For countless millennials across Bangladesh, a favourite pastime while growing up was to hear stories of the Liberation War from our grandparents, parents, and anyone who lived through 1971. These stories send a chill down our spines and give us goosebumps.
If only more of us translated the oral history of the Liberation War into words, film, drama, and art; we would be immensely enriching our cultural heritage. My parents hail from opposite ends of the Padma River. My paternal ancestral land is Faridpur (medieval Fatehabad) on the south bank of the Padma. My maternal ancestral land is Munshiganj (ancient Bikrampur) on the north bank of the Padma.
Both my paternal and maternal families lived through the tumult of liberation. On the night of March 25, 1971, tanks rolled down the street of Road No 3 in Dhanmondi where my maternal family resided. Their house was a few blocks away from the house of Bangabandhu.
My grandfather recounts how he, my late grandmother and my young mother, hid under one bed amid the sound of heavy gunfire on the night of March 25. They left for Bikrampur the next morning. They took the journey to Bikrampur by foot like everyone else fleeing the outbreak of war. Residents of the city of Dhaka were pouring into the countryside. My grandparents saw a sea of internally displaced people on the banks of the Buriganga.
In my father’s household, my paternal grandparents decided to send off my young father and his siblings to Faridpur because the Pakistan Army was indiscriminately targeting the youth. It was a momentous time in Faridpur. People gathered around the Baithak Khana in our property to hear the bulletins of the Free Bengal Radio Station. The Baithak Khana was a wooden pavilion used for recreation and assemblies by the historic zamindars of our family. The poetry and songs of Tagore and Nazrul inspired those who gathered around the radio.
Faridpur was under the control of the Bangladesh forces until the last days of the month of April in 1971. The fall of Faridpur took place after the Pakistani military was shipped across the Padma. As the Pakistan Army rampaged through Faridpur, my father and his sister joined hundreds of others to take shelter in a bamboo forest near our ancestral village. Several massacres took place in Faridpur during this period, including the killing of 10 people by the Pakistan Army in a nearby char. A char is a deltaic island. Many of these islands on the Padma were once part of our estate.
My maternal family returned to Dhaka during the middle of the war. They may have assumed that they would be safe in Dhaka because their house was located beside the residence of a British diplomat. But their return did not bode well. Between July and August, their house was raided several times by the Pakistan Army. My grandfather was briefly detained along with his elderly father, brothers, and brothers-in-law, and then released.
My maternal family again went to Bikrampur. They resided in their grand old mansion Osim Manzil, built in the early 20th century. In December 1971, my grandfather and mother watched Indian and Pakistani combat aircraft engage in the skies above Osim Manzil. My grandfather recounts a feeling of being plunged into a scene from the World War because the tumult was so strong. They were at the cusp of freedom.
Other members of my family were more valiant and faced greater peril. One joined the Mukti Bahini, trained in the mountains of the North East Frontier Agency, and was reunited with the family while marching to Dhaka with the Mitro Bahini. One endured detention throughout the war. One became a senior police defector from West Pakistan by escaping to Afghanistan. One was left stranded in West Pakistan and was finally repatriated to join the Bangladesh Army after liberation.
Many of these men rose to high office within the bureaucracy, police, and military of independent Bangladesh. They were incredibly knowledgeable and eloquent gentlemen. I am lucky to have been in their company.
Osim Manzil still stands today. It would make for a great heritage hotel. The wooden pavilion in Faridpur also stands but needs restoration after years of decay.
These are my tales of 1971.
Umran Chowdhury works in the legal field. This article is dedicated in honour of Niaz Mahmood Khan (Bobby), a veteran of the Bangladesh Liberation War who passed away in December 2021.
