March 26, 2023
By Xari Jalil
LAHORE
Veteran journalist and human rights activist Husain Naqi will never forget that day in 1971 when he was sitting among other journalist friends and one of them mentioned that the breakup of east and west Pakistan into two separate countries had become a reality. On March 25, that year, the military run ‘Operation Searchlight’ had already begun and the region which is now Bangladesh had become a conflict zone. But voicing this sent one of the friends into a rage.
“Ahmad Bashir, the editor of daily Masawaat, did not receive this comment well,” says Naqi. “He was so angry, that the argument concluded after a paper weight was hurled in his general direction.” Shaukat Tanveer, the one who had sinfully indulged in the opinion remained unhurt, but like many other Pakistanis, Ahmad Bashir’s sentiments were not.
Perhaps Mr Bashir did not yet recognize the grimness of the situation. There definitely had been news of a brigadier having been taken in as a prisoner of war (POW) on the East Pakistan side, and the military was in bad form there. However the reality had still not filtered down for many people living in West Pakistan. One of the main reasons was that media propaganda was so pervasive that West Pakistanis had little idea what was actually happening on the other side.
‘In general, people on this side were being told by the media – that means newspapers and the only TV channel that was run by the State – that everything was alright. They were selling the government narrative,” says Naqi. “If ever, you discussed the possibility of that the country may break down, you would incite a reaction with many people – they would either label you an ‘Indian agent’, or in extreme cases be ready to even fight with you.”
Naqi says that there was ‘complete censorship’ in those days, and it had begun to affect how people were thinking. He remembers for instance how he got into an argument with his brother in law just for saying that the future of a united Pakistan was unforeseen.
“He was very angry at me for saying it how it was,” says Naqi. “Sadly I was not wrong. The country did crack, and when it did, and he heard the news my brother-in-law actually broke down and cried.”
MASS GENOCIDE
The conflict began right after the Awami League had won the 1970 parliamentary elections and were now waiting for the transfer of power – which was being delayed by General Yahya Khan and the Pakistan People’s Party. And as General Yahya postponed the convening of the National Assembly, ethnic massacres began in East Pakistan. Biharis – being non-Bengali speakers – were supporting West Pakistan, and became targets of Bengali right wing nationalists. In her book, Gender and War Crimes in South Asia, Bina D’Costa recalls over 300 Biharis were killed by early March 1971, in rioting by Bengali mobs in Chittagong.
A series of such incidents was used as a pretext by the Government of Pakistan to justify a military intervention in East Pakistan on March 25.
Overnight a genocide began.
But as the people were killed, the truth it seemed was buried with them.
“During Yahya Khan’s martial law, before the creation of Bangladesh, we witnessed a moment of openness during the 1970 election campaign when the state-owned electronic media gave full coverage to opposition rallies and invited leaders of various political parties to speak without any let or hindrance. However, soon after the election results, which were totally contrary to the expectations of the ruling junta, censorship was reimposed before the start of the military crackdown in then East Pakistan that culminated in the break-up of Pakistan and the birth of a new country, Bangladesh.”
Veteran journalist and author of several books, Zamir Niazi describes the situation of a censorship in those days in just a few lines in his article ‘And Now For the Good News…’
If courage could be seen much of it could be seen within the journalist community, which took great risks during the non-cooperation movement as they gave prominent coverage in dailies including Ittefaq, Purbodesh, Sangbad, Azad, Morning News and Pakistan Observer. Often journalists also became targets themselves.
The East Pakistan Journalists Union (EPUJ) reportedly held a meeting on March 23, 1971 and gave open support to the emergence of a new country – Bangladesh – by confronting the military threat and promising not to give press coverage to the activities of the military junta.
As the operation began, many were not spared.
“During the riots in East Pakistan many journalists were killed, including East Pakistan Union of Journalists’ (EPUJ) leader Shahidullah Kaiser, killed in cold blood,” says Naqi. “There was another journalist in Azad, who actually lost his mind. Many others were arrested and tortured. The Pakistan Observer office was fired upon by a tank, and ended up being razed to the ground. Television was limited to PTV with its state narrative. For the West Pakistanis there was an information blackout.”
On the eastern side, newspaper ‘The People’ issued from Dhaka and very vocal against the military rulers, used to carry banner headlines on a daily basis criticizing them. The office of the newspaper was burnt through indiscriminate mortar shells, as the night of the Operation unfolded.
The very next day, Daily Ittefaq was attacked in the same way. Dr. Helal Uddin Ahmed a former Editor of Bangladesh Quarterly describes the newspaper’s importance to the identity of the Bengalis, saying it was ‘traditionally linked to the democratic struggles of the Bengalis since its very birth’ while adding that the daily Sangbad,the torch-bearer of the country’s culture, literature, progressive politics and, above all, mass movements—was also burnt to ashes, a couple of days after Operation Searchlight began. Renowned journalist and progressive litterateur, Shahid Saber, was also killed during the incident, records Dr Helal Uddin Ahmed.
NEWS LEAKS THROUGH
Throughout 1971, journalists and newspapers were under strict observation and no journalist or publication was permitted to write about any situation or incidents that were happening in East Pakistan.
Objective or unbiased reporting was threatened and there was no freedom of press and the concept of the people’s right to know seemed to have been forgotten. Worse, the international media was forced out of west Pakistan. But radio waves still came through and Naqi says one could still hear what the radio channels especially the BBC service in English and even Hindi were airing.
Even after the Fall of Dhaka the media continued to try and push the nation’s morale; this was when the Draconian Press and Publications Ordinance (PPO) was revived and used against the press by the new government. Weekly Outlook and Punjab Punch were two of its victims, despite the fact that these were papers that had supported the PPP in the elections. The Press and Publications Ordinance (PPO) had been formed in 1961 and enforced to keep the newspapers under state control. While the black law had been fiercely boycotted by media organizations and journalists, it was still revived.
Academic, author, and former chairperson of the Mass Communication department of Karachi University, Professor Shahida Kazi (late) was a young journalist – one of the few female journalists at the time – and had been working at the Asian TV Service at that time – a part of the Pakistan Television. As a news producer her job entailed sorting out the news films that came her way and to write scripts and commentaries for them.
“I was in a state owned TV channel and I had no choice but to follow directives, not to write or show anything that went against the state narrative,” she said while speaking to Voicepk.
“There were many of us, who had seen what was happening and we were badly affected, but we had to carry on quietly in order to survive. Otherwise we all knew what could happen to journalists who spoke up.”
Despite the fact that there was a majority of Bengalis from East Pakistan who worked in her department, there was silence, because there was a fear of being targeted.
“We were silenced and traumatized because we could only absorb reality but not talk about it,” said Prof Kazi. “We had to keep our heads down and go about our business. Both 1971 and 1965 have been the worst times for press censorship.”
In the mainstream media, she said, everybody was being told a series of ‘grand lies’, on repeat, which said that ‘everything was hunky dory; nothing was amiss.’
“I remember in some of the footage that came from Dhaka, the military was forcing people at gunpoint to form lines outside a cinema. We did not see anything like that here and to see it happening in the other half of the country as if everything was business as usual, was unnerving. They wanted to show people were out to watch movies, when in reality the situation was dire with bodies being piled up on streets, especially after Operation Searchlight.”
In other footage, people could be seen walking with their bags and luggage to cross over to India.
“This was also misconstrued, because these people were actually coming back from India,” she said. But the sights that were being shown were so full of promise of a certain narrative that ordinary people with no other access to information could not digest anything other than that.
“They did not see the deepening of the cracks and once the country really did break, it was hugely traumatic for them,” she said.
Even for those who were well aware of the facts it was traumatic to experience the reality of it.
“Once I went to Dhaka I was shocked to see the level of devastation there,” recalls Husain Naqi. “There were bodies literally piled up on the streets. There had been countless reports of rapes and gang rapes, and there was so much happening that I cannot even recount right now. Entire families were just wiped out mercilessly, sometimes leaving only one or two survivors – sometimes none at all.”
THE DARK NIGHT
One cannot look at the breakup of Pakistan without looking at its starting point which was Operation Searchlight. For months on end, the violence and pain carried on until Bangladesh finally gained independence.
Dr Mokerrom Hossain, a Professor at the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, at the Virginia State University in his book ‘From Protest to Freedom: The Birth of Bangladesh’ describes the night of March 25:
“When the attack began, army tanks began went in different directions to demolish different targets. One contingent rolled through the main street from airport to the city and attacked a newspaper office in front of the Radio Pakistan Dhaka office, and the same contingent took over the control of the radio station. Another went towards Dhaka University and attacked students’ dorms. This attacked was actually video tapped by a professor of East Pakistan (later Bangladesh) University of Engineering and Technology University, and the tape was smuggled out of the country as a first hand report of the massacre to the outside world. The area where the attacked took place in the student dorms, there were also selective break-ins at the faculty residences and a couple of professors were killed on that fearful night.
Before the so-called control of Dhaka city it was a night of infamy … one could watch with horror the constant flash of tracer bullets across the dark sky and listened to the more ominous clatter of machine gun fire and the heavy clump of tank guns …That night, the holocaust began”.
“After this entire passage of time, the Pakistan Resolution of 1940 became brittle and meant nothing,” says Husain Naqi. “This was a resolution moved by Moulvi Abul Kasim Fazlul Haq himself – ‘Sher-e-Bengal’ as he was known. Yet there was nothing in it for East Pakistan. It is the same situation today.”
So is the muzzling of the press. Whatever is happening in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa and Balochistan, is similar.
“There are operations taking place but no details are let out,” concludes Naqi. “The people of Pakistan remain oblivious to what is happening in these regions. Today too censorship is very much there, and we seem to have learnt nothing from our past.”