“Sinecide”: Naming the Bangladesh 1971 Genocide
Md Razibul Bari1, Farzana Yeasmine2, Salah Uddin2, Tashrique Mohammad Sikder2
Abstract:
The aim of this study is to state the reasoning of renaming the third largest Genocide in human history as ‘Sinecide’ that took place in the then East Pakistan in 1971 during the liberation war of Bangladesh.
INTRODUCTION
Since the creation of Pakistan the discrimination between the two wings had been increasing continuously [1, pp. 5–6; 16–22]. However, prominent movements like the language movement in 1952 [2] and 6 point movement in 1966 [1, pp. 23–37] played major role to create awareness among the mass people of East Pakistan [3]. At the same time, the ruling Generals started to apply their muscle power to suppress the people [1, p. 1], [4]. And it gradually increased [5]. After the election in 1970 the Awami League won a massive victory [6, p. 17] to form the government which was out of calculation in the minds of the West Pakistani Rulers [5], [7]. They started playing with the leaders instead of handing over the power [1, p. 6], [6, p. 19], [8], [9]. This led a huge movement among the people of the eastern wing [10] and it burst out during the ‘Operation searchlight’ [11] and arrest of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on 25th and 26th of March, 1971 [12]–[19].
Long before it the Pakistani Govt brought a large number of army in East Pakistan for the operation [7], [20]. They started killing people from all aspects [1, pp. 3–4], [6, p. 35], [21, pp. 1–18], whatever the age, sex or religion is [1, p. 6], [22], [23], [24, pp. 320; 322–328]. During the all 9 months of the liberation war 3 million people had been killed, 10 million people fled to India as refugees [25]–[27], 6 million people lost shelter [28] and more than half a million women and girls were raped [28]–[31]. These incidents happened so enormously [32]–[36] that the toll placed third largest genocide in the human history.
In order to keep this genocide accountable and to make an easy memorization our study attempted to rename this genocide that could differentiate it from all other genocides that have taken their places around the world.
GENOCIDE
By definition “Genocide” is the deliberate and systematic destruction, whether whole or partial destruction of an ethnic, racial, religious or national group. In 1944 Raphael Lemkin named this patter on killing as “Genocide” [37, pp. 8–11]. There are other scholarly definitions too [37, pp. 15–18]. And the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) of 1948 has stated a legal definition [38], [39, pp. 19–39]. There is a significant difference between the genocide and total war [40].
GENDERCIDE
Gendercide is another term which is slightly different from Genocide due to its historical background in which specific gender group was killed. During the Peloponnesian War destruction of Melos by Athens was a gendercidal rampage [37]. It was also evident in the Old Testament documents.
CULTURAL GENOCIDE
This type of genocide was observed in Canada where the Indian children were attempted to remove from the influence of their families and culture [41].
FACES OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF GENOCIDES
Through the long walk of human history we faced genocide many times. They were named as per their different pattern, history and necessity of remembrance and documentation. Some of them are relevantly discussed briefly.
The first largest Genocide was named as ‘Holocaust’ or known as ‘The Shoah’ (Hebrew: השואה, HaShoah, “the catastrophe”). The word “Holocaust” has come from a Greek word called holokauston. It is the translation of the Hebrew word ‘olah’, meaning a burnt sacrifice offered whole to God. During the World War II the Nazi and their collaborators systematically killed the Jews and the total number was about 17 million [42]. It took place from 1941 to 1945 [43] and considered the largest genocide in human history.
The second largest Genocide was named as ‘Holodomor’ or Famine-Genocide. The word ‘Holod’ meaning hunger or starvation, and “mor” meaning death or plague. It is likely that the word derives from the expression “moryty holodom” which means “to inflict death by hunger.” The word “Holodomor” which is pronounced in Ukranina as Голодомо́р; [44] (It means “Extermination by hunger” or “Hunger-extermination”) which is derived from морити голодом, meaning “to kill by starvation” [45], [46] . The total number of death varied from 3.3 to 7.5 million. Hiolodomor took place in central and Eastern Ukraine during the period 1932-1933 [47]. It was a man-made famine and declared as a crime against humanity.
The Sand Creek Massacre includes killing of women, children, and infants by the Colorado Territory Militia [48]. The deportation of the Cherokee tribe and the Trail of Tears is also considered as genocide in modern times in which the death toll was calculated about 4000 [49].
Another one named as “Colonial genocide” indicates the Indian famine under the British Raj in 1876-78 in which the death toll crossed 15 million [37], [50].
The Dzungar Genocide is another term indicates the mass extermination of the Mongol Buddhist Dzungar people. The genocide was ordered by the Qianlong Emperor due to the rebellion in 1755 by Dzungar leader Amursana [51].
In Russia the “Circassian genocide” took place in the process of the Empire’s ethnic cleansing, killing and forced migration [52] as well as the expulsion of the majority of the Circassians from their homeland. The death toll was calculated from 400-600 thousand people [53].
There was another term called “urbicide” meaning destruction of the cities in the aim of destroying a specific civilization, first introduced by Michael Moorcock. The incidents of Serb assault on Sarajevo and the Croat attack on Mostar during the Balkan war in 1990 was considered as urbicide [37, pp. 192–193].
Many other genocides has been named according to the place of occurrences or their races like “Herero and Namaqua genocide” [54] the “Assyrian Genocide” [55], the “Greek genocide” [56], the “Dersim massacre” [57], the “Simele massacre” [58], the “Nanking massacre” [59], the “Romani genocide” [60], the “Cambodian genocide” [61], the “Maya(n) genocide” [62] etc.
GENOCIDE FOR THE CAUSE OF RELIGION
During the liberation war of Bangladesh the West Pakistani Generals inspired their army to rape the women for the shake of religion [63]–[68], [69, pp. 22–67]. But using the religion as an arms was not only a matter of 1971. Rather the game started far back since the creation of Pakistan [67], [70], [71].
DISCUSSION
From the above findings, we saw that according to the various statistics the genocide in 1971 was the third largest in human history. Not only that, the pattern of genocide is different than the others. So it should be given a name for clean-cut identification to make it distinct in the history.
According to the purpose, this group of researchers named this genocide as ‘Sinecide’. The part ‘Sine’ is a latin word means ‘irrespective of’ and ‘Cide’ denoting ‘an act of killing’ which truly signifies the mass killing in the then East Pakistan or Bangladesh by the Pakistani Army [72, pp. 172–173] and their collaborators during the liberation war of Bangladesh [6, p. 18], [73]. Beside the killing, mass rape also played vital role of making this genocide an extraordinary incident in comparison to the others around the world [74], [75].
As we discussed, it started before Bangladesh declared her independence in 26th March 1971 and continued even after she achieved her victory in 16th December 1971. Men, women and children irrespective of age, sex or religion were brutally killed [31], [34], [76]–[78]. The death toll reached about 3 to 5 million [31], [79], [80]. Some article numbered the raped incidents from 200,000 to 400,000 irrespective of their age [31], [80], [81]. Considering all the issues, it would be rational naming this specific genocide as ‘Sinecide’.
CONCLUSION
Into the long history of human race, the cruelty of complex nature of the human minds have drawn some scar on our faces among which the genocide that took place in 1971 during the liberation war of Bangladesh has its distinct cardinal features. Henceforth, the incident should be reasonably called as ‘Sinecide’ for a clean-cut demarcation of its own existence.
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AUTHOR
First Author – Dr Md Razibul Bari PhD, University of Tokyo, Japan.
Email – bariradiologist2012@gmail.com