Pakistani Army commentary

[Ray]

This is from a column by Khaled Ahmed, a Pakistani political analyst.

Every year,December 16 is observed in Pakistan as a moment of morose stocktaking,in which India is held responsible for the break-up of Pakistan in 1971. However,over the years,the Pakistani media has taken to mixing the message. It now balances the short-term culpability of India with the long-term culpability of Pakistan.

But the media in Pakistan has mixed the message more than usual this time. The “secret” Hamoodur Rehman Commission report on the atrocities committed by the Pakistan army in East Pakistan in 1971 has been taken out of the state’s closet of collective conscience and quoted to great effect.
Unread books by honest military officers are now being quoted to the embarrassment of the Jamaat

The idea of imposing Urdu on East Pakistan was born in the mind of a non-Bengali education secretary of East Pakistan,F.A. Karim,who was able to convince a dimwit Bengali central education minister in Karachi,Fazlur Rehman,to adopt it. It also caught the imagination of the governor of East Pakistan,Malik Feroz Khan Noon,not the brightest son of Punjab. He started the scheme of writing Bengali in the Arabic script. By 1952,there were 21 centres doing this in East Pakistan,funded by the central education ministry. The East Pakistan chief minister didn’t even know that this was happening outside the primary school stream.

More significantly,the book called into question the “victories” against India in 1948 and 1965. The first war failed to achieve its objective because “we caved in without consolidating initial success”. The second war was first opposed by General Musa and General Ayub,but after they agreed to it,no authentic information was obtained about the “sympathetic” Kashmiri insurgency,and wrong assumptions were made about India’s capabilities of launching a major offensive across the international border.

Here is the climax of the book: “[Enter Commander,East Pakistan,General Niazi,wearing a pistol holster on his web belt. Niazi became abusive and started raving. Breaking into Urdu,he said: ‘Main iss haramzadi qaum ki nasal badal doon ga (I will change the race of this bastard nation).’”
Raja adds: “He threatened that he would let his soldiers loose on their womenfolk. There was pin-drop silence at these remarks. The next morning,we were given the sad news. A Bengali officer,Major Mushtaq,went into a bathroom at the command headquarters and shot himself in the head.”

The ex-foreign minister of Bangladesh,Kamal Hossain,in Bangladesh: Quest for freedom and Justice (2013),reports a conversation with Pakistan’s former foreign minister,Aziz Ahmed: “When pressed to suggest what should be done to those (Biharis) who were clearly eligible and entitled to go to Pakistan,but whom Pakistan was not willing to accept,Aziz Ahmed turned round and said,‘Why don’t you push them into India?’ When told that this was hardly feasible,he retorted,‘Then push them into the Bay of Bengal’.”

http://indianexpress.com/article/opi...tan-1971-2/99/