1971 Bangladesh Genocide §

• Bangladesh

• East Pakistan was considered culturally, economically, and political inferior to West Pakistan

• Lead up to genocide

  • Declared Urdu as national language (only 4% speaker)
  • 1959 protest
  • 1965 Indo-Pakistani War
    • West Pakistan Left East Pakistan to India to gain hegemony in its country
  • 1970 Election, Bangladeshi won, Pakistan won’t recognize, establish martial law

• Ideas of Religous discrimination: different interpretations of Islam

• Ideas of Racism: feelings of superiority and inferiority of others

Damage §

• Operation Searchlight
  • Use of violence in urban areas
  • Killed Hindu students at Dhaka University
• Search and Destroy
  • Slaughtered villages from May
• Victims: Hindus, Bengali Muslim, Students, Teachers, Artists
• Casualties: different guesses, unclear
  • Independent researchers: 300k to 3M people dead
  • British Medical Journal: 500k civilians
  • R.J Rummel: 1.5M
  • CIA: 200k people
  • Pakistani government: 26,000 civilians
• Crimes
  • Torture and deprivation of life
  • Organized rape (Genocidal Rape): 400k rape victims
    • To break communities
    • Create long term trauma
  • Systematic termination based on racial differences

Operation Searchlight §

• Operation by West Pakistan to take cities in East Pakistan

• The operation was a genocide basically

• needless killings

  • Killing of Intellectuals
  • Killing and violence against Women

• Comparable to Nazi-Germany’s jew genocide

• Why did the genocide happen?

  • To supress the Bengali (East Pakistan) independence
    • Since the Election seats was East(162) > West(138)
    • How did the East win?
      • East has more population but with less power and influence: underfunded, uncared for.
      • Led to riots and strikes (7th March)
  • Post-colonial legacy
    • Artificial boundaries between the two countries is why the genocide happened
    • Two country theory?

---

• Parties Involved
  • East Pakistan (Bangladesh): rioter and strikers, victims of operation searchlight
  • West Pakistan (Pakistan): oppressor
  • The US and China
    • Tension of the Cold War
    • Provide weapons for West Pakistan
  • Soviet Union and India

International Reactions to Bangladeshi Genocide §

• Only India intervened

  • Many fled to India

• Led to Pakistan (with US help) attack on 11 Indian air base

  • India seek Bangladesh help to attack Pakistan ports

• Full on war

• Bangladesh Genocide is known as the forgotten genocide due to

  • Happening during Cold War