Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The politics of genocide scholarship: the case of Bangladesh

2007; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 41; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/00313220701657286

1461-7331

Donald W. Beachler,

South Asian Studies and Conflicts

ABSTRACT The massive communal violence that occurred in East Pakistan in 1971 received worldwide attention at the time, but has been largely ignored since. Some scholars and other writers have denied that what took place in Bangladesh was a genocide. Journalists' reports, expatriate testimony, refugee reports and an investigation by the International Commission of Jurists in 1972 all indicate, however, that the Pakistani army did commit genocide in Bangladesh in 1971. The political and ideological circumstances that led to the secession of East Pakistan were conducive to religious and ethnic genocide. Beachler examines the treatment by memoirists and scholars of the 1971 crisis in East Pakistan and seeks to explain the reasons why the genocide in Bangladesh has been largely ignored since the early 1970s. No ideological or partisan faction in the United States has stood to gain much from the study of the Bangladesh genocide. And the governments of Bangladesh and Pakistan have not been interested in promoting study of the mass murder and rapes that took place in 1971. Keywords: BangladeshBengalidenialEast PakistangenocidenationalismPakistanpartitionwar of secession Notes 1Quoted in Leo Kuper, Genocide: Its Political Use in the Twentieth Century (New Haven and London: Yale University Press 1982), 78–9. 2East Timor was a third case of an Asian genocide that did not receive much attention in the American media. The Indonesian government was a close Cold War ally of the United States. This interesting case will not be explored here. On East Timor, see Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of Mass Media (New York: Pantheon 2002). 3While there has been little attention paid to the Bangladesh genocide elsewhere in 'the West', this article focuses on the United States. 4Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1998). 5Raul Hilberg, The Politics of Memory: The Journey of a Holocaust Historian (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee 2002). 6Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, 3rd edn, 3 vols (New Haven and London: Yale University Press 2003). 7Hilberg, The Politics of Memory. 8Peter Novick, The Holocaust in American Life (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1999). 9Tom Segev, The Seventh Million: Israelis and the Holocaust, trans. from the Hebrew by Haim Watzman (New York: Henry Holt 2000). 10Norman Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering (London: Verso 2000). 11Tim Cole, Selling the Holocaust: From Auschwitz to Schindler: How History Is Bought, Packaged, and Sold (New York: Routledge 1999). 12See the essays in Alan S. Rosenbaum (ed.), Is the Holocaust Unique? Perspectives on Comparative Genocide, 2nd edn (Boulder, CO: Westview Press 2001). 13Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, 'The politics of uniqueness: reflections on the recent polemical turn in Holocaust and genocide scholarship', Holocaust and Genocide Studies, vol. 13, no. 1, 1999, 28–61. 14George Orwell, 'Notes on nationalism', in George Orwell, The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell. Vol. 3: As I Please, 1943–1945, ed. Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 1968), 370. 15Ben Kiernan, 'Cover up and denial of genocide: Australia, the USA, East Timor and Aborigines', Critical Asian Studies, vol. 34, no. 2, June 2002, 163–92. 16Leo Casey, 'Questioning Halabja: genocide and the expedient political lie', Dissent, Summer 2003, 61–5. 17Leo Casey, 'Questioning Halabja: genocide and the expedient political lie', Dissent, Summer 2003, 61–5. 18Richard Sisson and Leo E. Rose, War and Secession: Pakistan, India, and the Creation of Bangladesh (Berkeley: University of California Press 1990). 19Richard Sisson and Leo E. Rose, War and Secession: Pakistan, India, and the Creation of Bangladesh (Berkeley: University of California Press 1990). 20Anthony Mascarenhas, The Rape of Bangla Desh (New Delhi: Vikas Publications 1971). 21Robert Payne, Massacre: The Tragedy of Bangladesh and the Phenomenon of Mass Slaughter throughout History (New York: Macmillan 1973). 22Robert Payne, Massacre: The Tragedy of Bangladesh and the Phenomenon of Mass Slaughter throughout History (New York: Macmillan 1973). 23Mascarenhas, The Rape of Bangla Desh. 24Sisson and Rose, War and Secession. 25A. M. A. Muhith, Bangladesh: Emergence of a Nation, (Dhaka: University Press 1992). 26Rounaq Jahan, 'Genocide in Bangladesh', in Samuel Totten, William S. Parsons and Israel W. Charny (eds), Century of Genocide: Eyewitness Accounts and Critical Views (New York: Garland Publishing 1997), 291–316. 27R. J. Rummel, Death by Government (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers 1997). 28Kalyan Chaudhuri, Genocide in Bangladesh (Bombay: Orient Longman 1972). 29Sydney H. Schanberg, 'Bengalis' land a vast cemetery', New York Times, 24 January 1972, 1. 32'Convention on the Punishment and Prevention of the Crime of Genocide', 9 December 1948, available on the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights website at www.ohchr.org/english/law/genocide.htm (viewed 14 June 2007). 30Wardatul Akmam, 'Atrocities against humanity during the liberation war in Bangladesh: a case of genocide', Journal of Genocide Research, vol. 4, no. 4, December 2002, 543–59. 31Eric Weitz, A Century of Genocide: Utopias of Race and Nation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 2003). 33Robert Melson, 'Modern genocide in Rwanda: ideology, revolution, war, and mass murder in an African state', in Robert Gellately and Ben Kiernan (eds), The Specter of Genocide: Mass Murder in Historical Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2003). 34Robert Melson, Revolution and Genocide: On the Origins of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1992). 35Rohde's letter is reprinted from the Record of the US Senate as 'Recent events in East Pakistan' in Sheelendra Kumar Singh et al. (eds), Bangladesh Documents, vol. 1 (Madras: B. N. K. Press 1971), 349–51. 36Rohde's letter is reprinted from the Record of the US Senate as 'Recent events in East Pakistan' in Sheelendra Kumar Singh et al. (eds), Bangladesh Documents, vol. 1 (Madras: B. N. K. Press 1971), 349–51. 37Reprinted from the Record of the US House of Representatives in ibid., 357. 38James A. Michener, 'A lament for Pakistan', New York Times Magazine, 9 January 1972. 41Anthony Mascarenhas, 'Genocide', reprinted from The Times (London), 13 June 1971 in Singh et al. (eds), Bangladesh Documents, 358–72. 39Mascarenhas, The Rape of Bangla Desh, 117. 40Anthony Mascarenhas, 'Genocide', reprinted from The Times (London), 13 June 1971 in Singh et al. (eds), Bangladesh Documents, 358–72. 42Mascarenhas, The Rape of Bangla Desh, 116–17. 43Jahan, 'Genocide in Bangladesh', 299. 44Mascarenhas, The Rape of Bangla Desh. 45Rummel, Death by Government. 46Mascarenhas, 'Genocide', 371. 47Mascarenhas, The Rape of Bangla Desh, 117–18. 48Sydney H. Schanberg, 'Dacca is still gripped by fear 3 months after onslaught', New York Times, 26 June 1971, 1. 49Sydney H. Schanberg, 'West Pakistan pursues subjugation of Bengalis', New York Times, 14 July 1971, 1. 50Sydney H. Schanberg, 'West Pakistan pursues subjugation of Bengalis', New York Times, 14 July 1971, 1. 51Muhith, Bangladesh. 52Sydney H. Schanberg, 'A Pakistani terms Bengalis "chicken-hearted"', New York Times, 17 July 1971. 53Sydney H. Schanberg, 'Foreign evacuees from East Pakistan tell of grim fight', New York Times, 7 April 1971, 1. 54Sydney H. Schanberg, 'Foreign evacuees from East Pakistan tell of grim fight', New York Times, 7 April 1971, 1. 55Jahan, 'Genocide in Bangladesh', provides eyewitness testimony of mass rape camps established by the Pakistani army. 56Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (New York: Simon and Schuster 1975). 57Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (New York: Simon and Schuster 1975). 58Muhith, Bangladesh. 59Schanberg, 'Dacca is still gripped by fear 3 months after onslaught'. See also Robert Laporte, Jr., 'Pakistan in 1971: the disintegration of a nation', Asian Survey, vol. 12, no. 2, February 1972, 97–108. 60Michael Stohl, 'Outside of a small circle of friends: states, genocide, mass killing and the role of bystanders', Journal of Peace Research, vol. 24, no. 2, June 1987, 151–66. 61Akmam, 'Atrocities against humanity during the liberation war in Bangladesh'. 62Ian Talbot, Punjab and the Raj, 1849–1947 (New Delhi: Manohar Publications 1988). 63Ian Talbot, Pakistan: A Modern History, revd edn (London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2005). 64Philip Oldenburg, '"A place insufficiently imagined": language, belief, and the Pakistan crisis of 1971', Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 44, no. 4, 1985, 711–33. 65Tariq Rahman, 'Language and politics in a Pakistan province: the Sindhi language movement', Asian Survey, vol. 35, no. 11, November 1995, 1005–16. 68Quoted in Oldenburg, '"A place insufficiently imagined"', 724. 66Paul R. Brass, 'The partition of India and retributive genocide in the Punjab, 1946–47: means, methods, and purposes 1', Journal of Genocide Research, vol. 5, no. 1, 2003, 71–101. See also Anders Bj⊘rn Hansen, 'The Punjab 1937–1947: a case of genocide?', in Steven L. B. Jensen (ed.), Genocide: Cases, Comparisons and Contemporary Debates (Copenhagen: Danish Center For Holocaust and Genocide Studies 2003). 67Brass, 'The partition of India and retributive genocide in the Punjab, 1946–47'. Violence between Hindus and Muslims had occurred on a smaller scale in Calcutta in 1946; see Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, Freedom at Midnight (New York: Simon and Schuster 1975). 69Nazis often referred to areas that were free of Jews as a result of deportations as judenrein, implying that they had been cleansed of Jews. 70Oldenburg, '"A place insufficiently imagined"'. 71Oldenburg, '"A place insufficiently imagined"'. 72Jahan, 'Genocide in Bangladesh'. 73Quoted in Oldenburg, '"A place insufficiently imagined"', 724. 76Akmam, 'Atrocities against humanity during the liberation war in Bangladesh', 553. 74For Bangladesh, see Ali Riaz, God Willing: The Politics of Islamism in Bangladesh (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield 2004). Indian Hindu nationalist violence against Indian Muslims is analysed in Martha C. Nussbaum, 'The Gujarat massacre', Dissent, Summer 2003, 15–23. 75There has been no investigation into the numbers of Hindus and Muslims killed in 1971, though there were obviously many victims from each religion. 77For a discussion of war as an influence on perpetrators of genocide, see Christopher R. Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (New York: HarperCollins 1992). Placing the Holocaust in the context of the Second World War is a major theme in Christopher R. Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939–March 1942 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press 2004). 78Melson, Revolution and Genocide. 79Stanley Wolpert, A New History of India (New York: Oxford University Press 1977). 80Secretariat of the International Commission of Jurists, The Events in East Pakistan, 1971. A Legal Study (Geneva: International Commission of Jurists 1972), 9. 81Weitz, A Century of Genocide. 82Although the Pakistani army also eliminated many Bengali Muslims. 83Henry Kissinger, The White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown 1979), 855. 84Henry Kissinger, The White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown 1979), 914. 86Kissinger, The White House Years, 854. 85Christopher Van Hollen, 'The tilt policy revisited: Nixon-Kissinger geopolitics and South Asia', Asian Survey, vol. 20, no. 4, April 1980, 339–61. 87Christopher Hitchens, The Trial of Henry Kissinger (London and New York: Verso 2001). 88Quoted in Lawrence Lifschultz, Bangladesh: The Unfinished Revolution (London: Zed Press 1979), 158. 89Dennis Kux, The United States and Pakistan, 1947–2000: Disenchanted Allies (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press 2001). 90Dennis Kux, The United States and Pakistan, 1947–2000: Disenchanted Allies (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press 2001), 203. 91Sisson and Rose, War and Secession. 92Siddiq Salik, Witness to Surrender (Karachi: Oxford University Press 1978). 93Siddiq Salik, Witness to Surrender (Karachi: Oxford University Press 1978). 94See Siddiq Salik, Witness to Surrender (Karachi: Oxford University Press 1978), 306n24. 95Akmam, 'Atrocities against humanity during the liberation war in Bangladesh'. 96See, for example, Gareth Porter and George C. Hildebrand, Cambodia: Starvation and Evolution (New York: Monthly Review Press 1977). While they are not uncritically supportive of the policies of the Khmer Rouge, Chomsky and Herman are skeptical of claims about its atrocities: Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman, After the Cataclysm: Postwar Indochina and the Reconstruction of Imperial Ideology (Boston: South End Press 1979). Support for the Khmer Rouge by the American left is discussed in Samantha Power, 'A Problem from Hell': America in the Age of Genocide (New York: Basic Books 2002), and also in Peter Maguire, Facing Death in Cambodia (New York: Columbia University Press 2005). 97Power, 'A Problem from Hell'. 98The controversy over the Cambodian genocide is well summarized in Eyal Press, 'Unforgiven: the director of the Cambodian Genocide Program rekindles animosities', Lingua Franca, April/May 1997, 66–75. 99David Chandler, Voices from S-21: Terror and History in Pol Pot's Secret Prison (Berkeley: University of California Press 1999). 100David Chandler, Voices from S-21: Terror and History in Pol Pot's Secret Prison (Berkeley: University of California Press 1999). 101Alex Alvarez, Governments, Citizens, and Genocide: A Comparative and Interdisciplinary Approach (Bloomington: Indiana University Press 2001). 102Levon Chorbajian and George Shirinian (eds), Studies in Comparative Genocide (Basingstoke: Macmillan and New York: St Martin's Press 1999). 103Gellately and Kiernan (eds), The Specter of Genocide. 104Rummel, Death by Government; Totten, Parsons and Charny (eds), Century of Genocide. 105Henry R. Huttenbach, 'The psychology and politics of genocide denial: a comparison of four case studies', in Chorbajian and Shirinian (eds), Studies in Comparative Genocide. 106Hitchens, The Trial of Henry Kissinger. 107For a critical view of Mujib's government from an author who chronicled Pakistani army atrocities in Bangladesh, see Anthony Mascarenhas, Bangladesh: A Legacy of Blood (London: Hodder and Stoughton 1986). 108Larence Ziring, Bangladesh: From Mujib to Ershad, an Interpretive Study (Karachi and Oxford: Oxford University Press 1992). 109Mark Levene, 'The Chittagong Hill Tracts: a case study in the political economy of "creeping" genocide', Third World Quarterly, vol. 20, no. 2, 1999, 339–69. 110See the website of the Liberation War Museum at www.liberationwarmuseum.org (viewed 26 June 2007). 111The issue is reported in an article in an English-language newspaper by an unidentified staff correspondent, 'Zia first proclaimer of independence, reprinted liberation war history says', Daily Star, 9 July 2004. 112Riaz, God Willing, 20. 113Riaz, God Willing, 20. 114Riaz, God Willing, 20. 115Novick, The Holocaust in American Life. 116Frank Sysyn, 'The Ukrainian famine of 1932–3: the role of the Ukrainian diaspora in research and public discussion', in Chorbajian and Shirinian (eds), Studies in Comparative Genocide. 117Peter Balakian, The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response (New York: HarperCollins 2003). 118The claim here is not that all academic research seeks to score political points, but that there are few political gains to be had in focusing on Bangladesh.