Fall of Dacca.

TODAY on December 16, 2009, the nation will observe bad memory of fall of Dacca, this year the day will be observed in such circumstances, when the country is confronted with all kinds of dangers at its borders of NWFP and Balochistan. The political leaders of the country are mounting pressure on the government to repeal the 17th amendment and they have demanded that this amendment should be repealed before the end of this year.

The last month of the present calendar year, December 2009 will prove very significant for the whole national politics, present political system and the future of Pakistan. The political analysts said that the Supreme Court of Pakistan is likely to announce its judgment over the controversial National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO). On the other hand, Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has already announced that after returning from Germany, the federal cabinet will be reshuffled. Yesterday, US President Barack Obama has announced an increase of 30,000 US troops in Afghanistan before X-mas.

Memories of December 16
Author: Akhtar Payami Publication: Dawn, Karachi Date: December 16, 1997
"THE Seventh Fleet of the United States is about to touch our shores." "The Chinese troops are going to land in Dacca in a couple of hours."
These and similar other wild rumours continued to circulate throughout the December 15-16 night of 1971. Amidst fear, uncertainty and a grim sense of foreboding that had gripped the city since the beginning of the war, such rumours were widely believed by the people who had concentrated in Mohammadpur and Mirpur - the localities which were mainly inhabited by the migrants from India.
By then the small number of Sabre jets that we had in the capital city of East Pakistan had already been grounded. At around midnight every day, the Indian fighter planes would rein bombs on the Dacca airport making it unserviceable. During the day, half-hearted efforts would be made to repair the heavily damaged runways and the tarmac. The process was repeated almost every day. As there was no resistance whatsoever, the Indian bombers had free access to our unprotected sky. The myth that Dacca could be defended from Islamabad was exploded.
The reinforcement from West Pakistan through a long and circuitous sea route was not possible now. Neither men nor material could reach East Pakistan to provide the needed support and replenishment to the armed forces. The soldiers and the militia who had already arrived there found themselves in a state of confusion. Many of them had never been in East Pakistan before. They were not familiar with the riverine terrain and monsoon-dominated climate of the place. Neither did they know the roads or the localities. Sometimes they would stop their vehicles close to the Baitul Mukarram mosque and ask the passersby where the Dacca Stadium was.
Most puzzled were the militiamen wearing dark-green baggy uniform. Often they would stop someone on the road and ask him to recite kalima. When he did, they would rebuke him for learning the kalima by heart to hide his real religious identity of being a 'kafir.' At the time of being sent to the eastern wing, they were told that most inhabitants of East Pakistan were non- Muslims or that after the eruption of the civil war, the province had been taken over by the Hindus.
The truth was entirely different. Many Hindus who had been living in Dacca for ages had either been killed or had crossed over to India with the start of the military crackdown in March 1971. Their trade and business had been taken over by some unscrupulous elements who were identified as non-locals. the Kalachand sweetmeat shop, famous for its 'Rashogulla' and other delicacies, had been turned into a butcher's shop selling beef.
Not only the Hindus, but many respectable Bengali Muslims had abandoned the city, leaving behind their houses with all their belongings. Many of those houses were later looted with abandon, and in some cases, set on fire.
When a journalist, a few weeks before the fall of Dacca, asked some uniformed men in a Mohammadpur market what they would do if the supplies of food and other essentials stopped, their terse reply was: "Then we would rob the Bengalis." What those ill- informed men did not know was that very few well-off Bengalis were now left in the city who could be robbed. Those who could risk dodging the security forces and traversing difficult terrain had already crossed over to India. Others had moved to far-off villages in the interior to protect themselves against deadly possibilities.
As most of the regular and enlisted contractors had stopped supplying food and other articles to the cantonments, some enterprising 'non-locals', with the active support of some influential local people, had engaged themselves in doing the job. It was a dangerous undertaking for both. But for quite some time, they continued to offer this service to those who needed it most desperately. How and when this 'service' was stopped is not generally known.
So, this was the state of the city of Dacca on the eve of the final break-up of Pakistan.
Long before the day-break on December 16, there was an air of anxiety and concern. It was a bright sunny day. Winter had already set in. Suddenly someone came running to break the news that the Pakistan army had surrendered. When an anxious elderly person went out to ascertain the truth, he was beaten up by a mob of agitated youth. How could the brave army surrender? Only a few days back, General A.K. Niazi, chief of the Eastern Command, had declared publicly that the Indian troops could enter Dacca over his dead body.
And General Rao Farman Ali had advised a host of foreign correspondents in the lobby of Hotel Inter-Continental to read the history of Islamic ascension in the world. Holding a baton in his hand and pointing it to a large map of East Pakistan, he had stated categorically that there was no question of any advance of the Indian troops towards Dacca. He was replying to a foreign journalist who had bluntly asked him: 'Would you be able to hold on to Dacca for a couple of days more?'
Perhaps the journalist was much better informed. Dacca fell after two days.
There were reasons why foreign journalists were so adequately informed about the East Pakistan situation. While there was some semblance of an orderly life in Dacca during the day, nights were totally different and very daunting. Nobody would venture out after dusk. Even otherwise, curfew was in force for days together at a stretch. Night curfew remained in force for several weeks. When the enforcers of law retreated in the evening, the whole city would virtually come under the control of the armed young militants. They were the members of the 'Mukti Bahini.' They used to take out foreign correspondents from their hotel rooms for a tour of the city where they reigned supreme.
This state of uncertainty and confusion ended on the morning of December 16. The news that the Pakistan army had surrendered was finally confirmed. Instantly, Indian planes started dropping leaflets in Urdu urging the people to surrender their arms and ammunition at the nearest police stations. The leaflets, which dropped mainly in Urdu-speaking settlements, also reassured them of their safety by exonerating them of the excesses of the armed forces.
Within minutes a caravan of Indian soldiers travelling in open trucks started parading the main thoroughfares - from cantonment onward to Nawabpur Road. In a boisterous mood the troops were shouting victory slogans. The baffled residents of Mohammadpur helplessly watched their movement.
What immediately followed was something unbelievable. The whole township was surrounded by Mukti Bahini men who had taken up strategic positions after the Indian troops moved in. Armed with small, deadly weapons they were being commanded by Indian soldiers. Soon after loudspeakers blared out asking people to surrender their arms. In no time mounds of arms were deposited in front of many houses.
The angry members of the Mukti Bahini could have scorched the entire locality and staged a mayhem in Mohammadpur. Only a couple of days back many Bengali intellectuals had been killed in Dacca by the security forces in collaboration with the activists of a religious party. Among the dead were distinguished professionals, teachers, doctors, writers, poets, intellectuals and journalists. Their mutilated bodies were found close to a brick kiln in Mohammadpur. This had provoked the Mukti Bahini to resort to some revenge killing. But somehow sanity prevailed. There were sporadic cases of violence. But the situation, by and large, remained under control.
Opinion may vary on the role the Indian soldiers played in the aftermath of the fall of Dacca. But the truth is that their presence prevented a more horrifying bloodbath than what the residents of Mohammadpur and Mirpur had witnessed earlier.
In retrospect, those wrenching events of December 1971 seem like a chapter out of Kafka's book. Even with the distance of time and events, the memories of those dark and dismal happenings continue to fester like a throbbing wound. Those away from the scene of the trauma of 1971 or with an extraordinary gift of rationalization or induced amnesia might find it possible to desensitize the memories of the fall of Dacca. But this is one escape route which is not open to those who actually lived through the tragic denouement from minute to minute.
As the passage of time and changing circumstances do their erasing and healing job, the question still remains whether the political catastrophe of 1971 and the human tragedy that it entailed could have been avoided. Many think it could have been, if there were a political government in control in Islamabad to handle the drift of events in the then restive East Pakistan. Others believe that even with a military set-up calling the shots, things could have been different if power had been transferred on the basis of the outcome of the 1970 elections which had thrown up the Awami League as the party with a clear majority in the National Assembly.
However, no definitive conclusion is possible, except that perhaps a better option, in the given context, would have been to continue with the political negotiations going on in Dacca in the third week of March 1971, rather than bring the process to an abrupt end with a military crackdown which eventually led to the violent break-up of united Pakistan.