The creation of Bangladesh is one of the most sensitive and tragic chapters in the history of Pakistan. While the trauma of partition may now be behind us, stories of 1971 still raise hackles among anyone who lived through that era.
While there are two, very forceful narratives on what exactly happened, history is unequivocal. Perhaps this is why journalists who lived through the painful partition of Pakistan are best placed to recall and ruminate on the mistakes that were made in that fateful year.
On March 23, 1971, the flag of Bangladesh was put up in East Pakistan. At the time, Ali Ahmed Khan was a journalist in Dhaka.
“I worked for a progressive Urdu weekly, Jareeda, which promoted the rights of East Pakistan and consistently campaigned for the restoration of democracy under military rule,” he says, with a sense of fondness.
But as the memories take a turn for the grim, his eyes cloud over.
“It was the night of March 25. From my own home, in a predominantly Urdu-speaking part of Dhaka, all we could hear was gunfire,” he says. From the direction of the slums where most working-class Bengalis lived, he saw flames leaping upwards.
“Smoke filled the air and the sky turned red, this is what I remember of Operation Searchlight,” he recalls.
“Ours was a divided family; some lived in East Pakistan and some in the west. In East Pakistan, my family home was in the town of Dinajpur. After the operation, the country erupted into a violent reaction as the liberation movement was launched and many Urdu-speaking families were attacked. I heard from people coming into Dhaka that the town had seen some terrible violence.”
