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Forty years after the independence of Bangladesh, a new book on the conflict by an Indian author has sparked outrage among Bengalis around the world. Sarmila Bose, the US-born author of Dead Reckoning claims, among other things, that the atrocities committed by Pakistani soldiers in Bangladesh were greatly exaggerated and that both sides committed crimes against humanity during the independence war.
The civil war between what was the East Pakistan and West Pakistan is believed to have caused up to 3-million deaths (a number Bose believes is wildly inflated). She writes that perspectives on the conflict are still imprisoned by wartime partisan myths.
She contends that many Bengalis - supposed to be fighting for freedom and dignity - committed appalling atrocities. And many Pakistani army officers, carrying out a military action against a political rebellion, turned out to be fine men doing their best to fight an unconventional war within the conventions of warfare.
Bose, of Bengali Hindu descent and a senior research fellow at Oxford University, claims the Pakistani army was demonized and blamed for monstrous actions regardless of the evidence, while Bengali people were portrayed as victims.
This has led to a tendency to deny, minimize or justify violence and brutalities perpetrated by pro-liberation Bengalis, she says, adding that Bangladesh is in a great state of denial over what really happened during the war.
Bangladeshi scholars are savagely criticizing Boses book and conclusions.
Naeem Mohaiemen, a New York-based writer, told the BBC that Bose is pushing her conclusions to an extreme by assuming that the Pakistan army used only justified and temperate amounts of retaliatory force.
Bose said she interviewed people throughout Bangladesh as well as former Pakistani officers and combed through official documents.
She alleges, among other things, that Bengali nationalists in Bangladesh attacked non-Bengalis in the country just prior to the war including West Pakistanis and Biharis who had migrated eastward during partition in 1947.
Bose told BBC: In the ethnic violence unleashed in the name of Bengali nationalism, non-Bengali men, women and children were slaughtered.
Non-Bengali victims of ethnic killings by Bengalis numbered hundreds or even thousands per incident... men, women and children were massacred on the basis of ethnicity and the killings were executed with shocking bestiality.
In response, Mohaiemen told BBC: She [Bose] also relies heavily on Hamoodur Rahman Commission Report, which was done by the post-1971 Pakistan government with the intention of white-washing the war.
Source: The Nation (Pakistan)
TX Note: Dr Sarmila Bose is also founding Director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ)
Read more: Indian research scholar at Oxford: Pakistan Army not involved in Bangladesh massacre | Terminal X
The civil war between what was the East Pakistan and West Pakistan is believed to have caused up to 3-million deaths (a number Bose believes is wildly inflated). She writes that perspectives on the conflict are still imprisoned by wartime partisan myths.
She contends that many Bengalis - supposed to be fighting for freedom and dignity - committed appalling atrocities. And many Pakistani army officers, carrying out a military action against a political rebellion, turned out to be fine men doing their best to fight an unconventional war within the conventions of warfare.
Bose, of Bengali Hindu descent and a senior research fellow at Oxford University, claims the Pakistani army was demonized and blamed for monstrous actions regardless of the evidence, while Bengali people were portrayed as victims.
This has led to a tendency to deny, minimize or justify violence and brutalities perpetrated by pro-liberation Bengalis, she says, adding that Bangladesh is in a great state of denial over what really happened during the war.
Bangladeshi scholars are savagely criticizing Boses book and conclusions.
Naeem Mohaiemen, a New York-based writer, told the BBC that Bose is pushing her conclusions to an extreme by assuming that the Pakistan army used only justified and temperate amounts of retaliatory force.
Bose said she interviewed people throughout Bangladesh as well as former Pakistani officers and combed through official documents.
She alleges, among other things, that Bengali nationalists in Bangladesh attacked non-Bengalis in the country just prior to the war including West Pakistanis and Biharis who had migrated eastward during partition in 1947.
Bose told BBC: In the ethnic violence unleashed in the name of Bengali nationalism, non-Bengali men, women and children were slaughtered.
Non-Bengali victims of ethnic killings by Bengalis numbered hundreds or even thousands per incident... men, women and children were massacred on the basis of ethnicity and the killings were executed with shocking bestiality.
In response, Mohaiemen told BBC: She [Bose] also relies heavily on Hamoodur Rahman Commission Report, which was done by the post-1971 Pakistan government with the intention of white-washing the war.
Source: The Nation (Pakistan)
TX Note: Dr Sarmila Bose is also founding Director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ)
Read more: Indian research scholar at Oxford: Pakistan Army not involved in Bangladesh massacre | Terminal X
