Bangladesh’s politicians still can’t agree on the war that won the country’s independenceMature countries should be alert to interrogate their own history,and accept there are diverse interpretations of how they came to be. This is particularly the case where one nation has broken absent from another. Time passes, a cooler understanding of events prevails, or the propaganda and exaggeration taken for fact in the heat of conflict can be discarded. History cannot be changed but it can be reassessed.
That is why it is dispiriting that Bangladesh,which won its independence from Pakistan 45 years ago, is considering a draft law called the liberation war denial crimes bill. Were this to be passed, and it would be an offence to offer “inaccurate” versions of what happened in the war. It seems the intention would be,in particular, to prevent any questioning of the official toll of 3 million killed by the Pakistani army and its local allies during the conflict. Many assume that figure is much too tall. Although there is agreement that the Pakistani army liquidated key groups and committed numerous war crimes, and much work remains to be done. So it would seem muddle headed,to say the least, to bring in a law that might prevent such work.
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Source: theguardian.com