Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Speakers will discuss the recently published book “Creation of Bangladesh: Myths Exploded” at a seminar in Islamabad on Monday.

The panel discussion will take a broader look at the 1971’s human tragedy & the politics of narrative shaping in South Asia. This book has already become polemical in Bangladesh and was discussed in the Bangladesh Parliament.

After the war and human tragedy of 1971, Pakistan and Bangladesh again embraced each other, developed close brotherly ties and together both countries inspired the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) that provided a platform for smaller countries, perched at the Indian perimeter, for closer coordination with each other and to deal with Indian power through dialogue.

However since 2009, the ghosts of 1971 resurfaced in Bangladesh with vengeance, which gradually assumed the form of a well orchestrated political agenda to rewrite the history and affect the future discourse of South Asia.

In 2016, the Bangladesh cabinet approved a “Liberation War Denial Crimes Act” on the pattern of “Holocaust Denial Laws” that makes it a criminal offense to question the number of people that died between 25th March and 16th December 1971.

Trials through a controversial war tribunal, erected almost 40 years after the events of 1971, have targeted opposition parties and lead to 26 executions and many more may follow. Public reactions against these executions have resulted in hundreds of deaths and a deeply polarised Bangladeshi society. Now the government of Hasina Sheikh has decided to declare March 25 as a “Genocide Day”.

The panel will examine how the actual events of a civil war have been purposefully distorted in the “Politics of Narrative Shaping in South Asia”.

A human tragedy, that affected all sides, is being exploited, 45 years later, to strengthen political interests at the cost of dividing future generations of South Asia through firewalls of hatred.

To expose this ruthless Michiavellian politics it becomes important to question: What really happened before and after March 1971?

The distinguished panel not only combines historical research with expertise of constitutional and international law, but brings forward those who directly witnessed the grotesque events of 1971.

The panel thus also includes the commander of the force that actually took operation against the militants in Dacca university in March 1971. He offers himself for all kind of questioning by the audience.

The panel includes Dr Junaid Ahmad, Author ‘Creation of Bangladesh: Myths Exploded’, Mr Ahmer Bilal Soofi, Ex-Law Minister, Pakistan & Expert International Law, Mr Ikram Sehgal, Author ‘Escape from Oblivion’ & noted Columnist and Brigadier Taj, Commander of Operation Search Light, 1971.