BRUTAL BIRTH OR BANGLADESH
“SEPARATED FROM WEST PAKISTAN BY THE INDIAN LANDMASS, THE EAST SOON FELT ALIENATED, POLITICALLY AND CULTURALLY, FROM THE WEST”
Few conflicts in the late-20th century witnessed as much carnage as the events that shook East Pakistan from March to December 1971. The turbulent episode is often remembered as a stirring triumph orchestrated by imaginative Indian generals, but this coup de main only occurred in the final month of the war. Before that, the citizens of newly independent Bangladesh lived through indescribable horror.
The origins of the war date to the partition facilitated by the British at the end of their dominion over South Asia. In 1947 this partition created India and its troubled adversary Pakistan – the latter a geopolitical experiment that aspired to create a modern secular state for a multi-ethnic Muslim nation.
The existence of Pakistan, conceived by its urbane founding father Muhammad Ali Jinnah, meant a confederation of the Punjab, Kashmir and the Pashtun regions of Afghanistan. The scope of its territorial expanse became problematic when a local separatist movement flourished in Balochistan, while Kashmir’s ownership triggered a war with India.
Yet the most troubled portion of this confederation was East Pakistan, which had a majority Bengali population whose numbers had swelled to 72 million by 1970. Separated from West Pakistan by the Indian landmass, the East soon felt alienated, politically and culturally,
