However, a momentous event occurred in 1989: the Berlin Wall collapsed. This had baleful consequences for Bangladesh. Western donors, no longer needing pro-capitalist dictators, swept Ershad aside and ushered in democracy in 1990. A decade of peace and stability came to an end.
Now, there were two major political parties: the BNP headed by Zia's widow, Khaleda Zia, and the Awami League headed by Mujib's daughter, Sheikh Hasina. The two dynasties plunged the country into violence.
The two religions of Bangladesh had now become incarnated in two women and two political parties. Skipping the intervening years, Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League assumed power in 2008 and has continued in power to this day: there seems no way that the party can be replaced for all elections will necessarily be rigged. Khaleda Zia has been imprisoned on trumped-up charges and the opposition has been effectively neutered.
Bengali nationalism, as opposed to Bangladeshi nationalism, had come to stay.
The Mother Of The Muses
In Bangladesh, we exploit the memory of the suffering of people in 1971 exactly the way Zionists exploit the memory of the suffering of the Holocaust. And for the same reason: to promote nationalism. The ruling party, the Awami League (AL), calls any protest, the slightest resistance, an act of the betrayal of the 'spirit' of 1971. The suffering of the people of Bangladesh is an endless reservoir of legitimacy for the nationalists. The opposition, the pro-Muslim Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), dares to query this narrative. No exact figures are known as to how many people perished at the hands of the Pakistan Army. Estimates range from 500,000 to 3 million - the latter is the preferred figure of the nationalists, who would maximise suffering, and the former is the informed opinion of David Reynolds in his book, One World Divisible: A Global History Since 1945 (New York: W.W.Norton and Co., 2000, p 246)
A moment's reflection shows us that the 3-million figure must be absurd. The American military killed 4 million Vietnamese by dropping more bombs on Vietnam than were dropped in the entire Second World War. The Awami League claim would be that the Pakistan had been far more efficient: they killed a similar number in nine months and without any aerial bombardment. Bina D'Costa has pointed out that "an upper figure gave the new country greater legitimacy".
Natasha Chowdhury of the University of Warwick observes: "Since the 1971 conflict, the unsubstantiated, sacrosanct Bangladeshi figure has been three million representing the huge sacrifices of the war to (sic) which M. A. Hasan argues is one 'no one should question.'" David Bergman questioned this narrative in 2014 and he was convicted by a court on the ground that he had "hurt the feelings of the nation". He was given a choice between paying a fine of 5000 takas (around $65) or spending seven days in jail. Extrapolating from studies in one part of Bangladesh, Matlab Thana, gives the figure of about 500,000. Sheikh Mujib gave the figure of 3 million to David Frost, who asked how he had come to that number (some people thought he meant 3 lakhs, the local measure, amounting to 300,000). Mujib replied, "Before my coming, my people had started collecting the information. I have messages coming from all areas where I have a base. We have not finally concluded, it might be more, but definitely it will not be less than three million." It would appear that the statistic of 3 million was provided by the Soviet Union mouthpiece, Pravda! Studies were commissioned by Sheikh Mujib himself in the early '70s. "However, the government never publicly released the committees' findings -- and it has been suggested that this was because the details of only 57,000 people could be identified," notes David Bergman again.
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