After decades, the gentleman has finally finished his job, which has led to widespread debate. Air Vice Marshal (retd) AK Khandaker’s book 1971: Bhitore Baire is nothing less than a shock and a total misrepresentation of the days that led to the 1971 Bangladesh independence war. Khandaker was one of my father’s closest friends and colleagues, and thus I write this with all due respect to him, although since my father was martyred, he never enquired about us, and I only meet him on official events.
I have gone through some of the book’s chapters that concerned me the most. If we start with his “Joy Pakistan” claim, I was young, but I remember clearly when my father shouted “Joy Bangla,” and told us that a call for independence has been made by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. My father, Lt Col Muhammad Abdul Qadir of the Corps of Engineers, was based in Chittagong and was martyred on April 17, 1971.
My father had contact with Dhaka over the telephone, and was informed about the speech on March 7, 1971. On March 8, he listened to Bangabandhu’s speech on the radio and asked all of us to be silent. He broke the silence with “Joy Bangla.” There was no “Joy Pakistan.”
However, I also believe that had Bangabandhu even said “Joy Pakistan,” it was a calculated move. He kept all options open, especially to avoid any bloodbath. But nobody remembers hearing him say “Joy Pakistan.”
In early March 1971, we raised a black flag in our 70 Panchlaish residence in Chittagong amid “Joy Bangla” slogans, although not very loudly and amid my mother’s warnings to my father for being too open, as he was in active service of the Pakistan army.
Khandaker, in his book, says that the Bengali defence officers had no preparation. This is true for him, because he was known as the “gentleman of the Pakistan Air Force” and had served the Pakistan army until May, 1971. This he confirmed in his book. Only those Bengali army officers who had agreed to serve Pakistan were spared, but people like my father were tortured and killed by the end of April 1971.
My father had met Bangabandhu before the crackdown which the great leader had confirmed to my mother when we met him in 1974. My father was in constant touch with Brig Majumder, Col Osmani, Maj Zia, and Maj Rafiq. They held meetings here and there, and Maj Zia (later President Zia) also visited our home around March 20-22, 1971 with Begum Khaleda Zia. Wing Commander Mirza and PIA’s Captain Nizam, mentioned in his book, were also my father’s friends.
My father also had close links with local Awami League leaders. One such leader, who identified my father’s grave in 2007, told me that he was present when Col Qadir raised a Bangladesh flag in his office. My father even said that if India recognised Bangladesh, as per AL leaders, then the conflict would be minimal, or else a major one was inevitable.
Please see the letter written to AL leader Mohammad Quamaruzzaman in 1971, ahead of the war, by my father, referring to East Pakistan as Bangladesh. He writes about keeping minimal operations open as “it will come to use for our Bangladesh.”
Khandaker, in his book, also contradicts himself by saying on one hand that Bangabandhu had no military plan but again appointed Col Osmani as military advisor on March 10, 1971.
Khandaker was inside the barracks, and was not one of those who were active in the preparations for resistance, thus his involvement and knowledge is a farce.
There was training in campuses, and many Bengali army officers had revolted. My father too did not report to work and left to join the war.
But it was tragic that he came back to see his pregnant wife and was arrested by the Pakistani army, who had also offered him safety if he cooperated about the whereabouts of explosives missing from Oil and Gas Development Corporation as well as information about the plan of the “traitors.”
Khandaker also writes as if Bangabandhu was facing a conventional war and would announce all his plans in public. One should read about what Bangabandhu had done for the release of Bengali officers and officials of other ranks stranded in Pakistani camps, besides getting the country on the right footing in the comity of nations.
It was the end of a political war, and Bangabandhu moved cautiously on the armed option, but he definitely gave directives to the kinds of fathers who were soldiers of the greater leader.
The Bangladesh genocide was one of the worst the world had ever seen, and thus any preparation would have been too small against the aircrafts, tanks, and automatic weapons of the Pakistani army.
Like a true statesman, he kept all his doors open and did what he thought was best for his people and Bangladesh.
I was saddened to read Khandaker saying that he was “pained” to see the attacks on non-Bengalis or the Biharis. I remember how these Biharis, many of whom still remain in Bangladesh and hoist Pakistani flags, had initiated the killings and looting of Bengali homes in Chittagong as well as in Dhaka and Khulna. They later joined the Pakistanis in carrying out the genocide.
Air Vice Marshal (retd) AK Khandaker has always enjoyed the cream from regime to regime. That suggests he had no allegiance to any of them, but only to himself.
He was not killed or arrested by the Pakistanis who gave him leave during the war twice. He quickly showed his allegiance to the leaders of the 1975 coup, Ziaur Rahman, Hussein Muhammad Ershad, and then somehow not the BNP but to the Awami League. He moved about freely between his residence in cantonment, and his sister-in-law’s residence in the Azimpur area in Dhaka during 1971.
Is something ominous awaiting the nation? His quick shift of position worries me, and that should be investigated. Those who advised Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to include him in her cabinet and party must be very careful in their advice.
We have seen many disasters, but not any more. I write this as a commitment to my country and to the truth, which is above everybody and everything.
