Visit to the training camp
The Mukti Fouj of Bangladesh
SEVATI MITRA
The Ichamati braids its course through sand-flats and submerged banks down to the Sundarbans changing the name to Kalindi on the way. The mud embankments on either side shelter clusters of villages and paddy lands from the rising seasonal floods. The river is wide, especially when the tide comes in. The dark, churning, silt-laden water looks angry. Lines of the current seem to be flowing in ribbons within seem to be flowing out. While patches between these are still. Eddies form like dimples and fill out only to be pushed up by the turbulent maze of currents and then start forming again. When the monsoon messengers shroud the sky with a gray sheet, the gustly breeze no longer remains the merry, harmless spirit urging the surface up into wrinkles but turns into a monster whipping up waves that break the mud banks down. The mass of water rages forwards like an untamed stead. The sand and clay eroded from one bank is deposited in another: sometimes it is piled up under the level of the water here and there on the bed, creating an unseen, uncertain maze through which the under-current shrewds its way around while the sheet of surface water is all but torn in the mad rush downstream to meet the Bay of Bengal beyond the delta.
Riverine soil
Behind the levees, the low ground is partitioned off into rice-fields. The dark green, light green and almost gold-green of the paddy in different stages of growth have farmers bending over them in a thousand minute detail of work. The riverine soil is their life. The cattle and the plow are their basis of work. The family village and social life intimately interwoven with paddy cultivation people of the delta live here where bountiful nature has bred a race of song and poetry. Yet, the echoes that sound from bank to bank are not the cheerful greetings of friends or merry laughter of girls washing and bathing nor are they snatches of the lilting song of the boatman but of guns belching scorn. hatred and murder. The peaceful shadows of the mango and jamun under which the farmer rested from a hard day’s labor the long drawn thrill of the shepherd boy’s flute are filled with silence – a menacing silence waiting to burst out in rolls of the thunderous Joy Bangla; for the turbulence of the delta streams are now matched with that of the blood running in the veins of these otherwise peace loving people. Unjust scorn and insults have jolted them to reality and as the conquerors mow down the rebellious nation hound out the youth with only the intent to annihilate, they only help in waking them up to their cause of independence. The cause has forged strong bonds of friendship between the two Bengals against the common foreign enemy. The jealous enemy wants to clear away even the traces of rubble from its crackdown on the culture nurtured in the lap of the golden delta of Bengal so that it cannot even leave a fossil to claim its greatness in future.
Such is the land where we found the youth training camps of the Mukti Fouj of Bangladesh. The boys have been hounded out of their homes as any young element in the populace spells danger to the West Pakistan army, Many freedom fighters had been shot dead on sight. Those that had managed to escape the terrible guns and tanks have come to the camps for training in guerilla warfare. In one such camp we found the trained boys sitting in disciplined order inside each tent. A dilapidated house of a zamindar of the olden days provided a school building for the local children and in a portion of that a low basement room dark and damp had been turned into an arms dump. Hurriedly put together for cooking food for the 300 fighters, the kitchen shed was all activity-peeling and cutting vegetables, cooking rice and dal from the extremely limited ration was going on.
Group photo
The cooking was rather prolonged as the pot for rice was meant for half the number of people and therefore double the time and fuel were wasted. The boys were asked to come out from the tents to pose for a group photo. Out rushed the lot and with much pulling and pushing they managed to form a semi-circle. Boys would be boys, I thought whether they are freedom fighters with death hanging over the horizon or teenagers free of care when the examinations have been postponed. One of them was a student of statistics in Dacca University another was studying law and yet another Intermediate Arts in Khulna, hoping to take up B.A. Honors in future. Once the ice was broken their shyness was gone and out tumbled their aspirations and enthusiasm. In spite of having lost their near and dear ones homes and hearth and terrorized by a martial regime they were not cowed down.
Ready to fight for an independent state, where they could survive with honor, the young men were spoiling to go further into the interior but they had no arms and as such were kept waiting in camps. Hundreds were coming to join and many had to be turned away for want of space, food and arms. The Sector Commander a young Major of the Pak army, deserted when the crackdown came on March 25, 1971. He had come home to East Bengal on leave from West Pakistan. He took the opportunity of serving his people and Paul by joining the Mukti Fauj. His enthusiasm was infectious. He believed that if he got arms he could turn out guerilla fighters to form bases all over Bangladesh and could bring about Independence within a couple of months. He took us to a recruiting camp where the Bangladesh boys were collecting for training. Even though the mud and slime, the single fly tarpaulin tents and the simplest ratio of chapati and vegetables were conditions no better than the proverbial refugee camps, the spirit was indomitable.
The youth in affluent societies are frustrated, maladjusted and unhappy with hardly anything to look forward to in a social set-up that is polluted with hypocrisy. Not so here. The fresh eager faces were alight with friendship and loyalty. They did not mind the food or the slush under their beds. All they wanted were arms and training to fight for their motherland. I was touched by the quiet personality of the Sector Commander. His voice was never raised when he spoke to his boys. He believed in work and not talking. His time was not his own but Bangladesh’s. A young man of about 27 years of age, he said he felt like a grandfather with all his experience and present responsibilities. He drew admiration from his men like a magnet and one could see how perfectly teamed they would be in action.
A minefield
The last camp we wished to visit was across an inner branch of the river and involved a journey by launch. The tide was ebbing and as this route through rivers and creeks was not the usual charted way, we had to go very carefully. An hour’s ride brought us to a branch off into two. The main current cuts a deep channel to the left while an irregular array of sand flats to the right render navigation difficult. Since the river was full to the brim then, these accumulations were under water and with a sudden lurch we ground to a halt on one such submerged trap. The launch listed badly and the deck was at such a tilt that we had to grab at pipes and posts to hang on to. Very gradually the boat righted itself but by then the storm that was brewing broke with fury. The overcast sky started pouring with the high wind driving the rain-drops like sharp arrows.
Huddled under shelter we passed a few anxious moments till the weather cleared. Outside a strange sight awaited us. The tide had gone down, the river had parted its waters and our launch rested firmly on an island in the middle.
There was no hope of being released from this till the next rise of tidal waters. The dry sand was clean and firm, affording an ideal haven, cut off from the busy world. The young Major jumped down and drew his finger through the sand and wrote Joy Bangla in large Bengali script. I pointed out that the char or sand flat was temporary, his aspirations should be based on more solid ground. But his interpretation was that when the waters flow over the letters, they will carry the message through the country and ultimately to the sea where the soils of all lands mingle!
When the tide returned the launch floated once more but an engine was damaged and therefore we had to turn back, disappointed at not having seen the last camp on our schedule. The end of the trip seemed symbolic- the clear skies after the storm witnessing the victory message being carried to the wide, wide world from a people seeking freedom refusing to be dominated by the force of the gun.
Very proud of the achievements of his Fouj he narrated how intelligently they had discovered a minefield and brought back wires and mines laid by the Pak army. The box containing them was carefully handled as the spoils were shown to us. They also captured seventeen Razakars with arms paid by the Pak army to slip into Mukti Fouj strongholds. They were used by the West Pak masters to burn, loot and pillage the villages in general, spreading terror in the countryside. The captured arms were welcome acquisitions for the freedom fighters. The Razakars showed a great contrast. Recruited from violent anti-social elements they were given good clothes and new rubber shoes whereas all the liberation fighters wore were banyans and lungis the most they could afford. The disinterested expressions of the Razakars proved that they had no emotional involvement in the fight. If they could be infused with the idea of pride and loyalty for the cause they would find more meaning in life.
Bengali culture
Some elected Awami Leaguers and Members of the National Assembly were going round mixing with the youth in camps trying to get as much aid for them as possible. Their presence was a source of moral strength. Pride for the language, music and art that made up the Bengali culture is something that is universal in Bangladesh. Never in the history of the world has a man won the complete confidence of 98 percent of the electorate Mujibur Rahman leads his people, for he knows the worth of his heritage and shares it with them with such faith that any danger to its existence rouses them to self defense. In every camp we visited, Cheers of Joy Bangla, Mujibur Rahman Zindabad greeted us. A giant among men, a friend of the country, a true son of Mother Bengal such as the stature of Mujib that the only trial he can have is one in the court of human justice where the codes of conduct are not laws written for the preservation of selfish motives.
Reference: Hindustan Standard, 28.11.1971