Comment by Pluto210 on December 2, 2015 at 2:17pm

You sir are mashaAllah amazing, viewing your articles is like a breath of fresh air. I am just curious why don`t you write for tribune or Dawn?  

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 2, 2015 at 5:00pm

Thank you Muhammad Ibrahim Munir. I prefer my freedom to write with being constrained by any editors. 

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 2, 2015 at 9:35pm

Here are excerpts of an Aljazera English piece "Myth-busting the Bangladesh war of 1971" by Sarmila Bose:

"My aim was to record as much as possible of what seemed to be a much-commented-on but poorly documented conflict - and to humanise it, so that the war could be depicted in terms of the people who were caught up in it, and not just faceless statistics. I hoped that the detailed documentation of what happened at the human level on the ground would help to shed some light on the conflict as a whole.

The principal tool of my study was memories. I read all available memoirs and reminiscences, in both English and Bengali. But I also embarked on extensive fieldwork, finding and talking to people who were present at many particular incidents, whether as participants, victims or eye-witnesses. Crucially, I wanted to hear the stories from multiple sources, including people on different sides of the war, so as to get as balanced and well-rounded a reconstruction as possible.

As soon as I started to do systematic research on the 1971 war, I found that there was a problem with the story which I had grown up believing: from the evidence that emanated from the memories of all sides at the ground level, significant parts of the "dominant narrative" seem not to have been true. Many "facts" had been exaggerated, fabricated, distorted or concealed. Many people in responsible positions had repeated unsupported assertions without a thought; some people seemed to know that the nationalist mythologies were false and yet had done nothing to inform the public. I had thought I would be chronicling the details of the story of 1971 with which I had been brought up, but I found instead that there was a different story to be told.

Product of research

My book Dead Reckoning: Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War, the product of several years of fieldwork based research, has just been published (Hurst and Co. and Columbia University Press). It focuses on the bitter fratricidal war within the province of East Pakistan over a period of a little more than a year, rather than the open "hot" war between India and Pakistan towards the end. It brings together, for the first time, the memories of dozens of people from each side of the conflict who were present in East Pakistan during the war. It lets the available evidence tell the stories. It has been described as a work that "will set anew the terms of debate" about this war.

Even before anyone has had the chance to read it, Dead Reckoning has been attracting comment, some of it of a nature that according to an observer would make the very reception of my book a subject of "taboo studies". "Myth-busting" works that undermine nationalist mythology, especially those that have gone unchallenged for several decades, are clearly not to be undertaken by the faint-hearted. The book has received gratifying praise from scholars and journalists who read the advance copies, but the word "courageous" cropped up with ominous frequency in many of the reviews. Some scholars praised my work in private; others told me to prepare for the flak that was bound to follow. One "myth-busting" scholar was glad my book was out at last, as I would now sweep up at the unpopularity stakes and she would get some respite after enduring several years of abuse.

Scholars and investigative journalists have an important role in "busting" politically partisan narratives. And yet, far too often we all fall for the seductive appeal of a simplistic "good versus evil" story, or fail to challenge victors' histories."

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/05/20115983958114219....

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 3, 2015 at 1:03pm

FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES, 1969–1976
VOLUME XI, SOUTH ASIA CRISIS, 1971, DOCUMENT 20
20. Transcript of Telephone Conversation Between Secretary of State Rogers and the President's Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger)1
Washington, April 6, 1971, 9:35 a.m.

R: I wanted to talk about that goddam message from our people in Dacca.2 Did you see it?

K: No.

R: It's miserable. They bitched about our policy and have given it lots of distribution so it will probably leak. It's inexcusable.

K: And it will probably get to Ted Kennedy.

3

R: If you can keep it from him I will appreciate it. In the first place I think we have made a good choice.

K: The Chinese haven't said anything.

R: They talk about condemning atrocities. There are pictures of the East Pakistanis murdering people.

K: Yes. There was one of an East Pakistani holding a head. Do you remember when they said there were 1000 bodies and they had the graves and then we couldn't find 20?

R: To me it is outrageous they would send this.

K: Unless it hits the wires I will hold it. I will not forward it.

R: We should get our answers out at the same time the stories come out.

K: I will not pass it on.4


The excerpts above, that reference physical evidence and attempts to validate exaggerated claims by the East Pakistani terrorists & rebels, support the points made in my post. The declassified parts of the Hamood-ur-Rehman commission investigation and report and the newly formed Bangladesh government's own attempts to register and aid families who were victims of violence also validate the more recent investigations and research by individual's such as Bose, who failed to find credible evidence supporting the exaggerated claims of 'millions killed and hundreds of thousands raped'.

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 24, 2015 at 9:19pm

#Bangladesh BNP leader Khaleda Zia questions the 3 million war dead claimed by Hasina. #Pakistan #India http://m.thehindu.com/news/international/khaleda-raises-doubt-on-li... …

Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chief Khaleda Zia has picked up a new controversy doubting the number of casualties in the country’s Liberation War against Pakistan.

“There is a debate about how many hundreds of thousands were martyred in the Liberation War. Different books and documents give different accounts,” she said.

The officially recognised figure of deaths, confirmed by independent research, is three million. Last November, the Pakistani government had denied its Army’s war-time atrocities in Bangladesh while slamming Bangladesh’s war crimes trials. The BNP chief’s remarks came on Monday when she was addressing members of the Bangladesh Jatiyatabadi Muktijudda Dal, a front organisation of the party.

Ms. Zia also demanded a ‘transparent’ war crimes trial of ‘international standards’.

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 14, 2016 at 7:58pm

#Indian #Muslims in West Bengal poorer, less literate and less healthy than #Hindus http://m.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/muslims-in-west-be... …

 

 

Muslims, who form 27.01 per cent of West Bengal’s population, “constitute a very large proportion of the poor” in the State, Professor Amartya Sen said.

 

He was releasing a voluminous report on the condition of Muslims in West Bengal titled ‘Living Reality of Muslims in West Bengal.’

 

“The fact that Muslims in West Bengal are disproportionately poorer and more deprived in terms of living conditions is an empirical recognition that gives this report an inescapable immediacy and practical urgency,” Prof. Sen said, releasing the report with long chapters dedicated to education, health, economic conditions and gender of Muslims of Bengal who constitute a majority in 65 of 341 blocks in the State.

 

The survey — the most extensive one on Bengal’s Muslims — was carried out in 325 villages and 75 urban wards from a sample of 81 community development blocks and 30 municipal bodies. The 368-page report was produced by two Kolkata-based research organisations, Association SNAP and Guidance Guild, in association with Prof. Sen’s trust, Pratichi India.

 

Low literacy rate

Though the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) has claimed to have played a significant role in the uplift of Muslims in Bengal since 2011, the report points to little improvement in areas such as literacy, health or participation in work. For example, Muslims have a literacy rate seven per cent lower than the State’s average.

 

“Around five per cent of those who discontinued education admitted lack of motivation as the factor behind dropping out of school as they did not see any future benefits from education,” the synopsis said. However, the report has not named any political party or held any government institution responsible.

 

In the health sector, the condition of, Muslims is no better and the report observes on the basis of State government data and field-level survey that “when Muslim population percentage increases in the blocks, the hospital facilities dwindle down.”

 

As a result “almost double the number of hospital beds is available in blocks with less than 15 per cent population share of Muslims in comparison with blocks having 50 per cent or above of (Muslim population).” Such discrimination is underscored in nearly every page of the report.

 

While in the entire report it was never said the ruling party in the State is responsible for the discrimination against the main minority of Bengal, it is expected to take political colour as it has been released only months before the Assembly elections.

 

Muslim bodies differ

One of the most well-spread cadre-based Islamic political organisation, Jama’at e Islami-Hind (JIH), West Bengal, which does not contest elections or is affiliated to any political party, believe that Muslims of Bengal have “moderately benefited” during the TMC rule. The media and public relations chief of JIH, Masihur Rahman, underscored how the minorities have benefited during TMC’s rule, without referring to the report.

 

“Firstly, the number of Muslim students clearing West Bengal Civil Services is much higher than in earlier years. It is 24 this year. Secondly, Aliah University, started during the Left’s time, was given a grant of Rs. 300 crore and many hostels for Muslim girls were built in the districts,” said Mr. Rahman.

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 21, 2016 at 8:18am

What Happened in East Pakistan (Yuri Bezmenov Former KGB Psychological Warfare Expert)

Yuri Bezmenov ex KGB Psychological Warfare Expert Explains What Happened in East Pakistan (Now Bangladesh) in This Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bb_fXONk2Y

Comment by Riaz Haq on April 5, 2016 at 10:12pm

Journalist David Bergman questions #Bangladeshi Nationalists' narrative in #Bangladesh’s "Genocide" Debate #Pakistan http://nyti.ms/1SxVXD4 

Excepts from NY Times Op Ed by David Bergman based n Bangladesh:

Where does the truth about the numbers lie? The three million figure was popularized by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the leader of the Awami League in 1971, the country’s first president and the father of the current prime minister. Mujib, as he is popularly known, is a revered figure, particularly within the Awami League. But his biographer, Sayyid A. Karim, who was also Sheikh Rahman’s first foreign secretary, viewed the number as “a gross exaggeration.”

In his book “Sheikh Mujib: Triumph and Tragedy,” Mr. Karim reported that the prime minister’s office told him the figure was taken from Pravda, the Soviet newspaper. According to the American writer Lawrence Lifschultz, a survey by the Mujib government that was projecting a death toll of 250,000 was “abruptly shut down.”

A 1976 study in the journal Population Studies estimated that the number of deaths caused by the war was about 500,000, many as a result of disease and malnutrition. A 2008 article in The British Medical Journal concluded that the number of violent deaths during the war was about 269,000 (allowing a possible range of 125,000 to 505,000).

Many Bangladeshis sincerely believe in the three million figure, which symbolizes the huge sacrifices of the war. M. A. Hasan, convener of the War Crimes Fact Finding Committee, said, “The figure of liberation war martyrs is one such issue which no one should question.”

For others, however, questions are necessary on this and other aspects of the 1971 war, including the widespread killings of members of the Bihari ethnic group, who supported the Pakistanis during the conflict, by Bengali nationalists. We should question this because nationalist narratives about the past often serve contemporary political interests, and we should beware of an orthodoxy being used to silence dissent.

Since the Awami League came to power again in 2009, it has tried to use the emotions surrounding the 1971 war to justify a move toward authoritarian one-party rule. In its version of history, only the Awami League is the party of liberation, and therefore of government, and opposition parties are branded as “pro-Pakistan,” and therefore dangerous and disloyal.

Freedom of speech in Bangladesh is already under threat both as a result of religious extremists’ murdering secular bloggers, and the government’s pressure on the independent news media (including a campaign of harassment against one newspaper editor).

The proposed genocide law might work to the political advantage of the Awami League in the short term. But in the long term, curtailing free expression for sectarian political purposes is dangerous for democracy.

Comment by Riaz Haq on April 9, 2016 at 10:37pm

The Guardian view on the #Bangladesh history debate: distorted by politics, deepening divide | Editorial #Pakistan http://gu.com/p/4t8vq/stw

Mature countries should be ready to interrogate their own history, and accept there are diverse interpretations of how they came to be. This is particularly the case where one nation has broken away from another. Time passes, a cooler understanding of events prevails, and the propaganda and exaggeration taken for fact in the heat of conflict can be discarded. History cannot be changed but it can be reassessed.

That is why it is dispiriting that Bangladesh, which won its independence from Pakistan 45 years ago, is considering a draft law called the liberation war denial crimes bill. Were this to be passed, it would be an offence to offer “inaccurate” versions of what happened in the war. It seems the intention would be, in particular, to prevent any questioning of the official toll of 3 million killed by the Pakistani army and its local allies during the conflict. Many think that figure is much too high. Although there is agreement that the Pakistani army liquidated key groups and committed numerous war crimes, much work remains to be done. So it would seem muddle headed, to say the least, to bring in a law that might prevent such work.

But the truth is that the real argument is not academic but political. Two broad tendencies emerged out of the 1971 war. One saw it as a completely justified rebellion against oppression, the other as a tragic and regrettable separation. One emphasised ethnic, Bengali identity, one Islamic identity. This faultline goes back a long way in East Bengal history, and has usually been manageable when politicians leave it alone, but this is precisely what they have not done.

On the one hand, the ruling Awami League, the party that led the drive for independence, wants to assume total ownership of the war, in this way denying legitimacy to other political forces and in particular to the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist and Jamaat-e-Islami parties, painting them as pro-Pakistan. (That was certainly true of the Jamaat-e-Islami.) On the other hand, those parties cheered when Islam was declared the state religion, a decision that a court has just upheld.

In recent years, war crimes trials have deepened the divide between the two. Meanwhile, extremists have murdered secular bloggers and members of the Hindu and Christian minorities, although such violence is still on a small scale compared with Pakistan. Nevertheless, it is unfortunate that neither of the main parties has been vigorous in its opposition to such acts. In this situation, Bangladesh needs to conduct its politics in a far less polarised way, and in the process to take an honest look at its history rather than to try to squeeze it into a political framework of whatever kind.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 14, 2016 at 8:05pm

#India’s growing federal fault lines as huge income disparities grow bigger among #Indian states
http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/m8dMKK12E1qLmtLmBg1zTN/Indias-growi...

In the year 1960, the per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of Maharashtra, then India’s richest state, was twice that of Bihar, the poorest. By the year 2014, the gulf between the richest state (now Kerala) and Bihar, still the poorest, had doubled. In a recent briefing paper, Vivek Dehejia and Praveen Chakravarty, two senior fellows at the think tank IDFC Institute—the former also a Mint columnist—have thrown into sharp relief India’s inter-state income disparity.

The per capita incomes of the 12 largest states of India, the paper shows, have been diverging instead of converging, as would be predicted by the neoclassical models of economic growth. India’s experience is at odds with those of states/provinces in the US and China, and the member states of the European Union. The incomes of constituent units in the US, China and EU have either converged or at least have not diverged.

In India too, the level of divergence, the authors find, remained static between 1960 and 1990 and only began to increase after the economic liberalization of 1991. The two, however, do not blame the liberalization and justifiably so, as more evidence would be required to make a tenable claim.

India’s inter-state disparity is not just confined to income levels. The states diverge on several other economic, social and demographic indicators. But one particular indicator needs to be mentioned. That is total fertility rate (TFR)—or the average number of children a woman bears during her entire reproductive period. Interestingly, the three poorest states in the Dehejia-Chakravarty analysis are also the three with the highest TFR in India, and in the same order. 

http://www.idfcinstitute.org/site/assets/files/10331/indias_curious... 

Comment

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• Next ›
• Page