Brilliant post and 100% true. Some of my family is from Bangladesh and from what I have been told the main issues were that they were treated v.v.badly (in economic terms, cultural terms etc. - the Bengali language was not to be allowed as an official language despite the majority of the people speaking it, only Urdu) and discriminated against. Also, after the Bhola Cyclone (the deadliest cyclone ever recorded) the Gov was accused as being ‘indifferent’ to the people’s suffering. Right at the beginning of the war I was told by some relatives that the West Pakistan army went straight to Dhaka University and started slaughtering university professors and went looking for other intellectuals to basically try and ‘eradicate’ the cultural elite. It’s pretty shocking stuff, 'At a meeting of the military top brass, Yahya Khan declared: ‘Kill 3 million of them and the rest will eat out of our hands.’ Now can u seriously blame these poor people for wanting independence?? ‘A large section of the intellectual community of Bangladesh were murdered, mostly by the Al-Shams and Al-Badr forces, at the instruction of the Pakistani Army.’ ‘Just 2 days before the surrender, on 14 December 1971, Pakistan Army and Razakar militia (local collaborators) picked up at least 100 to 300 physicians, professors, writers and engineers in Dhaka, and executed them, leaving the dead bodies in a mass grave.’ ‘There are many mass graves in Bangladesh, and more are continually being discovered (such as one in an old well near a mosque in Dhaka, located in the non-Bengali region of the city, which was discovered in August 1999)’ ‘Numerous women were tortured, raped and killed during the war; the exact numbers are not known and are a subject of debate. Bangladeshi sources cite a figure of 200,000 women raped, giving birth to thousands of war babies. The Pakistan Army also kept numerous Bengali women as sex-slaves inside the Dhaka Cantonment. Most of the girls were captured from Dhaka University and private homes.’ I was told that a lot of Bengalis (inc my Uncle’s wife who lived in Khulna) gladly gave up their homes for the Indian forces, they were that desperate for help. There were thousands of babies born to Bengali women who’d been raped by the West Pakistan army and a campaign was started to try and encourage Bengali men to marry them, this was the level of solidarity these people had, have to respect them for that. Have heard what went on in that War described as genocide, imo the way they were treated prior to that by West Pakistan is the genuine reason they demanded their own state. I’ve heard people on Islamic forums say ‘they’re traitors, why should Muslims demand to be seperated from other Muslims?’ but the truth is no-one should have to put up with being oppressed, whether it’s by Muslim or non-Muslim. V.detailed info on the War here: Bangladesh Liberation War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia