NEW DELHI: One of the most striking transformations in post-Hasina Bangladesh is the conspicuous resurgence of Islamist political forces, with Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh (JeIB) at the vanguard of this revival. Once relegated to the fringes under the Awami League's administration, the party has embarked on an ambitious campaign to cleanse itself of historical ignominy, presenting itself as a reformed, moderate, and reinvigorated Islamic political entity. However, despite its ostensible reinvention, its rhetoric and actions betray a calculated effort to whitewash its past, particularly its nefarious role during the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971.
Recent pronouncements by the party's leadership and its student wing have reignited old wounds, striking a particularly sensitive chord in the national consciousness. In a now-removed article published in 'Chhatra Sangbad', the official mouthpiece of the Islamic Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of Jamaat, the war of independence was reframed in an astonishingly revisionist light. The article lamented the "failure and lack of foresight" of certain Muslims who, it argued, participated in the war without fully appreciating its ramifications.
Jamaat's current Ameer, Shafiqur Rahman, has categorically denied the party's complicity in wartime atrocities, condescendingly agreeing to offer an apology only if such crimes were "proven beyond doubt" — a position that conveniently disregards the extensive documentation of its involvement. Adding insult to injury, Rahman has gone so far as to portray Ghulam Azam — the wartime Ameer of Jamaat-e-Islami, convicted and executed for his involvement in crimes against humanity — as a "victim of Awami League oppression".
Under Rahman's leadership, Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh has actively lobbied for the release of ATM Azharul Islam, the party's assistant Secretary General, who was convicted by the International Crimes Tribunal for his direct role in wartime atrocities. In yet another audacious historical distortion, the Jamaat Ameer has dismissed the entire narrative of Bangladesh's struggle for independence as a "distorted history", laying bare the party’s insidious efforts to rewrite the past. The historical revisionism does not end there. The current interim government, widely accused of an agenda to "erase history", has overseen contentious alterations to school textbooks, an exercise that many believe bears the unmistakable imprint of Jamaat's influence. Their objective is clear—to extricate themselves from the damning legacy of being Pakistan's collaborators, a role they played with zealous enthusiasm during the blood-soaked year of 1971.
As the nation solemnly marks the fifty-fourth anniversary of Operation Searchlight, a chapter of immense suffering and heroism, these recent developments underscore the critical importance of remembering history—not as an academic exercise, but as a moral imperative.
Operation Searchlight was the harrowing genesis of one of the most egregious genocides of the 20th century, orchestrated with chilling precision by the Pakistan Army against the Bengalis of East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. The scale of the savagery is almost beyond human comprehension — three million people systematically exterminated, 10 million driven into harrowing exile, and an entire generation subjected to unspeakable brutality. This was not merely a conflict; it was a calculated campaign of annihilation, predicated on a supremacist ideology that regarded the Bengali identity as an aberration that needed to be crushed.
To fully grasp the magnitude of this tragedy, one must trace the roots of this ethno-political fissure to the Partition of India in 1947, when Pakistan was created as a bifurcated nation, its two wings separated by over a thousand miles of Indian territory. While religion ostensibly served as the unifying force, the stark socio-cultural differences between East and West Pakistan were irreconcilable. The linguistic and cultural identity of the Bengalis was dismissed as "un-Islamic" by the ruling elite in West Pakistan, sowing the seeds of systemic marginalisation. The language movement of the 1950s, which saw the police mercilessly gunning down student protestors resisting the imposition of Urdu as the sole national language, was an early portent of the growing rift—a rift that culminated in the full-fledged nationalist movement of 1971.
The immediate catalyst for Pakistan's brutal crackdown was the seismic political shift heralded by the 1970 general elections. The Awami League, led by the indomitable Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, secured a resounding victory, winning the majority of seats in the National Assembly. This unprecedented electoral mandate, which should have heralded a peaceful transition of power, was instead met with visceral resistance from the West Pakistani establishment. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's Pakistan People’s Party, unwilling to countenance the prospect of an East Pakistani leader governing the nation, conspired with the military junta to subvert the democratic will of the people. As negotiations proved futile, and the Awami League’s demands for autonomy were rebuffed with intransigence, the Pakistan Army, under the directives of General Yahya Khan, launched Operation Searchlight on the night of March 25, 1971 — a night that would forever be etched in infamy.
What followed was a grotesque display of inhumanity. Dhaka, the epicentre of Bengali resistance, bore the brunt of the onslaught. Intellectuals, students, and political activists were summarily executed, their blood staining the streets of the capital. As the operation expanded beyond Dhaka, towns and villages across East Pakistan were razed, and their inhabitants massacred in cold blood. The Pakistan Army, with methodical precision, turned its guns on Bengali Hindus, unleashing a genocidal pogrom that precipitated one of the largest forced migrations in modern history. The infamous Blood Telegram sent by Archer Blood, the US Consul General in Dhaka, remains one of the most damning indictments of this atrocity, a searing testament to the scale of human suffering that unfolded under the watchful eyes of an apathetic world.
Beyond the sheer numbers of the dead, another sinister facet of Pakistan's war strategy emerged — the weaponisation of sexual violence. Bengali women, perceived as repositories of nationalist identity, were subjected to systemic rape, a grotesque tool of war deployed to obliterate the dignity of an entire people. An estimated 200, 000 to 400, 000 women endured this unimaginable horror, with many held in rape camps designed to "pollute" Bengali bloodlines by forcing pregnancies that would birth a generation with the "blood of the West". The world recoiled in horror when these accounts surfaced, but justice for these women remains elusive, their suffering relegated to footnotes in the annals of history.
International awareness of the genocide was first ignited by journalist Anthony Mascarenhas, whose revelatory report in The Sunday Times in June 1971 shattered the veil of silence. The United Nations, belatedly acknowledging the horror, passed Resolution 1430, recognising the acts committed in East Pakistan as genocide and calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities. Yet, inexplicably, the UN has yet to officially classify the 1971 genocide as such, citing "lack of substantial information" — a bureaucratic equivocation that dishonours the memory of those who perished.
In the post-Hasina era, Bangladesh appears to be navigating a perilous trajectory. The interim government's overtures to Pakistan, devoid of any insistence on an official apology for 1971, mark a stark departure from previous policy. Jamaat-e-Islami, emboldened by this shifting political landscape, has rekindled its alliance with Pakistan, seeking to rehabilitate its tarnished image and position itself as a legitimate political contender. Even more disquieting is the systematic erasure of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's legacy — the Father of the Nation, whose very name is now being expunged from public institutions. The renaming of university halls and academic edifices to commemorate notorious wartime collaborators has sparked outrage, a chilling portent of a revisionist agenda gaining ground.
As Bangladesh commemorates the 54th anniversary of Operation Searchlight, the nation stands at a crossroads. The immutable truth of history cannot be effaced by political machinations or revisionist propaganda. The sacrifices of those who perished in 1971 remain etched in the collective consciousness of the nation—a solemn reminder that a country built on the blood of its martyrs cannot afford the luxury of historical amnesia. In the words of George Santayana, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it". Bangladesh must heed this wisdom, lest it finds itself ensnared once more in the shadows of its darkest night.