The passing of Col Shawkat Ali is once more a reminder of the powerful grip history has had in our part of the world, on our heritage. He was among the 35 Bengalis accused in the late 1960s of engaging in conspiracy to break up Pakistan through declaring its eastern province as an independent state. In terms of history and subsequent political movements in what would eventually be a sovereign republic of Bangladesh, the case, officially known as State vs Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Others, was to be pivotal in the shaping of geographical and political perspectives in South Asia.
The case has, since it was instituted in early 1968, come down to students and scholars of history and researchers as the Agartala Conspiracy Case, the implication being that the accused, some of them if not all of them, planned the insurrection in the Indian city and that the entire strategy to sunder Pakistan in two had behind it the support of the Indian government.
The case, proceedings of which commenced before a special tribunal comprising Justice SA Rahman, Justice Mujibur Rahman Khan, and Justice Maksumul Hakim, on June 19, 1968 in Dhaka cantonment was eventually to collapse on February 22, 1969 when Pakistan’s defense minister, Vice Admiral AR Khan, announced its unconditional withdrawal and the release of all the accused. All except Sergeant Zahurul Haque, who had been shot earlier in the month by soldiers on the spurious claim that he had tried to escape from custody.
Shawkat Ali’s death should be a new opportunity for Bangladesh’s younger generation to be enlightened on as significant a factor as the Agartala case in the shaping of the nation’s history. That enlightenment can only happen when we as a people are made aware afresh of the life, career, and sufferings of everyone who was taken into custody by the Pakistan authorities in connection with the case in late 1967. The simple question we need to answer today is: What kind of lives did these accused lead in the years following the withdrawal of the case?
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was accused number one and his pivotal role in Bangladesh’s history is well-documented. It is the tales of the others we need to travel back to, for the necessary purpose of placing their names on the record in bold highlight.
Lieutenant Commander Moazzam Hossain, we do not forget, was one of the very first casualties of Operation Searchlight, the euphemism the Pakistan army employed for its genocide, in the early hours of March 26, 1971. Commander Abdur Rouf passed away in 2015 at the age of 82. Col Khondkar Najmul Huda, a valiant freedom fighter and an accused in the Agartala case, was murdered by renegade soldiers in independent Bangladesh on November 7, 1975. Khan Shamsur Rahman, a civil servant and scholar, was recalled home from the Pakistan embassy in Jakarta and placed under arrest on charges of complicity in the conspiracy. Known as Dr Johnson for his erudition, he served independent Bangladesh with distinction as envoy to Moscow and Delhi. He died in 2010.
Many more are the stories of the men whose places in history have been assured through the Agartala case. These men endured torture and their families were put through harassment of various degrees in pre-1971 Pakistan. Sergeant Zahurul Haque’s story remains poignant. With him was shot Sergeant Fazlul Haque. But Fazlul Haque survived. And so did all the others. Col Shawkat Ali was to go on to play a prominent role, along with others accused in the Agartala case, in the nation’s War of Liberation. He joined politics, went to prison in free Bangladesh in the times of the Ershad dictatorship, and transformed himself into a powerful politician, rising to the position of deputy speaker of parliament.
The chronicles of these heroic sons of the country need to be brought home to our children, for these children will be providing leadership to the nation in the future. Leadership is fundamentally based on an understanding of history on the part of those who govern and who would govern; on the part of those who research the multi-faceted aspects of political tradition; on the part of those who teach in our schools, colleges, and universities. In the curricula of our academic institutions, there is an essential requirement today for an expansion of the scope of historical studies.
In simple terms, all studies of history, the imparting of historical truths, must be an inclusive affair incorporating the details relating to the Agartala case; an examination of the process through which the Mujibnagar government took form and substance and the civil, diplomatic, and military establishment it put in shape; and the reasons behind the formulation of the Six Point plan in 1966, including among them detailed analyses of the systemic and systematic exploitation in economic and political terms Bengalis were subjected to in the period between August 1947 and December 1971.
Col Shawkat Ali is in the pantheon of our history-makers. And with him are all those souls who braved the travails associated with the prosecution of the Agartala case. They need, formally and unequivocally and substantively, to be acknowledged as part of the national ethos. The stories of their exploits ought to be part of the education our children are imparted in schools across this land.
Syed Badrul Ahsan is a journalist and biographer.
