Version imprimableThe New York Times, April 5, 2016
Dhaka, Bangladesh — In 1971, Bengali nationalists and the people of what was then called East Pakistan waged a war of independence against the Pakistani Army. The conflict culminated in the birth of a new nation, Bangladesh. The war, which lasted nine months, was a brutal one: Depending on the source, some 300,000 to three million people were killed, and millions were displaced.
There is no question that there were many atrocities, including rape, deportation and massacres of civilians, carried out by the Pakistani Army, aided at times by pro-Pakistani militias. Some of these included members of the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamist party that remains a powerful force in Bangladesh today. There is an academic consensus that this campaign of violence, particularly against the Hindu population, was a genocide.
In the decades since the war, there have been efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice. The most recent attempt started in 2010, when the current government established two International Crimes Tribunals that together have convicted 26 people on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. International human rights organizations have criticized the tribunals as falling far short of proper due process, but the trials appear popular within Bangladesh.
So far, four men have been executed, including three leaders from Jamaat-e-Islami and one leader of the main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. Most of the others are on death row, awaiting the outcome of appeals.
To the government of the Awami League, the party that originally spearheaded the campaign for independence, the genocide of three million Bengalis is a foundational element of the struggle for national liberation. For many, particularly Awami League supporters, to allow any equivocation about the numbers of victims in the 1971 war is to open the door to the apologists for Pakistan and the enemies of Bangladeshi independence.
The three million figure is totemic, which is one reason that, in February, the Bangladesh Law Commission opened consultation on a draft law called the Liberation War Denial Crimes Act. The proposed legislation uses the precedent of the Holocaust denial laws enacted in Europe after World War II.
Some of the proposed offenses are so broad that they would significantly hinder free speech and stifle legitimate historical research. The proposal would outlaw the “inaccurate
