DOCSLIB.ORG

The Question of Genocide and the Quest for Justice in the 1971 War Sarmila Bose Available Online: 25 Nov 2011

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Question of Genocide and the Quest for Justice in the 1971 War Sarmila Bose Available Online: 25 Nov 2011 This article was downloaded by: [Sarmila Bose] On: 25 November 2011, At: 04:31 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Journal of Genocide Research Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cjgr20 The question of genocide and the quest for justice in the 1971 war Sarmila Bose Available online: 25 Nov 2011 To cite this article: Sarmila Bose (2011): The question of genocide and the quest for justice in the 1971 war, Journal of Genocide Research, 13:4, 393-419 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2011.625750 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and- conditions This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. Journal of Genocide Research (2011), 13(4), November 2011, 393–419 The question of genocide and the quest for justice in the 1971 war SARMILA BOSE The 1971 war in South Asia that ended with the break-up of Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh has been framed in terms of genocide in popular representations and the nationalist history of Bangladesh. It has been depicted as genocide by the Pakistan army against the linguistically defined ethnic Bengalis in East Pakistan, in which three million Bengalis were said to have been killed. This article explores some of the problems with categorizing the killings of 1971; assesses, using detailed information on many incidents of violence during the year, which of them might be termed genocide according to the 1948 UN Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide; considers how to treat those crimes that do not fit the definition of genocide, and what the implications are for the quest for justice for the crimes of 1971. It concludes that genocide is not the most useful framework to analyze the conflict; that some of the killings committed by both sides could be termed genocide while others might not, but that they still constitute serious crimes; and that a broader conceptualization of the violence of the war and engagement by the international community were necessary to achieve true justice for the victims of violence in 1971. Introduction: genocide and the 1971 war The 1971 Bangladesh war has been framed in terms of genocide in the dominant narratives and popular representations of that conflict. Bangladeshi nationalist nar- Downloaded by [Sarmila Bose] at 04:31 25 November 2011 ratives also frequently use the term ‘holocaust’ in an attempt to associate the 1971 war with the horrors of Nazi Germany. There is a related attempt to ‘rank’ the 1971 war, for instance, as ‘the worst genocide after Second World War’.1 The ‘ranking’ is based on the claim that three million Bengalis were killed by the Pakistan army during the conflict in their bid to crush the Bengali/Bangladeshi nationalist rebellion in the then province of East Pakistan. In this context, the use of the term ‘genocide’ is virtually interchangeable with ‘mass killings’. It is simply used to signify a massive atrocity—a gigantic crime against humanity. Ever since 1971, there have been demands by Bangladeshi nationalists for war crimes trials to try Pakistan army personnel and their local Bengali and ‘Bihari’ allies whom they termed razakar (collaborators).2 The term genocide is thus not used by Bangladeshi nationalists or popular com- mentators with any definitional clarity. In popular parlance, no particular effort is ISSN 1462-3528 print; ISSN 1469-9494 online/11/040393-27 # 2011 Taylor & Francis http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2011.625750 SARMILA BOSE made to make its use consistent with the definition of genocide in the 1948 UN Convention.3 Its use is primarily political, intended to indict Pakistan, and in particular the Pakistani army, as brutal killers and war criminals, while depicting ‘Bengalis’—a linguistically defined identity—as largely blameless victims, who had been killed for merely demanding their democratic rights. Indeed, Bangladeshi nationalist depictions typically refer to genocide having been committed by the Pakistani army against ‘innocent Bengalis’, suggesting that the victims were non- combatants, killed solely because of their identity as Bengalis.4 Over time, the claim of ‘genocide of three million’ took on the status of a sacred mantra in the popular telling and political culture of Bangladesh, the ritual chant- ing of which signals a particular political allegiance. It acquired a political meaning in Bangladesh that has little to do with the definition of genocide in inter- national law or the veracity of the casualty figure of three million. A few Western journalists had doubted in the aftermath of the war that millions of non-combatants had been killed by the Pakistan army.5 Over time, a few scholars also questioned such claims.6 However, the few early questioning voices in the Western media appear to have become submerged under a much larger volume of material repeat- ing the allegation of the genocide of millions, scholarly voices of dissent were largely not reflected in the popular sphere, and references to the alleged killing of millions of Bengalis found their way into other, broader works on genocide or history.7 It has been extremely difficult for Bangladeshis to challenge this mantra in public without being labelled a razakar (collaborator) or ‘Islamist’, the latter having acquired the status of an internationally recognizable term of vilification in recent years. Outsiders who question the official story risk being labelled a ‘denier’, in keeping with the attempt of those who claim genocide of millions to associate themselves with the horrors of Nazi Germany. The assertion by Bangladeshi nationalists, that the Pakistan army committed genocide during 1971, was believed widely around the world. The framing of the entire conflict as one massive crime against humanity, committed solely by the Pakistan army and its few local allies, is embedded in the narrative with which generations have grown up in India and Bangladesh. It is also believed by many Pakistanis, in particular those who are critical of the military repeatedly Downloaded by [Sarmila Bose] at 04:31 25 November 2011 taking power in their country, and are ashamed of what the armed forces were reported to have done in East Pakistan. This critical view is also found within the armed forces itself—for instance, when an officer from the 18 Punjab regiment returned to West Pakistan after the war, his own father demanded to know what his unit had been doing in East Pakistan, given the disturbing reports that had been circulating about the regiment’s conduct there.8 While the term genocide may be used as a political tool by Bangladeshi nation- alists or their Indian allies in the context of the 1971 war, it is not used with con- sistency even by genocide scholars. Its use can be arbitrary and there is discontent among genocide scholars about the UN definition of genocide.9 The problem with the UN definition appears to be that it can be both too restrictive and too expan- sive: it refers to the persecution and killing of particular racial or ethnic groups, rather than mass killings in general or political killings. At the same time, it is 394 THE QUESTION OF GENOCIDE not restricted to killings alone but includes a variety of other activities designed to destroy an identifiable group. Criticisms of the UN definition also includes com- plaints that it focuses narrowly on state actions only, suffers from Euro-centrism and tends to treat peoples and institutions as monolithic entities.10 An additional obstacle is the lack of reliable data. According to Gerlach: ‘The biggest problem of genocide studies is the lack of an empirical foundation. This emptiness is obvious at every genocide conference’.11 The problem of reliable data is acute with regard to the 1971 war.12 The abundance of political rhetoric is matched by a paucity of carefully documented data. If nobody knows, or differ- ent parties cannot agree on, what actually happened in 1971, it is impossible to embark upon any kind of analysis. This article considers the various types of violence in the 1971 war, and makes an assessment of which of them can be termed genocide on the basis of the closest approximation to an international consensus on what constitutes genocide—the 1948 UN Convention, how to treat the violence that may not fit the UN definition of genocide but still constitute crimes against humanity, and what the implications are for the quest for justice with regard to the 1971 war. For this purpose, it is necessary to have a working definition of genocide against which to assess the various incidents of violence. It would be counter-productive to become enmeshed in the definitional debates. The article therefore adheres to the UN definition of genocide, while not being restricted by that definition in its assessment of the crimes committed in the 1971 war and the quest for justice for its victims.13 This is also apposite as Bangladeshis who claim that genocide occurred during the 1971 war typically do not question the UN definition, but make the claim either within its definition or without any reference to it.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Social Structure of Meitei-Pangal (Muslims) of Manipur Abstract Thesis
    SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF MEITEI-PANGAL (MUSLIMS) OF MANIPUR ABSTRACT THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF 3 a dot of |pl|U0S0pl|y SOCIOLOGY By RAJIYA SHAHANI UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF PROF. NOOR MOHAMMAD DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL WORK ALIGARH MUSLIM UNIVERSITY ALIGARH (INDIA) 2006 ABSTRACT In the present piece of research work, the basic institutions of Meitei-Pangal of Manipur have been analyzed from structural functional perspectives. Though old, the structural functional approach is a dominant sociological perspective. The background of the structural functionalism is found in the works of A. Comte, H. Spencer and E. Durkheim. Comte applied this perspective in his work, more prominently in his theory of organicism. H. Spencer also adopted organicism which led him to look at the social whole and the contribution of parts to the whole. E.Durkheim's interest in the social facts reflects his interest in the social organicism and their interrelationships and impact in the society. The major concern of these perspectives is the analysis of the structure and functions of a society that a social system needs to survive. Parsons is considered one of the giants of this perspectives. His structural-functional analysis becomes conspicuous when he says that - four basic conditions have to be met if any social system is to operate at all. These are : adaptation, goal attainment , integration and latency . These conditions are fulfilled by four institutions viz. economy, polity, kinship and culture. The Meitei-Pangal community of Manipur also meets these basic conditions of the social system . Islam is their religion.
    [Show full text]
  • Bioarchaeology of Past Epidemic- and Famine-Related Mass Burials with Respect to Recent Findings from the Czech Republic
    Volume X ● Issue 1/2019 ● Pages 79–87 INTERDISCIPLINARIA ARCHAEOLOGICA NATURAL SCIENCES IN ARCHAEOLOGY homepage: http://www.iansa.eu X/1/2019 Thematic review Bioarchaeology of Past Epidemic- and Famine-Related Mass Burials with Respect to Recent Findings from the Czech Republic Hana Brzobohatáa*, Jan Frolíka, Eliška Zazvonilováa,b aInstitute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Letenská 4, 118 01 Prague 1, Czech Republic bDepartment of Anthropology and Human Genetics, Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague, Viničná 7, 128 44 Prague 2, Czech Republic ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article history: Irrespective of the reason for breaking usual burial customs, mass graves represent a valuable archive Received: 7th May 2019 of population data over a short period, and thus offer a vast amount of information for bioarchaeological Accepted: 23rd July 2019 research. Herein, we present a selective review of research on past epidemic and famine die-offs and of new interdisciplinary approaches in this field of study. We summarize the discoveries of epidemic- and DOI: http://dx.doi.org/ 10.24916/iansa.2019.1.6 famine-related graves that are temporally and spatially restricted to the medieval/early modern Czech territory, paying special attention to recently unearthed mass burials in Kutná Hora-Sedlec. These Key words: burial pits are historically and contextually associated with a famine in the early 14th century and with bioarchaeology the Black Death in the mid-14th century. To our knowledge, they represent the largest set of medieval plague mass graves not only in the Czech Republic but also on a European scale. famine ancient DNA Middle Ages mass burials 1.
    [Show full text]
  • Birth of Bangladesh: Down Memory Lane
    Indian Foreign Affairs Journal Vol. 4, No. 3, July - September, 2009, 102-117 ORAL HISTORY Birth of Bangladesh: Down Memory Lane Arundhati Ghose, often acclaimed for espousing wittily India’s nuclear non- proliferation policy, narrates the events associated with an assignment during her early diplomatic career that culminated in the birth of a nation – Bangladesh. Indian Foreign Affairs Journal (IFAJ): Thank you, Ambassador, for agreeing to share your involvement and experiences on such an important event of world history. How do you view the entire episode, which is almost four decades old now? Arundhati Ghose (AG): It was a long time ago, and my memory of that time is a patchwork of incidents and impressions. In my recollection, it was like a wave. There was a lot of popular support in India for Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his fight for the rights of the Bengalis of East Pakistan, fund-raising and so on. It was also a difficult period. The territory of what is now Bangladesh, was undergoing a kind of partition for the third time: the partition of Bengal in 1905, the partition of British India into India and Pakistan and now the partition of Pakistan. Though there are some writings on the last event, I feel that not enough research has been done in India on that. IFAJ: From India’s point of view, would you attribute the successful outcome of this event mainly to the military campaign or to diplomacy, or to the insights of the political leadership? AG: I would say it was all of these.
    [Show full text]
  • Mapping the Body-Politic of the Raped Woman and the Nation in Bangladesh
    gendered embodiments: mapping the body-politic of the raped woman and the nation in Bangladesh Mookherjee, Nayanika . Feminist Review, suppl. War 88 (Apr 2008): 36-53. Turn on hit highlighting for speaking browsers Turn off hit highlighting Other formats: Citation/Abstract Full text - PDF (206 KB) Abstract (summary) Translate There has been much academic work outlining the complex links between women and the nation. Women provide legitimacy to the political projects of the nation in particular social and historical contexts. This article focuses on the gendered symbolization of the nation through the rhetoric of the 'motherland' and the manipulation of this rhetoric in the context of national struggle in Bangladesh. I show the ways in which the visual representation of this 'motherland' as fertile countryside, and its idealization primarily through rural landscapes has enabled a crystallization of essentialist gender roles for women. This article is particularly interested in how these images had to be reconciled with the subjectivities of women raped during the Bangladesh Liberation War (Muktijuddho) and the role of the aestheticizing sensibilities of Bangladesh's middle class in that process. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT] Show less Full Text Translate Turn on search term navigation introduction There has been much academic work outlining the complex links between women and the nation (Yuval-Davis and Anthias, 1989; Yuval-Davis, 1997; Yuval-Davis and Werbner, 1999). Women provide legitimacy to the political projects of the nation in particular social and historical contexts (Kandiyoti, 1991; Chatterjee, 1994). This article focuses on the gendered symbolization of the nation through the rhetoric of the 'motherland' and the manipulation of this rhetoric in the context of national struggle in Bangladesh.
    [Show full text]
  • 2.Conference-APP Disaster Impact on Sundarbans
    IMPACT: International Journal of Research in Applied, Natural and Social Sciences (IMPACT: IJRANSS) ISSN(P): 2347-4580; ISSN(E): 2321-8851 Special Edition, Sep 2016, 5-12 © Impact Journals DISASTER IMPACT ON SUNDARBANS - A CASE STUDY ON SIDR AFFECTED AREA MOHAMMAD ZAKIR HOSSAIN KHAN Institute of Disaster Management and Vulnerability Studies, Dhaka University, Bangladesh ABSTRACT The primary indicators of environmental sustainability is the biodiversity and its conservation stated by Kates et al. (2001), whereas the assessment of biomass and floristic diversity in tropical forests has been identified as a priority by many international organizations stated by Stork et al. (1997). Cyclone ‘Sidr’, a tropical cyclone, was one of the biggest cyclones in the history of Bangladesh, formed in the central Bay of Bengal hit the coast of Bangladesh in 2007 and it made landfall on 15th of November with peaking wind speed of over 260 km/h. It resulted in an estimated 4,000 human deaths and the displacement of over 3 million people stated by US Embassy Dhaka (2007). The most significant devastating impact it left behind is on the diversity of flora of the Sundarbans. One quarter of the biomass cover (which is approximately 2500 sq. km) of the Sundarbans mangrove forest was damaged by the storm directly or indirectly due to the tidal surge stated by CEGIS (2007). The study shows that the total forest area damaged by the cyclone Sidr was about 21% of the Sundarbans. It was found that highly affected forest areas were dominated by Keora ( Sonneratia apetala ). Trees of Keora are comparatively taller more than 15 m and grow on newly accreted forest land.
    [Show full text]
  • 'Spaces of Exception: Statelessness and the Experience of Prejudice'
    London School of Economics and Political Science HISTORIES OF DISPLACEMENT AND THE CREATION OF POLITICAL SPACE: ‘STATELESSNESS’ AND CITIZENSHIP IN BANGLADESH Victoria Redclift Submitted to the Department of Sociology, LSE, for the degree of PhD, London, July 2011. Victoria Redclift 21/03/2012 For Pappu 2 Victoria Redclift 21/03/2012 Declaration I confirm that the following thesis, presented for examination for the degree of PhD at the London School of Economics and Political Science, is entirely my own work, other than where I have clearly indicated that it is the work of others. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This thesis may not be reproduced without the prior written consent of the author. I warrant that this authorization does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights of any third party. ____________________ ____________________ Victoria Redclift Date 3 Victoria Redclift 21/03/2012 Abstract In May 2008, at the High Court of Bangladesh, a ‘community’ that has been ‘stateless’ for over thirty five years were finally granted citizenship. Empirical research with this ‘community’ as it negotiates the lines drawn between legal status and statelessness captures an important historical moment. It represents a critical evaluation of the way ‘political space’ is contested at the local level and what this reveals about the nature and boundaries of citizenship. The thesis argues that in certain transition states the construction and contestation of citizenship is more complicated than often discussed. The ‘crafting’ of citizenship since the colonial period has left an indelible mark, and in the specificity of Bangladesh’s historical imagination, access to, and understandings of, citizenship are socially and spatially produced.
    [Show full text]
  • Community, Nation and Politics in Colonial Bihar (1920-47)
    www.ijcrt.org © 2020 IJCRT | Volume 8, Issue 10 October 2020 | ISSN: 2320-2882 COMMUNITY, NATION AND POLITICS IN COLONIAL BIHAR (1920-47) Md Masoom Alam, PhD, JNU Abstract The paper is an attempt to explore, primarily, the nationalist Muslims and their activities in Bihar, since 1937 till 1947. The work, by and large, will discuss the Muslim personalities and institutions which were essentially against the Muslim League and its ideology. This paper will be elaborating many issues related to the Muslims of Bihar during 1920s, 1930s and 1940s such as the Muslim organizations’ and personalities’ fight for the nation and against the League, their contribution in bridging the gulf between Hindus and Muslims and bringing communal harmony in Bihar and others. Moreover, apart from this, the paper will be focusing upon the three core issues of the era, the 1946 elections, the growth of communalism and the exodus of the Bihari Muslims to Dhaka following the elections. The paper seems quite interesting in terms of exploring some of the less or underexplored themes and sub-themes on colonial Bihar and will certainly be a great contribution to the academia. Therefore, surely, it will get its due attention as other provinces of colonial India such as U. P., Bengal, and Punjab. Introduction Most of the writings on India’s partition are mainly focused on the three provinces of British India namely Punjab, Bengal and U. P. Based on these provinces, the writings on the idea of partition and separatism has been generalized with the misperception that partition was essentially a Muslim affair rather a Muslim League affair.
    [Show full text]
  • Roquiah Sakhawat Hossein1 to Taslima Nasrin
    ASIATIC, VOLUME 10, NUMBER 1, JUNE 2016 From Islamic Feminism to Radical Feminism: Roquiah Sakhawat Hossein1 to Taslima Nasrin Niaz Zaman2 Independent University, Bangladesh Abstract This paper examines four women writers who have contributed through their writings and actions to the awakening of women in Bangladesh: Roquiah Sakhawat Hossein, Sufia Kamal, Jahanara Imam and Taslima Nasrin. The first three succeeded in making a space for themselves in the Bangladesh tradition and carved a special niche in Bangladesh. All three of them were writers in different genres – poetry, prose, fiction – with the last best known for her diary about 1971. While these iconic figures contributed towards women’s empowerment or people’s rights in general, Taslima Nasrin is the most radically feminist of the group. However, while her voice largely echoes in the voices of young Bangladeshi women today – often unacknowledged – she has been shunned by her own country. The paper attempts to explain why, while other women writers have also said what Taslima Nasrin has, she alone is ostracised. Keywords Islamic feminism, radical feminism, gynocritics, purdah, 1971, Shahbagh protests In this paper, I wish to examine four women writers who have contributed through their writings and actions to the awakening of women in Bangladesh. Beginning with Roquiah Sakhawat Hossein (1880-1932), I will also discuss the roles played by Sufia Kamal (1911-99), Jahanara Imam (1929-94) and Taslima Nasrin (1962-). The first three succeeded in making a space for themselves in the Bangladesh tradition and carved a special niche in Bangladesh. All three of them were writers: Roquiah wrote poems, short stories, a novel, as well as prose pieces; Sufia Kamal was primarily a poet but also wrote a number of short 1 There is some confusion over the spelling of her name.
    [Show full text]
  • The Chittagonians in Colonial Arakan: Seasonal and Settlement Migrations Jacques Leider
    The Chittagonians in Colonial Arakan: Seasonal and Settlement Migrations Jacques Leider To cite this version: Jacques Leider. The Chittagonians in Colonial Arakan: Seasonal and Settlement Migrations. Morten Bergsmo; Wolfgang Kaleck; Kyaw Yin Hlaing. Colonial Wrongs and Access to International Law, 40, Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublisher, pp.177-227, 2020, Publication Series, 978-82-8348-134-1. hal- 02997366 HAL Id: hal-02997366 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02997366 Submitted on 10 Nov 2020 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Public Domain Colonial Wrongs and Access to International Law Morten Bergsmo, Wolfgang Kaleck and Kyaw Yin Hlaing (editors) E-Offprint: Jacques P. Leider, “The Chittagonians in Colonial Arakan: Seasonal and Settlement Migrations”, in Morten Bergsmo, Wolfgang Kaleck and Kyaw Yin Hlaing (editors), Colonial Wrongs and Access to International Law, Torkel Opsahl Academic EPub- lisher, Brussels, 2020 (ISBNs: 978-82-8348-133-4 (print) and 978-82-8348-134-1 (e- book)). This publication was first published on 9 November 2020. TOAEP publications may be openly accessed and downloaded through the web site https://www.toaep.org which uses Persistent URLs (PURLs) for all publications it makes available.
    [Show full text]
  • 2 Crowd Violence in East Pakistan/ Bangladesh 1971–1972
    Christian Gerlach 2 Crowd Violence in East Pakistan/ Bangladesh 1971–1972 Introduction Some recent scholarship links violent persecutions in the 20th century to the rise of mass political participation.1 This paper substantiates this claim by exploring part of a country’s history of crowd violence. Such acts constitute a specific form of participation in collective violence and shaping it. There are others such as forming local militias, small informal violent gangs or a guerrilla, calls for vio- lence in petitions or non-violent demonstrations and also acting through a state apparatus, meaning that functionaries contribute personal ideas and perceptions to the action of a bureaucracy in some persecution. Therefore it seems to make sense to investigate specific qualities of participation in crowd violence. Subject to this inquiry is violence against humans by large groups of civilians, with no regard to other collectives of military or paramilitary groups, as large as they may have been. My approach to this topic is informed by my interest in what I call “ex- tremely violent societies.” This means social formations in which, for some pe- riod, various population groups become victims of mass violence in which, alongside state organs, many members of several social groups participate for a variety of reasons.2 Aside from the participatory character of violence, this is also about its multiple target groups and sometimes its multipolar character. Applied here, this means to compare the different degrees to which crowd vio- lence was used by and against different groups and why. It is evident that the line between perpetrators and bystanders is especially blurred within violent crowds.
    [Show full text]
  • An Analysis of Online Discursive Battle of Shahbag Protest 2013 in Bangladesh
    SEXISM IN ‘ONLINE WAR’: AN ANALYSIS OF ONLINE DISCURSIVE BATTLE OF SHAHBAG PROTEST 2013 IN BANGLADESH By Nasrin Khandoker Submitted to Central European University Department of Gender Studies In partial fulfillment for the degree of Master of Arts in Gender Studies. Supervisor: Professor Elissa Helms Budapest, Hungary 2014 CEU eTD Collection I Abstract This research is about the discursive battle between radical Bengali nationalists and the Islamist supporters of accused and convicted war criminals in Bangladesh where the gendered issues are used as weapons. In Bangladesh, the online discursive frontier emerged from 2005 as a continuing battle extending from the 1971 Liberation War when the punishment of war criminals and war rapists became one of the central issues of political and public discourse. This online community emerged with debate about identity contest between the Bengali nationalist ‘pro-Liberation War’ and the ‘Islamist’ supporters of the accused war criminals. These online discourses created the background of Shahbag protest 2013 demanding the capital punishment of one convicted criminal and at the time of the protest, the online community played a significant role in that protest. In this research as a past participant of Shahbag protest, I examined this online discourse and there gendered and masculine expression. To do that I problematized the idea of Bengali and/or Muslim women which is related to the identity contest. I examined that, to protest the misogynist propaganda of Islamist fundamentalists in Bangladesh, feminists and women’s organizations are aligning themselves with Bengali nationalism and thus cannot be critical about the gendered notions of nationalism. I therefore, tried to make a feminist scholarly attempt to be critical of the misogynist and gendered notion of both the Islamists and Bengali nationalists to contribute not only a critical examination of masculine nationalist rhetoric, but will also to problematize that developmentalist feminist approach.
    [Show full text]
  • Students, Space, and the State in East Pakistan/Bangladesh 1952-1990
    1 BEYOND LIBERATION: STUDENTS, SPACE, AND THE STATE IN EAST PAKISTAN/BANGLADESH 1952-1990 A dissertation presented by Samantha M. R. Christiansen to The Department of History In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the field of History Northeastern University Boston, Massachusetts September, 2012 2 BEYOND LIBERATION: STUDENTS, SPACE, AND THE STATE IN EAST PAKISTAN/BANGLADESH 1952-1990 by Samantha M. R. Christiansen ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Graduate School of Northeastern University September, 2012 3 ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the history of East Pakistan/Bangladesh’s student movements in the postcolonial period. The principal argument is that the major student mobilizations of Dhaka University are evidence of an active student engagement with shared symbols and rituals across time and that the campus space itself has served as the linchpin of this movement culture. The category of “student” developed into a distinct political class that was deeply tied to a concept of local place in the campus; however, the idea of “student” as a collective identity also provided a means of ideological engagement with a globally imagined community of “students.” Thus, this manuscript examines the case study of student mobilizations at Dhaka University in various geographic scales, demonstrating the levels of local, national and global as complementary and interdependent components of social movement culture. The project contributes to understandings of Pakistan and Bangladesh’s political and social history in the united and divided period, as well as provides a platform for analyzing the historical relationship between social movements and geography that is informative to a wide range of disciplines.
    [Show full text]