was an Eastern area of Pakistan, which was East of India, or present day Bangladesh. Among this geographically separated country were completely different people. Most had different languages, races, ethnics, and religions. From the start, the West Pakistan citizens though they were superior or greater than the East based on religion and language. The West was made of more Punjabi and Urdu-speaking people that were mainly Hindu. While the East were Hinduists, Muslims, Buddhists, and Christians that spoke Bengali. The West felt superior to the East because the country’s language was Urdu and Punjabi and their religion was Hindu. After some time. Some leaders of the West stated that the West citizens, that spoke Bengali, were communists and they betrayed Pakistan. Many groups and leaders went to the government to get Bengali formally addressed as Pakistan’s second language, but it was declined, so a group called the Awami League

formed.
The Awami League in East Pakistan was formed by Rahman. This group would later be a great impact on the Independence war/genocide. In the 1960’s, groups like the Awmani League became furious, after years of horrible treatment of the East Pakistani people because of their language, races, and religions by the government and West Pakistani people. It was hard for Bengali-speaking people to get good jobs and good pay, as it was limited by the government and businesses. Especially the Awami League, groups started to gain followers to protest against the government to gain independence. Many people would rally in the streets in the capital of East Pakistan, Dhaka. Usually the Pakistani military would come and settle down the protests with force. Lots of these types of protests happened in the 1960’s, but the most memorable protest, had to the Dhaka University protest, which would later be known as the Dhaka University massacre.
The students at Dhaka University were looked upon as a threat to the West Pakistan government. They stood up to make a change in the government and to get Bengali as a secondary language. They protested and supported the Six Point Demand by Rahman, founder of the Awami League. The students were the future that could have completely changed the government, which was the reason the government felt threatened. So the government took action to end this from happening.
On March 25, the first attack happened in a Awami league’s student wing, for the supporters of the Six Point Demand. The Pakistani army and other militia came and bombed the dormitories with M-24 tanks from America and then bayoneted and shot the survivors (Ahmed). In total at this campus, around 200 students were killed in this raid(Ahmed).On March 30, more M-24 tanks from America used the library on campus to fire bombs at other dormitories on campus. Afterwards, the students were humiliated, beat, and tortured. There were also some women raped during these raids and massacres. It did not matter to the army who they killed unless they spoke Urdu well and they would kill whomever. A reporter, Anis Ahmed (Ahmed), was a student at the time during this massacre but his life was spared because he could speak Urdu well, but also could speak Bengali as his main language: “As I looked smaller than my age, I did not say that I was a possible examinee, I rather said I was in grade Nine. The entire interaction took place in Urdu and at the end my blood chilled when they said to each other, ‘Let's leave him. He is not Bengali. Bengalis don't speak Urdu so well’”. As the government was in control of all of these operations, the massacre was not brought out and it was reported to other countries or news headlines.
The Pakistan government would kill tens of thousands of people if they did not seem to be loyal to the government (Dummett).

Most of these people that were killed were reporters or people trying to spread the news. Although many international reporters were allowed to come into the country and report back what they saw, these reporters were only showed the good parts of the country. This meant that the genocide was still covered up and not brought to attention to the world. But eventually, a reporter named Anthony Mascarenhas had the first story of this genocide. His first report was about a 24-year old that ran in front of Pakistani patrol and was surrounded, then later shot. He was able to travel to the United Kingdom and publish this article to the UK’s Sunday Times. Once the Pakistan government found out, they decided to kill

more.
Many sources like Anthony Mascarenhas, the first reporter to report this genocide in the UK, say that there is an estimated 1 million to 3 million deaths during this one year genocide (Mascarenhas). While other sources say that there is no more than 50,000 to 10,000 people were killed (Hensher). Due to the fact most of the genocide was covered up by the Pakistani government, the exact number is not known, and there are up to 12 different estimates of the death toll (Controversial). A West Pakistani citizen, Dr. Bose, wrote a book about this entire genocide. She believes all the estimates were completely wrong and exaggerated. She believes it was a “gigantic rumor” but she believes most of the things the Pakistani government was wrong (Controversial). People today are still outraged with reporters and authors like her trying to make the genocide seem smaller than it really was. But not everything was covered up by the government.
Rape in this genocide was the biggest event during the 1971 Bangladesh genocide that was not covered up. It was such a big topic even a few years after, it became known as genocidal rape. Once the Pakistani military was put on blast by Mascarenhas, they decided to do whatever to make the Bengalis inferior to them. They started to rape women and children, no matter what the age. The military and militias were able to do this because most of the men in houses were already killed and the women were left defenseless. The women were sent to camps called rape camps, where women were repeatedly raped and abused. They were mocked and humiliated and were raped plenty of times. The only way the women could ever leave the camps were if they were killed or pregnant. These camps were not private. Most camps were put in public areas, like neighborhoods or in houses. They believed they could make the people feel more inferior if they could witness these events in person. More than 200,000 women and children were raped and 25,000 women were pregnant (Hensher). These women, even though it was not their choice of being pregnant, were disowned by their country and family. Even though these women that returned home and survived were called “war heroines” to get them back into their communities and families, they were still disowned. Their religion and community did not accept a women getting pregnant by another man whom they are not married to. The rape victims that were impregnated would be killed by their families and husbands, commit suicide, kill the babies, or beg to return to Pakistan (Hossain).This still left an impact on women today as the few that are still around are still being disowned by their community and family.
The only way to end this war was to receive outside help. Was the news was first released that Pakistan was attacking their own people, India came in to help East Pakistan to gain independence and to end the war. America also came into the war by supplying weapons to take down the Pakistan military. Eventually, this was enough to stop the military and the war and genocide was over. This meant that East Pakistan was declared its own country of Bangladesh and the West Pakistan would be called Pakistan. When this happened, this left hundreds of thousands of “stranded Pakistanis” in the newly formed Bangladesh. They would be mocked and killed by Bengalis for the actions their race had done at attempting an ethnic cleanse (Jillani). With this going on, India was trialing majors and officials for the war crimes they have committed, but many of the people could not be tried due to the lack of evidence. This would become a significant problem in the future, or now in the 2000’s.
After being ignored for 40 years, the war crimes by Pakistani officials and majors are being protested by the Bengali people. Dhaka students a the University organize protests that are deadly. When the students and other protesters meet together to protest on Delawar Hossain Sayedee, an Islamic leader that would be charged for war crimes in April 2013, 44 people were killed in the protest and 6 of them were police officers of Bangladesh (Manik). Eve afterwards, they protested when they were happy about Sayedee’s trial, they were not happy about his sentence. They want death for all of the officers and officials that from the genocide, not imprisonment. For example, when the trial of a 90 year old Islamic leader Ghulam Azam during the genocide was charged for war crimes for 90 years in prison, most were still not completely satisfied (Tharoor). An official in Bangladesh says that he was still not happy after the trial of Azam: “ “Some kind of justice is done but we are not happy.” During this time, the Bangladesh’s security forces and RAB (Rapid Action Battalion) are torturing protesters in Dhaka (Ignoring). In a story like Choles Ritchil, it is possible to see the extremeness of this force, but they were no put on trial for what they have done and what they are doing:
“His eyes had been plucked out and replaced with artificial “marble eyes.” His testicles were smashed into pulp. Both arms were dislocated, the palms of both hands were smashed, the fingernails of the right hand had been removed, while the thumbnail on the left hand had also been removed. His fingers were broken… there were bruises and cuts all over the body especially on the back. The skin on the back appeared burnt and there were deep cuts under both knees, and nails missing from his toes(Ignoring).”

This still goes one today; people still protest for the trials of the leader of Pakistan, but now they want trials for Bangladesh leaders.
The Bangladesh genocide and independance war was about how government control let to the genocide that was not known.With this government control, people did not know that the government was killing students for protesting, causing genocidal rape, and killed up to 3 million of their citizens. This showed the world to control government control and not let something like this happen again.
The Bangladesh genocide and independence war was about how government control let the genocide not known. With this government control,people did not know that the Pakistani government was killing student protestors, causing genocide rape, and the killing of up to 3 million of their own citizens. This showed the world to control government control and not let something like this genocide happen again.