The Bangladesh Rifles mutiny will be considered by historians an event of significance next only to the military coup by General Ershad in the ’80s. That was preceded by the assassination of General Ziaur Rahman and the killing of General Mansur. The officer casualty toll is higher than what Bangladesh suffered in the 1971 war, in which 51 officers were killed. This time the officers were not merely shot, but in many cases their bodies were disfigured. It brings to mind the atrocities committed by the Islamist collaborators of the Pakistan army in 1971 and the massacre of the Dhaka intellectuals a day prior to the surrender at Dhaka. Nor can one forget the massacre of Awami League leaders in jail following the military coup in 1975. The world witnessed the horror of the entire family of President Mujibur Rahman being slaughtered without mercy, including a young child, Russel.

These are particularly hate-filled and hate-inspired crimes and not spontaneous emotionally charged acts. This burning sense of hatred is at the core of Bangladesh politics. On one side are Bangla nationalists who define their nationhood in terms of the Bengali language and culture and an indigenous Easternised Islam. For them, national, cultural and linguistic identity supercedes loyalty to an Arab-dominated Wahhabi Islam. There is a minority of fanatical Islamists conditioned by Wahhabism for whom the Islamic identity comes first. These are the elements on which Pakistan depended to keep East Pakistan subservient to West Pakistan.

Typical products of this conditioning are General Ershad, Begum Khaleda Zia and all members of Jamaat-e-Islami. Though her husband made the first broadcast proclaiming the independence of Bangladesh, Khaleda Zia spent the war in Pakistani military cantonments in East Pakistan, away from her husband. There is a view that even Ziaur Rahman, emerging as one of the four sector commanders leading the Mukti Bahini, was not a person committed to Bangla nationalism but a smart officer who took advantage of the existing situation. His ambition and his Islamist orientation came to the fore after the assassination of Sheikh Mujib and the reinstatement in important positions of officers who returned from Pakistan after sitting out the Liberation War. There is a belief — widespread among high-ranking Awami League leaders — that General Zia was at least an accessory to Mujibur Rahman’s murder, if not an actual conspirator. General Ershad was one of those who stayed on in Pakistan during the entire war and he never professed any loyalty to the ideals of the Awami League.

... contd.