New Delhi, December 13, 2013 : .As tragic as this may sound, war can bring out the best of men and women.
There are those who fight for their cause, the courageous, and those who don’t give up. They are the stories of their lives – tales to never forget.
Anam Zakaria, 1971 (Penguin): People’s History of Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India
This is India’s story of victory and courage, of humanitarian intervention that opened the door to its rise as a militarist power and the start of its quest for regional supremacy.
Zakaria navigates a wide range of terrain in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan.
She examines the institutionisation of the memories of the years and their events, as well as the state narratives.She uses a personal narrative to juxtapose state narratives and the history of people on the ground.
This allows her to reveal the complex experiences of war veterans.
Zakaria examines how 1971 is remembered across generations, using intergenerational interviews and textbook analysis, school visits, and trips to museums and other sites to commemorate the event.
Maj.Gen.Vijay Singh (Speaking Tiger), POW 1971
Two weeks elapsed between December 1971 and the end of the war against Pakistan.The war ended on December 16, with India winning and Bangladesh forming.
Jammu and Kashmir, the Western Front’s lesser-known component of this historic military conflict is also important.
While many contests took place on the Indian side, some were lost.
One of these was the heroic battle at Daruchhian, Poonch Sector.
Daruchhian, a cone-shaped structure measuring approximately 1’000m in height, was of strategic importance.
However, the fierce fighting on Daruchhian’s slopes that night (December 13) could not secure its capture.Many Indian soldiers died in the battle for their lives, while many others were taken into custody, such as Brigadier (then Major), Hamir Singh and Vir Chakra.
He was seriously injured during battle and received a lengthy recovery at Rawalpindi Command Military Hospital.After that, he was detained at Lyallpur POW Camp.
Brig.Brig.
There were battle plans too precise to win, but soldiers that didn’t quit, friends who respected each other’s professionalism.Pakistanis are nostalgic about pre-Partition India and the joy and sorrow that transcend national and religious boundaries.
It is an uplifting and moving view on war, valour, and humanity.
Maj.Gen.Ian Cardozo (Retd), Stories of Grit and Glory From the Indo-Pak War
A Gorkha battalion, which is weaker than the rest, flies deep behind enemy lines to defeat a Pakistani army that has outnumbered it 20 times.In a daring attack on the Government House, Dhaka by the Indian Air Force force, fighters storm the building forcing the Pakistani government into surrender and capitulating.In the aftermath of the war, four battle casualties became close friends at Pune’s Artificial Limb Centre.
This collection contains true stories by Major General Ian Cardozo, a decorated war veteran.He recounts the events of 1971 War and includes interviews with families and survivors to help him put together each story.
This book also aims to remember the lives and sacrifices of all those involved in this conflict.
These stories tell the story of what happened in the heads of men who led them into battle – at land, on the sea, and even in the air.
Rachna Bhisht Rawat, 1971: Charge of Gorkhas
What is the reason why Gorkha troops of 4/5GR attacked a heavily defenseless enemy position with only naked khukris?
Pakistan: Can Pakistan discover the true identity of the pilot, who after being ejected from the burning aircraft, called himself Flt.Lt.Mansoor Ali Khan
Is there anything for the Naval Diver who strips made-in India labels from his clothing and cross into East Pakistan carrying a machine gun strapped to his back?
Why is a 21-year-old Sikh paratrooper being taught to jump off a stool in a deserted hangar at Dum Dum airport with a Packet aircraft waiting nearby?
This is a deeply researched collection of true stories of extraordinary human grit and courage that shows you a side to war that few military histories do.
Rajesh Ramachandran (Ed.) (Harper Collins), ‘The Heroes of 1971 – The Bravehearts of the War That Gave Birth to Bangladesh’
These are the stories of the fearless warriors who fought heroic battles to liberate Bangladesh, redrawing the map of South Asia in what is still considered the most conclusive military victory – in a ‘just war’ – in contemporary history.
Written by serving and retired officers of the three services to celebrate the memory of the four Param Vir Chakra and 76 Maha Vir Chakra awardees of the war, the essays in this book first appeared in ‘The Tribune’, Chandigarh.
From the exploits of Flying Officer Nirmaljit Singh Sekhon, who rose to the occasion for the Flying Bullets at the Srinagar airfield, to the capture of prisoners of war at Faujdahat by Brig.Anand Sarup’s ‘Kilo Force’, this book catalogues it all, while the big-picture analyses by veterans, top bureaucrats and journalists help set the scene and enable readers to understand the war better.
Raghu Rai (Niyogi Books), Bangladesh: The Price of Freedom
Ace photographer Raghu Rai documents the plight of the refugees, the action during the war and the jubilant scenes of victory and Independence.
His treasure trove of photographs, which for over four decades he thought had been lost, was recently rediscovered.
The stories are perhaps not unknown, but have been retold by a master visual storyteller – the refugee camps, the exodus, the never-ending journey, a whirlwind of poignant, tormented history.And finally, a new nation, a new tomorrow.
Here are never-before-seen photographs that comprise a significant body of work documenting a turning point in the history of South Asia.
Manash Ghosh (Niyogi Books), Bangladesh War: Report from Ground Zero
This riveting first-hand account of the Liberation War has been written by a former journalist of ‘The Statesman’ newspaper.The author, then a mere cub reporter, had predicted the coming of the war as early as in January 1971 in an article in the ‘Sunday Statesman’ titled ‘When Brother meets Brother’.When the conflict started, he was one of the very few Indian journalists who covered the epochal event from the very beginning till the final surrender by the Pakistan military in Khulna on December 17.
Syed Badrul Ahsan (Niyogi Books), Sheikh Mujibur Rahman: From Rebel to Founding Father
The emergence of Bangladesh as a sovereign state in 1971 is a tribute to the sagacity and leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.Through the long years he spent in prison, Mujib, as he is known, burnished his political beliefs and eventually emerged as the single most significant spokesman for Bengali rights in East Pakistan.
This biography sensitively portrays Mujib’s transformation to Bangabandhu, ‘the friend of Bengal’.Author Syed Badrul Ahsan traces Mujib’s meteoric evolution from a young follower of the All India Muslim League, driven by a zeal for Pakistan in the 1940s, to a mature political leader who believed the Bengalis of Pakistan needed to return to their secular traditions.
Birendra Kumar Bhattacharyya (fiction; translated by Mitra Phukan; Niyogi Books), Blossoms in the Graveyard
This is the story of Mehr, a young girl from a village in what is at that time, East Pakistan.Penned by a pioneer modern Assamese literature, it is the story of Mehr’s journey from dependence to self-reliance, both emotionally and physically.
Parallel to her story, is the narrative of a land that is struggling to assert its identity, and moving towards a hard-won independence in a crucible of blood and tears.
Mehr is the symbol of the land.
Her suffering, her distress, her tortured anguish, is an emblem of its agony, in particular of the women of the country, as it is being birthed.Set at a crucial time in the history of the struggle, when the land is on the cusp of becoming Bangladesh, the novel is in the voice of Robin Babu.
As an Assamese, he, like so many others living in that part of India adjacent to the theatre of war, is deeply affected by the horrors taking place at his very doorstep.
vm/srb
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