ॐ Hinduu Nation ॐ

The need for a Kafir (or Hindu) Social media Task Force

By Skanda987

The process for winning or success is many times same for all the persons, or small or large groups, communities or nations. The Islamists are very active to wipe out kafir cultures and spread Islam and Sharia all over the world by all possible means, including terrorism. An example is below article where an Islamist describes a process to form an Islami Social Media Task Force.  The kafir groups or communities or nations can also use the same process or improved process.  In the below article read “Hindu or kafir” where ‘Muslim” word is written, and the process will be ready for kafirs or Hindus.

Jai sri krishna!

-Skanda987

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(Islamic) Social Media Task Force

Written by Executive Director Faizan Syed

http://ztruth.typepad.com/files/prosecuteantiislamwww-cair-stlouis-com-1.pdf

Need for Muslim Social Media task force

As for those who think may have realize by now the power of social media, especially in recent days when mainstream electronic media boycotted the carnage of Rohingya Muslims. Experts are saying that the days of Electronic and print media are numbered, very soon social media will take over and it will play a vital role in shaping public opinion.

US military is fully exploiting this new technology to their advantage, read this article published in New York Times last year in November: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/18/world/us-military-goesonline-to-rebut-extremists.html?_r=1&;;pagewanted=all

Rand Corporation a think tank that works for Pentagon released a report a while ago suggesting that US should invest 20 billion dollars in coming years to drive the public opinion in it’s favor especially in war zones like in Afghanistan, Iraq and anywhere else where the anti western sentiments are high.

The need now for the Muslim community is to take heed and realize the urgent need to establish Muslim Social media task force which will monitor internet and counter the negative and anti Islam and Anti Muslim narratives instantly and in an efficient manner,

One lesson to be derived in this regard is the strategy adopted by Israeli government, it is training Jewish students from around the world and training them in Journalism and media monitoring.

Here is one example of the training American Jewish organizations is offering in US: http://www.theisraelproject.org/site/c.hsJPK0PIJpH/b.2540123/k.318F/TIPDC_Media_Fellowship_Details.htm

I have few suggestions to make in this regard.

An association of Muslim Youth should be created, they be trained in media monitoring and response and in media relations (See above link of Jewish organization for further details)

These Youth should be encouraged to be passionate, aggressive and prompt in their responses.

There need at least one such team in every country (I know it’s a daunting taks, but one small steps takes us to bigger one)

They should coordinate with other Muslim youth operating in different countries.

Report anti Islamic and anti Muslim content on the internet to appropriate authorities to take action to remove it and go after those who post it online and prosecute and take actions according to the Shariah ruling.

Highlight the inconsistencies of the mainstream media and spread it across the web using social networking and all other platforms available to us.

Highlight the bias of media in reporting issues pertaining to Islam and Muslims

Write to editors and journalist reporting on Islam and on Muslim issues (Believe it does have an impact)

Send mass emails out promptly urging Muslims to respond on news reports that is bias and anti Islamic in nature to the editors and journalist and TV anchors.

Promote books, documentaries, movies that is of beneficial to the Muslim youth.

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Please pass this on to the Hindu organizations. Thanks. – Skanda987

From: vishwamohan tiwari < >
Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 4:55 PM
Subject: Fwd: {भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्} Re: Tulsi Dasji described demolition of original Ram Mandir in 1528.

मित्रो,
यह प्रश्न अक्सर  किया जाता था क़ि तुलसी ने राममंदिर विध्वंस पर क्यों नाहीं कुछ  लिखा..
प्रमाण प्रस्तुत है..
विश्व मोहन तिवारी

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: subodh kumar < >
Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 2:09 PM
Subject: Re: {भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्} Re: Tulsi Dasji described demolition of original Ram Mandir in 1528.

Allahabad High court judgment http://elegalix.allahabadhighcourt.in/elegalix/DisplayAyodhyaBenchLandingPage.do  quoted from page 783.

तुलसी  दोहा शतक  से राम  जन्म मंदिर  के विध्वंस  पर :

मंत्र उपनिषद ब्राह्मनहुँ  बहु पुरान इतिहास ।

जवन  जराये  रोष  भरि  करि  तुलसी  परिहास ॥

सिखा सूत्र  से  हीन करि, बल ते हिन्दु लोग ।

भमरि  भगाये देश ते, तुलसी कठिन कुजोग ॥

बाबर  बर्बर  आइके, कर  लीन्हे करवाल ।

हने  पचारि पचारि जन, तुलसी काल कराल ॥

सम्बत सर वसु बान भर नभ, ग्रीष्म ऋतु अनुमानि ।

तुलसि अवधहिँ जड़ जवन, अनरथ किए अनखानि॥

राम  जनम मंदिर   महिँ मंदिरहिँ ,तोरि  मसीत  बनाय ।

जबहि  बहु  हिन्दुन हते ,   तुलसी कीन्ही हाय ॥

दल्यो  मीरबाकी अवध , मन्दिर राम समाज ।

तुलसी  रोवत हृदय अति , त्राहि त्राहि रघुराज ॥

राम  जनम मंदिर जहँ , लसत अवध के बीच ।

तुलसी रची मसीत तहँ, मीरबाकी खल नीच ॥

रामायन घरि घन्ट जहँ श्रुति पुरान उपखान।

तुलसी जवन अजान तहँ, कुरान  अजान ॥

From: A Vedic < >

Pakistan New Thoughts
Should India trust Islamic Pakistan?
Should Pakistan first become a secular state before trusting?

Dawn (Pakistan) reporter, Mobarak Haider , renowned Pakistani Intellectual

[The final lines in this article are these. (The words added by Skanda987 are in parenthesis):

There is no country in the world even today where Islamist country gives equal rights to non-Muslims, and naturally there is growing (Muslim) concern for their future in India among (the Hindu) majority.    The problem is Islam itself.   Christianity grew out of their backward looking thinking in their own practice of religion (but it uses political and economic power to conver teh world,) but Islam followers are unable to grow out of archaic thinking of hatred and conquest that shaped the birth of its religion. (This is because Koran, Mohammed, and Hadith teaches them so.)    Unless and until we (the Muslims) grow to be all humanity as one religion, we feel oneness with the whole universe, as professed by Hinduism in its core, there is no future for this planet.  (This is only possible when the Muslims of India, pakistan, and Bangla Desh give up Islam. Why give up, because Islam is anti-Vedic, and has invaded in India by force, and the ancestors of all these Muslims a few centuries ago were Hindus who were forced to become Muslims, and teh history shows that where there is Islam, there cannto be peace.) As the world renowned Spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle says, “Consciousness will find other avenues to express itself if humanity (specifically Islam) does not evolve.”]

Mobarak Haider | 5th February, 2013

-Illustration by Khuda Bux Abro.

This blog is part 1 of a four-part series that attempts to understand the enemy within; and why and how our establishment has fed this monster for decades.

See Part 2: Coexistence with the world

See Part 3: Coexistence with India – II

_____________________

Pakistan’s new army doctrine comes as good news for all who wish us well as a nation. For the first time in 65 years the army has shifted its focus from the eastern border to our internal enemy in the northwest. Let us hope it does not mean hands free for a crackdown on the Baloch, an issue that needs a political solution while harder military measures may result in deeper tragedies. Although, the army spokesman assured our lions and eagles that we shall keep India as our enemy no.1, yet the admission that the enemy within is more dangerous at the moment, may well prove to be a turning point in our history.

But we have to realize that the enemy within is not simply the non-state actors who have declared holy war on Pakistan; it is a special mindset that has created them and will continue to breed them in the future. It is this mindset which was discussed in detail in my book Tahzeebi Nargasiat and in subsequent writings, including my last blog. Facts and events of our history have shown that this mindset of pathological narcissism, of self-righteous self-love breeds a hundred tragedies till the society falls into paranoia and starts hurting itself and everything around it. What our army and government have now decided to fight is a threat not only to Pakistan but to the entire region’s peace. We have to combat that mindset and the forces that promote it, if we wish to survive as a state and society, whatever the amount of effort it may need, however painful the sacrifices it may demand. We cannot afford to fail, because such failure can empower nations of the region to intervene, exposing our land of anarchy to immense bloodshed and misery.

Unfortunately, the enemy within is the product of our obscure ambitions since 1947. It is of critical importance for us to understand why and how our establishment fed this monster for decades. We, the people, must know the truth if we wish to survive and grow.

The dominant classes of Pakistan that demanded separation from the rest of India in 1947 were mainly the same who had ruled India under different Muslim dynasties. They were the landed aristocracy, “pirs” and ulema of different levels. They lost power to the British, but never gave up their claim over India. Some Muslims who served the British as civil servants and the army men also joined to share the ambition for power. Being small in number these groups, even with the support of the entire Muslim population of India could not hope to dominate a huge Indian population in a democratic system. Therefore, they aroused the Muslim masses to support their demand for a separate homeland, appealing to their religious pride and fear of persecution. Congress leaders and a large number of Muslims who chose to live as Indian citizens all exerted each nerve to show our Muslim league leadership that a religious approach to politics in a world of diverse religions and people will initiate disaster but the highly aroused fears of persecution decided our course; our self-image as a special community prevailed.

Faith is one thing while a profession of faith is quite another. Like all ruling elite of medieval ages, our Muslim rulers of India were down-to-earth, worldly men; but they professed Islam only to win the devout support of religious leadership. Religious leaders have also been equally great self-seekers. These two groups of dominant professionals colluded throughout history to rule simpler people with the tool of faith, not only in the Muslim kingdoms of India but everywhere else too. They were magicians and pharaohs in Egypt, Khashtris (kshatriyas) and Brahmins in India, kings and priests in Christian Europe and Caliph Kings and ulema of fiqh in the Arab Empire. This pattern of power-sharing by the Muslim kings and ulema worked well in India. Shah Waliullah invited Abdali in that same capacity of a down-to-earth, power sharing priest. This same formula created the present day kingdom of Saud where a tribal chief and a holy man struck a deal. Almost a similar deal created Pakistan where Quaid-e-Azam seems to have been just a brilliant lawyer whose job ended soon after the partition.

Independence comes as jubilation to a nation. But in 1947 it came with tragedies of separation and bloodshed to the subcontinent. India overcame many of her problems because its leaders depended not on a religious class but on democracy, where the army accepted its subordinate and supporting role, while politics and diplomacy made the main defense. In Pakistan, medieval concepts dominated instead. We had been perpetually indoctrinated to love the “mujahid” and the maulana. The ulema and religious parties immediately demanded a decisive role. Landed gentry found the ulema and the army as their best protectors. That perhaps explains why no land reform has damaged them to this day.

These two stake holders decided to promote each other as the champions of Islam, fighting the heretics of India as their core duty. The Kashmir problem existed only as a permanent excuse for arousing sentiment; it was never handled with the modern tools of effective diplomacy because a liberal, democratic India always found more friends against our ever deepened religious identity. Only one education was allowed and available to the nation: Fight India with the power of Islam. This brought absolute power to our GHQ and finally served American plans; the soldiers of Islam faithfully fought for America’s global supremacy, opening Pakistan’s doors to international holy warriors.

An army that assumes political power cannot remain a professional fighting force; our army gradually outsourced its fighting jobs in Kashmir and Afghanistan to civilian opportunists who were made dearer to us than our own kith and kin through Islamic sentiment. General Zia encouraged these violent hordes to make money through crime and drugs. That might have exposed them to international buyers with greater rewards than Pakistan could offer. Ambition to rule Pak-Afghania may have motivated them and, unfortunately, these non-state actors are not just a few rebels out there; they have a vast popular backing among our affluent middle classes.

With absolute lack of vision, our political and military leadership created a mindset which has no respect for systems of a modern state. The only authority that appeals to this mindset is the maulana and themujahid. A very heartbreaking struggle awaits our lines of defense

All medieval conquerors were basically predators; they lived at the cost of the people they conquered, appropriating their resources, which naturally antagonized the subject people.  Muslim rulers, after the first four caliphs, used the Islamic doctrine of Zimmitude generally to their worldly benefit.

Rulers can win their subjects’ respect, even their affection, with their wisdom and justice. After many atrocities and crimes against their Indian subjects the British were able to leave India as almost friends, and no hostility exists today between them and their former subjects because their leaders and people confessed their crimes; they agreed to leave; and they left many gifts of value like modern learning, religious tolerance, systems of governance, constitutional democracy, science and technology.

Unfortunately, unlike the colonial capitalists of Europe, our ancestors had very few benefits to offer to their Zimmis in India which could endear them to their subjects. Added to it was the religious pride of our ulema that believed in the supremacy of Islam and flaunted it without a semblance of courtesy or hesitation. This only antagonized the subject people ever more deeply and necessitated perpetual use of force to maintain Muslim rule. In order to nourish the fighting spirit of the soldiers and common Muslims, ever more pride of faith and ever deeper contempt for reason was injected into their psyche through the ulema and clergy. The principle of equal human treatment of the Muslims and non-Muslims remained alien to their rule.

The absence of positive performance was compensated with boastful pride of the ability to destroy. That is perhaps an inherited attitude when our orators in Pakistan proudly talk of what we destroyed: our ancestors destroyed Indian idols and kings followed by the recent smashing of the peaceful Buddha; recently we destroyed the Soviet Union, we have pushed America to disaster, we shall destroy India, Europe and every system of “Jahiliah”, including our own systems and people in Pakistan and Afghanistan. This mindset hardly ever asks: what did we create or build?

We, as a nation, have gradually lost all respect for science and scientists; we have substituted research with conspiracy theories; we boast of our nuclear build-up, which is again an ability to destroy, not defend, an ability stolen from heretics without learning the science that creates it. This shortcut mentality, to escape science and invention, is an expression of our lazy, self-righteous pretensions. To bury the guilt, our power hungry ulema expects us to admire a scientist, a nuclear opportunist who admires the Taliban, and hate the real scientists of the world as heretics.

It is, therefore, natural for our people with this mindset to support the monster when it destroys Pakistan and the world with the banner of Islam in its hand. Self-righteousness is the dismissal of humility; it jams our ability to objectively appreciate merit, so that the virtue and merit of others never attracts our attention. Bragging of our own virtue and merit grows louder as our record of performance dips. This dichotomy of practice and pretension paralyses judgment and kills the resolve to make amends.

Ever since Independence, our governments and army leaders propagated the easy excuse that India aspires to annex Pakistan to realize an ancient Hindu dream of “Greater India”. But was this view realistic? Is it an exclusively Hindu dream? The fact is: Muslim rulers and the ulema also desired Greater India. They had endeavored hard for centuries to rule the whole of India; many times in these seven centuries they tried to hold Afghanistan with one hand while holding Bengal with the other. Ever since 1947, our generals and leaders have tried to grab Afghanistan and hold Bengal by force. Our lions and eagles still dream to destroy Bharat and make it a Muslim colony again.

Thus, it was natural for the ancient people of the subcontinent to dream of a united India even if it was no more possible. Long before the Muslim conquerors, India had Ashoka, Kanishka and Harshwardhana who ruled large parts of India with no less glory than the Muslims did. It was hardly anything abnormal if some nostalgic sons of the soil wished to restore their past glory in their own land, while the majority did not share the dream. Hindus have lived in this land for more than 4000 years with a deep sense of belonging. On the contrary, our Muslim ancestors came 1000 years ago and did not develop a sense of belonging. They did not assimilate or integrate with the people they ruled, keeping their identity as foreigners, with loyalty to the holy lands of Arabia. The British also ruled as foreigners but they did not demand a part of India like we did; they agreed to leave India while we did not, although we declared that we were not Indians. Our self-righteousness so limits our sense of justice that what we practice with great pomp and show, seems hateful to us if others desire it.

Justice and honesty demand that facts be examined before we accept or reject a claim. The facts did not verify the claim that India aspired to annex Pakistan or a part of it. Although a limited right wing of Indian politics threatened to avenge the wrongs of history, yet that mood never dominated India. On the contrary our opinion makers and the ulema on this side of the border kept pushing up on mass level the hype to conquer Kashmir and hoist our flag over the “Red Fort”.

It is difficult in Pakistan to state the fact that India did not annex Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka or another dependent country. It did not annex Bangladesh which achieved its separation from Pakistan purely with Indian Army action. The wars which we claimed as Indian aggression on our eastern border were later exposed as our own initiation. These are facts that embarrass our claims of persecution.

To be continued…

Mobarak Haider | 12th February, 2013

This blog is part 2 of a four-part series that attempts to understand the enemy within; and why and how our establishment has fed this monster for decades. 

See Part 1: Coexistence with India

See Part 3: Coexistence with India – II

_____________________

Unfortunately it is not yet clear whether our army and leaders really believe that “the enemy within” actually means those who use Islam for their power and support in their mission to destroy this state and society. So far neither the state nor the society seems to realize that these forces will destroy both of them as they exist today. In fact, the killer is a darling, a hero, a holy destroyer because he is fighting to implement in practice what the state and society profess as their ideal but do not implement.

While the state and society pretend to love Arabian Mullah’s Islam as a theory, they lack the readiness to live it. This society was told for generations that the state and all its resources must serve only Islam and fight the enemies of Islam. The “westernized” men in power believed this slogan would serve them well, without demanding any change in their Officer’s Mess culture. But political Ulema like Maudoodi, Mufti and Usmani were not their slaves; they had great ambitions with the Holy Arab Empire behind them. As generals and bureaucrats plunged in their prosperity drive and property deals, organized Islam steadily entered lower ranks in all centers of power and lashed at the semi liberal patterns of society, calling it depravity, perversion and shameless rebellion against Allah.

Dichotomy of conviction and conduct creates a crushing sense of guilt. The entire society and its rulers stood like truant boys before the godly maulana. Pakistan’s teeming millions of working masses had no sense of guilt, but Bhutto, their dearly loved leader, found his own iron melting and went to Maudoodi’s den to seek forgiveness. His later decision to lay down his life, however, brought him back to the simple-hearted masses, perhaps because they love simple and liberal Islam and do not feel the guilt of dichotomy which so molests our affluent middle class.

Everybody of importance soon realized that externalization of guilt in public and repentance in private were good ways to wash dirty hands, while keeping what they had grabbed. The emergence of Zia was natural while that of Musharraf was so unnatural that an armed invasion of the Islamic Republic became possible to cleanse it of un-Islamic “filth”. When holy warriors today attack our troops or explode our people, resentment is not directed towards the warrior, it simply turns to the “hypocrite” in power. The holy warrior’s destructiveness, therefore, is not so hateful as to deserve the treatment that India or America deserves. This perhaps explains why the “enemy within” is so single-minded and so organized while our leaders, generals and middle classes vacillate like overgrown stalks in wind.

Our first Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan panicked when he received an invitation from the Soviets and requested the Americans to save him by sending an invitation. Thus, we assumed our interesting role that spelled gradual disaster: Islam for America to fight the Soviets + Islam for our army to fight India. Much later when the East wing was gone and the two nation theory almost done, Z A Bhutto added another enemy to the list of our eternal enemies. Now we had Hindus and Jews in addition to atheists, a thousand years to fight for a thousand miles on the East and a thousand miles across the Holy Lands. We injected our nation’s blood in the nukes till the intoxicated nation lost its consciousness due to anemia. How rewarding was it to have the Islamic bomb? We lost Bhutto as a punishment from our Western mentor who knew our nuclear prowess was meaningless against the Soviets while dangerous in the hands of an emotionally charged religious state against India and Israel. We fought India each time to lose, because the US did not support us but we won against the Soviets because the Free World stood behind. We consistently refused to see that not only America but the whole world valued India and Israel. Only China supported us for a while against India till we showed her our holy teeth in Sinkiang, and Saudi Arabia encouraged us against Israel only by occasionally permitting us to kiss the holy royal hands.

The enemy within is a breed of crude, unreasoning tyrants who have no respect for life and law, not even their own. The mindset which created this self-righteous specie is strongly negative. It negates and excludes all that is “the others”, so that what remains to be admired is “we” and “ours”. Everything we do is right and just. Unfortunately, for more than a millennium, we, the Muslims of the world, served our ruling elite as their power base, as their soldiers, their police and agricultural work force. Perpetual conflict with the subject people, excessive emphasis on faith and dominance of the dogmatic Ulema dried up the positive human creativity of Muslims, as well as their subjects.

The Holy Prophet of Islam (SAAW) desired to know the essence of things, but Muslim societies for ever produced only Imam, Hafiz and Mujahid. The tradition of reason and critical thinking grew for just a century but dried up as an illegal activity after Imam Hambal, to be finally strangulated by Imam Ghazali. Freedom to think and disagree was strongly crushed with the final defeat of Mu’tazilla. Since creativity needs freedom to think and disagree, therefore, the Muslim civilization lost all creativity. Although the pride of righteousness and spirituality was pumped into the Muslim psyche, our world remained deeply soaked in myopic selfishness and parrot learning. Trade excelled in the Arab empire more than it had in any earlier periods of history, but innovation and improvement in other fields became alien to the Muslim Ummah; agriculture, handicrafts, transport, navigation, political system, health, education and administration stagnated for centuries because the conquerors and traders don’t need innovation. Even weaponry which was the source of our power remained pathetically conventional till the Mongols came to show us that we were not the fastest horsemen or the most efficient killers.

Our leaders and generals must see these facts of history and life. We have to open a national seminar that aims at reforming our middle class concepts of guilt and virtue and competence. Disastrous ambitions of political Islam to rule this region and the world must be exposed as merit-less and suicidal. Islam must be redeemed as a soft and kind path to ethical goodness and humility. Its role must end as a weapon in the hands of an aggressively pretentious but totally uncreative mullah. But that will start only when our leaders realize the threat and discard their strategic assets. It is disturbing to hear that ambitions of strategic depth and parasitic blackmail persist; no redemption is possible if that is true.

To be continued…

The author is a renowned Pakistani intellectual. His Urdu books Tehzeebi Nargisyat and Mubaalghe, Mughaalte are widely regarded as the revival of critical thinking and free inquiry in Urdu non-fiction.

Thank you for your honest and frank article.   I pray that no harm comes to you from wrongheaded extremists in your country where speaking ones mind is crime.   What happened after Independence in Pakistan and Bangla Desh also need introspection.   In 1947, Pakistan had 25% Hindus and Sikhs, today less than 1% and in Bangla Desh 30% and today less than 10%.   I understand most of this happened within few months after partition and later by conversions, forcible marriages by kidnapping girls, this is the life of minorities in Pakistan.   In spite of perceived shortcomings for minorities in India, Muslim population increased from 7% to 15+% and added to illegal immigration; it is now believed to be 20%.    There is no country in the world even today where Islamist country gives equal rights to non-Muslims, and naturally there is growing concern for their future in India among (the Hindu) majority.    The problem is Islam itself.   Christianity grew out of their backward looking thinking in their own practice of religion, but Islam followers are unable to grow out of archaic thinking of hatred and conquest that shaped the birth of its religion.    Unless and until we grow to be all humanity as one religion, we feel oneness with the whole universe, as professed by Hinduism in its core, there is no future for this planet.  As the world renowned Spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle says, “consciousness will find other avenues to express itself if humanity does not evolve.”

Hindus-s Devastation by Islam

From: Dilip Kumar Roy < >

Neville Anthony Mascarenhas, a Pakistani journalist and author, wrote an article called “Genocide”, which was published in The Sunday Times on 13 June 1971. It is credited with having “exposed for the first time the scale of the Pakistan army’s brutal campaign to suppress its breakaway eastern province”.

Many think Macarena’s reportage played its part in ending the war. It helped turn world opinion against Pakistan and encouraged India to play a decisive role. Even Indian then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi herself stating that Mascarenhas’ article has led her” to prepare the ground for India’s armed intervention.” In 1972, he won the Granada’s Gerald Barry Award and the International Publishing Company’s Special Award for reporting on the human rights violations committed during the Bangladesh Liberation War.

Here Is the Full Articles collected from Bangladesh Documents vol – I, page no: 358 – 373.

GENOCIDE
An account by Anthony Mascarenhas

Former Assistant Editor, Morning News, Karachi

(Note – Skanda987 has corrected punctuations and has run spell check. Still the article may not be as original.)

            ABDUL BARI had run out of luck. Like thousands of other people in East Bengal, he had made the mistake – the fatal mistake – of running within sight of a Pakistani army patrol. He was 24 years old, a slight man surrounded by soldiers. He was trembling, because he was about to be shot.

“Normally we would have killed him as he ran,” I was informed chattily by Major Rathore, the G-2 Ops. of the 9th Division, as we stood on the out­skirts of a tiny village near Mudafarganj, about 20 miles south of Comilla.

“But we are checking him out for your sake. You are new here and I see you have a squeamish stomach. ”
“Why kill him?” I asked with mounting concern.
“Because he might be a Hindu or he might be a rebel, perhaps a student or an Awami Leaguer.

“They know we are sorting them out and they betray themselves by running. ”

“But why are you killing them? And why pick on the Hindus?” I persisted.

“Must I remind you, ” Rathore said severely, ”how they have tried to des­troy Pakistan? Now

under the cover of the fighting we have an excellent oppor­tunity of finishing them off. ”
First Glimpse of Blood stains
“Of course, ” he added hastily, ”we are only killing the Hindu men. We are soldiers, not cowards like the rebels. They kill our women and children. ”
I WAS GETTING my first glimpse of the stain of blood which has spread over the otherwise verdant land of East Bengal. First it was the massacre of the non-Bengalis in a savage outburst of Bengali hatred. Now it was massacre, deliberately carried out by the West Pakistan army.
The pogrom’s victims are not only the Hindus of East Bengal-who constitute about 10 per cent of the 75 million population, but also many thousands of Bengali Muslims. These include university and college students, teachers, Awami League and Left-Wing political cadres and every one thee army can catch of the 176, 000 Bengali military men and police who mutinied on March 26 in a specta­cular, though untimely and ill-starred bid, to create an independent Republic of Bangla Desh.
What I saw and heard with unbelieving eyes and ears during my 10 days in East Bengal in late April made it terribly clear that the killings are not the isolated acts of military commanders in the field.
The West Pakistani soldiers are not the only ones who have been killing in East Bengal, of course. On the night of March 25-and this I was allowed to report by the Pakistani censor-the Bengali troops and paramilitary units stationed in East Pakistan mutinied and attacked non-Bengalis with atrocious savagery.
Thousands of families of unfortunate Muslims, many of them refugees from Bihar who chose Pakistan at the time of the partition riots in 1947 were merci­lessly wiped out. Women were raped, or had their breasts torn out with specially fashioned knives. Children did not escape the horror: the lucky ones were killed with their parents; but many thousands of others must go through what life remains for them with eyes gouged out and limbs roughly amputated. More than 20, 000 bodies of non-Bengalis have been found in the main towns, such as Chitta­gong, Khulna and Jessore. The real toll, I was told everywhere in East Bengal, may have been as high as 100, 000; for thousands of non-Bengalis have vanished with­out a trace.
The Government of Pakistan has let the world know about that first horror. What it has suppressed is the second and worse horror which followed when its own army took over the killing. West Pakistani officials privately calculate that; altogether both sides have killed 250, 000 people-not counting those who have died of famine and disease.
Reacting to the almost successful breakaway of the province, which has more than half the country’s population, General Yahya Khan’s military Govern­ment is pushing through its own” final solution” of the East Bengal problem.
“We are determined to cleanse East Pakistan once and for all of the threat of secession, even if it means killing of two million people and ruling the pro­vince as a colony for 30 years, ” I was repeatedly told by senior military and civil officers in Dacca and Comilla.
The West Pakistan army in East Bengal is doing exactly that with a terri­fying thoroughness.
WE HAD BEEN racing against the setting sun after a visit to Chandpur (the West Pakistan army prudently stays indoors at night in East Bengal) when one of the jawans (privates) crouched in the back of the Toyota Land Cruiser called out sharply:”There’s a man running, Sahib”.
Major Rathore brought the vehicle to an abrupt halt, simultaneously reaching for the Chinese made light machine-gun propped against the door. Less than 200 yards away a man could be seen loping through the knee-high paddy.
“For God’s sake don’t shoot,” I cried. ”He’s unarmed. He’s only a villager. ” Rathore gave me a dirty look and fired a warning burst.
As the man sank to a crouch in the lush carpet of green, two jawarns were already on their way to drag him in. The thud of a rifle butt across the shoulders preceded the questioning.
“Who are you?”
“Mercy, Sahib! My name is Abdul Bari. I’m a tailor from the New Market in Dacca.
“Don’t lie to me. You’re a Hindu. Why were you running?”
“’It’s almost curfew time, Sahib, and I was going to my village.”
“Tell me the truth. Why were you running?”
Before the man could answer he was quickly frisked for weapons by a jawan while another quickly snatched away his lunghi. The skinny body that was bared revealed the distinctive traces of circumcision, which is obligatory for Muslims.
The truckloads of human targets
At least it could be plainly seen that Bari was not a Hindu. The interrogation proceeded.
“Tell me, why were you running?”
By this time Bari, wild eyed and trembling violently, could not answer. He buckled at the knees.
“He looks like a fauji, sir,” volunteered one jawan as Bari was hauled to his feet, (Fauji is the Urdu word for soldier: the army uses it for the Bengali rebels it is hounding. )
“Could be,” I heard Rathore mutter grimly.
Abdul Bari was clouted several times with the butt end of a rifle, then ominously pushed against a wall. Mercifully his screams brought a young head peeping from the shadows of a nearby hut. Bari shouted something in Bengali. The head vanished. Moments later a bearded old man came haltingly from the hut. Rathore pounced on him.
“Do you know this man?”
“Yes, Sahib. He is Abdul Bari.”

“Is he a fauji?”
“No Sahib, he is a tailor from Dacca. ”
“Tell me the truth. ”
“Khuda Kassam (God’s oath), Sahib, he is a tailor. ”
There was a sudden silence. Rathore looked abashed as I told him “For God’s sake let him go. What more proof do you want of his innocence?”
But the jawans were apparently unconvinced and kept milling around Bari. It was only after I had once more interceded on his behalf that Rathore ordered Bari to be released. By that time he was a crumpled, speechless heap of terror. But his life had been saved. Others have not been as fortunate.
For six days as I travelled with the officers of the 9th Division headquarters at Comilla I witnessed at close quarters the extent of the killing. I saw Hindus, hunted from village to village and door to door, shot off-hand after a cursory” short-arm inspection” showed they were uncircumcised. I have heard the screams of men bludgeoned to death in the compound of the Circuit House (civil administrative headquarters) in Comilla. I have seen truck loads of other human targets and those who had the humanity to try to help them hauled off “for under the cover of darkness and curfew.” I have witnessed the brutality of “kill and burn missions” as the army units, after clearing out the rebels, pursued the pogrom in the towns and the villages.
I have seen whole villages devastated by “punitive action.”
And in the officers’ mess at night I have listened incredulously as otherwise brave and honorable men proudly chewed over the day’s kill.
“How many did you get?”
The answers are seared in my memory.
All this is being done, as any West Pakistani officer will tell you, for the “preservation of the unity, the integrity and the ideology of Pakistan. ” It is, of course, too late for that. The very military action that is designed to hold together the two wings of the country, separated by a thousand miles of India, has confirmed the ideological and emotional break. East Bengal can only be kept in Pakistan by the heavy hand of the army. And the army is dominated by the Punjabis, who traditionally despise and dislike the Bengalis.
The break is so complete today that few Bengalis will willingly be seen in the company of a West Pakistani. I had a distressing experience of this kind during my visit to Dacca when I went to visit an old friend. “I’m sorry, ” he told me as he turned away, ”things have changed. The Pakistan that you and I knew has ceased to exist. Let us put it behind us. ”
Hours later a Punjabi army officer, talking about the massacre of the non­ Bengalis before the army moved in, told me:” They have treated us more brutally than the Sikhs did in the partition riots in 1947. How can we ever forgive or forget this?”
Annihilation of Hindus
The bone-crushing military operation has two distinctive features. One is what the authorities like to call the “cleansing process”; a euphemism for massacre. The other is the “rehabilitation effort.

” This is a way of describing the moves to turn East Bengal into a docile colony of West Pakistan. These commonly used expressions and the repeated official references to “miscreants” and “infiltra­tors” are part of the charade which is being enacted for the benefit of the world. Strip away the propaganda, and the reality is colonization-and killing.
The justification for the annihilation of the Hindus was paraphrased by Lt. Gen. Tikka Khan, the Military Governor of East Pakistan, in a radio broadcast I heard on April 18. He said:”The Muslims of East Pakistan, who had played a leading part in the creation of Pakistan, are determined to keep it alive. How­ever, the voice of the vast majority had been suppressed through coercion, threats to life and property by a vocal, violent and aggressive minority, which forced the Awami League to adopt the destructive course. ”
Others, speaking privately, were blunter in seeking justification.
“The Hindus had completely undermined the Muslim masses with their money, ” Col. Naim, of 9th Division headquarters, told me in the officers’ mess at Comilla. They bled the province white. Money, food and produce flowed across the bor­ders to India. In some cases they made up more than half the teaching staff in the colleges and schools, and sent their own children to be educated in Cal­cutta. It had reached the point where Bengali culture was in fact Hindu culture, and East Pakistan was virtually under the control of the Marwari businessmen in Calcutta. We have to sort them out to restore the land to the people, and the people to their Faith. ”
Or take Major Bashir. He came up from the ranks. He is SSO of the 9th Division at Comilla and he boasts of a personal body count of 28. He had his own reasons for what has happened. ”This is a war between the pure and the impure,” he informed me over a cup of green tea. ”The people here may have Muslim names and call themselves Muslims. But they are Hindus at heart. You won’t believe that the maulvi (mulla) of the Cantonment mosque here issued a fathwa (edict) during Friday prayers that the people would attain janat (paradise) if they killed West Pakistanis. We sorted the bastard out and we are now sor­ting out the others. Those who are left will be real Muslims. We will even teach them Urdu. ”
Everywhere I found officers and men fashioning imaginative garments of justification from the fabric of their own prejudices. Scapegoats had to be found to legitimize, even for their own consciences, the dreadful “solution” to what in essence was a political problem: the Bengalis won the election and wanted to rule. The Punjabis, whose ambitions and interests have dominated government policies since the founding of Pakistan in 1947, would brook no erosion of their power. The army backed them up.
Officials privately justify what has been done as retaliation for the massacre of the non-Bengalis before the army moved in. But events suggest that the pog­rom was not the result of a spontaneous or undisciplined reaction. It was planned.
General Tikka Khan takes over
It seems clear that the “sorting-out” began to be planned about the time that Lt-Gen. Tikka Khan took over the governorship of East Bengal, from the gentle, self-effacing Admiral Ahsan, and the military command there, from the scholarly Lt-Gen. Sahibzada Khan. That was at the beginning of March, when Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s civil disobedience movement was gathering momentum after the postponement of the assembly meeting from which the Bengalis hoped for so much. President Yahya Khan, it is said, acquiesced in the tide of resent­ment caused in the top echelons of the military establishment by the increasing humiliation of the West Pakistani troops stationed in East Bengal. The Punjabi Eastern Command at Dacca continues to dominate the policies of the Central Government. [It is perhaps worth pointing out that the Khans are not related: Khan is a common surname in Pakistan.
When the army units fanned out in Dacca on the evening of March 25, in pre-emptive strikes against the mutiny planned for the small hours of the next morning, many of them carried lists of people to be liquidated. These included the Hindus and large numbers of Muslims; students, Awami Leaguers, professors, journalists and those who had been prominent in Sheikh Mujib’s movement. The charge, now publicly made, that the army was subjected to mortar attack from the Jaganath Hall, where the Hindu university students lived, hardly justifies the obliteration of two Hindu colonies, built around the temples on Raman race course, and a third in Shakrepati, in the heart of the old city. Nor does it explain why the sizeable Hindu populations of Dacca and the neighboring industrial town of Narayanganj should have vanished so completely during the round-the-clock curfew on March 26 and 27. There is similarly no trace of scores of Muslims who were rounded up during the curfew hours. These people were eliminated in a planned operation: and improvised response to Hindu aggression would have had ~as, l~ different results.
Touring Dacca on April 15 1 found the heads of four students lying rotting on the roof of the Iqbal Hall hostel. The caretaker said they had been killed on the night of March 25. I also found heavy traces of blood on the two staircases and in four of the rooms. Behind Iqbal Hall a large residential building seemed to have been singled out for special attention by the army. The walls were pitted with bullet holes and a foul smell still lingered on the staircase, although it had been heavily powdered with DDT. Neighbors said the bodies of 23 women and children had been carted away only hours before. They had been decomposing on the roof since March 25. It was only after much question­ing that I was able to ascertain that the victims belonged to the nearby Hindu shanties. They had sought shelter in the building as the army closed in.
THIS IS GENOCIDE conducted with amazing casualness. Sitting in the office of Major Agha, Martial Law Administrator of Comilla city, on the morning of’ April 19, I saw the off-hand manner in which sentences were meted out. A Bihari sub-inspector of police had walked in with a list of prisoners being held in the police lock-up. Agha looked it over. Then, with a flick of his pencil, he casually ticked off four names on the list.
“Bring these four to me this evening for disposal,” he said. He looked at the list again. The pencil flicked once more.”. . . and bring this thief along with, them. ”
Death sentence over Cold Drink
The death sentence had been pronounced over a glass of coconut milk. I was informed that two of the prisoners were Hindus, the third a “student,” and the fourth an Awami League organizer. The “thief,” it transpired, was a lad named Sebastian who had been caught moving the household effects of a Hindu friend to his own house.
Later that evening I saw these men, their hands and legs tied loosely with, a single rope, being led down the road to the Circuit House compound. A little after curfew, which was at 6 o’clock, a flock of squawking mynah birds were disturbed in their play by the thwacking sound of wooden clubs meeting bone and flesh.
Captain Azmat of the Baluch Regiment had two claims to fame according to the mess banter. One was his job as ADC to Maj. -Gen. Shaukat Raza, Commanding officer of the 9th Division. The other was thrust on him by his colleagues’ ragging.
Azmat, it transpired, was the only officer in the group who had not made a” kill” Major Bashir needled him mercilessly.
“Come on Azmat,” Bashir told him one night, “we are going to make a man of you. Tomorrow we will see how you can make them run. It’s so easy.”
To underscore the point Bashir went into one of his long spiels. Apart from his duties as SSO, Bashir was also “education officer” at Headquarters. He was the only Punjabi officer I found who could speak Bengali fluently. By general agreement Bashir was also a self-taught bore who gloried in the sound of his own voice.
A dare Walla (bearded man) we were told, had come to see Bashir that morning to inquire about his brother, a prominent Awami League organizer of Camilla who had been netted by the army some days earlier. Dhor gaya, Bashir said he told him:”He has run away. ” The old man couldn’t comprehend how his brother could have escaped on a broken leg. Neither could I. So Major Bashir, with a broad wink, enlightened me. The record would show dhor gaya: “shot while escaping. ”
I never did find out whether Captain Azmat got his kill. The rebel Bengali forces who had dug in at Feni, seventy miles north of Chittagong on the highway to Comilla had tied down the 9th Division by destroying all the bridges and culverts in the area. General Raza was getting hell from the Eastern Command at Dacca which was anxious to have the south-eastern border sealed against escaping rebels. It was also desperately urgent to open this only land route to the north to much= needed supplies that had been piling up in the port at Chittagong.
So General Raza was understandably waspish. He flew over the area almost -daily. He also spent hours haranguing the brigade that was bogged down at Feni. Captain Azmat, as usual, was the General’s shadow. I did not see him again. But if experience is any pointer, Azmat probably had to sweat out his “kill” and the ragging-for another three weeks. It was only on May 8 that the 9th Division was able to clear Feni and the surrounding area. By then the Bengali rebels, forced out by relentless bombing and artillery barrages, had escaped with their weapons across the neighboring border into India.
The escape of such large numbers of armed, hard-core regulars among the Bengali, rebels was a matter of grave concern to Lt. -Col. Aslam Baig, G-1 at 9th Division headquarters. ”The Indians,” he explained, will “obviously not allow them to settle there. It would be too dangerous. So they will be allowed in on sufferance as long as they keep making sorties across the border. Unless we can kill them off, we are going to have serious trouble for a long time. ”
Lt: Col. Baig was a popular artillery officer who had done a stint in China after the India-Pakistan war when units of the Pakistan Army were converting to Chinese equipment. He was said to be a proud family man. He also loved Cowers. He told me with unconcealed pride that during a previous posting at Comilla he had brought from China the giant scarlet water-lilies that adorn the pond opposite the headquarters. Major Bashir adored him. Extolling one officer’s decisiveness Bashir told me that once they had caught a rebel officer there was a big fuss about what should be done with him. ” While the others were telephoning all over for instructions,” she said, ” he solved the problem. Dhor gaya. Only the man’s foot was left sticking out -of the ditch. ”
It is hard to imagine so much brutality in the midst of so much beauty Comilla was blooming when I went there towards the end of April. The rich green, carpet of rice paddies spreading to the horizon on both sides of the road was broken here and there by bright splashes of red. That was the Gol Mohor, aptly dubbed the” Flame, of the Forest,” coming to full bloom. Mango and coconut trees in the villages dotting the countryside were heavy with fruit. Even the terrier-sized goats skipping across the road gave evidence of the abundance of nature in Bengal. ” The only , way you can tell the male from the female,” they told me, ” is that all the she-goats are pregnant. ”
Fire and Murder their vengeance
In one of the most crowded areas of the entire world-Comilla district has a population density of 1, 900 to the square mile-only man was nowhere to be seen.
“Where are the Bengalis?” I had asked my escorts in the strangely empty streets of Dacca a few days earlier. ” They have gone to the villages, – was the stock reply. Now, in the countryside, there were still no Bengalis. Comilla town, like Dacca, was heavily shuttered, and in ten miles on the road to Laksham. Past silent villages, the peasants I saw could have been counted on the fingers of both hands.
There were, of course, soldiers-hundreds of unsmiling men in khaki, each with an automatic rifle. According to orders, the rifles never left their hands. The roads are constantly patrolled by tough, trigger-happy men. Wherever the army is, you won’t­ find Bengalis.
Martial law orders, constantly repeated on the radio and in the Press, proclaim the­ death penalty for anyone caught in the act of sabotage. If a road is obstructed or a bridge damaged or destroyed, all houses within 10 yards of the spot are liable to be demolished and their inhabitants rounded up.
The practice is even more terrible than anything the words could suggest. ” Punitive­ action” is something that the Bengalis have come to dread.
We saw what this meant when we were approaching Hajiganj, which straddles the road to Chandpur, on the morning of April 17. A few miles before Hajiganj, a 15-foot bridge had been damaged the previous night by rebels who were still active in the area. According to Major Rathore (G-2 Ops. ) an army unit had immediately been sent out to take punitive action. Long spirals of smoke could be seen on all sides up to a distance of a quarter of a mile from the damaged bridge. And as we carefully drove over a bed of wooden boards, with which it had been hastily repaired, we could see houses in the village on the right beginning to catch fire.
At the back of the village some jawans were spreading the flames with dried coconut fronds. They make excellent kindling and are normally used for cooking. We could also see a body sprawled between the coconut trees at the entrance to the village. On other side of the road another village in the rice paddies showed evidence of the fire that had gutted more than a dozen bamboo and mat huts. Hundreds of villagers had escaped before the army came. Others, like the man among the coconut trees, were slow to get away.
As we drove on, Major Rathore said, “They brought it on themselves.” I said it was surely too terrible a vengeance on innocent people for the acts of a handful of rebels. He did not answer.
A few hours later when we were again passing through Hajiganj on the way back from Chandpur, I had my first exposure to the savagery of a” kill and burn mission”.
We were still caught up in the aftermath of a tropical storm which had hit the area that afternoon. A heavy overcast made ghostly shadows on the mosque towering: above the town. Light drizzle was beginning to wet the uniforms of Captain Azhar and the four jawans riding in the exposed escort jeep behind us.
We turned a corner and found a convoy of trucks parked outside the mosque. I counted seven, all filled with jawans in battle dress. At the head of the column was& a jeep. Across the road two men, supervised by a third, were trying to batter down the door of one of more than a hundred shuttered shops lining the road. The studded teak wood door was beginning to give under the combined assault of two axes as Major Rathore brought the Toyota to a halt.
“What the hell are you doing?”
The tallest of the trio, who was supervising the break-in, turned and peered at us. “Mota,” (Fatty) he shouted, “what the hell do you think we are doing?”
Recognizing the voice, Rathore drew a water-melon smile. It was, he informed me, his old friend “Ifty”-Major Iftikhar of the 12th Frontier Force Rifles.
Rathore:” I thought someone was looting. ”
Iftikhar: “Looting? No. We are on kill and burn.”
Waving his Land to take in the shops, he said he was going to destroy the ‘. ct.
Rathore: “How many did you get?”
Iftikhar smiled bashfully.
Rathore:” Come on. How many did you get?”
Iftikhar:” Only twelve. And by God we were lucky to get them. We would have lost those, too, if I hadn’t sent my men from the back. ”
Prodded by Major Rathore, Iftikhar then went on to describe vividly how after much searching in Hajiganj he had discovered twelve Hindus hiding in a house on the outskirts of the town. These had been” disposed of”. Now Major Iftikhar was on the second part of his mission: burn.
By this time the shop’s door had been demobilized and we found ourselves looking into one of those tiny catch-all establishments which, in these parts, go under the title “Medical & Stores.” Under the Bengali lettering the signboard carried in English the legend “Ashok Medical & Stores.” Lower down was painted “Prop. A. M. Bose.” Mr. Bose, like the rest of the people of Hajiganj, had locked and run away.
In front of the shop a small display cabinet was crammed with patent medicines, cough syrups, and some bottles of mango squash, imitation jewelry, reels of colored cotton, thread and packets of knickers elastic. Iftikhar kicked it over, smashing the light wood-work into kindling. Next he reached out for some jute shopping bags on one shelf. He took some plastic toys from another. A bundle of handkerchiefs and a small bolt of red cloth joined the pile on the floor. Iftikhar heaped them all together and borrowed a matchbox from one of the jawans sitting in our Toyota. The jawan had ideas of his own. Jumping from the vehicle he ran to the shop and tried to pull down one of the umbrellas hanging from the low ceiling of the shop. Iftikhar ordered him out.
Looting, he was sharply reminded, was against orders.
Iftikhar soon had a fire going. He threw burning jute bags into one corner of the shop, the bolt of cloth into another. The shop began to blaze. Within minutes we could hear the crackle of flames behind shuttered doors as the fire spread to the shop on the left, then on to the next one.
At this point Rathore was beginning to get anxious about the gathering darkness. So we drove on.
When I chanced to meet Major Iftikhar the next day he ruefully told me, “I burnt only sixty houses. If it hadn’t rained I would have got the whole bloody lot. ”
Approaching a village a few miles from Mudarfarganj we were forced to a halt by what appeared to be a man crouching against a mud wall. One of the jawans warned it might be a fauji sniper. But after careful scouting it turned out to be a lovely young Hindu girl. She sat there with the placidity of her people, waiting for God knows who. One of the jawans had been ten years with the East Pakistan Rifles and could speak bazaar Bengali. He was told to order her into the village. She mumbled some­thing in reply, but stayed where she was, but was ordered a second time. She was still sitting there as we drove away. ” She has, ” I was informed, ” nowhere to go-no family, no home. ”
Major Iftikhar was one of several officers assigned to kill and burn missions. They moved in after the rebels had been cleared by the army with the freedom to comb-out and destroy Hindus and” miscreants” (the official jargon for rebels) and to burn down everything in the areas from which the army had been fired at.
Three shots to kill a man
This lanky Punjabi officer liked to talk about his job. Riding with Iftikhar to the Circuit House in Comilla on another occasion he told me about his latest exploit.
“We got an old one.” he said. ” The bastard had grown a beard and was posing as a devout Muslim even called himself Abdul Manan. But we gave him a medical inspection and the game was up. ”
Iftikhar continued:” I wanted to finish him there and then, but my men told me such a bastard deserved three shots. So I gave him one in the balls, then one in the stomach. Then I finished him off with a shot in the head. ”
When I left Major Iftikhar he was headed north to Bramanbaria. His mission: Another kill and burn.
Overwhelmed with terror the Bengalis have one of two reactions. Those who can run away just seem to vanish. Whole towns have been abandoned as the army approached. Those who can’t run away adopt a cringing servility which only adds humiliation to their plight.
Chandpur was an example of the first.
In the past this key river port on the Meghna was noted for its thriving business houses and gay life. At night thousands of small country boats anchored on the river’s edge made it a fairy land of lights. On April 18 Chandpur was deserted. No people, no boats. Barely one per cent of the population had remained. The rest, particularly the Hindus who constituted nearly half the population, had fled.
Weirdly they had left behind thousands of Pakistani flags fluttering from every house, shop and rooftop. The effect was like a national day celebration without the crowds. It only served to emphasize the haunted look.
The flags were by way of insurance.
Somehow the word had got around that the army considered any structure with­out a Pakistani flag to be hostile and consequently to be destroyed. It did not matter how the Pakistani flags were made, so long as they were adorned with the crescent and star. So they came in all sizes, shapes and colors. Some flaunted blue fields, instead of the regulation green. Obviously they had been hastily put together with the same material that had been used for the blue Bangla Desh flag. Indeed blue Pakistani flags were more common than the green. The scene in Chandpur was repeated in Hajiganj, Madarfarganj, Kasba, Brahmanbaria; all ghost towns gay, with flags.
Laksham was an example of the other reaction; cringing.
When I drove into the town the morning after it had been cleared of the rebels, all I could see was the army and literally thousands of Pakistani flags. The major in charge there had camped in the police station, and it was there that Major Rathore took us. My colleague, a Pakistani TV cameraman, had to make a propa­ganda film about the “return to normalcy” in Laksham-one of the endless series broadcast daily showing welcome parades and “peace meetings.”
A ‘Parade’ and a Knowing Wink
I wondered how he could manage it but the Major said it would be no sweat. “There are enough of these bastards left to put on a good show. Give me 20 minute­s.”
Lieutenant Javed of the 39 Baluch was assigned the task of rounding up a crowd. He called out to an elderly bearded man who had apparently been brought in for questioning. The man, who later gave his name as Moulana Said Mohammad Saidul Huq, insisted he was a “staunch Muslim Leaguer and not from the Awami League” (The Muslim League led the movement for an independent Pakistan in. 1947. He was all too eager to please. “I will very definitely get you at least 60 men in 20 minutes,” he told Javed. “But if you give me two hours I will bring 200.”
Moulana Saidul Huq was as good as his word. We had hardly drunk our flit of the deliciously refreshing coconut milk that had been thought fully supplied by the Major when we heard shouts in the distance. “Pakistan Zindabad!” “Pakistan, army Zindabad!” “Muslim League Zindabad!” they were chanting. (Zindabad is Urdu for “Long live!”) Moments later they marched into view a motley crowd of about 50 old and decrepit men and knee-high children, all waving Pakistani flags and shouting at the top of their voices. Lt. Javed gave me a knowing wink.
Within minutes the parade had grown into a “public meeting” complete with a make-shift public address system and a rapidly multiplying group of would-be speakers.
Mr. Mahbub-ur-Rahman was pushed forward to make the address of welcome to the army. He introduced himself as “N. F. College Professor of English and Arabic who had also tried for History and is a life-time member of the great Muslim, League Party.”
Introduction over, Mahbub-ur-Rahman gave forth with gusto. “Punjabis and Bengalis,” he said, “had united for Pakistan and we had our own traditions and culture. But we were terrorized by the Hindus and the Awami Leaguers and led astra. . Now we thank God that the Punjabi soldiers have saved us. They are the best soldiers in the world and heroes of humanity. We love and respect them from the bottom of our hearts.” And so on, interminably, in the same vein.
After the “meeting” I asked the Major what he thought about the speech, “Serves the purposes,” he said, “but I don’t trust that bastard. I’ll put him on my list.”
The agony of East Bengal is not over. Perhaps the worst is yet to come. . The army is determined to go on until the “clean-up” is completed. So far the job is only half done. Two divisions of the Pakistan Army, the 9th and the 16th, were flown out from West Pakistan to “sort out” the Bengali rebels and the Hindus. This was a considerable logistical feat for a country of Pakistan’s resources. More than 25, 000 men were moved from the west to the east. On March 28 the two divisions were given 48 hours’ notice to move. They were brought by train to Karachi from Kharian and Multan. Carrying only light bed rolls and battle packs (their equipment was to follow by sea), the troops were flown out to Dacca by PIA, the national airline. Its fleet of seven Boeings was taken off international and domestic routes and. flew the long haul (via) Ceylon continuously for 14 days. A few Air Force transport aircraft helped.
The troops went into action immediately with equipment borrowed from the 14th Division which till then constituted the Eastern Command. The 9th Division, . operating from Comilla, was ordered to seal the border in the east against movement of rebels and their supplies. The 16th Division, with headquarters at Jessore, had a similar task in the western sector of the province. They completed these assignments by the third week of May. With the rebels-those who have not been able to escape to India-boxed in a ring of steel and fire, the two army divisions are beginning to converge in a relentless comb-out operation. Ibis will, undoubtedly mean that the terror experienced in the border areas will now spread to the middle point. It could also be more painful. The human targets will have nowhere to run to.
On April 20 Lt. -Col. Baig, the flower-loving G-1 of the 9th Division, thought that the comb-out would take two months, to the middle of June. But this planning seems to have misfired. The rebel forces, using guerilla tactics, have not been subdued as easily as the army expected. Isolated and apparently uncoordinated, the rebels have none the less bogged down the Pakistan Army in many places by the systematic destruction of roads and railways, without which the army cannot move. The ninth Division for one was hopelessly behind schedule. Now the monsoon threatens to shut down the military operation with three months of cloudbursts.
For the rainy season, the Pakistan Government obtained from China in the second week of May nine shallow draught river gunboats. More are to come. These 80-ton gunboats with massive firepower will take over some of the responsi­bilities hitherto allotted to the air force and artillery, which will not be as effective when it rains. They will be supported by several hundred country craft which have been requisitioned and converted for military use by the addition of outboard motors. The army intends to take to the water in pursuit of the rebels.
There is also the clear prospect of famine, because of the breakdown of the distribution system. Seventeen of the 23 districts of East Pakistan are normally short of food and have to be supplied by massive imports of rice and wheat. This will not be possible this year because of the civil war. Six major bridges and thousands of smaller ones have been destroyed, making the roads impassable in many places. The railway system has been similarly disrupted though the Government claims it is “almost normal”.
The road and rail tracks between the port of Chittagong and the north have been completely disrupted by the rebels who held Feni, a key road and rail junc­tion, until May 7. Food stocks cannot move because of this devastation. In normal times only 15 per cent of food movements from Chittagong to upcountry areas were made by boat. The remaining 85 per cent was moved by road and rail. Even a 100 per cent increase in the effectiveness of river movement will leave 70 per cent of the food stocks in the warehouses of Chittagong.
Two other factors must be added. One is large-scale boarding of grain by people who have begun to anticipate the famine. This makes a tight position in­finitely more difficult. The other is the Government of Pakistan’s refusal to ack­nowledge the danger of famine publicity. Lt. Gen. Tikka Khan, the Military Governor of East Bengal, acknowledged in a radio broadcast on April 18 that he was gravely concerned about food supplies. Since then the entire Government machinery has been used to suppress the fact of the food shortage. The reason is that a famine, like the cyclone before it, could result in a massive outpouring of foreign aid-and with it the prospect of external inspection of distribution methods. That would make it impossible to conceal from the world the scale of the pogrom. So the hungry will be left to die until the clean-up is complete.
Let Them Die of Starvation
Discussing the problem in his plush air-conditioned office in Karachi recently the chairman of the Agricultural Development Bank, Mr. Qarni, said bluntly: “The famine is the result of their acts of sabotage. So let them die. Perhaps then the Bengalis will come to their senses.”
THE MILITARY Government’s East Bengal policy is so apparently contra­dictory and self-defeating that it would seem to justify the assumption that those who rule Pakistan cannot make up their minds. Having committed the initial error of resorting to force, the Government, on this view, is stubbornly and stupidly muddling through.
There is, superficially, logic in this reasoning.
On the one hand, it is true that there is no let up in the reign of terror. The policy of subjugation is certainly being pursued with vigor in East Bengal. This is making thousands of new enemies for the Government every day and making only more definitive the separation of the two wings of Pakistan.
On the other hand, no government could be unaware that this policy must fail (There are just not enough West Pakistanis to hold down the much greater numbers in East Bengal indefinitely. ) For hard administrative and economic reasons, and because of the crucial consideration of external development assistance, especially from America, it will be necessary to achieve a political settlement as quickly as possible. President Yahya Khan’s Press conference on May 25 suggests that he acknowledges the force of these factors: And he said he would announce his plan for represen­tative government in the middle of June.
All this would seem to indicate that Pakistan’s military Government is moving paradoxically, in opposite directions, to compound the gravest crisis in the country’s 24-years history.
This is widely held view. It sounds logical, but is it true?
My own view is that it is not. It has been my unhappy privilege to have had the opportunity to observe at first hand both what Pakistan’s leaders say in the West, and what they are doing in the East.
I think that in reality there is no contradiction in the Government’s East Bengal policy. East Bengal is being colonized.
This is not an arbitrary opinion of mine. The facts speak for themselves.
The first consideration of the army has been and still is the obliteration of every trace of separatism in East Bengal. This proposition is upheld by the continuing slaughter and by everything else that the Government has done in both East and West Pakistan since March 25. The decision was coldly taken by the military leaders, and they are going through with it-all too coldly

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Will The Killing Stop?
No meaningful or viable political solution is possible in East Bengal while the pogrom continues.
The crucial question is: Will the killing stop?
I was given the army’s answer by Major-General Shaukat Raza, Commanding Officer of the 9th Division, during our first meeting at Comilla on April 16.
“You must be absolutely sure,” he said, ”that we have not undertaken such a drastic and expensive operation-expensive both in men and money-for nothing. We’ve undertaken a job. We are going to finish it, not hand it over half done to the politicians so that they can mess it up again. The army can’t keep coming back like this every three or four years. It has a more important task. I assure you that when we have got through with what we are doing there will never be need again for such an operations”.
Major-General Shaukat Raza is one of the three divisional commanders in the field. He is in a key position. He is not given to talking through his hat.
Significantly, General Shaukat Raza’s ideas were echoed by every military officer I talked to during my 10 days in East Bengal. And President Yahya Khan knows that the men who lead the troops on the ground are the de facto arbiters of Pakistan’s destiny.
The single-mindedness of the army is underscored by the military operation itself. By any standard, it is a major venture. 1t is not something that can be switched on and off without the most grave consequences.
The army has already taken a terrible toll in dead and injured. It was privately said in Dacca that more officers have been killed than men and that the casualty list in East Bengal already exceeds the losses in the India-Pakistan war of September, 1965. The army will certainly not write off these “sacrifices” for illusory political considerations that have proved to be so worthless in the past.
Militarily-and it is soldiers who will be taking the decision-to call a halt to the operation at this stage would be indefensible. It would only mean more trouble with the Bengali rebels. Implacable hatred has been displayed on both sides. There can be no truce or negotiated settlement; only total victory or total defeat. Time is on the side of the Pakistan Army, not of the isolated, unco­ordinated and ill-equipped rebel groups. Other circumstances, such as an expanded conflict which takes in other powers, could of course alter the picture. But as it stands today the Pakistan Army has no reason to doubt that it will eventually achieve its objective. That is why the casualties are stolidly accepted.
The enormous financial outlay already made on the East Bengal operation and its continuing heavy cost also testifies to the Government’s determination. The reckless manner in which funds have been poured out makes clear that the military hierarchy, having taken a calculated decision to use force, has accepted the financial outlay as a necessary investment. It was not for nothing that 25, 000 soldiers were airlifted to East Bengal, a daring and expensive exercise. These two divisions, the 9th and the 16th, constituted the military reserve in West Pakistan. They have now been replaced there by expensive new recruitment.
The Chinese have helped with equipment, which is pouring down the Karakorum highway. There is some evidence that the flood is slowing down: perhaps the Chinese are having second thoughts about their commitments to the military rulers of Pakistan. But the Pakistan Government has not hesitated to pay cash from the bottom of the foreign exchange barrel for more than $ 1-million-worth of ammunition to European arms suppliers.
Conversations with senior military officers in Dacca, Rawalpindi and Karachi confirm that they see the solution to this problem in the speedy completion of the East Bengal operation, not in terms of a pull-out. The money required for that purpose now takes precedence over all other governmental expenditure. Develop­ment has virtually come to a halt.
In one sentence, the Government is too far committed militarily to abandon the East Bengal operation, which it would have to do if it sincerely wanted a political solution. President Yahya Khan is riding on the back of a tiger. But he took a calculated decision to climb up there. SO THE ARMY is not going to pull out. The Government’s policy for East Bengal was spelled out to me in the Eastern Command headquarters at Dacca. It has three elements:­
(I) The Bengalis have proved themselves “unreliable” and must be ruled by West Pakistanis;

(2) The Bengalis will have to be re-educated along proper Islamic lines. The” Islamization of the masses”-this is the official jargon-is intended to eliminate secessionist tendencies and provide a strong religious bond with West Pakistan;
(3) When the Hindus have been eliminated by death and flight, their property will be used as a golden carrot to win over the under-privileged Muslim middle­class. This will provide the base for erecting administrative and political structure–, in the future.
This policy is being pursued with the utmost blatancy.
Because of the mutiny, it has been officially decreed that there will not for the present be any further recruitment of Bengalis in the defense forces. Senior air force and navy officers, who were not in any way involved, have been moved” as a precaution” to non-sensitive positions. Bengali fighter pilots, among them some of the aces of the Air Force, had the humiliation of being grounded and moved to non-flying duties. Even PIA air crews operating between the two wings of the country have been strained clean of Bengalis.
The East Pakistan Rifles, once almost exclusively a Bengali para-military force, has ceased to exist since the mutiny. A new force, the Civil Defense Force, has been raised by recruiting Biharis and volunteers from West Pakistan. Biharis, instead of Bengalis, are also being used as the basic material for the police. They are supervised by officers sent out from West Pakistan and by secondment from the army. The new superintendent of police at Chandpur at the end of April was a military police major.
Hundreds of West Pakistani Government civil servants, doctors, and technicians for the radio, TV, telegraph and telephone services have already been sent out to East Pakistan; More are being encouraged to go with the promise of one and two-step promotions. But the transfer, when made, is obligatory. President Yahya recently issued an order making it possible to transfer civil servants to any part of Pakistan against their will.
I was told that all the commissioners of East Bengal and the district deputy commissioners will in future be either Biharis or civil officers from West Pakistan. The deputy commissioners of the districts were said to be too closely involved with the Awami League secessionist movement. In some cases, such as that of the deputy commissioner of Comilla, they were caught and shot. That particular officer had incurred the wrath of the army on March 20 when he refused to requisition petrol and food supplies “without a letter from Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.”
The Government has also come down hard on the universities and colleges of East Bengal. They were considered the hot beds of conspiracy and they are being “sorted out”. Many professors have fled. Some have been shot. They will be replaced by fresh recruitment from West Pakistan.
Bengali officers are also being weeded out of sensitive positions in the Civil and Foreign Services. All are currently being subjected to the most exhaustive screening.
This colonization process quite obviously does not work even half as efficiently as the administration wishes. I was given vivid evidence of this by Major Agha, Martial Law Administrator of Comilla. He had been having a problem getting the local Bengali executive engineers to go out and repair the bridges and roads that had been destroyed or damaged by the rebels. This task kept getting snarled in red tape, and the bridges remained unrepaired. Agha, of course, knew the reason. ”You can’t expect them to work,” he told me, ”when you have been killing them and destroying their country. That at least is their point of view, and we are paying for it. ”
CAPTAIN DURRANI, of the Baluch Regiment, who was in charge of the company guarding the Comilla airport, had his own methods of dealing with the problem. ” I have told them, ” he said with reference to the Bengalis maintaining the control tower, ” that I will shoot anyone who even looks like he is doing something suspicious.” Durranni had made good his word. A Bengali who had approached the airport a few nights earlier was shot,” Could have been a rebel, ”
I was told. Durrani had another claim to fame. He had personally accounted -more than 60 men” while clearing the villages surrounding the airport.
The harsh reality of colonization in the East is being concealed by shameless window dressing. For several weeks President Yahya Khan and Lt-Gen. Tikka Khan have been trying to get political support in East Pakistan for what they are _. :. -. e. The results have not exactly been satisfying. The support forthcoming so far has been from people like Moulvi Farid Ahmad, a Bengali lawyer in Dacca, Fazlul Quadeer Chaudhary and Professor Ghulam Azam, of the Jamat Islami, all of whom were soundly beaten in the General Elections last December.
The only prominent personality to emerge for this purpose has been Mr. Nurul Amin, an old Muslim Leaguer and former Chief Minister of the Province who was one of only two non-Awami Leaguers to be elected to the National Assembly. He is now in his seventies. But even Nurul Amin has been careful not to be too effusive. His two public statements to date have been concerned only with the “Indian interference”.
Bengalis look with scorn on the few who “collaborate”. Farid Ahmad and Fazlul Quadeer Chaudhury are painfully aware of this. Farid Ahmad makes a point of keeping his windows shuttered and only those who have been scrutinized and recognized through a peephole in the front door are allowed into the house.
By singularly blunt methods the Government has been able to get a grudging acquiescence from 31 Awami Leaguers who had been elected to the national and provincial assemblies. They are being kept on ice in Dacca, secluded from all but their immediate families, for the big occasion when “representative government” is to be installed. But clearly they now represent no one but themselves.
ABDUL BARI the tailor who was lucky to survive is 24 years old. That is the same age as Pakistan. The army can of course hold the country together by force. But the meaning of what it has done in East Bengal is that the dream of the men who hoped in 1947 that they were founding a Muslim nation in two equal parts has now faded. There is now little chance for a long time to come that Punjabis in the West and Bengalis in the East will fell themselves equal fellow-citizens of one nation. For the Bengalis, the future is now bleak: the unhappy submission of a colony to its conquerors.
– Anthony Mascarenhas, Former Assistant Editor, Morning News, Karachi, in Sunday Times, London, June 13, 1971