Untold Facts

Hasina on Mujib’s secession: A Response to Monjurul Hassan of Lisa

Limited response
On going through the item by Mr. Manjurul Hassan published in the LISA Journal of April- June issue, I felt that I should make a response on some points for correction and possibly further insight in to matter of Hasina-Mujib-secession episode.

Incorrect
First, one date need be corrected. The date mentioned there for army action incorrectly as 23 March which should be 25th March, 1971. This was nothing anything big.
The other point I like to have for my enlightenment and information is that the writer mentioned about a book by General Manekshaw wherein the figure 80,000 Hindu Mukti Bahini with dress uniform of Pakistan army need to have the name of the book, publisher, year, page number. etc., if not the exact verbatim of the General.

Important issues
There were in the item many facts seen, I felt, only from their apparent verbatim meaning, not measured on other possible issues and relevantly proper context.

Secession and Mujib
Well, there can be little doubt that Mujib proved himself ultimately to be the secessionist in the 1971 episode of Pakistan and Bangladesh. But there had been other facts and issues in the overall development and his shifting of positions.

The seed of secession
First, the six point ‘autonomy’ formula he advanced since mid 1960s had the seed of secession. But another hard fact was that he himself was not that an intellectual to develop that six point in the way done. He was in reality a rabble rouser, and more than that a power hungry person having no self appreciation of his own capability. One must remember that he had his Matriculation (School Class Ten) result with a very poor grade at the late age of about 22, whereas an average meritorious or IQ student normally would do that terminal examination at 15 or 16 years.

Disturbed youth of Mujib
Mujib had a disturbed youth constrained by issues from birth as an illegitimate child of a unwed Hindu young girl, then adopted by Sheikh Lutfor Rahman at his age three in 1923 in Calcutta after agreeing to marry that young woman as having had some favor as the man was a poor Muhrar or petty record keeper of the father of the that unwed mother, and a practicing lawyer in Calcutta (See, memoirs of a person still alive and asked us not to disclose his name for security reason, Jiban Smriti, Dhaka, 2006, p.642-43)

Charity boy and after
In early 1940s when the Pakistan movement had been gaining momentum, Suhrawardy was then an established Barrister and lawyer in Calcutta. Mujib managed to get into his lap as a charity boy for his foster father had no means to support Mujib in Calcutta, so got admitted at the Islamia College not by merit but by back door hand of Suhrawardy and Muslim League leaders. He did his IA and BA as well hardly through studies but by proxy, fraud and cheating in examinations. All these fraudulence also were prompted by the same League leaders for he proved by that time a courageous youth the League and Suhrawardy, in particular, needed most at that time of Hindu Muslim rivalry. When in 1947 Pakistan issue won and the nation and the new country established he stayed in Calcutta with Suhrawardy initially for the love of united Bengal idea that Suhrawardy pursued to the last but failed even having had blessings from the Quaid E Azam. Soon these leaders and young Mujib apparently abandoned the United Bengal idea and came to Pakistan. The division among the two factions of the League on the United Bengal idea remained in psyche of many. The pro-Indian left, in particular, continued to harp on the secular socialist united India of the Congress then led by Pandit Nehru.

Illiterate Graduate
In East Bengal/East Pakistan politics much less in all Pakistan politics Mujib would have any place had there been no Suhrawady’s prompting and at times Maolana Bhashani’s support for Mujib. Both these leaders had all doubts about Muijb’s capabilty to lead any country. Surawardy used to taunt him in presence of many as the ILLITERATE GRADUATE and Bhashsni as of UPPER CHAMBER KHALI or little grey matter in his head. Once Suhrawardy in mid fifties in presence of a close friend of mine had remarked about Muijib in verbatim like this: “If Mujib, better not God wills, becomes leader of the country (Pakistan), he will first destroy the country and then destroy himself, as well”.

Six Point: Whose brainchild
Maolana Bhashani had abandoned Mujib long back in 1955. Suhrawardy had him until his mysterious death in a Beirut hotel in which many suspected Mujib for poisoning Suhrawardy to death. Anyway Suhrawardy’s death in December 1963 opened opportunities for Mujib to go with rashness. The Six point, a brain child many top ups, some C.S.P.s in particular, claimed authors of the idea for ‘autonomy’.

Enmity of India and Mujib’s rise
As the idea had element of secession and a left group took Mujib the man who all the time used to be driven more by heart and little by head. The Indian intelligence had been involved and active enough to utilize the issue to teach good lesson to Pakistan by cutting it to ‘size’ by secession of East Pakistan from federal control. Suhrawardy was very much aware and careful about the evil design.

Bengali language
The Bengali language movement originated in early 1950s was appropriately picked up and used by these groups for the end. Suhrawardy was then very much present and alive and had no seriousness about the Bengali language issue except lip service. Suhrawardy did not take the Bengali language issue with any bit of seriousness; he would speak Bengali neither at family level nor in private uses. He would speak Urdu and English as also in his family.

After demise of Suhrawardy
Mujib came to be prominent after Suhrawardy’s passing away and launching of the six point program. Ayub Khan fell on Muijib, put him in confinement that increased his popularity and street movement for democracy just in the vacuum created in the aftermath of the 1965 September war against India. The fall of Ayub Khan and rise of Yahya Khan in late March 1969 gave new scope to Mujib to fix up issues with Yahya for his power game. .

Fishy
Mujib had rapport with General Yahya even before Yahya took over from Ayub (See, S.M Chowdhury, The Ultimate Crime, Lahore, p.98-99). Mujib had good relation with him until the last in March 1971. May be even after that as Maj. Gen. (R) Kamal Matin Uddin recorded (Tragedy of Errors, Islamabad, p.235) with awe that the death punishment verdict passed on Mujib for sedition in early August by the special military court in 1971 had not been authenticated in over four months time Yahya had been the President of Pakistan.

Opportunist
On the secession itself Mujib denied the issue in terms of the Agartala Conspiracy Case as Islamabad Conspiracy before1971. In mid 1972 he is on record stating in a public meeting held at the then Ramna Race Course ( now Surawardy Uddyan) on the 7th June that he had planned the secession and ensured Indian help for secessionist and independence war quite earlier (See, the Daily Sangbad, Dhaka, 8th June 1972). The next day, however, a statement by his political secretary Tofael Ahmad made correction to the Mujib’s verbatim saying that he had said nothing of the conspiracy with India (daily Sangbad, 9 June 1972) for the independence of Bangladesh. Possibly the after thought was that since Pakistan had not yet recognized Bangladesh as an independent country, the matter had been denied by his political secretary for political and international diplomatic expediency. Mujib himself said nothing afterwards on the issue. Mujib was out and out an opportunist for power grabbing employing all means foul conceivable that his contemporary politician and much more intelligent than Mujib Oli Ahad clearly recorded in his memoirs (JATIYA RAJNITI 1945 – 1975, Dhaka, 1975) as he had absolute love for power and was not a PATRIOT at all.

Mujib- Yahya relation
If we look back a bit carefully to the last days of parleys Mujib had with Yahya in Dhaka in March 1971, there seemed to no outsiders that there had been any rupture of relations between them. Some from among the 1971 Governor Malek cabinet told me later on that Mujib had hinted at Yahya to contain the rebels in the political anarchy that prevailed then and when things would cool down they would share power of the country, he as the PM and Yahya as the continuing President. Things however went out of hand and passed on to India’s favor for the aggression in December.

India’s aggression
That India made the aggression and the 1971 happenings were not independence war but civil war was proved in the verbatim of Mujib’s discussion details held as late as on the 30th October 1974 in Dhaka with the US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (See, US State Department declassified Document opened to the press on the 14th February 2009 and published in Dhaka weekly Holiday on the 6th March 2009).

Contrary evidence
The other two documents I know of was the fortnightly Impact International of the 25 September 1987, London, wherein Mujib’s main lawyer AK Brohi clearly stated being somewhat like his last dying declaration that Mujib was not a secessionist as far as he could understand him through close association in the treason case of 1971. He went further to sate that on being informed about the December India Pakistan war Mujib offered to Yahya to speak in the media openly where he wished to condemn India for attack on East Pakistan and to appeal to all East Pakistanis to resist Indian aggression. The other document is by Stanley Wolpert, Zulfi Bhutto of Pakistan, wherein Mujib himself offered for confederation with West Pakistan (P.175). That he faced a hostile situation in post war Bangladesh might have made the difference afterwards. Even so, in February 1974 he defied Delhi’s counter pressure and joined the Lahore OIC summit.

Mirzafar’s end
I noted these points and advanced some arguments not to defend him in any way for what he did against the people and not to say that he was not the traitor. He proved himself in the end as the traitor not only to Pakistan alone our forefathers had created making huge sacrifices but he as well proved himself to be the traitor Mirzafar for Bangladesh, as well. He thrived in ignorance, misinformation, disinformation and half truths thus befooling millions for a short period to rise to the height of power. And that is why the ‘freedom fighters’ like Col. Farook, Col. Rashid, etc did rightly execute the traitor on the 15th August 1975 in mass jubilation of the overwhelming majorities people here. What I do wish to maintain is that whatever Hasina stated about Mujib in relation to secession should have little credence, much less much credibility. It has by now been well established here in Bangladesh that Hasina is not only a woman of low IQ and merit but also a habitual liar for accruing self interest. Morality, truthfulness and humane virtues like them are not there in her psyche so far reining the country and for securing continuity of the dynasty are concerned in very much tunnel vision. She also inherited, may be for genetic reasons, in lying, half truths, misinformation and disinformation not certainly to endure very long.

Mirzafars
Let me state at the end that many people are well aware of the Mir Zafar betrayer of the late 20th century Bengal (East Pakistan) and have by now written voluminous books and published them about the betrayer, one’s title being DUI PALLASSEY DUI MIRZAFR ( Two Pallasseys and Two Mizafars). These are in circulation here and elsewhere. Hasina’s political and murderous caricatures are also being documented by honest people in the country. Patriots will certainly soon take this Mirzafar as well on to task for all the continual vices she has been into against the people, the country and the Muslim Ummah.

Author: M.T. Hussain