Can The Refugees Ever Go Home?
Martin Woolacott The Pakistani regime in East Bengal. in spite of Islamabad’s not wholly contemptible attempts to bring about a “return to normalcy,” still rests on a foundation of violence and raw coercion. It is no longer the violence of an avenging army, for most army units are now up at the frontiers, dug in to repel a possible Indian attack. But behind them they have left in the countryside a patchwork of police and Razakar regimes whose depredations against the people, and particularly the remaining Hindus, continues largely unchecked by a not overly concerned martial law administration.
Even if the centrally promulgated “normalcy” measures were not as limited and partially fraudulent as they are, the power of police and Razakars in villages and towns would undermine and vitiate them. In one area north of Dacca. I visited recently, which cannot be identified for fear of giving a pointer to the information source. Nine Hindus were said to have been killed in one village and twelve in another in unjustified executions by Razakars in the previous seven days alone. This was a particularly troubled area that had admittedly served as a refuge and base for Mukti Bahini and in fact killings have become less and less frequent in recent months in East Bengal. But there are a flood of stories from adequate sources demonstrating that although police and Razakars have largely stopped killing people. rape and above all extortion have not stopped.
Extortion
A significant proportion of remaining Hindus have converted” to Islam in – order to survive but in some cases even this has not saved thern. Christian missionaries have been picking up new “converts” for the first time for decades, and their compounds are often crowded with children and girls passed on to them for safety by fearful parents. One favorite trick is false arrest as a means of extortion. Bengalis will tell you that it costs them 500 or 1,000 rupees and even more sometimes to “spring” a relative from prison after a completely unjustified arrest.
To some extent the Razakars and the West Pakistan police have picked up the corrupt police tradition of East Bengal where the EPR, who were certainly not angels, left off. But they have taken it much further. In one ‘area, a well-informed Western source said that there had been three police rapes in the 12 months before March crisis, but that the Razakars and police in only three months since then had been guilty of at least 15, The rapacity and brutality of the Razakars – drawn from the poorer and more criminal classes of East Pakistan – is restrained in some areas by their fear of Mukti Bahini retaliation, in others by sensible peace committees and by decent and efficient officers of the martial law administration. Near Tangail, north of Dacca, I visited a largely Hindu village, which was untouched in spite of the fact that two bridges close by had been blown up by the Mukti. The senior martial law officer in Tangail, I discovered later, was well known as a sensible and humane man. However, he was also an exception to the general rule.
The underpinning of near-gangsterism makes observers, even skeptics, more skeptical of the value of Islamabad’s “normalcy” policy than there might otherwise be. But even taken by itself the “normalcy” package is a dubious one. The dismissal of Tikka Khan and his replacement by a civilian governor, Malik might seem a move in the right direction if it were not for the fact, as one Bengali said, that Malik is “an obedient servant who has always done exactly what the Islamabad Government told him to do. Even if the new governor were to develop ambitions to be more than a cipher, his problem would be, in the words of a Western diplomat, that “the parts of the Government he is supposed to control which aren’t working.”
A case in point is the food plan on which the Government Food Department is working. It includes provision for emergency public works programmes, called “test relief,” throughout the province, to get at least some money into the hands of poor peasants so that they will be able to buy the food which. will be, hopefully, available. Dacca is insistent that Hindus and other suspect families not be left out. But reports suggest that the local regimes are simply ignoring this, as they are other aspects of Government policy, like the amnesty for political prisoners. In the last week or so fairly large numbers have been released, but at the local level they do not like this at all. A middle class Bengali in Mymensingh told me that a senior police officer had commented to him: “Yahya Khan in his office says there should be an amnesty but we’re here in the field and it’s not the right policy.”
Fight
The coming bye-elections will, needless to say, give Bengalis very little opportunity to express their wishes. There is a fight going on between the Right-wing parties, led by the Jamat-l-Islam and the once liberal Pakistan Democratic Party, and Bhutto’s People’s Party of Pakistan to grab as many extra seats as possible. The PPP has already bitterly complained that the Right-wing parties, which largely control the peace committees and Razakars, are using them to prevent- the PPP from campaigning. The importance of these maneuvers is that the PPP is in danger of losing its “majority” in the constituent assembly to a Right-wing coalition. But as far as most Bengalis are concerned there is absolutely nothing to choose between the Right-wing parties, rejected so completely in the 1970 election, and the PPP, the party of the hated Bhutto.
So much for the moves towards normalcy. But even if these were fuller and more genuine than they are, it is fair to say that only a few Bengalis would change sides. “People over 35,” one Bengali told me, “probably would like autonomy within one Pakistan, if they could see the slightest chance of really getting it. These are the people who remember partition and still fear India. Under 35, you will find very few people who would at the moment settle for anything less than independence.” A young Dacca university lecturer told me : “ I have three brothers and none of us are in the Mukti Fauj. Our two sisters keep saying, “you are four. One, at least, must join the Mukti.’ It is the same in every house.” He added: “I am alive today only because I hope one day we will be free. Otherwise what’s the point of living like this?”
Meanwhile, the Mukti Bahini, greatly increased in numbers, armed with better weapons, and seizing the opportunity afforded by the withdrawal of the army from much of the province, are enjoying fair success. Their claims of Pakistani soldiers and Razakars killed are even more fantastic than the army’s claims of Mukti Bahini dead. But they are killing some soldiers and Razakars while their sabotage effort gets better every month. Recently the Mukti struck several times in the very center of Dacca – usually with bombs, but on several occasions moun-ting conventional attacks. In Daryaganj. right in the middle of Dacca old town, a group opened fire on a party of police and Razakar guards, killing one West Pakistani policeman. A two hour firefight there ended with some 60 homes and shops ablaze and with the Mukti making good their escape, having lost one dead.
Corpse
Nervous young Razakars – some as young as 13 and 14- were taking up defensive positions in case the Mukti returned on the ground lay the corpse of a man of about 30, a hole as big as a penny through his left chest and caked blood all over his face. “Miscreant,” said a young Razakar; touching the body gingerly with his foot. In the last few weeks the Mukti have bombed banks and schools and university buildings in Dacca and made a nearly successful effort to mortar the airport. In Dacca and in the countryside, many Mukti now live in their own homes or at least nearby. In one village a young man told me that when he was needed a courier would come to the area and give him and other Mukti instructions. Arms would be ready at the assembly point – including, he claimed, a considerable number of light machine guns and mortars – and the party would then go on to hit the bridge or the Razakar camp which was that night’s target. Since coming back from training in India two months ago he had been “activated” for four engagements, all of them within 20 miles of his home.
The Mukti have not forgotten that there is a political side to the fight. In some parts of East Bengal, for instance, Mukti leaders have given in to pleas from peasants to let the jute go through. The original policy was to lean on the peasants not to grow or at least not to deliver his jute. This has now largely been abandoned: the peasant sells his jute and gets his money, and the Mukti now aim to destroy the jute in the warehouses and not in the fields. In the Gopalganj area, south of Faridpur, where the Mukti are well established, they appear to have a specifically political cadre, which, although armed. spends most of its time explaining to the peasantry what is happening and why. Of course, the effectiveness of the Mukti Bahini still depends to a very considerable extent upon India, which apart from providing arms and training facilities and sanctuary, has also drawn the Pakistani army out of the interior of the province to the borders by its threat of war.
In the mix of various factors making up the East Bengal situation, the UN presence there is increasingly important. Both UNIPRO (United Nations East Pakistan Relief Organization) and UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) are thin on the ground at the moment. But both have plans to expand. UNHCR wants three or four border posts plus offices throughout the province which will give money and help to returning refugees. UNIPRO has plans for ten zonal offices. Such an expansion would have a damping effect on Razakars and police brutality and extortion, even though this is not the official aim of either UN organization. Indeed the UNHCR. according to sources close to the organization. are said to believe that given time and a few million dollars in compensation funds, they could attract back the bulk of the Muslims from India and some of the poorer Hindus in areas where their labor is needed. like the tea garden region in Sylhet.
Killing
If an expanded UN presence was accompanied by a real stiffening of the martial law administration with a consequent reduction in the number of cases of rape. extortion and killing and by the release. via the UN and the Pakistan government, of large funds for compensation and resettlement of refugees, then it is possible to imagine East Bengal moving a few degrees: toward “normality.” Such a slight improvement in the situation, however. could easily be wiped out by an increased Mukti Bahini effort – politically. to scoop back any wavers, and militarily, to provoke the army and its auxiliaries into new violence against the population.
But real “normalcy” obviously can only return to East Bengal in the context of independence achieved through war and possibly through an Indo-Pakistan war. or to the context of near independence, achieved by a political settlement. Mrs. Indira Gandhi, whose current world tour is presumably aimed at exploring the chances that international pressures might bring about such a settlement, is right in saying that the essential negotiations would have to be between Pakistan’s two wings. She is surely wrong however in implying that India would not have an important part to play in such negotiations and in apparently ruling out any talks with Islamabad.
If a political settlement was to be seriously aimed at, Islamabad would have to be ready to release the Sheikh and to negotiate with him and with the Bangladesh leadership in Calcutta as well as to agree to the withdrawal of most Pakistani troops and police and to the concession of the six points. But, equally, Delhi would have to be prepared to negotiate withdrawal of Indian troops from the borders and a reduction in support for the Mukti Fouj, followed by pressure on the Bangladesh leadership in Calcutta to accept less than independent Bangladesh. Calcutta, in turn, would have to reconcile itself to staying in Pakistan, though. presumably, with the Mukti Bahini transformed into a regular force of at least equal size to the remaining Pakistani force, apart from any other guarantees of autonomy.
The Russians are talking to Bangladesh on these lines at the moment, and such a settlement is not entirely inconceivable. For Bangladesh the appropriate parallel would be with Ireland’s acceptance of Commonwealth status in 1921, if they can swallow it. But the difficulties in working through such a triangular programme of reconciliation are so vast that for India to act as if genuine progress toward a settlement must become apparent in the next couple of months or else she will go to war is nonsense. Mrs. Gandhi thus cannot realistically expect more from the various governments she will be seeing than extra money for the refugees on the one hand plus promises from some governments to lean on Islamabad a bit harder. The basic line she will have to contend with is no doubt going to be that although the Yahya government may – just may – be capable of seeing the light on East Bengal, this is not going to happen overnight. It is a fair argument Islamabad must have its nose rubbed in the cost and difficulties of holding East Bengal in the present style for somewhat longer before India jumps to the conclusion that war is the only way out.
Reference: The Guardian, 29 October, 1971