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{{Short description|Pakistani atrocities during the 1971 Bangladesh genocide}}
{{Infobox civilian attack |title= Rape during the Bangladesh Liberation War|image= |caption= |location= East Pakistan now ] |target= women, chidren and men in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan)|date=March 1971 - December 1971 |time= |timezone= |fatalities= 3 million |injuries= |perps=1,597 charged |displaced=30 million |motive=}}
{{pp|small=yes}}
{{Use British English|date=August 2013}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2024}}
{{Disputed|talkpage=Talk:Rape during the Bangladesh Liberation War/GA2|date=January 2024}}
{{Persecution of Bengali Hindus}}
{{rape}}
During the ] in 1971, members of the ] and ] ] force raped between 200,000 and 400,000 ] women and girls in a systematic campaign of ].{{sfn|Sharlach|2000|pp=92–93}}{{sfn|Sajjad|2012|p=225}}{{sfn|Ghadbian|2002|p=111}}{{sfn|Mookherjee|2012|p=68}} Most of the rape victims of the Pakistani Army and its allies were ] women.<ref name="Islam19" /><ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Bartrop |editor1-first=Paul R. |editor1-link=Paul R. Bartrop |editor2-last=Jacobs |editor2-first=Steven Leonard |editor2-link=Steven Leonard Jacobs |year=2014 |title=Modern Genocide: The Definitive Resource and Document Collection |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JB4UBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA1866 |publisher=] |page=1866 |isbn=978-1-61069-364-6}}</ref> Some of these women died in captivity or committed suicide, while others moved from Bangladesh to India.<ref name="Islam19">{{harvnb|Islam|2019|p=175}}: "The Pakistani occupation army and its local collaborators targeted mostly the Hindu women and girls for rape and sexual violence. Many rape victims were killed in captivity while others migrated to India or committed suicide"</ref> Imams and Muslim religious leaders declared the women "war booty".{{sfn|Siddiqi|1998|p=208}}{{sfn|D'Costa|2011|p=108}} The activists and leaders of Islamic parties are also accused to be involved in the rapes and abduction of women.{{sfn|D'Costa|2011|p=108}}


The Pakistani elite believed that Hindus were behind the revolt and that as soon as there was a solution to the "Hindu problem", the conflict would resolve. For Pakistanis, the violence against Hindus was a strategic policy.{{sfn|D'Costa|2011|p=101}} Muslim Pakistani men believed the sacrifice of Hindu women was needed to fix the national malaise.<ref name="auto1">], Women, War, and the Making of Bangladesh : Remembering 1971, pg. 52</ref> Anecdotal evidence suggests that some ]s and ]s supported the rapes by the Pakistani Army and issued ]s declaring the women war booty. A fatwa from ] during the war asserted that women taken from ] could be considered war booty.{{sfn|D'Costa|2011|p=108}}<ref name="Siddiqi1998p208-209">{{harvnb|Siddiqi|1998|pp=208–209|ps=: "Sometime during the war, a fatwa originating in West Pakistan labeled Bengali freedom fighters 'Hindus' and declared that 'the wealth and women' to be secured by warfare with them could be treated as the booty of war. S. A. Hossain, "Fatwa in Islam: Bangladesh Perspective," ''Daily Star'' (Dhaka), 28 December 1994, 7."}}</ref> Those rapes apparently caused thousands of pregnancies, births of ], abortions, infanticide, suicide, and ostracism of the victims. This is often asserted to be one of the severest occurrences of ].{{sfn|Shafqat|2007|p=593|ps=: "The Bangladesh liberation war is often asserted to be one of the most grievous examples of wartime rape".}} The atrocities ended after ] of the Pakistani military and supporting Razakar militias.{{sfn|Kabia|2008|p=13}}{{sfn|Wheeler|2000|p=13}}
During the ], ] was committed by members of the ] and the ]s that supported them. Over a period of nine months, hundreds of thousands of men, women and children were raped.<ref name=Ghadbian>{{cite book|last=Ghadbian|first=Najib|title=Violence and politics: globalization's paradox|year=2002|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-415-93111-3|page=111|editor=Kent Worcester, Sally A. Bermanzohn, Mark Ungar}}</ref> ], in her report on the atrocities, said that girls from the age of eight to grandmothers of seventy-five suffered attacks.<ref name=Debnath1>{{cite book|last=Debnath|first=Angela|title=Plight and fate of women during and following genocide|year=2009|publisher=Transaction|isbn=978-1-4128-0827-9|page=49|edition=7th|editor=Samuel Totten}}</ref> The abuses were only stopped by the intervention of the Indian armed forces.<ref name=Zaman>{{cite book|last=Zaman|first=Shahaduz|title=Broken limbs, broken lives: ethnography of a hospital ward in Bangladesh|year=2007|publisher=Het Spinhuis|isbn=978-9055892297|page=42}}</ref> Eastern Pakistan seceded and became the independent nation of Bangladesh. In 2009 a report named 1,597 people as having helped carry out the abuses and a commission was established to prosecute those accused.


During the war, Bengali nationalists also committed mass rape of ethnic ] women, since the Bihari Muslim community supported Pakistan.{{sfn|D'Costa|2011|p=104}}{{Failed verification|reason=D'Costa page 104 only says "According to my interview with the doctor Geoffrey Davis, Bihari women were also kidnapped as retaliation for the wartime abductions of Bengali women during the war." Might be in the source on a different page.|date=October 2024}} ], a scholar, was informed repeatedly in Bangladesh that Pakistani, Bengali, and Bihari men raped Hindu women during the war.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Saikia |first=Yasmin |date=2017 |title=Nations, Neighbours, and Humanity: Destroyed and Recovered in War and Violence |journal=Melbourne Historical Journal |volume=44 |issue=1 |pages=23–40}}</ref>
==Background==
In 1948, a few months after the ], ] tried to impose ] as the national language. In a speech at a meeting in Dhaka, he said,


In 2009, almost 40 years after the events of 1971, a report published by the ] of Bangladesh accused 1,597 people of war crimes, including rape. Since 2010, the ] (ICT) has indicted, tried, and sentenced several people to life imprisonment or death for their actions during the conflict. The stories of the rape victims have been told in movies and literature, and depicted in art.
<blockquote>Let me make it very clear to you that the state language of Pakistan will be Urdu and no other language. Anyone who tries to mislead you is really the enemy of Pakistan. Without one language, no nation can remain solidly tied together and function. Look at the history of other countries. Therefore, so far as the state language is concerned, Pakistan's shall be Urdu.<ref name=Thompson>{{cite book|last=Thompson|first=H R.|title=Language and national identity in Asia|year=2007|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-926748-4|page=42|editor=Andrew Simpson}}</ref></blockquote>


The term '']'' was first introduced in 1971 by ] to refer to victims of rape during the Bangladesh Liberation War, in an attempt to prevent them from being outcast by the society.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Mookherjee |first=Nayanika |date=June 2006 |title='Remembering to forget': public secrecy and memory of sexual violence in the Bangladesh war of 1971 |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9655.2006.00299.x |journal=Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute|volume=12 |issue=2 |pages=433–450 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-9655.2006.00299.x |issn=1359-0987 |ref=none}}</ref> Since 1972, victims of rape during the war have been recognized as ''Birangona,'' or "war heroines", by the government of Bangladesh.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Mookherjee |first=Nayanika |date=2021-11-02 |title=Historicising the Birangona : Interrogating the Politics of Commemorating the Wartime Rape of 1971 in the Context of the 50 th Anniversary of Bangladesh |journal=Strategic Analysis|volume=45 |issue=6 |pages=588–597 |doi=10.1080/09700161.2021.2009663 |issn=0970-0161 |s2cid=246760529|doi-access=free }}</ref>
This declaration came in spite of the fact that only 4% of Pakistan's population spoke Urdu at the time.<ref name=Shah>{{cite book|last=Shah|first=Mehtab Ali|title=The foreign policy of Pakistan: ethnic impacts on diplomacy, 1971–1994|year=1997|publisher=I.B.Tauris|isbn=978-1-86064-169-5|page=51}}</ref> He branded those who supported the use of ] as communists, traitors and enemies of the state.<ref name=Hossain>{{cite book|last=Tollefson|first=James W.|title=Language policy, culture, and identity in Asian contexts|year=2006|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-8058-5693-4|page=245|author=Hossain & Tollefson|editor=Amy Tsui, James W. Tollefson}}</ref> The refusal by successive governments to recognize Bengali as the second national language led to the formation of the ] and to more support for the newly formed ].<ref name=Enskat>{{cite book|last=Enskat|first=Mike|title=Political parties in South Asia|year=2004|publisher=Praeger|isbn=978-0275968328|coauthors=Subrata K. Mitra, Clement Spiess|page=217}}</ref> A protest in ] in 1952 was forcibly broken up, resulting in the deaths of several protesters. Nationalists viewed those who had died as martyrs for their cause, and the violence led to calls for secession.<ref name=Harder>{{cite book|last=Harder|first=Hans|title=Islam in the world today: a handbook of politics, religion, culture, and society|year=2010|publisher=Cornell University Press|isbn=978-0-8014-4571-2|page=351|editor=Werner Ende, Udo Steinbac}}</ref> The ] caused further grievances, as the East was cut off from the West within an hour of the start of the war, because the military had assigned no units to the defense of the region.<ref name=Haggett>{{cite book|last=Haggett|first=Peter|year=2001|publisher=Marshall Cavendish|isbn=978-0761472896|edition=2nd|page=2716}}</ref>


== Background ==
In December 1970 the East Pakistan based Awami League headed by ] won a national majority in the first democratic ] since the independence of Pakistan. However the West Pakistani establishment prevented them from forming a government.<ref name=Roy>{{cite book|last=Roy|first=Rituparna|title=South Asian Partition Fiction in English: From Khushwant Singh to Amitav Ghosh|year=2010|publisher=Amsterdam University Press|isbn=978-90-8964-245-5|edition=1st|page=102}}</ref> Former president ] then banned the Awami League and declared martial law.<ref name=Sisson>{{cite book|last=Sisson|first=Richard|title=War and Secession: Pakistan, India, and the Creation of Bangladesh|year=1992|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-07665-5|coauthors=Leo E. Rose|page=141}}</ref>
] marching on Language Movement Day, 21 February 1953]]
On 26 March 1971 the ] launched ] against the supporters of a nascent ],<ref name=Southwick>{{cite book|last=Southwick|first=Katherine|title=Statelessness and Citizenship: A Comparative Study on the Benefits of Nationality|year=2011|publisher=Edward Elgar Publishing|isbn=Edward Elgar Publishing|editor=Brad K. Blitz, Maureen Jessica Lynch|page=119}}</ref> indiscriminately killing Bengali civilians.<ref name=Heinze>{{cite book|last=Heinze|first=Eric|title=Waging Humanitarian War|year=2009|publisher=SUNY|isbn=978-0-7914-7695-6|page=79}}</ref> In the ] the Pakistan Army employed ] against civilians, resulting in the deaths of up to 3 million,<ref name=Totten/> creating up to 10 million refuges who fled to India, and displacing a further 30 million.<ref name=Totten>{{cite book|last=Totten|first=Samuel|title=Dictionary of Genocide: A-L|publisher=Greenwood|location=Volume 1|isbn=978-0-313-32967-8|coauthors=Paul Robert Bartrop, Steven L. Jacobs|page=34}}</ref>
Following the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan, the ] and ] wings were separated not only geographically but also culturally. The authorities of the west viewed the ] in the East as "too ]" and their application of Islam as "inferior and impure", and this made them unreliable. To this extent, the West began a strategy to forcibly assimilate the Bengalis culturally.{{sfn|Mookherjee|2009|p=51}} The Bengalis of East Pakistan were chiefly Muslim, but their numbers were interspersed with a significant Hindu minority. Very few spoke Urdu, which in 1948 had been declared the national language of Pakistan.{{sfn|Thompson|2007|p=42}} To express their opposition, activists in East Pakistan founded the ]. Earlier in 1949, other activists had founded the ] as an alternative to the ruling ] in West Pakistan.{{sfn|Molla|2004|p=217}} In the next decade and half, Bengalis became gradually disenchanted with the balance of power in Pakistan, which was under military rule during much of this time; eventually some began to call for secession.{{sfn|Hossain|Tollefson|2006|p=345}}{{sfn|Riedel|2011|p=9}} By the late 1960s, a perception had emerged that the people of East Pakistan were second-class citizens. It did not help that General ], head of Pakistani Forces in East Pakistan, called East Pakistan a "low-lying land of low, lying people".{{sfn|Jones|2010|pp=227–228}}


There had been opposition to military rule in West Pakistan as well. Eventually the military relented, and in December 1970 the ] were held. To the surprise of many, East Pakistan's Awami League, headed by ], won a clear majority. The West Pakistani establishment was displeased with the results.{{sfn|Roy|2010b|p=102}} In Dacca following the election a general said "Don't worry, we will not allow these black bastards to rule over us".{{sfn|Midlarsky|2011|p=257}}{{sfn|Murphy|2012|p=71}} Soon President ] banned the Awami League and declared martial law in East Pakistan.{{sfn|Sisson|Rose|1992|p=141}}{{sfn|Hagerty|Ganguly|2005|p=31}}
==Pakistani Army actions==
The intensity of the West Pakistani military action surprised international observers and Bengali nationalists, since the pro-democracy movement had been peaceful till then. Between the middle of May and September 1971, the Pakistani army dug in and remained in their strongholds, from which they conducted operations against villagers who may have helped the liberation movement. Genocide scholar ] has accused the army of using organized rape as a weapon of war<ref name=Totten3>{{cite book|last=Totten|first=Samuel|title=Century of genocide: critical essays and eyewitness accounts|year=2008|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-415-99084-4|page=250|edition=3rd|editor=William S. Parsons}}</ref> and has cited reports of the commander of the Dhaka operations saying "he would kill four million people in 48 hours and thus have a 'Final Solution' of the Bengali problem".<ref name=Totten2>{{cite book|last=Totten|first=Samuel|title=Century of genocide: critical essays and eyewitness accounts|year=2008|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-415-99084-4|page=248|edition=3rd|editor=William S. Parsons}}</ref> They also conducted nighttime raids, assaulting women in their villages,<ref name=Thomas>{{cite book|last=Thomas|first=Dorothy Q.|title=Gender Politics in the Western Balkans: Women, Society and Politics in Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav Successor States|year=1998|publisher=Pennsylvania State University|isbn=978-0-271-01802-7|page=204|coauthors=Reagan E. Ralph|editor=Sabrina P. Ramet}}</ref> often in front of their families, to "punish" and terrorize. Girls and women were also kidnapped and held in ] were they were repeatedly raped and gang-raped. Many of those held in the camps were murdered or committed suicide.<ref name=Jahan>{{cite book|last=Jahan|first=R.|title=Teaching about genocide: issues, approaches, and resources|year=2004|publisher=Information Age Publishing|isbn=978-1-59311-074-1|pages=147–148|editor=Samuel Totten}}</ref> In what has been described as a deliberate attempt to destroy an entire ethnic group, many of those assaulted were raped, murdered and then bayonetted in the genitalia.<ref name=Arens>{{cite book|last=Arens|first=Jenneke|title=Genocide of indigenous peoples|year=2010|publisher=Transaction|isbn=978-1-4128-1495-9|page=128|editor=Samuel Totten, Robert K. Hitchcock}}</ref> Totten alleges elements of ] in the Pakistan army, who he says considered the Bengalis "racially inferior—a non-martial and physically weak race".<ref name=Totten2/> The final week of the war saw the worst of the atrocities. With defeat certain, the Government conducted a premeditated campaign of genocide. Entire villages were razed to the ground and the inhabitants killed. Over a two-day period intellectuals and professionals were taken from their homes and murdered. Their names were found in the diary of Major-General ].<ref name=Totten3/>


With the goal of putting down ], the Pakistan Army launched ] on 25 March 1971.{{sfn|Southwick|2011|p=119}} According to Eric Heinze the Pakistani forces targeted both Bengali Muslims and Hindus {{sfn|Heinze|2009|p=79}} In the ensuing ], the army caused the deaths of up to 3&nbsp;million people, created up to 10&nbsp;million refugees who fled to India, and displaced a further 30&nbsp;million within East Pakistan.{{sfn|Totten|Bartrop|Jacobs|1998|p=34}}
===Militias===
According to ], the ] in conjunction with ] formed militias such as ] ("the moon") and the ] ("the sun") to conduct operations against the nationalist movement.<ref name="Schmid (Editor)">{{cite book|last=Schmid|first=Alex|title=The Routledge Handbook of Terrorism Research|year=2011|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-415-41157-8|page=600}}</ref><ref name=Tomsen>{{cite book|last=Tomsen|first=Peter|title=Wars of Afghanistan|year=2011|publisher=Public Affairs|isbn=978-1-58648-763-8|page=240}}</ref> Local ] known as ] also took part in the atrocities. The term has since become a ] akin to the western term "]".<ref name=Mookherjee>{{cite book|last=Mookherjee|first=Nayanika|title=Traitors: Suspicion, Intimacy, and the Ethics of State-Building|year=2009|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|isbn=978-0-8122-4213-3|editor=Sharika Thiranagama, Tobias Kelly|page=49}}</ref>


] alleges elements of racism in the Pakistan army, who he says considered the Bengalis "racially inferior—a non-martial and physically weak race", and has accused the army of using organised rape as a weapon of war.{{sfn|Jahan|2008|p=248}}{{sfn|Jahan|2008|p=250}} According to the political scientist ], the Pakistani army looked upon the Bengalis as "subhuman" and viewed the Hindus "as Jews to the Nazis: scum and vermin that best be exterminated".{{sfn|Rummel|1997|p=335}} This racism was then expressed in that the Bengalis, being inferior, must have their gene pool "fixed" through forcible impregnation.{{sfn|Mohaiemen|2011|p=47}} Belén Martín Lucas has described the rapes as "ethnically motivated".{{sfn|Martin-Lucas|2010|p=158}}
==International reaction==
The events of the nine-month conflict are widely viewed as ].<ref name=Simms>{{cite book|last=Simms|first=Brendan|title=Humanitarian Intervention: A History|year=2011|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-19027-5|page=17|editor=Brendan Simms, D. J. B. Trim}}</ref> ] has said that were the upper estimates of those killed correct this conflict would be comparable to the ] and the executions of ] by Nazi Germany.<ref name=Jones>{{cite book|last=Jones|first=Adam|title=Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction|year=2010|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-415-48618-7|page=281}}</ref> The atrocities in East Pakistan were the first instance of war rape to garner international media attention,<ref name=Scholz>{{cite book|last=Scholz|first=Sally J.|title=Intervention, terrorism, and torture: contemporary challenges to just war theory|year=2006|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-1-4020-4677-3|page=277|editor=Steven Lee}}</ref> and Sally J. Scholz has written that this was the first genocide to capture the interest of the mass media.<ref name=Scholz2>{{cite book|last=Scholz|first=Sally J.|title=Encyclopedia of Global Justice|year=2011|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-1-4020-9159-9|page=388|editor=Deen K. Chatterjee}}</ref>], located at the center of Dhaka University Campus]] Time magazine reported on girls who had been kidnapped and held in military brothels:


== Pakistani Army actions ==
<blockquote>One of the more horrible revelations concerns 563 young Bengali women, some only 18, who have been held captive inside Dacca's dingy military cantonment since the first days of the fighting. Seized from Dacca University and private homes and forced into military brothels, the girls are all three to five months pregnant. The army is reported to have enlisted Bengali gynecologists to abort girls held at military installations. But for those at the Dacca cantonment it is too late for abortion. The military has begun freeing the girls a few at a time, still carrying the babies of Pakistani soldiers<ref name=Hadden>{{cite news|last=Hadden|first=Briton|title=Time Volume 98|newspaper=Time|author2=Henry Robinson Luce|year=1971}}</ref> </blockquote>
The attacks were led by General ], who was the architect of Operation Searchlight and was given the name the "butcher of Bengal" by the Bengalis for his actions. Khan said—when reminded on 27 March 1971 that he was in charge of a majority province—"I will reduce this majority to a minority".{{sfn|Chalk|Jonassohn|1990|p=369}}{{sfn|Gotam|1971|p=26}} Bina D'Costa believes an anecdote used by Khan is significant, in that it provides proof of the mass rapes being a deliberate strategy. In ], while speaking with a group of journalists Khan was reported to have said, ''"Pehle inko Mussalman karo"'' ({{lit|First, make them Muslims}}). D'Costa argues that this shows that in the highest echelons of the armed forces the Bengalis were perceived as being disloyal Muslims and unpatriotic Pakistanis.{{sfn|D'Costa|2008}}


Jessica Lee Rehman calls rape in 1971 an instance of religious terrorism. She said "The Pakistan Army is an Islamic institution, its soldiers are warriors of God and ...they rape in God's name. Therefore the raping of girls and women, the forced bodily transgressions, and the mutilations are considered to be a triumph for good."<ref name="auto">Jessica Lee Rehman, Rape as Religious Terrorism and Genocide The 1971 War Between East and West Pakistan (2012)</ref> Bengalis were dehumanised and Bengali women were perceived as prostitutes inviting sex. They were thought to have Hindu features which deleted any thought for their "Muslim" status that might prevent a perpetrator's savage activities. Faisal, a Pakistani officer who had been in East Pakistan, portrays Bengali culture in terms of the differences between East and West Pakistani ladies, pushing the open discrimination against Bengali women: "The women bathe openly so that men walking by can see them, and they wear saris that with one pull fall off their body, like Indians. They are very attached to music, like Hindus, and they have their daughters dance for guests, they take pride in this dancing and music, like prostitutes. My daughter does not dance, neither does my wife. This music and dancing isn't Islamic. Our ladies are not prostitutes like Bengalis."<ref name="auto"/> A Bengali Muslim lady Ferdousi Priyabhashini says the soldiers raping her said to her, "You are a Hindu! You are a spy," because she wore a sari and bindi.<ref>], Women, War, and the Making of Bangladesh : Remembering 1971, pg. 134</ref>
] reported in 1972 from a village suffering from the aftermath of the conflict. She interviewed a 16-year-old widow whose husband had been murdered in front of her before she was raped, making her pregnant.<ref name=Trotta>{{cite news|last=Trotta|first=Liz|title=Bangladesh Genocide: Rape Victims|newspaper=NBC|date=20 February 1972}}</ref> The Pakistani government had tried to censor reports coming out of the region, but media reports on the atrocities did reach the public, and gave rise to widespread support for the liberation movement.<ref name=Dixit>{{cite book|last=Dixit|first=Jyotindra Nath|title=India-Pakistan in war and peace|year=2002|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-415-30472-6|page=183}}</ref> It is believed that ] was supported by the majority of states under Article 2(4) of the ]<ref name=Glennon>{{cite book|last=Glennon|first=Michael J.|title=Limits of Law, Prerogatives of Power: Interventionism After Kosovo|year=2003|publisher=Palgrave MacMillan|isbn=978-1-4039-6366-6|page=74}}</ref> and on humanitarian grounds.<ref name=Lee>{{cite book|last=Lee|first=Steven P.|title=Ethics and War: An Introduction|year=2011|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-72757-0|page=110}}</ref> In an interview in 1972 ] justified the use of military intervention, saying, "Shall we sit and watch their women get raped?"<ref name=Mookherjee>{{cite book|last=Mookherjee|first=Nayanika|title=Gender, conflict and migration|year=2006|publisher=Sage|isbn=978-0-7619-3455-4|editor=Navnita Chadha Behera|page=73}}</ref>


The perpetrators conducted nighttime raids, assaulting women in their villages,{{sfn|Thomas|Ralph|1998|p=204}} often in front of their families, as part of the terror campaign.{{sfn|Thomas|Ralph|1994|pp=82–99}} Victims were also kidnapped and held in ] where they were repeatedly assaulted. Many of those held in the camps were murdered or committed suicide,{{sfn|Jahan|2004|pp=147–148}}{{sfn|Brownmiller|1975|p=82}} with some taking their own lives by using their hair to hang themselves; the soldiers responded to these suicides by cutting the women's hair off.{{sfn|D'Costa|2008}} ''Time'' magazine reported on 563 girls who had been kidnapped and held by the military; all of them were between three and five months pregnant when the military began to release them.{{sfn|Coggin|1971|p=157}} Some women were forcibly used as ].{{sfn|Brownmiller|1975|p=83}} While the Pakistani government estimated the number of rapes in the hundreds,{{sfn|Rahman|2007|pp=29, 41}} other estimates range between 200,000{{sfn|Saikia|2011b|p=157}} and 400,000.{{sfn|Riedel|2011|p=10}} The Pakistani government had tried to censor reports coming out of the region, but media reports on the atrocities did reach the public worldwide, and gave rise to widespread international public support for the liberation movement.{{sfn|Dixit|2002|p=183}}
The ] administration aligned with Pakistan as part of its military strategy against communist expansion into the region, but American public support for the people of Bangladesh was increased by televised reports coming from the region.<ref name=Mani>{{cite book|last=Mani|first=Bakirathi|title=Aspiring to Home: South Asians in America|year=2012|publisher=Stanford University Press|isbn=978-0-8047-7800-8|page=47}}</ref> Senator ] commented that they had done nothing worse than to win an election.<ref name=Totten2/> The events were discussed extensively in the ]. ] proposed a motion which was supported by a further 200 ]:


In what has been described by Jenneke Arens as a deliberate attempt to destroy an ethnic group, many of those assaulted were raped, murdered and then bayoneted in the genitalia.{{sfn|Arens|2010|p=128}} ], a political scientist, has said that one of the reasons for the mass rapes was to undermine Bengali society through the "dishonoring" of Bengali women and that some women were raped until they died or were killed following repeated attacks.{{sfn|Jones|2010|p=343}} {{sfn|Mookherjee|2012|pp=73–74}} The ] concluded that the atrocities carried out by the Pakistan armed forces "were part of a deliberate policy by a disciplined force".{{sfn|Linton|2010|pp=191–311}} The writer ] said the rapes were too widespread and systematic to be anything but conscious military policy, "planned by the West Pakistanis in a deliberate effort to create a new race" or to undermine Bengali separatism.{{sfn|Brownmiller|1975|p=85}} ], reporting from Bangladesh following the Pakistan armed forces surrender, wrote that one West Pakistani soldier said: "We are going. But we are leaving our seed behind".{{sfn|Sharlach|2000|p=95}}
<blockquote>That this House believes that the widespread murder of civilians and the atrocities on a massive scale by the Pakistan Army in East Bengal, contrary to the United Nations Convention on Genocide signed by Pakistan itself, confirms that the military Government of Pakistan has forfeited all rights to rule East Bengal, following its wanton refusal to accept the democratic will of the people expressed in the election of December, 1970; therefore believes that the United Nations Security Council must be called urgently to consider the situation both as a threat to international peace and as a contravention of the Genocide Convention; and further believes that until order is restored under United Nations supervision, the provisional Government of Bangla Desh should be recognised as the vehicle for the expression of self-determination by the people of East Bengal.<ref name=Hansard>{{Cite web |url=http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1971/jun/17/business-of-the-house |title=Business of the House (Hansard, 17 June 1971) |volume=819 |publisher = House of Commons | accessdate=24 February 2012}}</ref></blockquote>


Not all Pakistani military personnel supported the violence: General ] and ] who advised the president against military action,{{sfn|Friend|2011|p=62}} and Major ], had all resigned in protest. Former ], a ] politician and leader of the ], ], a Balochi politician, and ], leader of the ], protested over the actions of the armed forces. Those imprisoned for their dissenting views on the violence included ] and I. A. Rahman, who were both journalists, the Sindhi leader ], the poet ], Anwar Pirzado, who was a member of the air force, Professor M. R. Hassan, Tahera Mazhar and Imtiaz Ahmed.{{sfn|Mohaiemen|2011|p=42}} Malik Ghulam Jilani, who was also arrested, had openly opposed the armed action in the East; a letter he had written to Yahya Khan was widely publicised. Altaf Hussain Gauhar, the editor of the '']'' newspaper, was also imprisoned.{{sfn|Newberg|2002|p=120}} In 2013 Jilani and ], a poet, were honoured by the Bangladeshi government for their actions.{{sfn|Dawn|2013}}
Although this motion was presented twice before parliament, the government did not find time to debate it.<ref name=Smith>{{cite book|last=Smith|first=Karen E.|title=Genocide and the Europeans|year=2010|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-13329-6|pages=85–86}}</ref>


=== Militias ===
Critics of the United Nations have used the 1971 atrocities to argue that military intervention was the only thing to stop the mass murder.<ref name=Ball>{{cite book|last=Ball|first=Howard|title=Genocide: A Reference Handbook|year=2011|publisher=ABC Clio|isbn=978-1-59884-488-7|page=46}}</ref>
According to ], a political scientist, Pakistan's secret service the ], in conjunction with the political party ], formed militias such as ] ("the moon") and the ] ("the sun") to conduct operations against the nationalist movement.{{sfn|Schmid|2011|p=600}}{{sfn|Tomsen|2011|p=240}} These militias targeted non-combatants and committed rapes as well as other crimes.{{sfn|Saikia|2011a|p=3}} Local ] known as ] also took part in the atrocities. The term has since become a ] akin to the western term "]".{{sfn|Mookherjee|2009a|p=49}}


Members of the ], such as ], Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamiat Ulema Pakistan, who had lost the election, collaborated with the military and acted as an intelligence organisation for them.{{sfn|Ḥaqqānī|2005|p=77}} Members of Jamaat-e-Islami and some of its leaders collaborated with the Pakistani forces in rapes and targeted killings.{{sfn|Shehabuddin|2010|p=93}} The atrocities by Al-Badr and the Al-Shams garnered worldwide attention from news agencies; accounts of massacres and rapes were widely reported.{{sfn|Tomsen|2011|p=240}}
On 1 August 1971 ] and ] organized ] which raised almost $240,000 for the refugees.<ref name=Mani>{{cite book|last=Mani|first=Bakirathi|title=Aspiring to Home: South Asians in America|year=2012|publisher=Stanford University Press|isbn=978-0804778008|page=269}}</ref>


== International reaction ==
==Aftermath==
Estimates of those raped vary from two hundred thousand<ref name=Saikia>{{cite book|last=Saikia|first=Yasmin|title=Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones: From the Ancient World to the Era of Human Rights|year=2011|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|isbn=978-0-8122-4318-5|page=157|editor=Elizabeth D. Heineman}}</ref> to four hundred thousand.<ref name=Riedel>{{cite book|last=Riedel|first=Bruce O.|title=Deadly embrace: Pakistan, America, and the future of the global jihad|year=2011|publisher=Brookings Institution|isbn=978-0-8157-0557-4|page=10}}</ref> After the conflict the victims went through a second ordeal: widespread sexual infections and feelings of intense shame and humiliation. Many of the women were ostracized by their families and communities,<ref name=Siddiqi>{{cite book|last=Siddiqi|first=Dina M.|title=Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History|year=2008|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-514890-9|page=202|edition=Volume 1|editor=Bonnie G. Smith}}</ref> and others committed suicide.<ref name="Debnath1"/> A doctor at the rehabilitation center in Dhaka reported 170,000 abortions of pregnancies caused by the rapes, and 30,000 ] being born.<ref name=Mohsin>{{cite book|last=Mohsin|first=Amena|title=Peace processes and peace accords|year=2005|publisher=Sage|isbn=978-0-7619-3391-5|page=223|editor=Samir Kumar Das}}</ref>


], sent on 6 April 1971]]
Estimates of the number of pregnancies range from 25,000<ref name="Scholz"/> to the Bangladeshi government figure of 70,000.<ref name="Debnath1"/> Observers suggested that some of these pregnancies were intended by the soldiers and perhaps their officers as well.<ref name=Enloe>{{cite book|last=Enloe|first=Cynthia H.|title=Maneuvers: the international politics of militarizing women's lives|year=2000|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-22071-3|page=340}}</ref> A report from the ] said, "Whatever the precise numbers, the teams of American and British surgeons carrying out abortions and the widespread government efforts to persuade people to accept these girls into the community, testify to the scale on which raping occurred".<ref name=Secretariat>{{cite book|last=Secretariat|first=The|title=The events in East Pakistan, 1971: a legal study|year=1972|publisher=International Commission of Jurists|page=40}}</ref> The Commission also said that Pakistani officers not only allowed their men to rape, but also enslaved women themselves.<ref name=Ghadbian2>{{cite book|last=Ghadbian|first=Najib|title=Violence and politics: globalization's paradox|year=2002|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-415-93111-3|page=112|editor=Kent Worcester, Sally A. Bermanzohn, Mark Ungar}}</ref>


There is an academic consensus that the events of the nine-month conflict were a ].{{sfn|Payaslian}}{{sfn|Simms|2011|p=17}} The atrocities in East Pakistan were the first instances of ] to attract international media attention,{{sfn|Scholz|2006|p=277}} and Sally J. Scholz has written that this was the first genocide to capture the interest of the mass media.{{sfn|Scholz|2011|p=388}} The women's human rights organisation ] took part in the war by publicising the atrocities being carried out by the Pakistani army.{{sfn|Siddiqi|2008|p=202}}
Sheikh ] called the victims ''birangona'' ("heroine"), but this only underscored the fact that these women were now deemed socially unacceptable as they were "dishonored",<ref name=Nasreen>{{cite book|last=Nasreen|first=Taslima|title=Women in Muslim societies: diversity within unity|year=1998|publisher=Lynne Rienner|isbn=978-1-55587-578-7|page=209|editor=Herbert L. Bodman, Nayereh E. Tohidi}}</ref> and the term became associated with ''barangona'' ("prostitute").<ref name=Bradby>{{cite book|last=Bradby|first=Hannah|title=Global Perspectives on War, Gender and Health|year=2010|publisher=Ashgate|isbn=978-0-7546-7523-5|coauthors=Gillian Lewando Hund|page=37}}</ref> The women's human rights organization ] took part in the war by publicizing the atrocities being carried out by the Pakistani army.<ref name="Siddiqi"/> In 1996 ] wrote '']'' (''The Voices of War Heroines''), a collection of eyewitness testimony from seven rape victims, which she documented while working for a rehabilitation center.<ref name=Armbruster>{{cite book|last=Armbruster|first=Heidi|title=Taking Sides: Ethics, Politics, and Fieldwork in Anthropology|year=2009|publisher=Berghahn|isbn=978-1-84545-701-3|coauthors=Anna Laerke|page=78}}</ref>


Owing to the scale of the atrocities, US embassy staff had sent telegrams indicating that a genocide was occurring. One, which became known as the ], was sent by ], the US Consul General in Dhaka, and was signed by him as well as US officials from USAID and USIS who at the time were serving in Dhaka. In it, the signatories denounced American "complicity in ]".{{sfn|Khondker|2006|p=244}}{{sfn|Biswas|2012|p=163}} In an interview in 1972, ], the Indian prime minister, justified the use of military intervention, saying, "Shall we sit and watch their women get raped?"{{sfn|Mookherjee|2006|p=73}} The events were discussed extensively in the ]. ] proposed a motion supported by a further 200 members of parliament condemning the atrocities being carried out by the Pakistani armed forces.{{sfn|Hansard|1971|p=819}} Although this motion was presented twice before parliament, the government did not find time to debate it.{{sfn|Smith|2010|pp=85–86}}
In 2009, after a 19-year investigation, the ] released documentation naming 1,597 people they said to be responsible for the atrocities. The list included members of the ], a political group founded in 1978.<ref name=Alffram>{{cite book|last=Alffram|first=Henrik|title=Ignoring executions and torture: impunity for Bangladesh's security forces|year=2009|publisher=Human Rights Watch|isbn=1-56432-483-4|page=11}}</ref> In 2010 the government of Bangladesh set up an ] to investigate the atrocities of that era. However, human rights advocates are of the opinion that the mass rapes and killings of women may not be addressed.<ref name=RoyNYT>{{cite news|last=Roy|first=Nilanjana S.|title=Bangladesh War's Toll on Women Still Undiscussed|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/world/asia/25iht-letter.html|newspaper=New York Times|date=August 24, 2010}}</ref> ] has said of her own government's reaction:


Before the end of the war the international community had begun to provide aid in large quantities to the refugees living in India. Although humanitarian aid was given, there was little support for the war crimes trials which Bangladesh proposed at the end of the war.{{sfn|Jahan|2004|p=150}} Critics of the ] have used the atrocities of 1971 to argue that military intervention was the only thing to stop the mass murder.{{sfn|Ball|2011|p=46}} Writing to '']'', a group of women said in response to women being shunned by family and husbands, "It is unthinkable that innocent wives whose lives were virtually destroyed by war are now being totally destroyed by their own husbands". International aid was also forthcoming owing to the issue of war rape.{{sfn|Brownmiller|2007|p=89}}
<blockquote>A conservative Muslim society has preferred to throw a veil of negligence and denial on the issue, allowed those who committed or colluded with gender violence to thrive, and left the women victims to struggle in anonymity and shame and without much state or community support.<ref name=RoyNYT/>
</blockquote>


==Hindu victims==
] Deputy Leader ], the first person to face charges related to the conflict, has been indicted by the tribunal for twenty counts of war crimes, including murder, rape and arson. He has denied all charges.<ref name="Of India">{{cite news|last=Of India|first=Press Trust|title=Bangladesh 1971 war crimes trial begins|url=http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/Bangladesh/Bangladesh-1971-war-crimes-trial-begins/Article1-771835.aspx|newspaper=Hindustan Times|date=November 20, 2011}}</ref> Four other members of Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, including ], have also been indicted for war crimes.<ref name="AP of Dhaka">{{cite news|last=Dhaka|first=Associated Press|title=Bangladesh party leader accused of war crimes in 1971 conflict|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/03/bangladesh-party-leader-accused-war-crimes|newspaper=The Guardian|date=October 3, 2011}}</ref> ] has supported the tribunal,<ref name=Adams>{{cite news|last=Adams|first=Brad|title=Letter to the Bangladesh Prime Minister regarding the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act|url=http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/05/18/letter-bangladesh-prime-minister-regarding-international-crimes-tribunals-act|newspaper=Human Rights Watch|date=May 18, 2011}}</ref> and they have also been critical of reported harassment of lawyers representing the accused. ], director of the Asia branch of Human Rights Watch, said:
The Pakistani elite believed that Hindus were behind the revolt and that as soon as there was a solution to the "Hindu problem" the conflict would resolve. For Pakistanis, the violence against Hindus was a strategic policy.{{sfn|D'Costa|2011|p=101}} Muslim Pakistani men believed the sacrifice of Hindu women was needed to fix the national malaise.<ref name="auto1"/> Anecdotal evidence suggests that Imams and Mullahs supported the rapes by the Pakistani Army and issued fatwas declaring the women war booty. A fatwa from West Pakistan during the war asserted that women taken from Bengali Hindus could be considered war booty.{{sfn|D'Costa|2011|p=108}}<ref name="Siddiqi1998p208-209"/>


The mostly Punjabi soldiers hated anything to do with Hinduism.{{sfn|D'Costa|2010|pp=101–102}} The extreme hatred Pakistanis felt towards Hindus could be seen in their especially brutal violence against Hindus as the Pakistani Army and its local allies raped and murdered Hindu women. The implication for Bengali women of being connected in any way to a "Hindu" identity was rape by the Army. Women were captured and taken to camps established throughout the country.{{sfn|D'Costa|2011|p=102}} In these military camps and cantonments the Pakistani soldiers kept the captives as their sex-slaves.{{sfn|Gerlach|2010|p=155}}<ref>{{cite book |author=Nayanika Mookherjee |title=The Spectral Wound: Sexual Violence, Public Memories, and the Bangladesh War of 1971 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OtrDCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT159 |date=23 October 2015 |publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=978-0-8223-7522-7 |pages=159–}}</ref>
<blockquote>If the Bangladeshi government wants these trials to be taken seriously it must ensure that the rights of the accused are fully respected. That means making sure that lawyers and witnesses don't face threats or coercion.<ref name=Adams2>{{cite news|last=Adams|first=Brad|title=Bangladesh: Stop Harassment of Defense at War Tribunal|url=http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/bangladesh-stop-harassment-of-defense-at-war-tribunal|newspaper=Thomson Reuters Foundation|date=NOVEMBER 2, 2011}}</ref></blockquote>


Female Hindu captives were raped in Pakistani Army camps.{{sfn|Islam|2019|p=177}} The Pakistani Army committed mass rape of Hindu women because they were Hindus and the Army intended to destroy their faith, social position and self-esteem.{{sfn|Islam|2019|p=176}} The policy of raping Hindu captives intended to change the community's bloodline.{{sfn|Islam|2019|p=177}} The total effect of mass sexual violence against Hindu women demonstrated the existence of the genocidal ''actus reas''.{{sfn|Islam|2019|p=176–177}} In the ''Akayesu'' case the Bangladeshi Tribunal emphasised that the violence against Hindu women was committed not just against them individually but because of their membership of their community.{{sfn|Islam|2019|p=176–177}}
==Media depictions==
''Orunodoyer Ognishakhi'' (''Pledge to a New Dawn''), the first film about the war, was screened in 1972 on the first ] celebration.<ref name=Mookherjee3>{{cite book|last=Mookherjee|first=Nayanika|title=Traitors: suspicion, intimacy, and the ethics of state-building|year=2009|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|isbn=978-0-8122-4213-3|pages=48–49|editor=Sharika Thiranagama, Tobias Kelly}}</ref> It draws on the experiences of an actor called Altaf. While trying to reach safe haven in Calcutta he encounters women who have been raped. The images of these ''birangona'', stripped and vacant-eyed from the trauma, are used as testimony to the assault. Other victims Altaf meets are shown committing suicide or having lost their minds.<ref name=Mookherjee2>{{cite book|last=Mookherjee|first=Nayanika|title=Gender, conflict and migration|year=2006|publisher=Sage|isbn=978-0-7619-3455-4|editor=Navnita Chadha Behera|page=80}}</ref>
In 2011 the film '']'' was shown at the Guwahati International Film Festival. It explores the war from two perspectives: that of a woman who loved a Pakistani soldier and that of a person born from rape.<ref name=Reporter>{{cite news|last=Reporter|first=Staff|title=Bangla movie Meherjan to be screened today|url=http://www.assamtribune.com/scripts/detailsnew.asp?id=feb1112/city07|newspaper=Assam Tribune|date=February 10, 2011}}</ref>


Bina D'Costa spoke with many respondents who especially mentioned the brutality of Pakistan's army in its "handling" of Hindus. The members from the Hindu community with whom she interacted with firmly believed in the persecution of Hindus by the Pakistan army and Razakaar during the war. Hindu women who were kidnapped by Pakistan army were never seen again; mostly they were killed after being raped. Bina D'Costa interacted with families of two Hindu women who were taken by "Punjabi" army men, neither of them returned to their respective homes after the war.<ref>Bina D'Costa, Nationbuilding, Gender and War Crimes in South Asia (2011) pg. 139</ref> Aubrey Menen who was a war correspondent wrote about a 17 year old Hindu bride who was gang raped by six Pakistani soldiers according to her father.
==Pakistani government reaction==
]
After the conflict the Pakistani government decided on a policy of silence regarding the rapes.<ref name="Saikia"/> They also set up the ], which was highly critical of the army.<ref name=Jones2>{{cite book|last=Jones|first=Owen Bennett|title=Pakistan: eye of the storm|year=2003|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-10147-8|page=266}}</ref> The chiefs of staff of both the army and the ] were removed from their positions for attempting to interfere with the commission.<ref name=Malik>{{cite book|last=Malik|first=Anas|title=Political survival in Pakistan: beyond ideology|year=2010|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-415-77924-1|page=90}}</ref> The report was compiled by Hamoodur Rahman, who interviewed politicians, officers and senior commanders. The final reports were submitted in July 1972. They were all destroyed except for one held by ], and the findings were never made public.<ref name=Saikia2>{{cite book|last=Saikia|first=Yasmin|title=Women, War, and the Making of Bangladesh: Remembering 1971|year=2011|publisher=Duke University Press|isbn=978-0-8223-5038-5|page=63}}</ref> In 1974 the commission was reopened and issued a supplementary report, which remained classified for 25 years until the magazine ] published it.<ref name=Wynbrandt>{{cite book|last=Wynbrandt|first=James|title=A Brief History of Pakistan|year=2009|publisher=Facts On File|isbn=978-0-8160-6184-6|edition=1st|page=203}}</ref> The report said that 26,000 people were killed and that the rapes numbered in the hundreds.<ref name=Trivedi>{{cite book|last=Trivedi|first=Ramesh|title=India's relations with her neighbours|year=2008|publisher=Gyan Publishing|isbn=978-81-8205-438-7|page=108}}</ref> ] ] believes that the Pakistani establishment has yet to come to terms with the atrocities carried out, saying that, in a visit to Bangladesh in 2002, ] expressed regret for the atrocities rather than accepting responsibility.<ref name=Ganguly>{{cite book|last=Ganguly|first=Sumit|title=Multination States in Asia: Accommodation Or Resistance|year=2010|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-14363-9|editor=Jacques Bertrand, André Laliberté|page=93}}</ref>


<blockquote>Two went into the room that had been built for the bridal couple. The others stayed behind with the family, one of them covering them with his gun. They heard a barked order, and the bridegroom's voice protesting. Then there was silence until the bride screamed...In a few minutes one of the soldiers came out, his uniform in disarray. He grinned to his companions. Another soldier took his place in the extra room. And so on, until all six had raped the belle of the village. Then all six left, hurriedly. The father found his daughter lying on the string unconscious and bleeding. Her husband was crouched on the floor, kneeling over his vomit.<ref>Bina D'Costa, Nationbuilding, Gender and War Crimes in South Asia (2011) pp. 121-122</ref></blockquote>
==See also==
*]
*]
*]
*]


==References== == Aftermath ==
]
{{reflist|2}}

In the immediate aftermath of the war, one pressing problem was the very high number of unwanted pregnancies of rape victims. Estimates of the number of pregnancies resulting in births range from 25,000{{sfn|Scholz|2006|p=277}} to the Bangladeshi government's figure of 70,000,{{sfn|Debnath|2009|p=49}} while one publication by the Centre for Reproductive Law and Policy gave a total of 250,000.{{sfn|Enloe|2000|p=340}} A government-mandated victim relief programme was set up with the support of the ] and ], among whose goals it was to organise ] facilities to help rape victims terminate unwanted pregnancies. A doctor at a rehabilitation centre in Dhaka reported 170,000 abortions of pregnancies caused by the rapes, and the births of 30,000 ] during the first three months of 1972.{{sfn|Mohsin|2005|p=223}} ], an Australian doctor and abortion specialist who worked for the programme, estimated that there had been about 5,000 cases of ]s.{{sfn|Brownmiller|2007|p=92}} He also said that during his work he heard of numerous ]s and suicides by victims. His estimate of the total number of rape victims was 400,000, twice as high as the official estimate of 200,000 cited by the Bangladeshi government.{{sfn|Mookherjee|2012|p=77}} Most of the victims also contracted sexual infections.{{sfn|D'Costa|2010a}} Many suffered from feelings of intense shame and humiliation, and a number were ostracised by their families and communities or committed suicide.{{sfn|Siddiqi|2008|p=202}}

The feminist writer ] has written that some pregnancies were intended by the soldiers and perhaps their officers as well.{{sfn|Enloe|2000|p=340}} A report from the ] said, "Whatever the precise numbers, the teams of American and British surgeons carrying out abortions and the widespread government efforts to persuade people to accept these girls into the community, testify to the scale on which raping occurred".{{sfn|International Commission of Jurists |1972|pp=40–41}} The commission also said that Pakistani officers not only allowed their men to rape, but enslaved women themselves.{{sfn|Ghadbian|2002|p=112}}

Following the conflict the rape victims were seen as a symbol of "social pollution" and shame. Few were able to return to families or old homes because of this.{{sfn|Siddiqi|1998|p=209}} Sheikh ] called the victims '']'' ("heroine"), but this served as a reminder that these women were now deemed socially unacceptable as they were "dishonored",{{efn|"Rape can be especially effective as a tactic of genocide when used against females of communities that cast shame upon the rape victim rather than the rapist. In such communities, the rape forever damages the social standing of the survivor. Bengali girls and women who endured the genocidal rape had to cope not only with their physical injuries and trauma, but with a society hostile to violated women. The blame for loss of honour falls not upon the rapist, but upon the raped.".{{sfn|Sharlach|2000|p=95}} }}{{sfn|Siddiqi|1998|p=209}} and the term became associated with ''barangona'' ("prostitute").{{sfn|Roy|2010c|p=37}} The official strategy of marrying the women off and encouraging them to be seen as war heroines failed as few men came forward, and those who did expected the state to provide a large ].{{sfn|Gerlach|2010|p=157}} Those women who did marry were usually mistreated, and the majority of men, once having received a dowry, abandoned their wives.{{sfn|Saikia|2011a|p=57}}

On 18 February 1972 the state formed the Bangladesh Women's Rehabilitation Board, which was tasked with helping the victims of rape and to help with the adoption programme.{{sfn|Rahman|Baxter|2002|p=52}} Several international agencies took part in the adoption programme, such as ]'s ]. The majority of the war babies were adopted in the Netherlands and Canada as the state wished to remove the reminders of Pakistan from the newly formed nation.{{sfn|Saikia|2011a|p=260}} However, not all women wanted their child taken, and some were forcibly removed and sent for adoption, a practice which was encouraged by Rahman, who said, "I do not want those polluted blood in this country".{{sfn|Gerlach|2010|pp=157–158}} While many women were glad for the abortion programme, as they did not have to bear a child conceived of rape, others had to go full term, filled with hatred towards the child they carried. Others, who had their children adopted out so as to return to "mainstream life", would not look at their newborn as it was taken from them.{{sfn|Mookherjee|2007|p=344}} In the 1990s many of these children returned to Bangladesh to search for their birth mothers.{{sfn|Mookherjee|2007|pp=344–345}} In 2008, D'Costa attempted to find those who had been adopted, however very few responded, one who did said "I hated being a kid, and I am angry at Bangladesh for not taking care of me when I needed it most. I don’t have any roots and that makes me cry. So that is why I am trying to learn more about where I was born."{{sfn|D'Costa|2008}}

Forty years after the war, two sisters who had been raped were interviewed by ]. Aleya stated she had been taken by the Pakistani army when she was thirteen, and was gang raped repeatedly for seven months. She states she was tortured and was five months pregnant when she returned to her home. Her sister, Laily, says she was pregnant when she was taken by the armed forces, and lost the child. Later she fought alongside the Mukti Bahini. Both say that the state has failed the ''birangona'', and that all they received was "humiliation, insults, hatred, and ostracism."{{sfn|Das|2011}}

=== Pakistani government reaction ===
After the conflict, the Pakistani government decided on a policy of silence regarding the rapes.{{sfn|Saikia|2011b|p=157}} They set up the ], a judicial commission to prepare an account of the circumstances surrounding Pakistan's loss of the 1971 war. The commission was highly critical of the army.{{sfn|Jones|2003|p=266}} The chiefs of staff of the army and the ] were removed from their positions for attempting to interfere with the commission.{{sfn|Malik|2010|p=90}} The Commission based its reports on interviews with politicians, officers and senior commanders. The final reports were submitted in July 1972, but all were subsequently destroyed except for one held by ], the Pakistani president. The findings were never made public.{{sfn|Saikia|2011a|p=63}}

In 1974 the commission was reopened and issued a supplementary report, which remained classified for 25 years until published by the magazine '']''.{{sfn|Wynbrandt|2009|p=203}} The report said that 26,000 people were killed, rapes numbered in the hundreds, and that the Mukti Bahini rebels engaged in widespread rape and other human rights abuses.{{sfn|Rahman|2007|pp=29, 41}} ], a political scientist, believes that the Pakistani establishment has yet to come to terms with the atrocities carried out, saying that, in a visit to Bangladesh in 2002, ] expressed regret for the atrocities rather than accepting responsibility.{{sfn|Ganguly|2010|p=93}}


=== War Crimes prosecutions ===
] in Manchester, in the United Kingdom, expressing solidarity with the ], which is demanding more rigorous punishment for those convicted of war crimes in 1971.]]

In 2008, after a 17-year investigation, the War Crimes Fact Finding Committee released documentation identifying 1,597 people who had taken part in the atrocities. The list included members of the ] and the ], a political group founded in 1978.{{sfn|Alffram|2009|p=11}} In 2010 the government of Bangladesh set up the ] (ICT) to investigate the atrocities of that era. While ] has been supportive of the tribunal,{{sfn|Adams|2011a}} it has also been critical of reported harassment of lawyers representing the accused. ], director of the Asia branch of Human Rights Watch, has said that those accused must be given the full protection of the law to avoid the risk of the trials not being taken seriously,{{sfn|Adams|2011b}} and ], a human rights activist, has expressed doubt about whether the mass rapes and killings of women will be addressed.{{sfn|Roy|2010a}} Khan has said of her government's reaction:

{{blockquote
| A conservative Muslim society has preferred to throw a veil of negligence and denial on the issue, allowed those who committed or colluded with gender violence to thrive, and left the women victims to struggle in anonymity and shame and without much state or community support.{{sfn|Roy|2010a}}
}}

The deputy leader of Jamaat-e-Islami, ], the first person to face charges related to the conflict, was indicted by the ICT on twenty counts of war crimes, which included murder, rape and arson. He denied all charges.{{sfn|Huq|2011|p=463}} On 28 February 2013, Sayeedi was found guilty of genocide, rape and religious persecution, and was sentenced to death by hanging.{{sfn|Al Jazeera|2013}} Four other members of Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, including ], have also been indicted for war crimes.{{sfn|Huq|2011|p=463}} ], a member of the Razakars, was the first person to be sentenced for crimes during the war. He was found guilty of murder and rape in absentia, and was sentenced to death.{{sfn|Minegar|2013}}{{sfn|Mustafa|2013}} ], senior assistant secretary general of ], faced seven charges of war crimes, including planning and advising on the rape of women in the village of Shohaghpur on 25 July 1971.{{sfn|BD News 24|2013}} The ICT sentenced him to death by hanging on 9 May 2013.{{sfn|Ahmed|Haq|Niloy|Dhrubo|2013}} In July 2013 ] was given a ninety-year sentence for rape and mass murder during the conflict.{{sfn|Sadique|2013}} ], a member of the ] militia during the war was charged with abetting the Pakistani army and actively participating in the ]: rape (including the ]) and ] of Bangladeshis in the ] area of ] during the ].<ref name="guardian">{{cite news | title = Shahbag protesters versus the Butcher of Mirpur | author = Tahmima Anam | url = https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/13/shahbag-protest-bangladesh-quader-mollah | newspaper = ] | date = 13 February 2013 | quote = "Mollah smiled because for him, a man convicted of beheading a poet, raping an 11-year-old girl and shooting 344 people during the 1971 Bangladesh war of independence – charges that have earned him the nickname the Butcher of Mirpur | access-date = 26 February 2013 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20131206145334/http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/13/shahbag-protest-bangladesh-quader-mollah | archive-date = 6 December 2013 | url-status = live}}</ref> After the government had amended the war crimes law to allow a sentence to be appealed based on leniency of punishment, prosecutors appealed to the ] and asked for it to upgrade Molla's sentence from life in prison to death.<ref name=ndtv>{{cite web | url = http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/bangladesh-islamist-given-last-minute-stay-of-execution-457153 | title = Bangladesh Islamist given last-minute stay of execution | work = NDTV.com | access-date = 28 August 2014 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140903110051/http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/bangladesh-islamist-given-last-minute-stay-of-execution-457153 | archive-date = 3 September 2014 | url-status = live}}</ref> On 17 September 2013, the Supreme Court accepted the appeal and sentenced Molla to death.<ref name="death sentence">{{cite web | url = http://www.supremecourt.gov.bd/nweb/case_history/case_history.php?div_id=2&case_id=601845 | title = Case history | publisher = Supreme Court | access-date = 12 December 2013 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160304065726/http://www.supremecourt.gov.bd/nweb/case_history/case_history.php?div_id=2&case_id=601845 | archive-date = 4 March 2016 | url-status = live}}</ref> Finally he was hanged in ] on 12 December 2013 at 22:01.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.aljazeera.com/news/southasia/2013/12/bangladesh-politician-be-executed-20131212622649656.html | title = Bangladesh executes opposition leader | publisher = Al Jazeera| date = 12 December 2013 | access-date = 12 December 2013 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20131212172603/http://www.aljazeera.com/news/southasia/2013/12/bangladesh-politician-be-executed-20131212622649656.html | archive-date = 12 December 2013 | url-status = live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url = http://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2013/12/12/quader-molla-hangs-finally-for-war-crimes | title = Quader Molla hangs, finally, for war crimes | work = bdnews24.com | access-date = 12 December 2013 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20171213202723/https://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2013/12/12/quader-molla-hangs-finally-for-war-crimes | archive-date = 13 December 2017 | url-status = live}}</ref>

== In literature and media ==
]. The image is considered by John Tulloch to be as "classical a pose as any ]".{{sfn|Tulloch|Blood|2010|p=513}} One of the more emotive photographs at the exhibition, the woman has her hands clenched, her face completely covered by her hair. Tulloch describes the image as having the "Capability to reveal or suggest what is unsayable".{{sfn|Tulloch|Blood|2012|pp=54–55}}]]

''Orunodoyer Ognishakhi'' (''Pledge to a New Dawn''), the first film about the war, was screened in 1972 on the first ] celebration.{{sfn|Mookherjee|2009a|pp=48–49}} It draws on the experiences of an actor called Altaf. While trying to reach safe haven in Calcutta, he encounters women who have been raped. The images of these ''birangona'', stripped and vacant-eyed from the trauma, are used as testimony to the assault. Other victims Altaf meets are shown committing suicide or having lost their minds.{{sfn|Mookherjee|2006|p=80}}

In 1995 ] produced the documentary ''War Crimes File'', which was screened on ].{{sfn|Sahgal|2011}} In 2011 the film '']'' was shown at the Guwahati International Film Festival. It explores the war from two perspectives: that of a woman who loved a Pakistani soldier and that of a person born from rape.{{sfn|Assam Tribune|2011}}

In 1994, the book ] (''The Voices of War Heroines'') by ] was released. It is a collection of eyewitness testimony from seven rape victims, which Ibrahim documented while working in rehabilitation centres.{{sfn|Mookherjee|2009b|p=78}} The narratives of the survivors in this work is heavily critical of post-war Bangladeshi society's failure to support the victims of rape.{{sfn|Saikia|2011a|p=56}}

Published in 2012, the book ''Rising from the Ashes: Women's Narratives of 1971'' includes oral testimonies of women affected by the Liberation War. As well as an account from ], who fought and was awarded the ] (Symbol of Valour) for her actions, there are nine interviews with women who were raped. The book's publication in English at the time of the fortieth anniversary of the war was noted in ''The New York Times'' as an "important oral history".{{sfn|Roy|2010a}}

The 2014 film '']'' portrays sexual violence during the war. The film by Mrityunjay Devvrat, starring ], ], ], among others, is meant to "send shivers down the viewers' spine. We want to make it so repulsive that no one even entertains the thought of pardoning rapists, let alone commit the crime. The shoot took its toll on all of us."<ref>{{Cite web | url = http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/bengali/movies/news-interviews/Rape-shoot-leaves-Raima-and-Tillotama-tormented/articleshow/34833856.cms | title = 1971 rapes | website = ] | access-date = 11 May 2014 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140511082352/http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/bengali/movies/news-interviews/Rape-shoot-leaves-Raima-and-Tillotama-tormented/articleshow/34833856.cms | archive-date = 11 May 2014 | url-status = live}}</ref>

== Footnotes ==
{{notelist}}

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== Bibliography ==
{{refbegin|30em}}
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* {{cite news | last = Adams | first = Brad | title = Bangladesh: Stop Harassment of Defense at War Tribunal | url = http://news.trust.org//item/20111102225600-n9wvz/ | work = Thomson Reuters Foundation | date = 2 November 2011 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160311233904/http://news.trust.org//item/20111102225600-n9wvz/ | archive-date = 11 March 2016 | ref = {{sfnRef|Adams|2011b}} }}
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* {{cite news | last = Sahgal | first = Gita | title = Dead Reckoning: Disappearing stories and evidence | url = http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=214510 | newspaper = The Daily Star | date = 18 December 2011}}
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* {{cite book | last = Saikia | first = Yasmin | editor1 = Elizabeth D. Heineman | chapter = War as history, humanity in violence: Women, men and memories of 1971, East Pakistan/Bangladesh | pages = 152–170 | title = Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones: From the Ancient World to the Era of Human Rights | year = 2011b | publisher = University of Pennsylvania Press | isbn = 978-0-8122-4318-5}}
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* {{cite journal | last = Sharlach | first = Lisa | title = Rape as Genocide: Bangladesh, the Former Yugoslavia, and Rwanda | journal = New Political Science | year = 2000 | volume = 22 | issue = 1 | doi = 10.1080/713687893 | quote = It is also rape unto death, rape as massacre, rape to kill and to make the victims wish they were dead. It is rape as an instrument of forced exile, rape to make you leave your home and never want to go back. It is rape to be seen and heard and watched and told to others: rape as spectacle. It is rape to drive a wedge through a community, to shatter a society, to destroy a people. It is rape as genocide | pages = 89–102 | s2cid = 144966485 }}
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* {{cite book | last = Smith | first = Karen E. | title = Genocide and the Europeans | year = 2010 | publisher = Cambridge University Press | isbn = 978-0-521-13329-6}}
* {{cite book | last = Southwick | first = Katherine | editor1 = Brad K. Blitz | editor2 = Maureen Jessica Lynch | title = Statelessness and Citizenship: A Comparative Study on the Benefits of Nationality | chapter = The Urdu-speakers of Bangladesh: an unfinished story of enforcing citizenship rights | pages = 115–141 | year = 2011 | publisher = Edward Elgar Publishing | isbn = 978-1-78195-215-3}}
* {{cite journal | last1 = Thomas | first1 = Dorothy Q. | last2 = Ralph | first2 = Regan E. | title = Rape in War: Challenging the Tradition of Impunity | journal = SAIS Review | year = 1994 | volume = 14 | issue = 1 | pages = 82–99 | doi = 10.1353/sais.1994.0019| s2cid = 154604295 }}
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* {{cite book | last = Thompson | first = Hanne-Ruth | editor1 = Andrew Simpson | title = Language and National Identity in Asia | chapter = Bangladesh | year = 2007 | publisher = Oxford University Press | isbn = 978-0-19-926748-4}}
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* {{cite book | last1 = Tulloch | first1 = John | last2 = Blood | first2 = Richard Warwick | editor1 = Stuart Allan | title = The Routledge Companion to News and Journalism | chapter = Iconic photojournalism and absent images: Democratization and memories of terror | pages = 507–519 | publisher = Routledge | year = 2010 | isbn = 978-0-415-66953-5}}
* {{cite book | last1 = Tulloch | first1 = John | last2 = Blood | first2 = Richard Warwick | title = Icons of War and Terror: Media Images in an Age of International Risk | year = 2012 | publisher = Routledge | isbn = 978-0-415-69804-7}}
* {{cite book | last = Weiss | first = Thomas George | year = 2005 | title = Military-Civilian Interactions: Humanitarian Crises and the Responsibility to Protect | publisher = Rowman & Littlefield | isbn = 978-0-8476-8746-6 | url = https://archive.org/details/militarycivilian00weis}}
* {{cite book | last = Wheeler | first = Nicholas J. | title = Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society | year = 2000 | publisher = Oxford University Press | isbn = 978-0-19-829621-8}}
* {{cite book | last = Wynbrandt | first = James | title = A Brief History of Pakistan | url = https://archive.org/details/briefhistoryofpa0000wynb | url-access = registration | year = 2009 | publisher = Facts on File | isbn = 978-0-8160-6184-6 | edition = 1st}}
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Latest revision as of 01:17, 28 December 2024

Pakistani atrocities during the 1971 Bangladesh genocide

This article's factual accuracy is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on Talk:Rape during the Bangladesh Liberation War/GA2. Please help to ensure that disputed statements are reliably sourced. (January 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
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During the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, members of the Pakistani military and Razakar paramilitary force raped between 200,000 and 400,000 Bengali women and girls in a systematic campaign of genocidal rape. Most of the rape victims of the Pakistani Army and its allies were Hindu women. Some of these women died in captivity or committed suicide, while others moved from Bangladesh to India. Imams and Muslim religious leaders declared the women "war booty". The activists and leaders of Islamic parties are also accused to be involved in the rapes and abduction of women.

The Pakistani elite believed that Hindus were behind the revolt and that as soon as there was a solution to the "Hindu problem", the conflict would resolve. For Pakistanis, the violence against Hindus was a strategic policy. Muslim Pakistani men believed the sacrifice of Hindu women was needed to fix the national malaise. Anecdotal evidence suggests that some Imams and Mullahs supported the rapes by the Pakistani Army and issued fatwas declaring the women war booty. A fatwa from West Pakistan during the war asserted that women taken from Bengali Hindus could be considered war booty. Those rapes apparently caused thousands of pregnancies, births of war babies, abortions, infanticide, suicide, and ostracism of the victims. This is often asserted to be one of the severest occurrences of wartime sexual violence. The atrocities ended after the December 1971 surrender of the Pakistani military and supporting Razakar militias.

During the war, Bengali nationalists also committed mass rape of ethnic Bihari Muslim women, since the Bihari Muslim community supported Pakistan. Yasmin Saikia, a scholar, was informed repeatedly in Bangladesh that Pakistani, Bengali, and Bihari men raped Hindu women during the war.

In 2009, almost 40 years after the events of 1971, a report published by the War Crimes Fact Finding Committee of Bangladesh accused 1,597 people of war crimes, including rape. Since 2010, the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) has indicted, tried, and sentenced several people to life imprisonment or death for their actions during the conflict. The stories of the rape victims have been told in movies and literature, and depicted in art.

The term Birangana was first introduced in 1971 by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to refer to victims of rape during the Bangladesh Liberation War, in an attempt to prevent them from being outcast by the society. Since 1972, victims of rape during the war have been recognized as Birangona, or "war heroines", by the government of Bangladesh.

Background

Female students of Dacca University marching on Language Movement Day, 21 February 1953

Following the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan, the East and West wings were separated not only geographically but also culturally. The authorities of the west viewed the Bengali Muslims in the East as "too Bengali" and their application of Islam as "inferior and impure", and this made them unreliable. To this extent, the West began a strategy to forcibly assimilate the Bengalis culturally. The Bengalis of East Pakistan were chiefly Muslim, but their numbers were interspersed with a significant Hindu minority. Very few spoke Urdu, which in 1948 had been declared the national language of Pakistan. To express their opposition, activists in East Pakistan founded the Bengali language movement. Earlier in 1949, other activists had founded the Awami League as an alternative to the ruling Muslim League in West Pakistan. In the next decade and half, Bengalis became gradually disenchanted with the balance of power in Pakistan, which was under military rule during much of this time; eventually some began to call for secession. By the late 1960s, a perception had emerged that the people of East Pakistan were second-class citizens. It did not help that General A. A. K. Niazi, head of Pakistani Forces in East Pakistan, called East Pakistan a "low-lying land of low, lying people".

There had been opposition to military rule in West Pakistan as well. Eventually the military relented, and in December 1970 the first ever elections were held. To the surprise of many, East Pakistan's Awami League, headed by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, won a clear majority. The West Pakistani establishment was displeased with the results. In Dacca following the election a general said "Don't worry, we will not allow these black bastards to rule over us". Soon President Yahya Khan banned the Awami League and declared martial law in East Pakistan.

With the goal of putting down Bengali nationalism, the Pakistan Army launched Operation Searchlight on 25 March 1971. According to Eric Heinze the Pakistani forces targeted both Bengali Muslims and Hindus In the ensuing 1971 Bangladesh genocide, the army caused the deaths of up to 3 million people, created up to 10 million refugees who fled to India, and displaced a further 30 million within East Pakistan.

Rounaq Jahan alleges elements of racism in the Pakistan army, who he says considered the Bengalis "racially inferior—a non-martial and physically weak race", and has accused the army of using organised rape as a weapon of war. According to the political scientist R. J. Rummel, the Pakistani army looked upon the Bengalis as "subhuman" and viewed the Hindus "as Jews to the Nazis: scum and vermin that best be exterminated". This racism was then expressed in that the Bengalis, being inferior, must have their gene pool "fixed" through forcible impregnation. Belén Martín Lucas has described the rapes as "ethnically motivated".

Pakistani Army actions

The attacks were led by General Tikka Khan, who was the architect of Operation Searchlight and was given the name the "butcher of Bengal" by the Bengalis for his actions. Khan said—when reminded on 27 March 1971 that he was in charge of a majority province—"I will reduce this majority to a minority". Bina D'Costa believes an anecdote used by Khan is significant, in that it provides proof of the mass rapes being a deliberate strategy. In Jessore, while speaking with a group of journalists Khan was reported to have said, "Pehle inko Mussalman karo" (lit. 'First, make them Muslims'). D'Costa argues that this shows that in the highest echelons of the armed forces the Bengalis were perceived as being disloyal Muslims and unpatriotic Pakistanis.

Jessica Lee Rehman calls rape in 1971 an instance of religious terrorism. She said "The Pakistan Army is an Islamic institution, its soldiers are warriors of God and ...they rape in God's name. Therefore the raping of girls and women, the forced bodily transgressions, and the mutilations are considered to be a triumph for good." Bengalis were dehumanised and Bengali women were perceived as prostitutes inviting sex. They were thought to have Hindu features which deleted any thought for their "Muslim" status that might prevent a perpetrator's savage activities. Faisal, a Pakistani officer who had been in East Pakistan, portrays Bengali culture in terms of the differences between East and West Pakistani ladies, pushing the open discrimination against Bengali women: "The women bathe openly so that men walking by can see them, and they wear saris that with one pull fall off their body, like Indians. They are very attached to music, like Hindus, and they have their daughters dance for guests, they take pride in this dancing and music, like prostitutes. My daughter does not dance, neither does my wife. This music and dancing isn't Islamic. Our ladies are not prostitutes like Bengalis." A Bengali Muslim lady Ferdousi Priyabhashini says the soldiers raping her said to her, "You are a Hindu! You are a spy," because she wore a sari and bindi.

The perpetrators conducted nighttime raids, assaulting women in their villages, often in front of their families, as part of the terror campaign. Victims were also kidnapped and held in special camps where they were repeatedly assaulted. Many of those held in the camps were murdered or committed suicide, with some taking their own lives by using their hair to hang themselves; the soldiers responded to these suicides by cutting the women's hair off. Time magazine reported on 563 girls who had been kidnapped and held by the military; all of them were between three and five months pregnant when the military began to release them. Some women were forcibly used as prostitutes. While the Pakistani government estimated the number of rapes in the hundreds, other estimates range between 200,000 and 400,000. The Pakistani government had tried to censor reports coming out of the region, but media reports on the atrocities did reach the public worldwide, and gave rise to widespread international public support for the liberation movement.

In what has been described by Jenneke Arens as a deliberate attempt to destroy an ethnic group, many of those assaulted were raped, murdered and then bayoneted in the genitalia. Adam Jones, a political scientist, has said that one of the reasons for the mass rapes was to undermine Bengali society through the "dishonoring" of Bengali women and that some women were raped until they died or were killed following repeated attacks. The International Commission of Jurists concluded that the atrocities carried out by the Pakistan armed forces "were part of a deliberate policy by a disciplined force". The writer Mulk Raj Anand said the rapes were too widespread and systematic to be anything but conscious military policy, "planned by the West Pakistanis in a deliberate effort to create a new race" or to undermine Bengali separatism. Amita Malik, reporting from Bangladesh following the Pakistan armed forces surrender, wrote that one West Pakistani soldier said: "We are going. But we are leaving our seed behind".

Not all Pakistani military personnel supported the violence: General Sahabzada Yaqub Khan and Mitty Masud who advised the president against military action, and Major Ikram Sehgal, had all resigned in protest. Former Air Marshal Asghar Khan, a Pashtun politician and leader of the Tehreek-e-Istiqlal, Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo, a Balochi politician, and Khan Abdul Wali Khan, leader of the National Awami Party, protested over the actions of the armed forces. Those imprisoned for their dissenting views on the violence included Sabihuddin Ghausi and I. A. Rahman, who were both journalists, the Sindhi leader G. M. Syed, the poet Ahmad Salim, Anwar Pirzado, who was a member of the air force, Professor M. R. Hassan, Tahera Mazhar and Imtiaz Ahmed. Malik Ghulam Jilani, who was also arrested, had openly opposed the armed action in the East; a letter he had written to Yahya Khan was widely publicised. Altaf Hussain Gauhar, the editor of the Dawn newspaper, was also imprisoned. In 2013 Jilani and Faiz Ahmad Faiz, a poet, were honoured by the Bangladeshi government for their actions.

Militias

According to Peter Tomsen, a political scientist, Pakistan's secret service the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, in conjunction with the political party Jamaat-e-Islami, formed militias such as Al-Badr ("the moon") and the Al-Shams ("the sun") to conduct operations against the nationalist movement. These militias targeted non-combatants and committed rapes as well as other crimes. Local collaborators known as Razakars also took part in the atrocities. The term has since become a pejorative akin to the western term "Judas".

Members of the Muslim League, such as Nizam-e-Islam, Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamiat Ulema Pakistan, who had lost the election, collaborated with the military and acted as an intelligence organisation for them. Members of Jamaat-e-Islami and some of its leaders collaborated with the Pakistani forces in rapes and targeted killings. The atrocities by Al-Badr and the Al-Shams garnered worldwide attention from news agencies; accounts of massacres and rapes were widely reported.

International reaction

The Blood telegram, sent on 6 April 1971

There is an academic consensus that the events of the nine-month conflict were a genocide. The atrocities in East Pakistan were the first instances of war rape to attract international media attention, and Sally J. Scholz has written that this was the first genocide to capture the interest of the mass media. The women's human rights organisation Bangladesh Mahila Parishat took part in the war by publicising the atrocities being carried out by the Pakistani army.

Owing to the scale of the atrocities, US embassy staff had sent telegrams indicating that a genocide was occurring. One, which became known as the Blood telegram, was sent by Archer Blood, the US Consul General in Dhaka, and was signed by him as well as US officials from USAID and USIS who at the time were serving in Dhaka. In it, the signatories denounced American "complicity in Genocide". In an interview in 1972, Indira Gandhi, the Indian prime minister, justified the use of military intervention, saying, "Shall we sit and watch their women get raped?" The events were discussed extensively in the British House of Commons. John Stonehouse proposed a motion supported by a further 200 members of parliament condemning the atrocities being carried out by the Pakistani armed forces. Although this motion was presented twice before parliament, the government did not find time to debate it.

Before the end of the war the international community had begun to provide aid in large quantities to the refugees living in India. Although humanitarian aid was given, there was little support for the war crimes trials which Bangladesh proposed at the end of the war. Critics of the United Nations have used the atrocities of 1971 to argue that military intervention was the only thing to stop the mass murder. Writing to The New York Times, a group of women said in response to women being shunned by family and husbands, "It is unthinkable that innocent wives whose lives were virtually destroyed by war are now being totally destroyed by their own husbands". International aid was also forthcoming owing to the issue of war rape.

Hindu victims

The Pakistani elite believed that Hindus were behind the revolt and that as soon as there was a solution to the "Hindu problem" the conflict would resolve. For Pakistanis, the violence against Hindus was a strategic policy. Muslim Pakistani men believed the sacrifice of Hindu women was needed to fix the national malaise. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Imams and Mullahs supported the rapes by the Pakistani Army and issued fatwas declaring the women war booty. A fatwa from West Pakistan during the war asserted that women taken from Bengali Hindus could be considered war booty.

The mostly Punjabi soldiers hated anything to do with Hinduism. The extreme hatred Pakistanis felt towards Hindus could be seen in their especially brutal violence against Hindus as the Pakistani Army and its local allies raped and murdered Hindu women. The implication for Bengali women of being connected in any way to a "Hindu" identity was rape by the Army. Women were captured and taken to camps established throughout the country. In these military camps and cantonments the Pakistani soldiers kept the captives as their sex-slaves.

Female Hindu captives were raped in Pakistani Army camps. The Pakistani Army committed mass rape of Hindu women because they were Hindus and the Army intended to destroy their faith, social position and self-esteem. The policy of raping Hindu captives intended to change the community's bloodline. The total effect of mass sexual violence against Hindu women demonstrated the existence of the genocidal actus reas. In the Akayesu case the Bangladeshi Tribunal emphasised that the violence against Hindu women was committed not just against them individually but because of their membership of their community.

Bina D'Costa spoke with many respondents who especially mentioned the brutality of Pakistan's army in its "handling" of Hindus. The members from the Hindu community with whom she interacted with firmly believed in the persecution of Hindus by the Pakistan army and Razakaar during the war. Hindu women who were kidnapped by Pakistan army were never seen again; mostly they were killed after being raped. Bina D'Costa interacted with families of two Hindu women who were taken by "Punjabi" army men, neither of them returned to their respective homes after the war. Aubrey Menen who was a war correspondent wrote about a 17 year old Hindu bride who was gang raped by six Pakistani soldiers according to her father.

Two went into the room that had been built for the bridal couple. The others stayed behind with the family, one of them covering them with his gun. They heard a barked order, and the bridegroom's voice protesting. Then there was silence until the bride screamed...In a few minutes one of the soldiers came out, his uniform in disarray. He grinned to his companions. Another soldier took his place in the extra room. And so on, until all six had raped the belle of the village. Then all six left, hurriedly. The father found his daughter lying on the string unconscious and bleeding. Her husband was crouched on the floor, kneeling over his vomit.

Aftermath

The Liberation War Museum in Dhaka conserves artefacts and records of violence, death, and rape in 1971.

In the immediate aftermath of the war, one pressing problem was the very high number of unwanted pregnancies of rape victims. Estimates of the number of pregnancies resulting in births range from 25,000 to the Bangladeshi government's figure of 70,000, while one publication by the Centre for Reproductive Law and Policy gave a total of 250,000. A government-mandated victim relief programme was set up with the support of the World Health Organization and International Planned Parenthood Federation, among whose goals it was to organise abortion facilities to help rape victims terminate unwanted pregnancies. A doctor at a rehabilitation centre in Dhaka reported 170,000 abortions of pregnancies caused by the rapes, and the births of 30,000 war babies during the first three months of 1972. Dr. Geoffrey Davis, an Australian doctor and abortion specialist who worked for the programme, estimated that there had been about 5,000 cases of self-induced abortions. He also said that during his work he heard of numerous infanticides and suicides by victims. His estimate of the total number of rape victims was 400,000, twice as high as the official estimate of 200,000 cited by the Bangladeshi government. Most of the victims also contracted sexual infections. Many suffered from feelings of intense shame and humiliation, and a number were ostracised by their families and communities or committed suicide.

The feminist writer Cynthia Enloe has written that some pregnancies were intended by the soldiers and perhaps their officers as well. A report from the International Commission of Jurists said, "Whatever the precise numbers, the teams of American and British surgeons carrying out abortions and the widespread government efforts to persuade people to accept these girls into the community, testify to the scale on which raping occurred". The commission also said that Pakistani officers not only allowed their men to rape, but enslaved women themselves.

Following the conflict the rape victims were seen as a symbol of "social pollution" and shame. Few were able to return to families or old homes because of this. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman called the victims birangona ("heroine"), but this served as a reminder that these women were now deemed socially unacceptable as they were "dishonored", and the term became associated with barangona ("prostitute"). The official strategy of marrying the women off and encouraging them to be seen as war heroines failed as few men came forward, and those who did expected the state to provide a large dowry. Those women who did marry were usually mistreated, and the majority of men, once having received a dowry, abandoned their wives.

On 18 February 1972 the state formed the Bangladesh Women's Rehabilitation Board, which was tasked with helping the victims of rape and to help with the adoption programme. Several international agencies took part in the adoption programme, such as Mother Teresa's Sisters of Charity. The majority of the war babies were adopted in the Netherlands and Canada as the state wished to remove the reminders of Pakistan from the newly formed nation. However, not all women wanted their child taken, and some were forcibly removed and sent for adoption, a practice which was encouraged by Rahman, who said, "I do not want those polluted blood in this country". While many women were glad for the abortion programme, as they did not have to bear a child conceived of rape, others had to go full term, filled with hatred towards the child they carried. Others, who had their children adopted out so as to return to "mainstream life", would not look at their newborn as it was taken from them. In the 1990s many of these children returned to Bangladesh to search for their birth mothers. In 2008, D'Costa attempted to find those who had been adopted, however very few responded, one who did said "I hated being a kid, and I am angry at Bangladesh for not taking care of me when I needed it most. I don’t have any roots and that makes me cry. So that is why I am trying to learn more about where I was born."

Forty years after the war, two sisters who had been raped were interviewed by Deutsche Welle. Aleya stated she had been taken by the Pakistani army when she was thirteen, and was gang raped repeatedly for seven months. She states she was tortured and was five months pregnant when she returned to her home. Her sister, Laily, says she was pregnant when she was taken by the armed forces, and lost the child. Later she fought alongside the Mukti Bahini. Both say that the state has failed the birangona, and that all they received was "humiliation, insults, hatred, and ostracism."

Pakistani government reaction

After the conflict, the Pakistani government decided on a policy of silence regarding the rapes. They set up the Hamoodur Rahman Commission, a judicial commission to prepare an account of the circumstances surrounding Pakistan's loss of the 1971 war. The commission was highly critical of the army. The chiefs of staff of the army and the Pakistan Air Force were removed from their positions for attempting to interfere with the commission. The Commission based its reports on interviews with politicians, officers and senior commanders. The final reports were submitted in July 1972, but all were subsequently destroyed except for one held by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the Pakistani president. The findings were never made public.

In 1974 the commission was reopened and issued a supplementary report, which remained classified for 25 years until published by the magazine India Today. The report said that 26,000 people were killed, rapes numbered in the hundreds, and that the Mukti Bahini rebels engaged in widespread rape and other human rights abuses. Sumit Ganguly, a political scientist, believes that the Pakistani establishment has yet to come to terms with the atrocities carried out, saying that, in a visit to Bangladesh in 2002, Pervez Musharraf expressed regret for the atrocities rather than accepting responsibility.


War Crimes prosecutions

Bangladeshis in Manchester, in the United Kingdom, expressing solidarity with the 2013 Shahbagh Protest, which is demanding more rigorous punishment for those convicted of war crimes in 1971.

In 2008, after a 17-year investigation, the War Crimes Fact Finding Committee released documentation identifying 1,597 people who had taken part in the atrocities. The list included members of the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, a political group founded in 1978. In 2010 the government of Bangladesh set up the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) to investigate the atrocities of that era. While Human Rights Watch has been supportive of the tribunal, it has also been critical of reported harassment of lawyers representing the accused. Brad Adams, director of the Asia branch of Human Rights Watch, has said that those accused must be given the full protection of the law to avoid the risk of the trials not being taken seriously, and Irene Khan, a human rights activist, has expressed doubt about whether the mass rapes and killings of women will be addressed. Khan has said of her government's reaction:

A conservative Muslim society has preferred to throw a veil of negligence and denial on the issue, allowed those who committed or colluded with gender violence to thrive, and left the women victims to struggle in anonymity and shame and without much state or community support.

The deputy leader of Jamaat-e-Islami, Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, the first person to face charges related to the conflict, was indicted by the ICT on twenty counts of war crimes, which included murder, rape and arson. He denied all charges. On 28 February 2013, Sayeedi was found guilty of genocide, rape and religious persecution, and was sentenced to death by hanging. Four other members of Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, including Motiur Rahman Nizami, have also been indicted for war crimes. Abul Kalam Azad, a member of the Razakars, was the first person to be sentenced for crimes during the war. He was found guilty of murder and rape in absentia, and was sentenced to death. Muhammad Kamaruzzaman, senior assistant secretary general of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, faced seven charges of war crimes, including planning and advising on the rape of women in the village of Shohaghpur on 25 July 1971. The ICT sentenced him to death by hanging on 9 May 2013. In July 2013 Ghulam Azam was given a ninety-year sentence for rape and mass murder during the conflict. Abdul Quader Molla, a member of the Razakar militia during the war was charged with abetting the Pakistani army and actively participating in the 1971 Bangladesh atrocities: rape (including the rape of minors) and mass murder of Bangladeshis in the Mirpur area of Dhaka during the Bangladesh Liberation War. After the government had amended the war crimes law to allow a sentence to be appealed based on leniency of punishment, prosecutors appealed to the Supreme Court of Bangladesh and asked for it to upgrade Molla's sentence from life in prison to death. On 17 September 2013, the Supreme Court accepted the appeal and sentenced Molla to death. Finally he was hanged in Dhaka Central Jail on 12 December 2013 at 22:01.

In literature and media

Shamed Woman / Brave Woman
A photograph taken during the conflict of a woman who had been assaulted featured in an exhibition in London. Titled Shamed Woman, but also called Brave Woman, the image was taken by a Bangladeshi photographer, Naib Uddin Ahmed. The image is considered by John Tulloch to be as "classical a pose as any Madonna and Child". One of the more emotive photographs at the exhibition, the woman has her hands clenched, her face completely covered by her hair. Tulloch describes the image as having the "Capability to reveal or suggest what is unsayable".

Orunodoyer Ognishakhi (Pledge to a New Dawn), the first film about the war, was screened in 1972 on the first Bangladeshi Independence Day celebration. It draws on the experiences of an actor called Altaf. While trying to reach safe haven in Calcutta, he encounters women who have been raped. The images of these birangona, stripped and vacant-eyed from the trauma, are used as testimony to the assault. Other victims Altaf meets are shown committing suicide or having lost their minds.

In 1995 Gita Sahgal produced the documentary War Crimes File, which was screened on Channel 4. In 2011 the film Meherjaan was shown at the Guwahati International Film Festival. It explores the war from two perspectives: that of a woman who loved a Pakistani soldier and that of a person born from rape.

In 1994, the book Ami Birangana Bolchi (The Voices of War Heroines) by Nilima Ibrahim was released. It is a collection of eyewitness testimony from seven rape victims, which Ibrahim documented while working in rehabilitation centres. The narratives of the survivors in this work is heavily critical of post-war Bangladeshi society's failure to support the victims of rape.

Published in 2012, the book Rising from the Ashes: Women's Narratives of 1971 includes oral testimonies of women affected by the Liberation War. As well as an account from Taramon Bibi, who fought and was awarded the Bir Protik (Symbol of Valour) for her actions, there are nine interviews with women who were raped. The book's publication in English at the time of the fortieth anniversary of the war was noted in The New York Times as an "important oral history".

The 2014 film Children of War portrays sexual violence during the war. The film by Mrityunjay Devvrat, starring Farooq Sheikh, Victor Banerjee, Raima Sen, among others, is meant to "send shivers down the viewers' spine. We want to make it so repulsive that no one even entertains the thought of pardoning rapists, let alone commit the crime. The shoot took its toll on all of us."

Footnotes

  1. "Rape can be especially effective as a tactic of genocide when used against females of communities that cast shame upon the rape victim rather than the rapist. In such communities, the rape forever damages the social standing of the survivor. Bengali girls and women who endured the genocidal rape had to cope not only with their physical injuries and trauma, but with a society hostile to violated women. The blame for loss of honour falls not upon the rapist, but upon the raped.".

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Bibliography

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