In 1971 two wars broke out in East Pakistan. One was a civil war fought between West and East Pak... more In 1971 two wars broke out in East Pakistan. One was a civil war fought between West and East Pakistan, and the other an international war fought between West Pakistan and India. In the wars ethnicity colluded with national interests and state politics, and the armies of West Pakistan and India became involved in violence, mainly targeted against the civilian population of East Pakistan, particularly women. Both the Pakistan and Indian armies were occupying forces and were assisted in their activities by local supporters. The Bihari community (Muslim Urdu speakers and recent migrants to East Pakistan from India after the partition in 1947) supported the West Pakistan army in the hope of saving a united Pakistan. A sizeable number of Bengalis, members of the Muslim League, the political organization that had conceived and created Pakistan, also supported the West Pakistan army. The Indian army, by and large, was supported by the nationalist Bengalis of East Pakistan, both Muslims and Hindus. With the help of the Indian government, the Bengalis created a local militia called the Mukti Bahini (Liberation Army). The combined forces of the Indian army and Mukti Bahini defeated the West Pakistan army and forced them to surrender. At the end of the civil war the Pakistan government lost legitimacy in its eastern province; the international war resulted in the partitioning of Pakistan and creation of an independent nation-state of Bangladesh. The two wars of 1971 are generally referred to by a single name: the Liberation War of Bangladesh. The current historiography on the Liberation War is focused solely on the investigation and discussion of conflicts between the armies and militias of West Pakistan, East Pakistan, and India, and the external contexts of battles between the different ethnic groups of Bengalis, Biharis, and Pakistanis. 1 The inner conflicts within the communities that led to rampant violence against women in the wars are overlooked and women's voices are actively silenced. As a result women's experiences and memories of the war are rendered invisible in the official history of 1971. To overcome the silences concerning gendered violence and to document a people's history of 1971, I have undertaken to reconstruct through oral history, fieldwork, and archival research the experiences of survivors – men and women in
The Muslim Precariat of Assam: Contagion, Migrants, and COVID-19 This article examines the plight... more The Muslim Precariat of Assam: Contagion, Migrants, and COVID-19 This article examines the plight of migrant Muslim garbage pickers during the COVID-19 lockdown in India and their struggles to return home to Assam. Their financial hardships were exacerbated by social, political, and religious prejudices. Belonging to the Bengali-speaking miya community, deemed "Bangladeshi," government authorities neglected them. The lockdown's hyped-up anti-Muslim propaganda also reduced them to "corona jihadis." The author reads their struggles as a case study of the Muslim condition in India and argues for civic engagement for redressing the condition of the marginal and vulnerable. The research was conducted through telephone and Zoom calls and in-person interviews.
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 09584930120062047, Jul 2, 2010
... gatherings. Bhupen Hazarika's folk song 'We Aahamia people will never be impoverish... more ... gatherings. Bhupen Hazarika's folk song 'We Aahamia people will never be impoverished by any calamity' helped energize a new revival evoking an Aahamia ethos and defying India as a nation and Indian as an identity. In ...
How did the Muslims of Assam become outsiders in Assam? This essay attempts to answer this questi... more How did the Muslims of Assam become outsiders in Assam? This essay attempts to answer this question by probing the colonial and post-colonial history of categorising people that has located Muslims outside the category of 'Assamese'. The political effort to make the Assamese into a homogenous Hindu group undoes the xanmiholi or blended humanity of Assam. By focusing on two Muslim communities-the Goriyas or Assamese Muslims and the Miyas or Muslims of East Bengali origin-this essay explores the project of making Muslims outsiders in Assam. Finally, the essay examines the inclusion of the transplanted tea-tribe communities as a possible resolution to the Muslim situation in Assam.
In 1971 two wars broke out in East Pakistan. One was a civil war fought between West and East Pak... more In 1971 two wars broke out in East Pakistan. One was a civil war fought between West and East Pakistan, and the other an international war fought between West Pakistan and India. In the wars ethnicity colluded with national interests and state politics, and the armies of West Pakistan and India became involved in violence, mainly targeted against the civilian population of East Pakistan, particularly women. Both the Pakistan and Indian armies were occupying forces and were assisted in their activities by local supporters. The Bihari community (Muslim Urdu speakers and recent migrants to East Pakistan from India after the partition in 1947) supported the West Pakistan army in the hope of saving a united Pakistan. A sizeable number of Bengalis, members of the Muslim League, the political organization that had conceived and created Pakistan, also supported the West Pakistan army. The Indian army, by and large, was supported by the nationalist Bengalis of East Pakistan, both Muslims and Hindus. With the help of the Indian government, the Bengalis created a local militia called the Mukti Bahini (Liberation Army). The combined forces of the Indian army and Mukti Bahini defeated the West Pakistan army and forced them to surrender. At the end of the civil war the Pakistan government lost legitimacy in its eastern province; the international war resulted in the partitioning of Pakistan and creation of an independent nation-state of Bangladesh. The two wars of 1971 are generally referred to by a single name: the Liberation War of Bangladesh. The current historiography on the Liberation War is focused solely on the investigation and discussion of conflicts between the armies and militias of West Pakistan, East Pakistan, and India, and the external contexts of battles between the different ethnic groups of Bengalis, Biharis, and Pakistanis. 1 The inner conflicts within the communities that led to rampant violence against women in the wars are overlooked and women's voices are actively silenced. As a result women's experiences and memories of the war are rendered invisible in the official history of 1971. To overcome the silences concerning gendered violence and to document a people's history of 1971, I have undertaken to reconstruct through oral history, fieldwork, and archival research the experiences of survivors – men and women in
The Muslim Precariat of Assam: Contagion, Migrants, and COVID-19 This article examines the plight... more The Muslim Precariat of Assam: Contagion, Migrants, and COVID-19 This article examines the plight of migrant Muslim garbage pickers during the COVID-19 lockdown in India and their struggles to return home to Assam. Their financial hardships were exacerbated by social, political, and religious prejudices. Belonging to the Bengali-speaking miya community, deemed "Bangladeshi," government authorities neglected them. The lockdown's hyped-up anti-Muslim propaganda also reduced them to "corona jihadis." The author reads their struggles as a case study of the Muslim condition in India and argues for civic engagement for redressing the condition of the marginal and vulnerable. The research was conducted through telephone and Zoom calls and in-person interviews.
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 09584930120062047, Jul 2, 2010
... gatherings. Bhupen Hazarika's folk song 'We Aahamia people will never be impoverish... more ... gatherings. Bhupen Hazarika's folk song 'We Aahamia people will never be impoverished by any calamity' helped energize a new revival evoking an Aahamia ethos and defying India as a nation and Indian as an identity. In ...
How did the Muslims of Assam become outsiders in Assam? This essay attempts to answer this questi... more How did the Muslims of Assam become outsiders in Assam? This essay attempts to answer this question by probing the colonial and post-colonial history of categorising people that has located Muslims outside the category of 'Assamese'. The political effort to make the Assamese into a homogenous Hindu group undoes the xanmiholi or blended humanity of Assam. By focusing on two Muslim communities-the Goriyas or Assamese Muslims and the Miyas or Muslims of East Bengali origin-this essay explores the project of making Muslims outsiders in Assam. Finally, the essay examines the inclusion of the transplanted tea-tribe communities as a possible resolution to the Muslim situation in Assam.
Remembered experiences of violence, humiliation, and loss suffered in the 1971 war of Bangladesh ... more Remembered experiences of violence, humiliation, and loss suffered in the 1971 war of Bangladesh provide potent material for rethinking a new narrative bonding victim and perpetrator communities in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. Taking the war as my entry point and using the method of oral history, I explore perpetrators' memories, in order to understand how love for nation and hatred toward enemies provide justifications for violence. Violence was done in the name of nationalism. Today, the states of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh refuse to acknowledge the 'disastrous' memories of the war in their national histories. The silencing of the experiences of violence, however, does not mean that victims and perpetrators can forget them. Rather, they are haunted by the 'hidden' memories of violence. More than four decades later, the personal, remembered memories lead perpetrators to question their actions and search for meaning of 'sacrifice' made on behalf of nation. As well, they grapple with the issue of ethical responsibility to victims, which they failed to uphold during the war. This leads to the emergence of an awareness of the loss of insāniyat (humanity) in violence. The humanistic turn of memories of perpetrators enables the recuperation of the capacity to see the Other and take responsibility of the violence. The reassembling of insāniyat is a way forward for making connections and creating connectivity beyond divisive nationalism. This way of thinking announces a decolonial narrative in contemporary South Asia. The possibility of a free human community in South Asia is aspirational, as perpetrators testify.
How does love for home/nation become the site for intolerance and provoke violence against others... more How does love for home/nation become the site for intolerance and provoke violence against others? What precipitates the expression of this hate? Is shared humanity possible among erstwhile perpetrators and victims? Through the method of oral history , in this article I probe these questions by investigating the memories of perpetrators of the 1971 war of Bangladesh. A common and shared memory of perpetrators was the humbling experience of fighting a destructive war in which they lost nation as well as their human self. The mournful memories of human loss are explained as the destruction of insāniyat, which opens the space for acknowledging the divergent desires of nationalism that clashed with human ethics. Today, the nations of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh refuse to acknowledge the disastrous memories of 1971 because it unsettles state written histories. For perpetrators, however, the memories of violence are critical for understanding the meaning of sacrifice on behalf of nation, as well raising for them the question of ethical responsibility to victims. The moral dilemma is an " imprisoned " memory of the loss of insāniyat that cannot be articulated publicly because there is no place for it in Ban-gladesh and Pakistan. The fragmentary shards of perpetrators' memories express hope for renewing the commitment to insāniyat. This is a challenge and struggle in South Asia that is divided by mythical national histories and the politics of postcolonial nationalism. Without the rethinking of insāniyat at a public level, I'd argue the question of tolerance would remain submerged or become simply a document constructed at supra-national level without anchoring it within culture and society in South Asia.
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