Spring 1971: A Centre Stage Account of Bangladesh War of Liberation

ROAD TO BANGLADESH SERIES is designed to present published accounts of the background to the emergence of Bangladesh. The Series showcases such a collection that, when put together, achieves a well-rounded narrative of the events of 1971. Books in the series should be an invaluable collection for those interested in South Asian affairs, particularly students and scholars of politics, history, development and social transformation. This book is a personal account of tumultuous events witnessed by a sensitive mind. These events were the communal divide of the subcontinent in 1947 and the struggle for Bangladesh in 1971. The writer was in his teens when he saw widespread violence and massacre of lives during the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. Twenty-four years later, he witnessed another convulsion when violence and massacre of a different order and degree tore apart Pakistan and Bangladesh was born through the sacrifice of millions. In 1971, as Pakistan’s military machine reached the remote town Kaptai on a ‘cleansing operation’, the writer panicked and abandoned everything and started trekking through an unfamiliar terrain of hills and forests of the Chittagong Hill Tracts and Mizoram to avoid military action. His simple and unpretentious narration is indeed moving and close to life. After making his way to Calcutta he found an appointment as the secretary to Prime Minster Tajuddin Ahmed who was managing the Bangladesh Government in exile. From that vantage point, the writer observed many incidents and gathered a lot of information, not many of which have been placed in this volume. This book is hopefully a prelude to a more comprehensive work based on the experiences of the author.