Academic

The massacres of the Bengali Hindus during the final phase of the genocide (1971) has been described by various scholars and academics as genocide.

Kalyan Chaudhuri, a renowned professor of history and the former head of the Department of History at the Manindra Chandra College, Kolkata has acknowledged that the killings of the Hindus and the destruction of their properties during the Bangladesh Liberation War as ‘genocide’. In his book ‘Genocide in Bangladesh’ (1972), he wrote, “The flight of a majority of Hindus undoubtedly resulted from a calculated reign of terror by the army to inspire and inflame communal tension. The army encouraged its Razakar agents and communal elements in the Peace Committees to kill the minority Hindus and destroy their property. To hunt the ‘impure Muslims’ and Hindus and kill them indiscriminately over religion was a part of the army operations and it was admitted by many non-partisan foreign observers. This ultimately gives credence to the charge of genocide.“

Wardatul Akmam, professor of sociology at the Rajshahi University, has termed the massacres of Bengali Hindus during the Bangladesh Liberation War as ‘genocide’. In her paper ‘Atrocities Against Humanity During The Liberation War In Bangladesh: A Case Of Genocide’ published in the ‘Journal of Genocide Research’ in 2002, she wrote, “Considering the Hindus as the primary victim group, the massacre in Bangladesh can also be called genocide. The Hindus were a minority group, the destruction of which was intended by the perpetrators.“

On the massacres during the Bangladesh Liberation War constituting an act of genocide according to the definitions of the various genocide scholars, she wrote, “…whether the massacres in Bangladesh can be called genocide in terms of the Bengali nation and the Hindu Bengalis of East Pakistan as the victim group under the discussed definitions. Under most of the definitions (Dadrian’s, Porter’s, Chalk and Jonassohn’s), with the Hindus as the victim group, the massacres in Bangladesh can be considered as genocide.“

Sarmila Bose, senior research associate at the University of Oxford, author of the controversial book ‘Dead Reckoning: Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War’ (2011) has been severely criticized by several scholars and activists for bias in methodology, revisionism and downplaying the extent of genocide. She has also termed the killings of the Bengali Hindus as ‘genocidal’ and the forced migration to India as ‘ethnic cleansing’. 

While deliberating on the question of genocide, she wrote, “… to identify their targets – secessionist rebels – in situations other than straight combat, the Pakistan army used proxies, or ‘profiling’ as it is called in current usage: sometimes the proxy might have been political affiliation (membership of Awami League, for instance), but at other times the proxies appear to have been age (adult), gender (male) and religion (Hindu). It is the latter proxies, in particular the disproportionate probability of being presumed to be an insurgent on the basis of religion – Hinduism – that led the army into killings that may have been ‘political’ in motivation, but could be termed ‘genocidal’ by their nature.“

She also categorically states that the forced migration of millions of Bengali Hindus amounted to ‘ethnic cleansing’, though the term itself was not born yet. She wrote, “… many Hindu refugees were leaving their villages and fleeing to India not because of any action of the army, but because they could no longer bear the persecution by their Bengali Muslim neighbours. Much of the harassment of Hindus by their fellow-Bengalis appears to have been non-political, motivated by material greed. The intimidation, killing and hounding out of Hindus – whether by the army or by Bengali Muslims – amounted to what has later come to be termed as ‘ethnic cleansing’.“

Gary J. Bass, associate professor of international relations at the Princeton University, has researched extensively on the declassified documents on the communications between the various UUS Consulate in Dhaka, US Embassy in Islamabad, Department of State, Oval Office and CIA and concluded that the deliberate targeting of the Hindus during the Bangladesh Liberation War constituted ‘genocide’. In his book ‘The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide’ (2013), he wrote, “The Nixon administration had ample evidence not just of the scale of massacres, but also of their ethnic targeting of the Hindu minority – what Blood had condemned as genocide.” He further wrote, “Kissinger was repeatedly alerted about this genocide. Harold Saunders informed him about reports that the Pakistan army was ‘deliberately seeking out Hindus and killing them,’ while a senior State Department official notified him that Pakistan’s policy was ‘getting rid of the Hindus.’“

Sabyasachi Ghosh Dastidar, distinguished service professor at the State University of New York, has also recognized the killings of Hindus during the Bangladesh Liberation War exclusively as ‘genocide’. In his book ‘Bengal’s Hindu Holocaust: The Partition Of India And Its Aftermath’ (2021), he wrote, “Except for the targeted attack on Bengali-Muslim nationalists and pro-secular Awami League Party members, winner of majority seats in the 1970 all-Pakistan election, and a small number of non-party pro-independence Muslim activists, the focus of killing was exclusively Hindu.” He further wrote, “No Pakistani hid their intention of Hindu genocide. Journalist Anthony Mascarenhas in his book ‘Rape of Bangladesh’ documented, many of the statements of Pakistani Army officers and their civilian supporters.“