Operation Searchlight: The Forgotten Genocide
By Shushrut Devadiga
Grisly images of dead bodies lying face in muddied fields, of eyeless heads staring up from a scarlet pile of bricks, of lifeless women lying with their dead children in the fields after being raped, will usually remind the world of the war crimes perpetrated during the Second World War or the Rwandan genocide. However, the gruesome scenes that I just described were not from the Holocaust, nor from Rwanda. It’s from a genocide that the world seems to have forgotten, a state-sponsored military pogrom executed by Pakistan against its own citizens. On the black night of 25th March 1971, the Pakistani army began carrying out Operation Searchlight to curb a growing Bengali Nationalist movement in East Pakistan. This day, 25th March, is commemorated as Genocide Day by Bangladesh, a nation that shall never forget the brutal wounds inflicted on it.
The saga of this atrocity began in 1947 when the British Raj was split into the nations of India and Pakistan by its former colonial overlords, to provide a home for their respective religious majorities, the Hindus and the Muslims. However, this left Pakistan divided into two large chunks of land separated by over 1000 miles of hostile Indian territory. West Pakistan became the new nation’s political centre and while East languished, with its needs being ignored for the betterment of the western territory. Between 1947 and 1970, East Pakistan received only 25 per cent of the country’s industrial investments and 30 percent of its imports, despite producing 59 per cent of the country’s exports. The elites of West Pakistan, who viewed the Bengali dominated East as culturally and ethnically inferior, added fuel to the fire by attempting to impose Urdu as the national language. When the 1970 Bhola Cyclone hit East Pakistan, killing 300,000 people, the West Pakistani government only provided a token and sluggish response to this disaster.
As French journalist Paul Dreyfus said of the situation, “Over the years, West Pakistan behaved like a poorly raised, egotistical guest, devouring the best dishes and leaving nothing but scraps and leftovers for East Pakistan.”
In December of the same year, Pakistan had its first general election since the country gained independence. But to the shock of the Military Dictator of Pakistan, General Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, a man who was charged with sedition in 1968 for allegedly conspiring with India for East Pakistan’s secession, led the Awami League to a landslide victory. Awami League, who had contested on a platform of Bengali autonomy, owned almost every seat in East Pakistan while West Pakistan’s votes were split between different parties. The military junta responded to this by refusing to inaugurate the National Assembly and imposing martial law which led to dissent and riots in East Pakistan. On 3rd March, President Yahya Khan, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the leader of the largest party in West Pakistan, met to discuss the fate of the nation but talks failed. A disappointed Sheikh Mujibur Rahman then gave a speech to his people, urging them to turn every house into a fort of resistance. He closed his speech saying, “Our struggle is for our freedom. Our struggle is for our independence.”
For Pakistani Generals, who had been drawing up plans to crush the Awami League since February, this declaration of independence was the final straw. It was recognized from the first that a campaign of genocide would be necessary to eradicate the threat: “Kill three million of them,” said President Yahya Khan in February, “and the rest will eat out of our hands.”. Before the plan was put into action, some West Pakistani Officers who were unwilling to support the military attack on civilians were relieved of their positions and on the black night of 25th March 1971, Operation Searchlight was implemented. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and many other Bengali Leaders were arrested and 60–80,000 West Pakistani soldiers, who had been infiltrating East Pakistan for several months, began their terrorization of Bengali civilians. The university in Dacca (Dhaka) was attacked and students were exterminated in their hundreds. Death squads roamed the streets of Dacca, killing scores of people suspected of supporting the Independence Movement. Bengali intelligentsia, academics and Hindus were hunted down, thousands of women were raped and millions of families were uprooted from their homes to ensure the “integrity” of the nation. By April, an estimated 30 million wandered helplessly to escape the violent clutches of the Military and an additional 10 million fled across the border to seek refuge in India. Another disturbing aspect of this genocide was the startling number of rapes that were committed by members of the Pakistani armed forces and their collaborators. Doctor Geoffrey Davis, who performed late-term abortions of raped women during Operation Searchlight, estimated that up to 400,000 women and children had been raped.
One Pakistani prisoner of war confessed. “… we were told to kill the Hindus and Kafirs (non-believer in God). One day in June, we cordoned a village and were ordered to kill the Kafirs in that area. We found all the village women reciting from the Holy Quran, and the men holding special congregational prayers seeking God’s mercy. But they were unlucky. Our commanding officer ordered us not to waste any time.”
The worst atrocity of this genocide took place in the town of Chuknagar. Thousands of refugees gathered in this small business town, close to India, after hearing rumours of an impending Pakistani attack. Then, on the early morning of 10 May, a platoon of Pakistani soldiers arrived, armed with semi-automatic rifles and light machine guns and opened fire on the crowd. Around 8000–10000 civilians killed by a group of just 10–30 soldiers. One of the eyewitnesses to this massacre recounted, “There were piled up dead bodies. Dead Kids’ on dead mom’s laps. Wives hugging their beloved husbands to protect them from killer bullets. Dads’ hugging their daughters to shield them. Within a flash, they all were just dead bodies. Blood streamed into the Bhadra river, it became a river of corpses.”
The Pakistani Armed forces excesses eventually led to its downfall. Indira Gandhi’s Indian Government, reeling from the ever-growing intake of Bangladeshi, expressed its support for an Independent Bangladesh and began to train Mukti Bahini Guerrilla. Finally, after Pakistani preemptive strikes against 11 Indian air stations, India began a full-scale military intervention and within just 13 days brought Pakistani Armed forces to its knees, resulting in the unconditional surrender of all Pakistani military personnel in East Pakistan. This finally put an end to this massacre.
It has been estimated that between 300,000 to 3 million Bangladeshis were killed during the course of these operations. However, the international community did nothing to stop this slaughter. The world was well aware of the violence happening in Bangladesh through news reports and the appeals of the Indian Government. However, the West, led by the United States, seemed fixated with cold war politics rather than protecting the basic human rights of East Pakistani citizens. The American Government viewed Pakistan as a key military ally in the region and a gateway to open diplomatic relations with China. President Nixon’s administration further distrusted Indira Gandhi’s Government, who had recently signed a “Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation” with the USSR. American Diplomats witnessing the violence like Archer Blood, the American consul-general in Dhaka urged President Nixon to discontinue their support of the Pakistani regime. Unfortunately, their protests were ignored and Archer Blood was even recalled. He summarised American inaction with the following words, “Our government has failed to denounce the suppression of democracy. Our government has failed to denounce atrocities… Our government has evidenced what many will consider moral bankruptcy.”
Another possible reason for a lack of American Assistance was due to Nixon’s bigotry. “Biafra [another genocidal war in Nigeria] stirred up a few Catholics,” Nixon was recorded saying. “But you know, I think Biafra stirred people up more than Pakistan, because Pakistan, they’re just a bunch of brown goddamn Muslims.”
The wounds of the war are still fresh for many Bangladeshis. Innumerable families lost loved ones, and many children were orphaned as the result of this carnage. Hundreds of mass graves still remain unmarked or have been paved over. In 1999, an excavation carried out by the Liberation War Museum unearthed 70 skulls and 5,392 bones of men, women and children from Jalladkhana. Numerous perpetrators of this pogrom remain unpunished, with many of the leading figures only being convicted in the last decade. Bangladeshis are still bitter regarding the genocide and many, even 48 years after Bangladesh’s independence, still seek justice for their lost loved ones. Although Pakistan has expressed “regret” over the “excesses” committed in 1971, it had and still denies any allegations of war crimes committed by its armed forces.. It’s textbooks rarely mention this dark chapter in history. While these textbooks accept that East Pakistanis felt culturally subjugated and economically exploited by their dominant Western half, it blames this on Indian propaganda and international conspiracies. Many Pakistani citizens still don’t accept the fact their military forces could have committed such terrible crimes against. However, such denial cannot hide the agonizing and horrendous truth and if the world continues to ignore it then it will only allow the wounds of this genocide to fester.
