Citizens to Traitors

Bengali Internment in Pakistan, 1971-1974

Inbunden, Engelska, 2025

Av Ilyas Chattha, Pakistan) Chattha, Ilyas (Lahore University of Management Sciences

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The break-up of Pakistan in 1971 following a bloody civil war and military defeat by India is wrapped in layers of silences, making it difficult to ferret out the truth from the mistruths. The war ended with over 90,000 Pakistani prisoners of war (POWs) captured in East Pakistan-turned-Bangladesh, who were then transferred to Indian custody. Pakistan responded by interning roughly the same number of Bengali co-religionists in West Pakistan as leverage for the return of its captured POWs. Neither group would return home immediately in what arguably became one of the largest cases of mutual mass internment since 1945. Drawing on a wide range of untapped sources, this book traces the trajectory of this crisis of captivity in which the Bengalis found themselves as rightless citizens with 'traitor' and 'enemy' status after the Bangladesh War. Over half a century after the 1971 war, the internment of Bengalis remains a non-event in the most significant political crisis in Pakistan's history. This book explains this silence in the historiography.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2025-09-04
Mått157 x 235 x 26 mm
Vikt636 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
SerieMuslim South Asia
Antal sidor330
FörlagCambridge University Press
ISBN9781009568241

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Asiens historia inom Historia och arkeologi

List of Figures; List of Tables; Foreword: Ora Phire Elo – Unsteady Return to an Imagined Community Naeem Mohaiemen; Preface and Acknowledgements; Note on Transliteration; List of Abbreviations; Introduction; 1. Making of a Traitor: Being Bengali in (West) Pakistan; 2. Military Encampment; 3. Civilian Internment; 4. 'General Repatriation Centres'; 5. Stranded Bengalis Outside the Camps; 6. Escape or Die: Heroic Stories; 7. The Politics of Triangular Repatriation; Conclusion: Legacies, Meanings, and Memoires; Glossary; Bibliography; Index.

'Based on hitherto unused archival and literary sources as well as interviews with former Bengali government servants and members of their families, who were kept in squalid conditions in camps across Pakistan after the establishment of Bangladesh, the book is a sobering lesson on the vulnerability of internal others. Raising important conceptual questions about identity without belonging and denaturalisation on suspicions of treason, this is a must-read for students of South Asia's post-colonial history.' Ayesha Jalal, Tufts University