I remember reading a memorable quote from one of the characters in Humayun Ahmed's novel Jochona O Jononir Golpo (2004). She says something along the lines of: "Muktijuddho touched every Bangladeshi soul. For some, it was intense; for others, it was a light touch. But not a single person was spared."
What the country's most popular novelist tried to convey through this statement is that the reported 30 lakh casualties were not merely a statistic. Every one of the deceased souls belonged to one, two, or even more families. Brothers lost sisters; parents lost children; grandparents lost granddaughters and grandsons; young women lost their betrothed; many lost their friends, and so on. Some even lost their entire family. As a result of the systematic ethnic cleansing carried out by the then-Pakistani army and its cohorts, two or even three generations of a family were simply erased; their names now remain inscribed only on tombstones.
However, the killing of doctors, teachers, educationists, and other prominent "intellectuals" was a particularly horrendous massacre carried out in 1971—one that has very few parallels in human history. This targeted killing affected my family as well. Nevertheless, they were considered lucky in many ways, since only my grandfather, Dr Serajul Haque Khan, was abducted and killed. His wife, five sons, three daughters, brothers, and sisters were somehow left unharmed.
My grandfather was a prominent educationist and academic at the University of Dhaka. He served as a faculty member at the Institute of Education and Research (IER), where he contributed significantly to the field of education during a turbulent period in Bangladesh's history. After earning his Doctor of Education (EdD) degree in 1967 from the University of Northern Colorado in the US, he joined IER as a senior lecturer. He was respected among his peers, loved by his family, and a central figure in the university staff quarters' community.
On December 14, 1971, my grandfather was abducted and killed by the cohorts of the Pakistani army. The razakars, as they have been termed since then—the collaborators of the repressive West Pakistan regime—killed many others on that same day, and this much information is available on the internet. However, what you may not know is that Serajul Haque was also a loving, albeit tough, father. His eldest son left us a few years back, but until the day he breathed his last, he had many stories to tell about his father. The same goes for everyone else who knew him during his brief life, cut short by the Pakistani army.
One of our favourite stories to relive and imagine was the day my grandfather quit his well-paying and influential government job. After his graduation, he began his career as an inspector with the Department of Customs and Excise of the then-Pakistani government. But three months later, when a businessman had the audacity to offer him a bribe, he left the job. Even the prospect of declining such offers disgusted him. After quitting, he moved into the field of teaching. The rest is, obviously, history. My grandfather, as I learned from my uncles and aunts, was a jolly person—a family man, through and through. He enjoyed reading the morning paper while holding a steaming cup of milk tea. He believed in Ayurvedic treatment. His wife prepared the concoction every day, and she did so even on the fateful day of December 14. But my grandfather never got the chance to take it. He was picked up unceremoniously by members of Al-Badr.
His body was discovered in Mirpur (now the Jollad Khana Boddhovumi) long after the country was liberated—almost three weeks after the ceremonial red-and-green flags were hoisted across the country. His young children identified his decomposed body by the expensive watch he wore, which, surprisingly, remained intact, along with the remains of his distinct clothing.
Fast forward many years. Nowadays, I come across questions about why the martyred intellectuals did not flee to safety or why they kept their government jobs under West Pakistan—shocking and offensive questions that fail to comprehend wartime realities. They come across as deliberate insults towards the memories of our martyred intellectuals and their contribution to the Liberation War. It is similar to a certain quarter's overzealous attitude about the actual number of casualties during the war. It is as if every incident, event, memory, and source of pride that revolves around Muktijuddho needs to be "questioned."
It was not like this all the time. Growing up in the 1980s, as a third-generation member of a "buddhijibi poribar," I mostly received respect, admiration, and kindness from others. My grandfather, and the numerous others who were killed on that fateful day still live on as a source of inspiration. If they were still alive, we could have become a different nation. Questions can always be asked, but that does not necessarily mean those questions have any merit. The martyred intellectuals were the torchbearers—each in their own field—and nothing can change this fact. Ever.
Mohammed Ishtiaque Khan is a journalist at The Daily Star.
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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