Swadhinata: Prothom Khando
Edited by retired Major Kamrul Hasan Bhuiyan
Centre for Bangladesh Liberation War Studies (CBLWS)
February 2007
ISBN 984 70008 0000 8
144 Pages, Price Tk 135
It is the first of a series of books containing firsthand accounts of freedom fighters the CBLWS plans to bring out. Twelve of our Liberation War heroes have contributed to this first issue of the initiative. In 10 of the write-ups they describes numerous guerrilla and conventional military operations and encounters they either led or took part in, besides their day-to-day activities, relationships with various socio-political and military quarters, as well as their beliefs, spirit, emotions etc during the nine months of the war for independence.
Of the remaining two entries, ‘26 March Chhilo Juddhe Namar Din’ (26 March Was the Day to Launch War by retired Col Mohammad Abdus Salam Bir Pratik then a undergrad freshman and a student leader of Zinnah College, which was later renamed Titumir College, in Dhaka, is limited to a description of how a chain of events culminating in the March-25 Pakistani crackdown on Bangalis prompted Salam and his associates, who, as per a party directive, were then at Sylhet, Salam’s hometown, to mobilise on their own a band of about 200 people including 150 workers of the nearby tea gardens which confronted a contingent of the occupational forces right in a square of the town the next morning. After a number of the resistance fighters had been injured in the skirmish, the rest escaped the scene, realising the futility of such unplanned and ill-equipped fights. After lying low at a hideout for two days, Salam and three others headed for Teliapara on March 28 to join the mainstream freedom fighters. Here ends the write-up, making it very much uni-focal and narrow in scope.
The other entry, ‘From Operation Blitz to Operation Searchlight’ contributed by the editor, is the last but one entry in the book, although it would be the best to place in at the very beginning, because in it Maj Bhuiyan gives a very detailed socio-political and military background of the war. It covers the major events following the fall of the regime of Field Marshall Ayub Khan including the 1970 general elections with Gen Yahiya Khan occupying the presidential chair, schemes hatched by Julfiqar Ali Bhutto and Pakistani military bigwigs to deprive the Awami League from coming to power despite its winning of majority seats in the federal parliament, the clandestine planning of Operation Blitz to reinstate marshal law if the AL did not give in to the demands and diktats of the West Pakistani civil and military elite, of Operation Great Fly-In to build up the West Pakistan’s war muscles in the east wing of the state by flying and shipping in forces and arms, and of Operation Searchlight to silence the Bangalis by sheer brutality using the military forces. Besides, Bhuiyan also provides historically significant statistics on the various troops and war equipment of West Pakistan as well as Bangali military, paramilitary and police personnel present here when the war broke out. Undoubtedly, these elaborate background information of the Liberation War, if placed first, would have facilitated the readers more in understanding the following accounts of battles, skirmishes, raids etc in their proper perspectives. So, what kept the major from putting his piece in the right place? Was it a feeling that putting his write-up before others’ accounts would look like self-promotion or overreaching himself? Only Major Bhuiyan knows. Whatever is the case, we cannot but observe that by doing this he has failed to some extent as an editor in making the book more readable and easier for the readers to understand the other numbers in the book better by knowing about the context and the contenders of the Liberation War first.
We, however, can overlook this shortcoming, as Kamrul compensates for it by beginning with the best-written piece, Titor Swadhinata, or Tito’s liberation, written by Nasir Uddin Yusuf, who is now more famous as a theatre guru than the commander of the guerrilla force assigned in late August 1971 to decimate the Pak occupational forces in the Dhaka North (Savar-Dhaka) zone. He fought in Sector 2 commanded by Khaled Mosharraf, then a major. While describing the military operations, Yusuf also gradually introduces a boy of 13 to 14 named Tito to the readers. We find Tito first when Mosharraf brings him to Yusuf’s camp one night after the guerrillas have taken a hard beating that day in the hand of the Pakis, the name ascribed to Pakistani soldiers by the Bangali masses. The boy’s eyes sparkle with fervour, when next morning, to arouse the spirit of the soldiers, Mosharraf tells them, ‘Remember -- the people of a liberated country don’t love live freedom fighters. A liberated country loves them dead. The people of a liberated land want dead, not live, guerrillas.’ Tito wants to fight, is always insisting to fight. But his appeals are consistently denied, considering his age and also to protect this untrained teenager from any harm of the bloodthirsty war. Frustrated and furious, Tito once shouts back, ‘You will die. But why should I live on? My brother has been killed. And I have come to fight. I, too, must die.’ Fate grants him his wish; he does die one day during a guerrilla ambush in Savar on Pak forces falling back on Dhaka from Mymensingh and Tangail. The last words he repeats before death takes over him are, ‘I want to see liberation. Liberation, liberation, liberation…’ The remains of this brown teenage boy are now lying in a grave near the entrance to Savar Dairy Farm.
The rest of the contributors to the book are retired Major Hafiz Uddin Ahmad Bir Bikram, Mahbub Alam, retired Maj Gen Amin Ahmed Chowdhury Bir Bikram, Mahbub Elahi Ranju Bir Pratik, retired Col Mohammad Safiq Ullah Bir Pratik, Nizamuddin Laskar, Haider Anowar Khan Juno, Dr Ziauddin Ahmad, and Akhtaruzzaman Mandal.
Hafiz, then a captain in the 1st Battalion of East Bengal Regiment stationed in Jessore Cantonment, rebelled along with 200 other Bangali soldiers against the Pakistani army command and left the cantonment on March 30. By enlisting 500 civilians and giving the recruits 2-month training, he soon developed a 700-strong battalion. After formation of the Z Force, he commanded its Bravo Company and took part in the famous attack on the Kamalpur border outpost (BOP), a Pakistani stronghold. In October, the commander in chief of Bangladesh Armed Forces, Col Osmani, ordered him to move to Sylhet area, where Pak forces were witnessing little resistance. His descriptions of various battles, raids and guerrilla operations end with the Pakistani forces in Sylhet surrendering and the liberation of Sylhet from their occupation on December 15.
‘Ei Bangla, Banglar Mukh’ by Mahbub Alam is another account of the war that is also almost as good in literary quality as the piece written by Yusuf. He fought in the north-west, under Squadron Leader Sadruddin, commander of 6/A Sub-sector of Sector 6. The write-ups contributed by Yusuf, Alam, Col Safiq Ullah (a teacher field commissioned in 1971), Laskar and other civilians-turned-freedom fighters demonstrate more humane, non-technical, and literary merits than those written by military academy-trained commissioned officers like Maj Ahmad and Maj Gen Chowdhury. The accounts of the war presented by latter group are primarily and often solely focussed on war strategy, planning and operational details as well as their prose is often blemished by military jargons. On the other hand, the war accounts of Amin Ahmed Chowdhury, particularly the detailed and methodical description of the Bangladesh army’s attacks on Kamalpur BOP, Bahadurabad Ghat, and Nakshi BOP is really rich and of much historiographic importance.
The initiative of the CBLWS to publish first-hand accounts of the Liberation War is a praiseworthy one, although its firstborn has some minor printing mistakes and the selection of write-ups does not indicate any definite plan or criterion, like presenting a complete overview of the war in one or more specific sectors. We hope the next volumes will be organised considering such aspects, like compiling writings on sectors or forces or services such as medical, signal, intelligence, logistics, liaison with Indian troops and Mujib Nagar government etc, which will help readers acquire clearer pictures and insight about the multifarious aspects of our glorious war of independence, instead of reading a collection of unrelated war accounts like the present one.
Edited by retired Major Kamrul Hasan Bhuiyan
Centre for Bangladesh Liberation War Studies (CBLWS)
February 2007
ISBN 984 70008 0000 8
144 Pages, Price Tk 135
It is the first of a series of books containing firsthand accounts of freedom fighters the CBLWS plans to bring out. Twelve of our Liberation War heroes have contributed to this first issue of the initiative. In 10 of the write-ups they describes numerous guerrilla and conventional military operations and encounters they either led or took part in, besides their day-to-day activities, relationships with various socio-political and military quarters, as well as their beliefs, spirit, emotions etc during the nine months of the war for independence.
Of the remaining two entries, ‘26 March Chhilo Juddhe Namar Din’ (26 March Was the Day to Launch War by retired Col Mohammad Abdus Salam Bir Pratik then a undergrad freshman and a student leader of Zinnah College, which was later renamed Titumir College, in Dhaka, is limited to a description of how a chain of events culminating in the March-25 Pakistani crackdown on Bangalis prompted Salam and his associates, who, as per a party directive, were then at Sylhet, Salam’s hometown, to mobilise on their own a band of about 200 people including 150 workers of the nearby tea gardens which confronted a contingent of the occupational forces right in a square of the town the next morning. After a number of the resistance fighters had been injured in the skirmish, the rest escaped the scene, realising the futility of such unplanned and ill-equipped fights. After lying low at a hideout for two days, Salam and three others headed for Teliapara on March 28 to join the mainstream freedom fighters. Here ends the write-up, making it very much uni-focal and narrow in scope.
The other entry, ‘From Operation Blitz to Operation Searchlight’ contributed by the editor, is the last but one entry in the book, although it would be the best to place in at the very beginning, because in it Maj Bhuiyan gives a very detailed socio-political and military background of the war. It covers the major events following the fall of the regime of Field Marshall Ayub Khan including the 1970 general elections with Gen Yahiya Khan occupying the presidential chair, schemes hatched by Julfiqar Ali Bhutto and Pakistani military bigwigs to deprive the Awami League from coming to power despite its winning of majority seats in the federal parliament, the clandestine planning of Operation Blitz to reinstate marshal law if the AL did not give in to the demands and diktats of the West Pakistani civil and military elite, of Operation Great Fly-In to build up the West Pakistan’s war muscles in the east wing of the state by flying and shipping in forces and arms, and of Operation Searchlight to silence the Bangalis by sheer brutality using the military forces. Besides, Bhuiyan also provides historically significant statistics on the various troops and war equipment of West Pakistan as well as Bangali military, paramilitary and police personnel present here when the war broke out. Undoubtedly, these elaborate background information of the Liberation War, if placed first, would have facilitated the readers more in understanding the following accounts of battles, skirmishes, raids etc in their proper perspectives. So, what kept the major from putting his piece in the right place? Was it a feeling that putting his write-up before others’ accounts would look like self-promotion or overreaching himself? Only Major Bhuiyan knows. Whatever is the case, we cannot but observe that by doing this he has failed to some extent as an editor in making the book more readable and easier for the readers to understand the other numbers in the book better by knowing about the context and the contenders of the Liberation War first.
We, however, can overlook this shortcoming, as Kamrul compensates for it by beginning with the best-written piece, Titor Swadhinata, or Tito’s liberation, written by Nasir Uddin Yusuf, who is now more famous as a theatre guru than the commander of the guerrilla force assigned in late August 1971 to decimate the Pak occupational forces in the Dhaka North (Savar-Dhaka) zone. He fought in Sector 2 commanded by Khaled Mosharraf, then a major. While describing the military operations, Yusuf also gradually introduces a boy of 13 to 14 named Tito to the readers. We find Tito first when Mosharraf brings him to Yusuf’s camp one night after the guerrillas have taken a hard beating that day in the hand of the Pakis, the name ascribed to Pakistani soldiers by the Bangali masses. The boy’s eyes sparkle with fervour, when next morning, to arouse the spirit of the soldiers, Mosharraf tells them, ‘Remember -- the people of a liberated country don’t love live freedom fighters. A liberated country loves them dead. The people of a liberated land want dead, not live, guerrillas.’ Tito wants to fight, is always insisting to fight. But his appeals are consistently denied, considering his age and also to protect this untrained teenager from any harm of the bloodthirsty war. Frustrated and furious, Tito once shouts back, ‘You will die. But why should I live on? My brother has been killed. And I have come to fight. I, too, must die.’ Fate grants him his wish; he does die one day during a guerrilla ambush in Savar on Pak forces falling back on Dhaka from Mymensingh and Tangail. The last words he repeats before death takes over him are, ‘I want to see liberation. Liberation, liberation, liberation…’ The remains of this brown teenage boy are now lying in a grave near the entrance to Savar Dairy Farm.
The rest of the contributors to the book are retired Major Hafiz Uddin Ahmad Bir Bikram, Mahbub Alam, retired Maj Gen Amin Ahmed Chowdhury Bir Bikram, Mahbub Elahi Ranju Bir Pratik, retired Col Mohammad Safiq Ullah Bir Pratik, Nizamuddin Laskar, Haider Anowar Khan Juno, Dr Ziauddin Ahmad, and Akhtaruzzaman Mandal.
Hafiz, then a captain in the 1st Battalion of East Bengal Regiment stationed in Jessore Cantonment, rebelled along with 200 other Bangali soldiers against the Pakistani army command and left the cantonment on March 30. By enlisting 500 civilians and giving the recruits 2-month training, he soon developed a 700-strong battalion. After formation of the Z Force, he commanded its Bravo Company and took part in the famous attack on the Kamalpur border outpost (BOP), a Pakistani stronghold. In October, the commander in chief of Bangladesh Armed Forces, Col Osmani, ordered him to move to Sylhet area, where Pak forces were witnessing little resistance. His descriptions of various battles, raids and guerrilla operations end with the Pakistani forces in Sylhet surrendering and the liberation of Sylhet from their occupation on December 15.
‘Ei Bangla, Banglar Mukh’ by Mahbub Alam is another account of the war that is also almost as good in literary quality as the piece written by Yusuf. He fought in the north-west, under Squadron Leader Sadruddin, commander of 6/A Sub-sector of Sector 6. The write-ups contributed by Yusuf, Alam, Col Safiq Ullah (a teacher field commissioned in 1971), Laskar and other civilians-turned-freedom fighters demonstrate more humane, non-technical, and literary merits than those written by military academy-trained commissioned officers like Maj Ahmad and Maj Gen Chowdhury. The accounts of the war presented by latter group are primarily and often solely focussed on war strategy, planning and operational details as well as their prose is often blemished by military jargons. On the other hand, the war accounts of Amin Ahmed Chowdhury, particularly the detailed and methodical description of the Bangladesh army’s attacks on Kamalpur BOP, Bahadurabad Ghat, and Nakshi BOP is really rich and of much historiographic importance.
The initiative of the CBLWS to publish first-hand accounts of the Liberation War is a praiseworthy one, although its firstborn has some minor printing mistakes and the selection of write-ups does not indicate any definite plan or criterion, like presenting a complete overview of the war in one or more specific sectors. We hope the next volumes will be organised considering such aspects, like compiling writings on sectors or forces or services such as medical, signal, intelligence, logistics, liaison with Indian troops and Mujib Nagar government etc, which will help readers acquire clearer pictures and insight about the multifarious aspects of our glorious war of independence, instead of reading a collection of unrelated war accounts like the present one.
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