28 April, 2018

Prof. Dr. Mohammad Mozahidul Islam

Jahangirnagar University
Adjunct Faculty
Bangladesh University of Professionals

Subject: Application for accepting the paper on ‘Liberation war of

Bangladesh in 1971’.

Dear Sir,

With due respect and honor, I have reported on “Liberation War of

Bangladesh in 1971” under the course: Bangladesh and International
Studies.

I have taken an interview on some particular incidents during the

period of war from an individual person. And I have given my best
effort to complete the report as you mentioned.

I humbly request you to accept this paper for your kind evaluation.
Sincerest gratitude for your limitless guidance.

Sincerely,

ASIF BIN MOHSIN

ID: 41
Section-A
Department of Finance & Banking
Bangladesh University of Professionals

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Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971
Introduction

The liberation war of 1971 of Bangladesh was between Bangladesh and

Pakistan and its impact was still not only in the past but also is in the
present. At the very beginning India & Pakistan got independence from
British rule in 1947. The majority of Pakistan was Muslim whereas India
was formed for the Hindus. Pakistan had two state or area, East
Pakistan and West Pakistan, which had a distance of about 1000 miles.
East Pakistan was the eastern part of the province of Bengal. Karachi
was the capital of Pakistan which was in the Western part and was
moved to Islamabad in 1958. Because of the discrimination in economy
and ruling powers against them, the people of East Pakistan protested
strongly and declared independence on March 26, 1971 under the
leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. But during the year prior to that,
to suppress the unrest in East Pakistan, the Pakistani government sent
troops to East Pakistan and unleashed a massacre. And thus, the war
for liberation commenced. However, this report is mainly based on the
crisis of the 1971 liberation war. Specially the after effects of education
crisis, food crisis, poverty etc.

Methodology

This term paper report is based on an interview of an individual who

had seen the food crisis, education crisis, poverty and other things
during the period of 1971 liberation war and even after the war.

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Interview

An interview would be about the liberation war of 1971. The

situation or rural area of Bangladesh during the war of 1971. The
crisis about education system, crisis about food, poverty and etc.

Interviewer:

Asif Bin Mohsin

Interviewee:

Name: Md. Mohsin Hossain

Age: 60

Address: Hazipur, Magura

Moreover, below there are some links to a few documents and books
about Bangladesh's history of independence from where I got many
information. There are many writers have written some excellent
short book about the Independence war in 1971. The reference book
and their online download link is given below.

 Ekattorer DinGuli By Jahanara Imam

(https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/101240.Books_on_Lib
eration_War_of_Bangladesh)

 Ekattorer Chithi By Salauddin Ahmed

(https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/101240.Books_on_Lib
eration_War_of_Bangladesh)

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  Camp By Muhammad Zafar Iqbal
(https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/101240.Books_on_Lib
eration_War_of_Bangladesh)

Food and Education Crisis in 1971

Before getting into the topic of interview, we have to go through the

history or the overview of liberation war of 1971 and the
circumstances during the period. At the very beginning Both East
Pakistan and West Pakistan remained united because of their
religion, Islam. There were not much problem between them. But
West Pakistan had 97% Muslims and East Pakistanis had 85%
Muslims. However, there were several significant reasons which
were responsible for the fight between East Pakistani people and
West Pakistani people for their independence. There were four
provinces of West Pakistan: Punjab, Sindh, Baluchistan, and the
North-West Frontier. And the fifth province was East Pakistan.
Because of having the control over the provinces, the West Pakistan
used up more resources than the East. Between 1948 and 1960, East
Pakistan made 70% of all of Pakistan's exports, while it only received
25% of imported money. It was a story of 1948, East Pakistan had 11
of fabric mills whereas the West Pakistan had only 9. And after in
1971, the number of fabric mills in the West were 150 while the
number in the East went down to 26. About 2.6 billion dollars of
resources were also shifted over time from East Pakistan to West
Pakistan. East Pakistan had the largest population among all the
provinces, but it had much less political power than West Pakistan.
And this eventually made the people of East Pakistan rebel. The
leader of the Awami League, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in East
Pakistan, explicitly demanded more economic and political powers.
The struggle finally culminated into the war of independence.

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There was also a language issue as the reason of war. In 1948,
Mohammad Ali Jinnah declared in Dhaka that Urdu and only Urdu
will be the state language and the official language for Pakistan.
There was a big argument about this because of an unbelievable
reason that only the Muhajir in the West and the Biharis in the East
spoke Urdu. And most of the people of West Pakistan spoke Punjabi
and Sindhi, while East Pakistanis spoke Bangla. People of East
Pakistan disagreed; they did strike on the road and there police fired.
Seven people; Rafik, Shafik, Jabbar and others were killed by the
police. This day is celebrated as the mourning day for the Bengali
people even February 21st is now recognized as the International
Mother Language Day by the United Nations. There had been a
devastating cyclone in East Pakistan in 1970 named the Bhola
Cyclone. About 500,000 people were killed and many more people
got homeless. It brought great shock and deep depression among the
people of East Pakistan. But, the government did not agree to
provide enough relief to support the extremely miserable conditions
wrought by the cyclone. This caused enormous misery in East
Pakistan.

There had been a n election in 1970 and in the election The Awami
League, led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman got the victory with a large
number of vote and got the chance to demand autonomy for East
Pakistan. Awami League got 160 seats and got the majority in the
national assembly. By this victory the people of Bangladesh got the
right to form a government but the chairman of the Pakistan Peoples
Party Zulfikar Ali Bhutto refused to let Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
become the prime minister of Pakistan. The cold war started from
that incident. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman gave a historical speech on 7 th
March, 1971. At that speech he urged the people to turn all their
homes into a fort of fight. He demanded that the power would be
transferred to the elected representative before the assembly
meeting on March 25. But the government of East Pakistan denied.

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Moreover, on the night of March 25, Pakistan army attacked the
unarmed Bengali people. They attacked the residential hall of
University of Dhaka and more other places. On the 26 th march
morning, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman got arrested and on that day he
declared the official independence of Bangladesh. M. A. Hannan was
the first person who read and gave the official announcement of the
independence over Radio.

Political events approached a climax. The war between the Pakistan

Army and the Bengali freedom fighters, the Mukti Bahini, began. The
head of the Mukti Bahini was General Muhammad Osmani. The
Mukti Bahini were trained like guerillas. India gave shelter to the
refugees and trained the Mukti Bahini. India also helped with
ammunition and its own soldiers. They attacked the Pakistani army.
During the training period of the Mukti Bahini, the Pakistani Army
encouraged Razakars, the Bengalis who did not want Bangladesh to
become an independent country, to suppress the rebellion. The
Pakistani Army faced problems as the monsoon came. This helped
Mukti Bahini because they could counter the moves of the Pakistanis.

India assumed an active role. Indira Gandhi ordered air and ground
attacks. India, having superior equipment and forces, mounted a
three-pronged movement on Dhaka from the Indian province West
Bengal, Assam, and Tripura. The Indian soldiers, Air Force, and Navy
defeated the Pakistani army, while the Bangladeshi Navy helped
India. On the ground, three groups of Mukti Bahini and Indian forces
fought the Pakistanis. The Pakistanis tried to fight back, but failed to
resist them.

On 16th December 1971, Dhaka fell to the Mitro Bahini which was the
elite forces of the Mukti Bahini and the Indian army. An “Instrument
of Surrender” was signed by the defeated Pakistan. General Niazi and

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by the Indian commander General Aurora at 16:31 Indian Standard
Time. This is how Bangladesh became liberated and independent.

This was the summery of the liberation of Bangladesh on 1971 given

up. But the victory was not the ending of the story. There were many
incidents which are not mentioned in the history. We can know the
story about some particular incidents from the interview of
individual.

__During the liberation war of 1971 the district Magura was under
large Jessore. There is a village in the Magura district named Hazipur.
I lived in that village with my join family. I can still remember then I
was about 14 years old. I was in class 8 of Hazipur High School. After
the declaration of the war in 26th March 1971 from the next morning
the Pakistani Military started coming to our village. Although they
didn’t start attacking on us. They just prepared their camp and they
used to move here and there with their van. But from the very
beginning of the war, our school shut down. No class was held during
the war. As a result of that, after the liberation war, I have seen many
students got double or more than that of class promotion. Even I was
in class 8 then. But after the year of war without attending any class I
got the promotion for class 9. The whole education system fell down
during the period and it took a few years to recover the situation.

There formed a war team named ‘Muhit Bahini’ and the team was
basically run by Muhit. I personally knew him. Even we the people of
the village almost knew about their activities. We didn’t see them
attacking on the army but they were always ready to protest if the
army get into the village. The Pakistani army also used to move here
to there in the market with their jeep. When they moved, people got
afraid and suddenly we could see that the market got clean from the

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human. Sometimes the military group used to open fire in the
market. That was so horrible.

I can remember one story. I had a friend named Bashi who used to
sell chickens in the local market in the hut. So one day I went with
him in the market and that time a group of Pakistani military came
toward us and started shouting and then they took us into their jeep.
They took me to their camp. We were ten or eleven people together.
They tied our hands behind us and kept like that for the whole night.
We don’t know why they let us go freely the next morning. But it was
a horrible experience for me because I thought that we are going to
die.

There were many people who participated in the war from our
village. Some of them were so close to me. I can remember one
brother Jalil who were killed by the Pakistani military during the war.
There were many people who also helped the Pakistani army. They
are called the Rajakar in history. I can remember one person. He was
always a clever person in the village. When the Pakistani army
entered into the village, he always tried to get involved of helping the
military. We everybody know that how many were killed and how
many women and girls were killed only because of those rajakars.

There had been a huge food crisis during the war and after the war
for at least one year. I remember that we bought a kg of sugar by 80
taka which was a very big amount of money. So people who were
poor, they had to suffer a lot. People started begging for food during
the time. But there is no story in our village about any death for food.

So that was pretty much about the war period in our village what I
can remember.

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