Talking to people on Bangladesh, 1971 gets very very circular after a bit. It boils down to this. There is no evidence of mass genoicide or mass rapings, though I have no doubt some war crimes were committed, since they happen in any war, especially if discipline breaks down in the ranks or you have some undisciplined soldiers. This is not at all uncommon. You will find every single war has had breaks of the Geneva Conventions. It's as much to do with training a soldier to kill and manipulate their minds if need be so that they're filled with hatred for their enemy that will cause some to act out like that.
Having said all that. One picture of a West Pakistani Army soldier checking some guys dik for circumcision is hardly evidence of mass selective targeting of Hindus, is it?
That soldier looks pretty Bengali to me, and it's you guys who say the West Pakistani are tall and fair, the Bengalis are short and dark, your words, not mine.
Yes, yes, you've also shown a picture of small slaughtered people. That would not be difficult to find even in todays South Asia, even in Kashmir.
Oh, and then there's pictures of dead bodies who people claim they're all Hindu, as if that's a creditable source. Dont suppose the person who sold the pictures thought he could get more money by trumpeting forth a Hindu genocide? How did he know they were Hindu?
Yes yes, then there's RJ Rummel's "calculation". Hardly based on fact, just newspaper reports, majority of then Indian and Bengali.
Then there's all the reporters like Aubrey Menon, the Indian-Irishman, or Simon Dring, the reporter who got a nice job owning his own Bangladeshi TV channel, financed by the Awami League; he's the one who reported all the mass killings of Bangladeshis.
These can hardly be called creditable witnesses. I know that war crimes happened, but noone presents any evidence for the scale of war crimes you claim occurred. It's all just empty words until you find some solid proof.
The most scientific of all proofs has come from a Bengali, herself. Professor Sarmila Bose, from George Washington State University, USA, has done research on the 1971 War. Her reputation is impeccable, and she's made a highly reputable and creditable name for herself in the USA. I would say that her research is worth a thousand of those by Rummel, or Dring or Menon or any Bangladeshi or Indian reporter, who obviously had a vested interest in making the events of 1971 look as gruesome as possible. Here is some snippets of her report. Incidentally, she has been to the sites in Bangladesh where such events are supposedly to have taken place, interviewed as many relevant people concerned as possible. A copy of her paper can be found here
http://www.drishtipat.org/1971/sarmila_paper.html
Quote:
4.. Contradictory evidence on targeting of Hindus
To the West Pakistani authorities as well as many Bengali Muslims,
Bengali Hindus were a suspect population on the basis of their religious
affinity to India. In a civil war in which the secessionists were allied
with India, the Hindus of East Pakistan were in a very vulnerable
position.[33]
However, the case studies reveal contradictory evidence on the
targeting of Hindus. The attack on old Dhaka during 'Operation
Searchlight' appears to have been on the basis of religion. While Hindu
professors were accused of fomenting trouble at Dhaka University, and
Professor Guhathakurta (a Hindu) was asked his religion before being shot,
the other faculty member killed with him was Professor Maniruzzaman (a
Muslim). In fact, as three relatives were killed with Professor
Maniruzzaman, four Muslims and one Hindu were killed at that particular
building that night.
The villagers of Khulna who were fleeing to India via Chuknagar in May
say they were doing so due to harassment - but by local Bengali Muslims,
not the West Pakistani military. Local Bengali Muslims also appear to have
gained the most materially by the distress sales of the Hindu refugees, as
also from the loot from the dead at Chuknagar.
One male Hindu refugee, Nitai Gayen, who survived the shooting at
Chuknagar, offered this as explanation of why he was targeted: "I don't
think they targeted us (male refugees) because we were Hindus. I think
they targeted us because they considered us the 'enemy'. We were going to
India. Some of us would return, and we would not return empty-handed."[34]
In the end, in spite of the vulnerability of the Hindu population, the
conflict involving West Pakistanis, Biharis, loyalist Bengalis and
pro-liberation Bengalis remained predominantly a war of Muslims against
other Muslims.
http://www.drishtipat.org/1971/sarmila_paper.html
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Quote:
8.. No rape of women by Pakistan army found in any of the cases of
conflict
In all of the incidents involving the Pakistan army in the
case-studies, the armed forces were found not to have raped women. While
this cannot be extrapolated beyond the specific incidents in this study,
it is significant, as in many cases the allegation of rape was made along
with allegations of killing in prior verbal discussions or in some cases
even in written form in the Bengali literature. However, when Bengali
eye-witnesses, participants and survivors of the incidents were
interviewed they testified to the violence and killings, but also
testified that no rape had taken place.
http://www.drishtipat.org/1971/sarmila_paper.html
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Does the message behind quote remind you of any Indians on here?
Quote:
There is also the cultivation of an unhealthy 'victim culture' by some
of the pro-liberationists - hence the people of Chuknagar complain at
being left out of the official history books and vie to establish their
village as the site of the "biggest mass killing" in the country, and
people are instigated at the national level to engage in a ghoulish
competition with six million Jews in order to gain international
attention. All of these tendencies hamper the systematic study of the
conflict of 1971 and hinder a true understanding of a cataclysmic
restructuring in modern South Asian history.
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Further research
Quote:
The military action under 'Operation Searchlight', undertaken on 25-26
March, the raid on Dhaka University by the newly arrived governor General Tikka Khan, was condemned by Lt. Gen. A. A. K. Niazi.
In another evidence of a difference of opinion within the army about the execution of this operation, Nazrul Islam, then a student at the Art College, has written about how a group of soldiers shot him and two others in their hostel next to the EPR camp on 26 March, only to be followed by a second group of
soldiers who expressed shock that they had been shot, gave them water and
encouraged the two of them still alive to seek help and live.[13]
"One thing is clear - the atrocities did not just go one
way, though Bengali Muslims and Hindus were certainly the main
victims."[32] Many of the Bengali Muslim and Hindu victims are also found
to have suffered at the hands of other Bengalis. (Sisson & Rose)
Based on in-depth case studies of several specific incidents of
violence in 1971, this paper presents a systematic analysis of the context
and nature of violence in that conflict. The analysis uses data collected
during 2003-2005 in Pakistan and Bangladesh from site visits, interviews
with survivors, eye-witnesses and participants, and related material such
as images and memoirs (many in the Bengali language). The case studies are
from different districts, different moments of the time-line of the
conflict, and involve different groups of perpetrators and victims. They
are drawn from my ongoing project '1971: Images, Memory, Reconciliation',
and provide the basis for an analytical approach that challenges both the
silence and the unsubstantiated rhetoric that have obscured the study of
the conflict of 1971 to date.
"It speaks volumes for the discipline of the West Pakistan army," wrote
Mascarenhas, "that its officers were able to keep the soldiers in check
during what was to them a nightmare of 25 days."
[9] Shil in Haider, ed. (1996).
http://www.drishtipat.org/1971/sarmila_paper.html
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