The decision for Bangladesh is simply this: Either we recognize what is happening to our degree of liberty now, or we will soon read about it in the pages of history books as if it is a novel about something that was simply unavoidable.
In the past decade, a number of books have appeared on Bangladesh’s Liberation War. This essay covers three volumes focusing on the war from within the lens of conflict studies and great game manuevering -- by Gary J Bass, Srinath Raghavan, and Salil Tripathi.
If 1971 is to remain meaningful, it cannot be owned. It must be debated, carried with care, and opened to complexity. Otherwise, the Liberation War risks becoming either a party banner or a demolition tool. In both cases, the injury is the same: a past turned into a weapon rather than a shared ground on which a plural future might be negotiated.
Too much of Bangladesh’s politics still focuses on history while its citizens repeatedly indicate that they are more interested in what will happen to the country in the coming years
What happens when history is turned into an instrument not of understanding, but of coercion, sanctification, and political legitimacy? Across continents and ideologies, regimes and ruling parties have wielded history not just to remember, but to silence, not to teach, but to control.
