On March 31, 1971, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi moved a resolution in parliament strongly criticising the military action in Bangladesh.
At 4:00am on March 30, 1971, Bangladeshi forces, comprising East Pakistan Rifles (EPR), police and civilians under the leadership of Abu Osman Chowdhury, then a major and commander of the fourth wing of EPR, attacked the Pakistan occupation army in Kushtia from three sides.
In the evening, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was flown via helicopter from the cantonment, where he was detained, to the Tejgaon Airport. Afterwards, he was flown to Karachi by a special military aircraft.
On March 28, 1971, American Consul General in Dhaka, Archer K Blood, sent a telegram to Islamabad and Washington captioned “selective genocide”. He reported that they were “mute and horrified by a reign of terror by the Pakistan military” in East Pakistan. Pointing towards various pieces of evidence, Blood suggested that Awami League supporters and Hindus were being systematically targeted by the martial law administrators.
American Consul General Archer K Blood in a situation report submitted on March 27, 1971, wrote that according to numerous accounts, including eye witness reports, the Pak military crackdown on Bangalee nationalists has been carried out throughout Dacca swiftly, efficiently (despite heavy resistance from some quarters, including pro-Awami League police and East Pak Rifles), and often with ruthless brutality.
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in a press statement issued today, called for a general strike throughout Bangladesh on March 27 against the army’s action in certain places in East Pakistan including Saidpur, Rangpur and Joydevpur.
There was a final meeting between Awami League’s team and Yahya’s advisers on March 24, 1971, at 6:00pm.
The representatives of president Yahya Khan and an Awami League team met twice today.
It is a tragic irony that riverine Bangladesh has become the land of dying rivers.
The draconian Digital Security Act (DSA) strikes again, and most worryingly, in collusion with communal bigotry.
This time also, there is no major gain from PM Hasina's visit.
The impact of the 1947 Partition was felt in every aspect of Dhaka's printing and publishing business, and the book trade in the new provincial capital took a momentous turn. How did it impact the booksellers, printers, and the material being published?
With the expansion of the publishing business, bookshops also sprang up in various parts of Old Dhaka, particularly in Chawkbazar, Islampur, Mughaltuli and Patuatuli. It is estimated that the number of bookshops in Dhaka till 1900 were no less than 40.
After the death of journalist Tofazzal Hossain, popularly known as Manik Mia, politician, journalist and litterateur Abul Mansur Ahmad wrote in a commemorative article titled “Jati Je Manik Harailo,” “It didn’t take us long to understand (what a gem we had lost); the countrymen understood it much later.”
On May 20, 1921, around 3,000 tea labourers were waiting at Chandpur railway station.
Prof Abul Quasem Fazlul Huq, the Ahmad Sharif professor at the Department of Bangla in the University of Dhaka, speaks about the verdict on Prof Humayun Azad murder case, which came out yesterday, and the overall situation in Bangladesh in a conversation with Shamsuddoza Sajen and Priyam Paul of The Daily Star.
Folk-ballads are living archives that represent the imagination, values, ideas, and aesthetics of the people to whom they belong. Folk-ballads are living archives that represent the imagination, values, ideas, and aesthetics of the people to whom they belong.
In Speak, Silence: In Search of W.G. Sebald (Bloomsbury, 2021), you write that the author’s British publisher, Christopher MacLehose, was in a dilemma to decide on Sebald’s genre of writing. After writing about his novel and his life for so long, how would you define Sebald’s genre?
