ABSTRACT
The war of 1971 transformed the political dynamics of South Asia. It created a new state, Bangladesh, carved out of Pakistan, and intensified the bitter rivalry between India and Pakistan that would generate future crises in the region. Following a Pakistani military crackdown on 25 March 1971, the ‘War of Liberation’ (muktijudhyo) of East Pakistan/ Bangladesh also became an international war, embroiling major powers such as the United States, China, and the former Soviet Union. Nearly ten million refugees crossed the border to India by the end of November 1971. India provided political and logistical support, including military training and supply of weapons and intelligence to the rebel soldiers (muktibahini). With India’s armed intervention the war ended on 16 December 1971.1
In popular discourse in Bangladesh, the social construct of a hegemonic, highly organized, and dominant ‘Punjabi’ army primarily responsible for mass atrocities during 1971 has often been compared with the East Pakistani/Bangladeshi rebel soldiers, the nation’s freedom-fighters, constituting irregular civilian-soldiers, and, mostly, Bengali battalions of the Pakistani security forces. The Pakistan armed forces, whose role was to defend national sovereignty, fought guerrilla soldiers who were considered internal
*E-mail: bina.dcosta@anu.edu.au This title is adopted from Alan Duff’s novel published in 1990 and a subsequent film in 1994 that tells the story of an urban Māori family, the Hekes, and depicts the reality of domestic violence in New Zealand.
