Dead Reckoning: Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh

Author: Sarmila Bose

Book review by Roma Iftikhar PCS BS-1
Submitted to Dr. Marium Fatima
Sarmila Bose is an Indian American journalist and academic. Bose belongs to an ethnic Bengali
family with extensive involvement in national politics in India. Bose was born in Boston in 1959
but grew up in Calcutta, India, where she attended Modern High School for Girls. She returned to
the US for higher studies and obtained several degrees from Bryn Mawr College, Harvard Kennedy
School, and Harvard University.

She is the author of Dead Reckoning: Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War, a controversial book
on the Bangladesh Liberation War.

Dead Reckoning: Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War is a controversial book on the
Bangladesh Liberation War. 1971 was marked by a bitter civil war within Pakistan and a war
between India and Pakistan, backed respectively by the Soviet Union and the United States. It was
fought over the territory of East Pakistan, which seceded to become Bangladesh.

The author presents an alternative perspective on the conflict, questioning the widely accepted
accounts of mass killings and atrocities committed by the Pakistani army. Bose delves into the
complexities of the war by conducting extensive interviews and gathering testimonies from various
sources, including both Pakistani and Bangladeshi individuals. The places she visited and collected
data from are Jessore, Khulna, Chittagong, Dhaka, Mymensingh, Tangail, Rajshahi, Saidpur,
Santahar, Thakurgaon, Chuknagar amongst others. She argues that the death toll reported during
the war was inflated and explores the idea that both sides engaged in violence and retaliation.

She delves into the 1971 story “not expecting any major changes in the broad storyline of 1971
with which she grew up” but only to “fill in the glaring gaps” in the established and dominant
narrative with “accurate information on particular instances and fair representation of all sides,
leading to better analysis and a greater understanding of the conflict through detailed human
circumstances”.

The whole book is the culmination of several years of research, divided into nine roughly
chronological chapters starting with the elections of December 1970 and its bloody aftermath in
the then East Pakistan, until December 1971 with Indian victory over Pakistan. Details of the socio-
political situations culminating in the war, and during the war are described in a concise but lucid
manner. Sarmila Bose indites the narrative as presented by both sides of the conflict, the Pakistani
officers, and the eyewitnesses and/or survivors of well-known massacres and military incidents.
After presenting the narrative from both sides of the conflict, Sarmila Bose then presents her
scholarly analysis, considering any anomalies or similarities between the narratives and describing
the possible reasons for conflicting accounts of the same incident.

The book has been accused of flawed and biased methodology and downplaying genocide. Critics
argue that Sarmila Bose's research methods and selection of sources are flawed. They contend that
her reliance on oral testimonies and limited archival evidence compromises the accuracy and
reliability of her conclusions. Critics argue that she downplays or dismisses the overwhelming
evidence of systematic violence, including mass killings, sexual violence, and forced
displacements. They assert that her claims of a lower death toll and balanced violence fail to
acknowledge the gravity and impact of the conflict. They argue that her narrow focus on individual
testimonies overlooks the larger systemic factors that shaped the conflict.

To conclude everything, I would encourage people to pick up this book because of the controversial
aspect. The book provides a fresh perspective on the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, encouraging
readers to critically examine historical accounts and consider alternative interpretations. It
stimulates intellectual discourse and debate, enriching our understanding of the complexities
surrounding the conflict. The book encourages the reader to form a perspective and also to
challenge a perspective.