Bangladesh Genocide: A Reporter's Guide

On December 16, 1971, Bangladesh won its independence after a brutal genocide and liberation war against the West Pakistan army. Bengalis across India and Bangladesh widely consider the genocide as an existential attack on the Bengali people across faiths. 

For eight months in 1971, Bangladeshis experienced brutal violence at the hands of the West Pakistan government, which sought to erase what was then East Pakistan’s Bengali identity. Over the course of the Liberation War, West Pakistan’s army and allies murdered about 3 million Bengalis of all faiths. Operation Searchlight identified Bengali Hindus, nationalist Muslims, and public intellectuals as the leaders of the Bengali Language Movement, which the Pakistan government wanted to eliminate. Through forced removal and sexual violence, the West Pakistan Army also sought to erase the Bengali traits of non-nationalist Bangladeshi Muslims. Along with the millions who died, about 10 million more East Bengalis fled to India, creating an unprecedented emergency for the region. The genocide was the most brutal manifestation of fundamental racism against Bengalis. Since Pakistan’s creation, Bengalis were never treated as equals, and even Pakistan’s founding father, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, pushed for the erasure of the Bengali language from East Pakistan. In fact, no retelling of the Liberation War would be complete without also discussing the Bengali Language Movement and the Six Point Movement - two movements of resistance against Islamabad’s anti-Bengali racism. 

Hindus for Human Rights has only one position on this genocide - we owe it to all of the people of Bengal to tell the complete truth of what happened in 1971. The Armed Forces of Pakistan, under the direction of General Yahya Khan, launched a genocidal campaign on March 25, 1971 with the express purpose of crushing the Bengali nationalist movement. Operation Searchlight, as it was called, emerged as a response to the fact that the Awami League won a majority of the votes in Pakistan’s first ever elections. When the election’s outcome became apparent, General Khan refused to relinquish political power, not just to the Awami League, but even to the civilian political parties of West Pakistan.

We will always stand against attempts to deny this genocide by those who do not want to acknowledge the dark truth of what the West Pakistan army did with the support of the United States. Nor will we accept the Hindu nationalist attempts to rewrite the history of the Bangladesh Liberation War as an attack on Hindus and not an attack on the Bengali people. This is a project to divide Bengalis and is done without the consent of Bengalis of any faith.

Hindus for Human Rights has a duty of care to the people of Bengal, on both sides of the border, whose families were directly affected by the horrors of 1971. We stand resolutely against any attempt to deny the genocide of Bengalis or any attempt to obfuscate or weaponize these stories for ideological gain. 

Read our statement from the 51st Anniversary of Bangladesh’s Victory Day. 

A clarification on the framing of the Bangladesh genocide

Many organizations (largely non-Bengali) will often frame the Bangladesh genocide as a Hindu genocide or Bengali Hindu genocide. At Hindus for Human Rights, we affirm the Bengali consensus that the Bangladesh genocide was an attack on all Bengalis, rather than an attack on Bengali Hindus only. The framing that focuses narrowly on Bengali Hindus implies that Bengali Muslims, rather than non-Bengali Pakistanis, perpetrated the genocide. This framing is also designed to encourage Islamophobia and communalism among Bengali Hindus in India, who widely reject Hindu nationalism. Understanding the Bangladesh genocide and Liberation War correctly is essential to understanding modern Bengali identity.

However, we must also acknowledge that Hindus were targeted as one of five groups that were seen as crucial to the Bengali nationalist movement - students, public intellectuals, members of the Awami League, and Bengali Hindus.  These groups were seen as irredeemably Bengali and therefore targeted for their identities. Hindus had their homes and businesses marked, and American Consul General Archer Blood warned that Hindus faced particular violence from Pakistani forces. The Bangladesh genocide began with targeted massacres of students, the most famous one being the massacre of hundreds of students and 10 staff at Dhaka University. The West Pakistan military conducted massacres at universities across East Pakistan. The genocide ended with the Rayer Bazar massacre, where investigators found a list of more than 200 intellectuals who were killed. In the eight months of the genocide, more than 80% of Dhaka’s intellectuals disappeared. People with loose associations with the Awami League were rounded up and killed. In confessions to the Hamoodur Rahman Commission, officers admitted their contempt for all Bengalis and joked that Bengali soldiers and politicians who were killed without a trial were “being sent to Bangladesh.”

Most importantly, Bengalis - Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, and Adivasi - do not consider the Bangladesh genocide an attack on one religious community, but rather an attack on all Bengali people. The 1971 genocide was the final showdown between East and West Pakistan after East Pakistan, over its 24 year history, repeatedly demanded the preservation of Bengali culture and autonomy. When lawmakers in the US introduced a resolution to recognize a genocide of “ethnic Bengalis and Hindus,” Bangladeshis criticized the resolution’s divisive language. For Bengalis in both Bangladesh and India, there has never been any separation - Bengalis faced an existential attack. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and later, the Mukti Bahini (“freedom fighters”), called on Bengalis to set aside differences of faith, caste, or other identities to take up arms for the liberation of Bangladesh. The narrative that the Bangladesh genocide was a Hindu genocide is one that is spread by non-Bengalis without the permission of Bengalis.

Bangladesh nationalist poster depicting atrocities at the hands of the Pakistani army in 1971

Additional resources:

• Findings from the Hamoodur Rahman Commission, which details atrocities committed by the West Pakistan Army. 

• The Bangladesh Genocide Archives, which provides first hand accounts, a timeline of events, and other primary resources

• Banglapedia, the National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh

• Banglapedia’s entry on the Bengali Language Movement, which is an important precursor to the Bengali Nationalist Movement

• Bangladpedia’s entry on the Six Point Movement, which demanded equality and autonomy for East Pakistan

• Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s speech demanding the liberation of Bangladesh on March 7, 1971

• Senator Ted Kennedy’s report to the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Refugees entitled “Crisis in South Asia”

• April 6 telegram from Archer Blood, American Consul General in Dhaka, regarding the US’s support for Pakistan as it committed mass atrocities in East Pakistan 

• April 10 dissent cable from Blood - which later became known as the Blood Telegram

• A library of communications from US posts in South Asia to Washington DC 1969-1971 

• Daily Star Op-Ed denouncing 2022 Khanna-Chabot resolution’s language separating Bengalis and Hindus as divisive

• New York Times profile on Bangladesh Liberation War veterans living in New York City