AMRITA BAZAR PATRIKA, APRIL 10, 1971
MASSACRE OF INTELLECTUALS
By Narayan Chaudhury
The marauding forces of Yahya Khan let loose on Bangladesh have razad the Dacca University to the ground. It is said that the Rajshahi University also has shared the same fate at the hands of the West Pakistan borders.
The grim story of destruction of the Dacca University does not end with the demolition of the buildings including total complex of class rooms, laboratories libraries, students’ halls, staff quarters etc., situated inside the campus of the University, side by side with the wanton ravages of this beautiful seat of learning is also reported the almost unbelievable but nevertheless true story of the butchery of about fifty professors who taught in this premier university. These professors_ among whom there are some top intellectuals of East Bengal, are believed to have fallen to the ballets or mortar fire of barbarous enemy.
To those who have seen the Dacca University with its imposing structures and sprawling green lawns spread over a vast area of Ramna and its adjacent neighborhoods the news of its having been destroyed by West Pakistani army action itself must have appeared an inconsolable loss. The loss is rendered many more times unbearable when we hear of the massacre of some of the most distinguished academicians of the university along with its physical ruination. We are shocked beyond measure at the exhibition of this uncalled for savagery by the Pakistani Army.
Parallels
The grusome tragedy is not of course, without historical parallels. The pattern of the killings and of the circumstances under which these took place brings to mind the bitter memory of the Hitlerite hordes onslaughts on culture and all that it connotes some forty years back. It is all of a piece with the fascist technique of extirpation of intellectual elites of a country in a bid to extort obedience from the multitudes by denying them help and guidance from their leading lights.
Islamabad
But the clique’s calculations are totally wrong. Mad after suppressing a whole people by any means, they are oblivious of the lessons of history. Facists everywhere have met their doom by the very processes they unleashed to crush their opponents. The engines of torture and tyranny set in motion by them as an invariable part of their unscrupulous lust for power have always unfailingly boomeranged. The same thing is going to happen to the West Pakistani fascists in Hast Bengal. The ruthless forces of history must operate according to its own set laws. Yahya’s hordes are bound to meet their grave in the plains of Bangladesh by the way logic of their criminal folly.
The minority rulers of West Pakistan have not yet been able to gauge the extent and depth of the feeling of solidarity exemplified by the people of Bangladesh in the face of the most treacherous attack yet recorded in history on their life and liberty. Intellectuals, or non intellectuals, the entire population of Bangladesh are united to a man under the banner of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and it is their bedrock resolve to remain so under all circumstances. They are unshakable in their determination to light to the last till final victory is won. Confronted with such determined patriotism of an entire people ready to stake everything for their country, the military junta of Rawalpindi headed by an unabashed dictator and assisted by several divisions of mercenary soldiers on the rampage are very hard put to make even a face-saving show of their prowess. They might be armed to the teeth equipped with the latest mas killing weapons but even with these positive advantages over a practically unarmed opponent, it is very, very difficult to break the morale of a people newly awakened to a sense of free nationhood and bound together by the firm purpose of asserting and maintaining it at all costs. Decimation of some intellectuals here and some there, although the loss is a very grievous one, will not be able to thwart the resurgence of Bangladesh in the least. By now we have seen enough of the stamina courage and sustaining power of the Mujibur’s liberation force to lead us to that firm conviction.