Pushtoons and the 21 century

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[Mehmood_Khan]

In her ground-breaking book, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, Susan Brownmiller likened the 1971 events in Bangladesh to the Japanese rapes in Nanjing and German rapes in Russia during World War II. "... 200,000, 300,000 or possibly 400,000 women (three sets of statistics have been variously quoted) were raped. Eighty percent of the raped women were Moslems, reflecting the population of Bangladesh, but Hindu and Christian women were not exempt. ... Hit-and-run rape of large numbers of Bengali women was brutally simple in terms of logistics as the Pakistani regulars swept through and occupied the tiny, populous land ..." (p. 81).

Typical was the description offered by reporter Aubrey Menen of one such assault, which targeted a recently-married woman:

Two [Pakistani soldiers] went into the room that had been built for the bridal couple. The others stayed behind with the family, one of them covering them with his gun. They heard a barked order, and the bridegroom's voice protesting. Then there was silence until the bride screamed. Then there was silence again, except for some muffled cries that soon subsided. In a few minutes one of the soldiers came out, his uniform in disarray. He grinned to his companions. Another soldier took his place in the extra room. And so on, until all the six had raped the belle of the village. Then all six left, hurriedly. The father found his daughter lying on the string cot unconscious and bleeding. Her husband was crouched on the floor, kneeling over his vomit. (Quoted in Brownmiller, Against Our Will, p. 82.)
"Rape in Bangladesh had hardly been restricted to beauty," Brownmiller writes. "Girls of eight and grandmothers of seventy-five had been sexually assaulted ... Pakistani soldiers had not only violated Bengali women on the spot; they abducted tens of hundreds and held them by force in their military barracks for nightly use." Some women may have been raped as many as eighty times in a night (Brownmiller, p. 83). How many died from this atrocious treatment, and how many more women were murdered as part of the generalized campaign of destruction and slaughter, can only be guessed at (see below).

[Mehmood_Khan]

Despite government efforts at amelioration, the torment and persecution of the survivors continued long after Bangladesh had won its independence:

Rape, abduction and forcible prostitution during the nine-month war proved to be only the first round of humiliation for the Bengali women. Prime Minister Mujibur Rahman's declaration that victims of rape were national heroines was the opening shot of an ill-starred campaign to reintegrate them into society -- by smoothing the way for a return to their husbands or by finding bridegrooms for the unmarried [or widowed] ones from among his Mukti Bahini freedom fighters. Imaginative in concept for a country in which female chastity and purdah isolation are cardinal principles, the "marry them off" campaign never got off the ground. Few prospective bridegrooms stepped forward, and those who did made it plain that they expected the government, as father figure, to present them with handsome dowries. (Brownmiller, Against Our Will, p. 84.)
How many died?

The number of dead in Bangladesh in 1971 was almost certainly well into seven figures. It was one of the worst genocides of the World War II era, outstripping Rwanda (800,000 killed) and probably surpassing even Indonesia (1 million to 1.5 million killed in 1965-66). As R.J. Rummel writes,

[Mehmood_Khan]

The human death toll over only 267 days was incredible. Just to give for five out of the eighteen districts some incomplete statistics published in Bangladesh newspapers or by an Inquiry Committee, the Pakistani army killed 100,000 Bengalis in Dacca, 150,000 in Khulna, 75,000 in Jessore, 95,000 in Comilla, and 100,000 in Chittagong. For eighteen districts the total is 1,247,000 killed. This was an incomplete toll, and to this day no one really knows the final toll. Some estimates of the democide [Rummel's "death by government"] are much lower -- one is of 300,000 dead -- but most range from 1 million to 3 million. ... The Pakistani army and allied paramilitary groups killed about one out of every sixty-one people in Pakistan overall; one out of every twenty-five Bengalis, Hindus, and others in East Pakistan. If the rate of killing for all of Pakistan is annualized over the years the Yahya martial law regime was in power (March 1969 to December 1971), then this one regime was more lethal than that of the Soviet Union, China under the communists, or Japan under the military (even through World War II). (Rummel, Death By Government, p. 331.)
The proportion of men versus women murdered is impossible to ascertain, but a speculation might be attempted. If we take the highest estimates for both women raped and Bengalis killed (400,000 and 3 million, respectively); if we accept that half as many women were killed as were raped; and if we double that number for murdered children of both sexes (total: 600,000), we are still left with a death-toll that is 80 percent adult male (2.4 million out of 3 million). Any such disproportion, which is almost certainly on the low side, would qualify Bangladesh as one of the worst gendercides against men in the last half-millennium.

Who was responsible?

"For month after month in all the regions of East Pakistan the massacres went on," writes Robert Payne. "They were not the small casual killings of young officers who wanted to demonstrate their efficiency, but organized massacres conducted by sophisticated staff officers, who knew exactly what they were doing. Muslim soldiers, sent out to kill Muslim peasants, went about their work mechanically and efficiently, until killing defenseless people became a habit like smoking cigarettes or drinking wine. ... Not since Hitler invaded Russia had there been so vast a massacre." (Payne, Massacre, p. 29.)

There is no doubt that the mass killing in Bangladesh was among the most carefully and centrally planned of modern genocides. A cabal of five Pakistani generals orchestrated the events: President Yahya Khan, General Tikka Khan, chief of staff General Pirzada, security chief General Umar Khan, and intelligence chief General Akbar Khan. The U.S. government, long supportive of military rule in Pakistan, supplied some \\$3.8 million in military equipment to the dictatorship after the onset of the genocide, "and after a government spokesman told Congress that all shipments to Yahya Khan's regime had ceased." (Payne, Massacre, p. 102.)

The genocide and gendercidal atrocities were also perpetrated by lower-ranking officers and ordinary soldiers. These "willing executioners" were fuelled by an abiding anti-Bengali racism, especially against the Hindu minority. "Bengalis were often compared with monkeys and chickens. Said Pakistan General Niazi, 'It was a low lying land of low lying people.' The Hindus among the Bengalis were as Jews to the Nazis: scum and vermin that [should] best be exterminated. As to the Moslem Bengalis, they were to live only on the sufferance of the soldiers: any infraction, any suspicion cast on them, any need for reprisal, could mean their death. And the soldiers were free to kill at will. The journalist Dan Coggin quoted one Punjabi captain as telling him, 'We can kill anyone for anything. We are accountable to no one.' This is the arrogance of Power." (Rummel, Death By Government, p. 335.)
The aftermath

On December 3, India under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, seeking to return the millions of Bengali refugees and seize an opportunity to weaken its perennial military rival, finally launched a fullscale intervention to crush West Pakistani forces and secure Bangladeshi independence. The Pakistani army, demoralized by long months of guerrilla warfare, quickly collapsed. On December 16, after a final genocidal outburst, the Pakistani regime agreed to an unconditional surrender. Awami leader Sheikh Mujib was released from detention and returned to a hero's welcome in Dacca on January 10, 1972, establishing Bangladesh's first independent parliament.

In a brutal bloodletting following the expulsion of the Pakistani army, perhaps 150,000 people were murdered by the vengeful victors. (Rummel, Death By Government, p. 334.) The trend is far too common in such post-genocidal circumstances (see the case-studies of Rwanda, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, and the Soviet POWs). Such largescale reprisal killings also tend to have a gendercidal character, which may have been the case in Bangladesh: Jahan writes that during the reprisal stage, "another group of Bengali men in the rural areas -- those who were coerced or bribed to collaborate with the Pakistanis -- fell victims to the attacks of Bengali freedom fighters." ("Genocide in Bangladesh," p. 298; emphasis added.)

[Mehmood_Khan]

None of the generals involved in the genocide has ever been brought to trial, and all remain at large in Pakistan and other countries. Several movements have arisen to try to bring them before an international tribunal (see Bangladesh links for further information).

Political and military upheaval did not end with Bangladeshi independence. Rummel notes that "the massive bloodletting by all parties in Bangladesh affected its politics for the following decades. The country has experienced military coup after military coup, some of them bloody." (Death By Government, p 334)

[Mehmood_Khan]

The above is a just a glimpse of what the adovecates of "Islamic Unity" and "Muslim Brotherhood". As long as the crafty Punjabi plundered the resources of East Pakistan (Bangladesh), Bengalis were Muslim brothers. But the moment, Bengalis demanded control of their resources and right to self determination, the Muslim Bothers from Punjab butchered them like animals. As the above study mentions, about 3 millions Bengalis were murdered by the Muslim Army of Pakistan and approximately 0.4 millions Bengli women were raped by the "Soldiers of Islam". This doesn't include figures about pluder and loot perpetrated by the "Army of Islam".    

[Mehmood_Khan]

Since the arrival of British in Hindustan to the end of the Cold War, these Punjabis have been the most loyal servants of the West...so much so that their servility to British Raj earned them the title of "The Sword Arm of British Raj". British were able to suppress the 1857 War of Independence of Indian Muslim from British mainly with the help of Punjabi Muslims(which the British favorably refered to by the acronym PMs: Punjabi Musalmans). It has been estimated that during the World War I, 2 miillions Hindustani mercenaries fought for the British and out these 67% were Punjabis(mostly Punjabi Muslims or PMs).

After partition of Hindustan in 1947, Pakistan emerged to be the most allied ally of the West in the region and was the biggest recepient of the military aid from the West. Its subservience to the West was proverbial. There is a fmous event which demonstrates how loyal Pakistan was to the West. The event is that when Jamal Abdul Nasir of Egypt nationalized Suiz Canal in 1956(which was controlled by French and British companies before that), Britian and France declared war against  Egypt. Pakistan at that time was member of SEATO, which was headed by Britian. The then prime minister of Pakistan under pressure from certain quarters called for Pakistan's withdrawl from British Commonwealth and SEATO and the formation the commonwealth of Muslim countries. Sikandar Mirza, the Governer General of Pakistan, was visiting Iran. He called Hussain Shaheed Suharwardy to Tehran and there he and Shahanshahi Iran briefed him.

When Surharwardy was pressed for Pakistan's withdrawl from British Commonwealth and SEATO because of Britian and France attack on Egypt, Suharwardy replied that British and French forces are in the Egypt to teach Egyptian decency and that all Muslim countries are like zeros...and that 0+0+0+0+...would still be zero...so instead of alligning itself with poor Muslim countries, Pakistan should allign itself with strong Western countries.

This shows how hypocritic Punjabis lead Pakistan could be!

[Zalimjani]

I think it would have been much more appropriate if you had posted the link to that article instead of pasting segments of it.

Dont you think? :- )

[Mehmood_Khan]

Right but I didn't know the link!

[Zalimjani]

Nu dasay wa kana mara...

Right but I didn't know the link!

[Robert R. Khan]

Pashtuns have a wonderful history ahead of them, but my feel is we should very seriouslly work for the protection of and advancement of Pashtunwali.  In addition, we should tell the outside world of Pashtunwali.  I know here in the US, just about NO ONE has heard of it, and they are very curious to know more.

Pashtunwali makes the Pashtun,
Robertrahman

[Mehmood_Khan]

Yahaya Khan was a Hindko-speaking Qazalbash Shia of Peshawar whereas Ayub Khan was a Tarin but his family had-from many generations-adopted Hindko as its first language. When one goes through his book "Friends not Masters", one clearly feels his preference for Hindkowan/Punjabi affinity than Pashtun.

Mere ethnicity doesn't make one a Pashtun until one also has committment to Pashtun Nation and Pashtun Culture. An event that occurred in National Assembly of Pakistan indicates the level of allegiance Ayub Khan family has to Pashtuns or Pashtun Culture. It is that once a Pakhtun politician referred to NWFP by its historical name i.e. Pakhtunkhwa in national assembly of Pakistan but of all the parlimentarians Gohar Ayub Khan, who was speaker of national assembly at that time, came out to be the most fervent opponent of such an appellation for the province.

This Ayub Khan once threatened to conquer Afghanistan, the original and spiritual abode of Pashtuns.  

This is not to show that Pashtuns are angels. whoever committed crime against humanity must be condemned.

[mrkkhattak]

Assalamualaikum,

sorry for being so late but  as you said (Mehmood Khan)

> As for Pashtuns technological advancement, what
> indicators/measures you have of Pashtuns human
> resource development? I mean we shouldn't just
> speculate (to cheat our selves and intoxicate our  
> egos), we should come up with proper facts and figures.

You are right when you say this, but what I was talking was that, we should help our ppl to get educated, help them to learn the new technologies ...!

What do you think? should we wait for our govt. to come & help us ? they will never come (if they come, they will be very slow), so I thought if any of the person in any village could start teaching/spreading about new technologies, how would be that ?

I know it would take time but it would be great. It was one of the best moment of life when I first time talked on internet (chat + voice chat + video chat) with my family & friends at my village from Karachi. Can't we use these resources in any good way

what do you say about this ?