1971: A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh, by Srinath Raghavan
| Autor: | Nameeta Mathur |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2014 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Canadian Journal of History. 49:335-336 |
| ISSN: | 2292-8502 0008-4107 |
| Popis: | 1971: A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh, by Srinath Raghavan. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2013. 358 pp. $29.95 US (cloth). This book is about the humanitarian crisis in South Asia in 1971, at the end of which General Yahya Khan's defeated military regime gave way to the presidency of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in Pakistan, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was released from captivity to assume the leadership of the new state of Bangladesh, and India won a decisive military victory. India had refrained from early military intervention in support of the struggles of East Pakistan. But Pakistan, insisting on the right of a sovereign state to suppress secession, proceeded with a brutal military campaign in its east that caused for a massive exodus of refugees in India's direction. The internal problem of Pakistan now became an internal problem for India. As the refugee crisis worsened, India increased its military pressure on Pakistani forces in the east. When Pakistan attacked India in the west, the war ended thirteen days later, with Pakistan's surrender. This outstanding book is the first serious attempt to analyze the political breakdown and geographic breakup of Pakistan in the global context of the Cold War, decolonization, and "globalization of conscience." Srinath Raghavan does not aim to study or downplay the experiences of the victims, or elaborate on the relations between East and West Pakistanis, or between non-Bengalis and Bengalis. Rather, using archival and other information available in several countries across different continents, the author investigates in ten superbly sequenced chapters the interaction and impact of the wider historical forces on this crisis and rightly concludes that the creation of Bangladesh was anything but inevitable. A major contribution of 1971 is the explanation of international and regional responses and how the pressure of public opinion, inspired by various facets of emerging globalization, such as new forms of communication, transnational humanitarianism, diffusion of the Sixties' counterculture, and diasporic activism, shaped the crisis. For example, with the global student protests of 1968, the Student Action Committee in East Pakistan demanded full autonomy for East Pakistan. Pakistani journalist Anthony Mascarenhas's report on the brutal military actions was published by the Sunday Times with the headline Genocide that reached a wider audience with the "globalization of conscience." The Bengali diaspora, humanitarian organizations such as Oxfam, and the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs publicized the cause of Bangladesh. The Swinging Sixties came alive with the Concert for Bangladesh in New York. 1971 is particularly engrossing and suspenseful when explaining how the expected Cold War line-up of nations did not enter into formation during this crisis. China, devastated by the Cultural Revolution and the purges in the PLA, and to the chagrin of the United States, refrained from intervening directly in the conflict. … |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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