The Gaza and Israel struggle is going on. So we are seeing a lot of debates about bloodshed as well as the rapes of the young ones. Every tragedy like this is condemnable. We should always denounce these types of incidents. But when the whole world is talking about the genocides of Muslims in Palestine, it is the right time to turn some pages of not-so-old history.
There are stories not buried yet, and there are wounds that haven’t healed yet because of the daily net of related stories. Do we really care about the genocidal stories of our brothers and sisters? This is the main question, and also, what is the main factor that quenched the hideousness of those incidents? In this article, we will read about those gruesome incidents that slip from our minds.
There is a book named “The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and A Forgotten Genocide,” and it talks about the forgotten genocide. The genocide of Bengali Hindus, or we can say Bengali nationalists, who used to stick to their cultural roots
This book sheds light on the hatred that then-American President Nixon used to have towards India. The author, Gary J. Bass, wrote about this hatred that provided shade to the violence against Bangladeshi nationalists.
He has perfectly written about the politics, geopolitics, and position of India and America, as well as the silence on the ongoing slaughter of Bengalis. He writes in his book that the United States was allied with the killers. He writes in the preface of the book, “But Pakistan’s slaughter of its Bengalis in 1971 is starkly different. Here, the United States was allied with the killers. The White House was actively and knowingly supporting a murderous regime at many of the most crucial moments. There was no question about whether the United States should intervene; it was already intervening on behalf of a military dictatorship decimating its own people.”
The slaughters and atrocities were on such a large scale that Archer Blood, the United States’ consul general in Dacca could not stop himself from going against his own government. Gary writes about him as a gentleman.
He was really a tender person, as he wrote with his heart. He could not tolerate the silence of his own government in the USA, and he scarified his own career as a diplomat. The U.S. consulate has detailed accounts of ongoing killings of innocent students. Blood’s consulate documented the worst genocidal violence of its time.
They have documented how innocent students at Dacca University were killed and professors were dragged out of their homes and gunned down. He writes that
“The provost of the Hindu dormitory, a respected scholar of English, was dragged out of his residence and shot in the neck. Blood listed six other faculty members “reliably reported killed by troops,” with several more possibly dead. One American who had visited the campus said that students had been “mowed down” in their rooms or as they fled, with a residence hall in flames and youths being machinegunned”
Bengali nationalists were being butchered, but there was silence in the international community. In this book only Edward Kennedy, who was very quick to put the matter in the Senate, described this violence as the “greatest nightmares of modern times.”
But who was responsible? Only Pakistan, the Pakistani Army, or the hated towards India and love towards Pakistan? Who were the powers that gave modern armor to the Pakistani Army that led to the genocide of Bengali Hindus and Bengali nationalists?” He is pointing out the role of Nixon and Kissinger in the ongoing slaughter in then-East Pakistan and now Bangladesh. He is very apt to ask questions about the policies of this duo. He writes that the USA has a great influence over Pakistan, but at almost every turning point in the crisis, Nixon and Kissinger failed to use this leverage to prevent the disaster.
He is very much right about the armed force of Pakistan. Pakistan came into existence in 1947, but it was full of modern armor. From where was it getting the backup and power? And at what cost? Who was making Pakistan the pawn of its hand? This book gives all the required answers.
When Blood and his staffers give the horrific account of incidents, at many points they clearly mention that the target of the violence was specifically the Hindu minority. Blood and some of his fellow Americans in Dacca were giving shelter to Bengali nationalists and protecting them from the Pakistan Army. In one of his cables, he specified the same. ““Many Bengalis have sought refuge in the homes of Americans, most of whom are extending shelter.”
Though he has been asked not to do this, he denied it and said that he wouldn’t tell them to stop doing it. He said that he would continue doing this. He said that he “had a message from Washington saying that they had heard we were doing this and to knock it off. I told them we were doing it and would continue to do it. We could not turn these people away. They were not political refugees. They were just poor, very low-class people, mostly Hindus, who were very much afraid that they would be killed solely because they were Hindu.”
contd……
(in the next article Nixon’s hatred towards India will be discussed