GENOCIDE DURING THE BANGLADESH LIBERATION WAR, 1971

Abstract

During the Bangladesh Liberation War from 26 March to 16 December 1971, the Pakistani military carried out genocide against the people of Bangladesh. It resulted in the deaths of about three million Bengalis. Pakistani soldiers raped between 200,000 and 400,000 Bangladeshi girls and women. In 1948, the United Nations defined genocide as the intention to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, either in whole or in part. There have been earlier studies on the genocide in Bangladesh, but this article aims to connect the UN definition of genocide with the author’s family members’ experience as freedom fighters, and her own observations in 1971, and to establish that the Bangladeshi people were victims of genocide committed by the Pakistani army. Using grounded theory, autoethnography and visual sociology methodologies, this study involves interviews with six participants, the author’s personal experiences and the use of relevant images. The evidence (findings) provided in this article confirms that the atrocities committed against Bangladeshis fit the UN definition of genocide. The author concludes that it is time that the United Nations recognised that the atrocities committed by the Pakistani military government against the Bangladeshi people in 1971 were “genocide”.