1971 War

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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I have noticed certain section of the society love to use 1971 war as a tool to rub salt in people’s wounds or mock and abuse the army. I’m not going to name and shame regions and races. But they would use repeat of 1971 as a threat if their corruption is curbed. What a shameless and selfish behaviour. This is how other respectable nations talk about their tragedies? Then they say don’t call us ghaddars and bloody civilians. How can you even use rhetoric of 1971 as a threat?

So much for your heartburn over Pakistan military’s surrender, neither your country was mighty superpower Germany that lost both Great Wars and Alsace Lorraine, nor Imperial Britain that lost Ireland and all of its Empire after WWII. Your enemy India boasts about trapping and defeating your stranded Army, yet you mock and abuse them for losing? Who do you think your country was in the day? Mighty Germany, Britain, France, Russian, America? All those powerful and technically advance millilitres that had suffered unexpected and embarrassing military defeats. You use such a dark period of history to rub salt in your own countrymen’s wounds? Shame on you.

Your crocodile tears for 1971 starts flowing whenever Army is mention, but you never talk about deep rooted and longer lasting issues of weak electoral system so prone to widespread fraud, economic inequalities, feudal system, institutional discrimination, inept judiciary is at play?

If you are so traumatised by Pakistan’s defeat, then what do you have to say about defeats tasted by superpowers like Britain, France, Germany, USA, Russia, Italy, Japan, Turkey etc? Why aren’t these countries forever self pitying and hating? Maybe these nations have far more self respect, sense of identity and unity than you, they don’t use national tragedies to divide the nation and wage war against their institutions, and score any petty points.

Enough of your stab in the back emotional blackmailing. Pakistan history is not any darker than Germany or whichever wonderfully improved and moved on Western host country you are residing, so stop abusing Pakistani people’s self esteem, esteemed institutions, their dignity, their sense of nationhood and patriotism.

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Re: 1971 War

It was only 50 odd years that Blacks and White weren't allowed to drink water from the same tap in USA, and do not not get me started on all the separatists movement that exist in present, but how many countries fall apart just like that? Don't even get me started what could happen in Spain if by any chance any European power decides to fan the independent Catalan movement. Only few weeks ago, in all developed, all equal, all civilised, rich and organised and centuries old British Union, Scotland wanted separation!

So really stop quoting Bangladesh tragedy from a high and mighty moral position to rub salt in people's wounds, hurt their sentiments and mock institution.

Don't use that tragedy as a tool for your dirty politics!

God knows that 1971 won't be repeated, so don't try your luck!

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Re: 1971 War

Lets get some popular myths out of the way as well:

''90,000 soliders surrendered, shame on them''

Out of 90,000 only 33,000 maximum were actual soliders. The rest were not army men. 33000 soliders fighting hundreds of thousands of Indians while at the same being attacked by hundreds of thousands of Bengalis, I am surprised it took them this long to hang in there, with virtually no airforce and no back-up.

''We killed millions of Bengalis''

The insurgency, including the war was for about 8 months. To be able to kill 4 million Bengalis we would have to kill 500,000 each month, that number alone is absurd. The amount of soldiers involved could not have done that, its a myth nothing more.

''we were thrashed and lost the war''

I'd like to see ANY country face an enemy atleast outnumbered 15:1 in armed men, virtually no airforce or backup and an armed insurgency and rebellion to boot and tell me if a victory was possible. On the contrary in the Western theatre with backup we did well and held on, even making minor gains in the Kashmir sector or at the very least holding on as well as we could.

Yes it was a national disaster but don't blame the army for everything. I am sure we have seen the video where Bhutto is being racist and we all know how much love he had for the Bengalis. How he could not stomach Mujeeb being PM. Lets not revise history.

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Re: 1971 War

3 million is the number that bangladeshis claim were killed, the 71 war I believe continued for 9-10 months. In Syria during the past four years considering the brutalities commited by both sides around 2-2.5 lac people have been killed. The weaponry we have now is much more advanced as compared to 71...

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Re: 1971 War

Take Syria as the bench mark, and then take 3 million figure with a pinch of salt. The issue is that no one from Pakistan side has tried to dispel this figure. The people killed would be in the thousands, maybe around 30 k which is still a big number. It's about time we corrected the distorted history that we are subjected to.

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Re: 1971 War

I think you are comparing desert with thickly populated coastal areas of East Pakistan. The figure might not be 3 million, but one can not deny that there was not any genocide of Bengalis during that era. JI’s Badr o Shams did marvels and are exactly comparable to what Hajjaj did to residents of Makkah and Medina.

@Shak Was Bhutto the only racist who led to this disaster? Was he the person behind slogan ‘bhooke nange Bengali’. We as a nation were racist towards Bengalis. We termed them Ghaddar, because they asked for their rights and show love for their culture, music and language. In a country where unity is imposed forcibly, this was the biggest crime by those ‘bookhe nange Bengalis’.

We haven’t learned our lesson and still are damn convinced to term every person traitor who doesn’t agree to our point of view. Its not that falan in the world also faced such consequences, its about our own integrity how we treated / are treating others without learning any lessons from the history.

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Re: 1971 War

welcome. Syrian disaster is unprecedented, more than half the population either killed or displaced. I do not disagree that a genocide was carried out, I have an issue with the numbers though. No one challenges them from Pakistani side. Pakistan side would have killed more than 10000 people daily to reach the figure of 3 million in 8 and a half months. Skewed figure quoted by bangladeshis spoil their own case.

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Re: 1971 War

Bhutto as a leader of the entire country did not help matters but I did not put the blame solely on him. However when PPP supporters put the entire blame on army for 71 they should not forget Bhutto’s role in it either.

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Re: 1971 War

East Pakistan War

Nothing but lust of power, fueled by hatred and not to mention wrong policies of Ayoub Khan Regime.

Coming down to war itself, we fought, and we fought well again, but this time we had Yehya Khan in the center and Gen Niazi in East Pakistan, both of them lack leadership and skills required to win a war. Despite some individual bravery stories, we could not keep the eastern wing intact...

16 December is indeed our Black Day, we lost, whatever the reason may be we lost, but good thing comes out of it, we learned from the lost and we didn't let it happen again... TTP Insurgency, MQM, Baloch Insurgency we tackled all of them and are victorious in one of the most difficult war ever.

Since we have won against a combine group of enemies sponsored by none other but India... there is propaganda against the army... i understand they cursing army, they should, this is what a loosing party do whenever they loose...

Many have forgotten the most important war in Pakistan's history, the war of Kashmir in 1948, we took part of Kashmir from a enemy who was 10 time bigger and better equipped. Does anyone remember that??? does anyone recall that how Muzafarabad, Gilgit, Baltistan, became part of Pakistan???

Our Army have its share of shortcoming and that is because they are also made of flesh and are humans.. but creating hype on their short-comings and using it to undermine the sacrifices and achievements is just plain BS.

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Re: 1971 War

It is the sheer hypocrisy of people who pretend to 'mourn' the 1971 the loudest are the first one to pull the threat of re-creating the same situation. In past few months, MQM ( a famous 'mourner' of 1971 war) threatened to pull 1971. PPP (another apparent mourner of 1971) again and again threatened to repeat 1971. These parties' supporters are no different, we already have a member who would rather see 1971 scenario engulfing Sindh than Zardari get arrested for corruption. How do you defend such stab in the back attitude?

Of course these people are ghaddars. While armies lose war all the time, how many people in the civilised countries just casually start threatening to repeat a deadly war or abusing their army because they lost a war? Of course these people are ghaddars. They mock national tragedy, use it as a tool to disgrace their own army and hurt people's sentiments. You think using 1971 as emotional blackmail is a joke?

What have those self proclaimed mourners and critics of 1971 war have done to ensure same injustices are not repeated? Did those people did anything to improve Pakistan's electoral system? Did they struggle to end economic inequalities? Did they do any movement to end feudalism? Did they do any struggle to develop their provinces, eliminate poverty and sense of deprivation? The whole shedding of crocodile tears now need to move beyond using that tragedy it as a tool to abuse Army and Punjabis.

Let's stop insulting and trivialising Bangladesh movement by saying the same old thing that those people revolted and chose bloodshed because their language, music, dance wasn't recognised. A wilful and base lying and twist by cultural romantics. The issue of language was not part of Mujib's Six Point Agenda, if language was important, it would have been part of the movement.

So allow your mourning of 1971 go beyond hating Army, opposing Urdu language and Punjabis! You only belittle the tragedy when you use it opportunistically to turn people against esteemed institution and score political points. By doing so you just create more divides.

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Re: 1971 War

Exactly lesson has been learned, look how Army handled Balochistan issue, there had been violence but generally the situation had always been under control and now we actually have an active reconciliatory process and working provisional government. Are some people upset? Of course.

Look how Army handled FATA situation. Look at Karachi. How can you say we haven't learned from 1971? For how long can you use this rhetoric to spit venom against Army?

The thing is some people still see 1971 as only Pakistan Army's defeat. It's got nothing to do with them. To them Pak Army is an alien villainous entity, not part of Pakistan. They don't see as their country's defeat, if they did, they wouldn't so casually throwing 1971 tragedy to rub salt in people's wounds.

India deems your CEPC 'unacceptable'. Her PM openly boast about breaking your country and he celebrates your defeat in front of the whole world, their Army chief threatens to start a short war against you, their defence minister threatens to use proxies against you. India media is busy creating war hysteria. People's houses, animals and children are getting killed at LoC by Indian firing, RAW funded terrorists are being captured in Balochistan, Karachi, Lahore. The main political parties that controls your economic hub was receiving aid from RAW....and these people have problem calling India 'enemy'? They would much rather belittle and defame their own army?

Perhaps admit the bitter fact that if Army had taken wrong steps, but it also has the supreme and staggering ability to redeem itself. If Army can make such a comeback and win public's utmost respect, how desperate and venomous you have to be to actually turn people of Pakistan against their own Army? You have clearly missed the bus. If you had failed to achieve this feat in last 40 years, chances you won't ever achieve it.

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Re: 1971 War

This whole pathetic mentality and sheer imperial mentality of *'haan haan 71 jang haari tou haari kyoon...stupid useless Pakistan Army'. *WTF? As if world's all mighty imperial powers had never lost a war. This is clear mocking and spiteful point scoring.

Maybe Pakistan should have blitz Bangladesh from air to achieve 'victory' if Pakistan Army's surrender seems to unaccountable.

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Re: 1971 War

Joli, Shak, Ali.. good response.. Just an FYI such discussion when presented with facts can cause quite a bit of takleef to certain segment of Pakistanis for whatever reasons.. However there was an article published back in the 2000s by a BD writer, luckily I saved it but you may still find it floating on the net.. Below are some of the excerpts.

"Bangladesh Gets No Sympathy for 1971"

Bangladesh govt. crudely and arbitrarily made up the number of deaths during the 9-month period of 1971. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, when released from Pakistani prison in Januray 1972, stated the death toll to be 1 lakh in London airport, 1 million in New Delhi airport and 3 million when landed in Dhaka. (Some people suggest that Sheik Mujibur Rahman confused million as English for lakh. But that is a different story). Obviously the number was not based on facts. Later, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman formed a commission to make a survey of the killings and come up with the real number. The commission, after an exhaustive work, came up in 1973 with a death toll number, which was a 5-digit number. The results were published in newspapers briefly. The govt., in an apparent attempt to save it from a big embarrassment, hushed up the commission report and a high level decision was made to continue with the 3 million number publicly. (This is possible only for politicians of third world).

. A death toll of 3 million over a period of 8 and a half months (266 days) means over eleven thousand people were killed everyday on an average! There is hardly any mechanism that any army can employ to kill that many people in one day (may be except by nuclear bombs) for so many days in a row. It is not possible for any force to kill that many people individually or in groups when the whole population was against the army. (Carpet bombing in Vietnam did not kill nearly as many people as someone would expect). Also, 1971 was in very modern time, and communication was quite developed then.

And there is a lot more that you can find and read in this article.

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Re: 1971 War

We won in 65 because we were united. We lost in 71 because we were disintegrated as we denied giving power to the deserving people because in our eyes they were gaddar e watan .
We need to learn from it and give power to the deserving. Our most organized institution can do a great ehsaan on poor pakistani people by keeping them self into Wat they r supposed to do (which they r doing these days ) n if they r more generous then monitor free n fair elections. After that it is job of bloody civilians to run this country.

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Re: 1971 War

Let's blast the hypocrisy and sheer insincerity of so called 'intellectuals' that opportunistically love to use 1971 rhetoric for their own agendas.

If you care so much about 'learning lessons' from history then where is your concern for improving country electoral system? Where was your crocodile tears when once again massive outrage over electoral fraud pushed the country on the brink of unrest? Wasn't that repeat of history? Wasn't electoral injustice one of the decisive factors behind Mujib's revolt? These two penny 'intellectuals' were dead silent and in a complete mocking mode when country was aching to turn things right on electoral injustice something they should have done in 1971. Right? What activism, what support, what moral backing did you offer when Imran raised a point about abuse of system by rich and powerful oligarchy to block new parties from forming government? Exactly what Mujib was fighting for, wasn't it?

Enough of this dumbing down of history that Bengalis chose a war and bloodshed because they wanted bit of dance, music and literature in their language. Such simplification is an insult to their struggle.

I bet any money had Imran belonged to a different ethnicity and spoke a second language....all this anti state 'intellectuals' would have raised a storm saying 'hayeee return of 1971......look at "Punjabi establishment, Punjabi Army once again blocking a weak non Punjabi party from forming government, blocking his due right of demanding electoral justice and favouring Punjabi stakeholders (PMLN)'.

Since no one is quite sure about Imran's ethnicity and which way Army was swinging because two (non Punjabi) Punjabis were fighting at both ends and it was very much Punjab's battle, all those wishy washy ideas of learning of past mistakes didn't matter.

So this is how fickle, insincere and selective their whole ideology of learning from past is. Only use this rhetoric whenever they fancy a sad little vent against Army.

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Re: 1971 War

By the way, PPP loves and their school of intellectuals and their fellow sympathisers love to shed crocodile tears over 1971 tragedy and love the blame game, and they often appear quite concerned over not repeating it.

So my suggestion to them, if you care so much about learning from then past, then give Muhajirs their own province! Give Muhajirs the kind of autonomy Bengalis had demanded. Don't be hypocrites and don't hide behind any marsoo marsoo Sindh na desoon slogans. Show how you have learned from the past, and start from your own backyard.

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Re: 1971 War

I have two issues with the numbers quoted, firstly how many people were actually killed? the 3 million mark is simply not possible. I can go along with the theory that Mujib mistook lac for million, but whenever he might have discovered his mistake, he should have clarified. If it was not possible for him, then the subsequent regimes could have corrected the historical error. Not doing it just gives the impression that they lied and are still carrying on with it. How many people were killed by Mukti bahini and other Bangladeshi groups? We just assume that there was no reaction from the other side.

Anyhow it is an unfortunate part of our history, hence Pakistanis shy away from it (not carrying out any research as to what really happened) giving an open field to Bangladeshi nationalists.

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Re: 1971 War

Will the no. look fine if it is 3 lac ???

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Re: 1971 War

No it won't make any difference, but there's a hell of difference between 3 lac and 30 lac (About 10 %). I don't believe the number is 3 lac even. Persistence with wrong figures in my eyes spoil Bangladesh's case.

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Re: 1971 War

3, 30, 300 blah blah blah BD has no case if it did it would be no secret and we would see the actual BD crimes too.