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A War Within a War: Mizo rebels and the Bangladesh liberation struggle*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 October 2015

WILLEM VAN SCHENDEL
WILLEM VAN SCHENDEL*
Affiliation:
University of Amsterdam and International Institute of Social History, The Netherlands Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

In 1971 a war led to the creation of Bangladesh. Instantly three narratives sprang up: the war as a national triumph, the war as betrayal and shame, and the war as a glorious campaign. Today more layered interpretations are superseding these ‘first-generation narratives’. Taking the case of insurgents from neighbouring India who, against their will, became embroiled in the war, this article seeks to contribute to ‘second-generation narratives’ that challenge the historiographical apportioning of blame and the national/ethnic framing of the conflict. The article uses hitherto-unpublished photographs from private collections to demonstrate how the war for the liberation of Mizoram (India) and that for the liberation of Bangladesh became entangled. Jointly they produced a ‘war within a war’ that unsettles common assumptions about both these struggles.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , January 2016 , pp. 75 - 117
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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Footnotes

*

This article is part of a research project on the usefulness of visual sources for new understandings of social change in Mizoram (India) and surrounding areas now in Bangladesh, India, and Burma/Myanmar between the 1860s and the 2000s. This project was carried out jointly with Joy L. K. Pachuau (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi), assisted by Lalhlimpuii Pachuau Mimi. We have reported our findings in Joy L. K. Pachuau and Willem van Schendel, The Camera as Witness: A Social History of Mizoram, Northeast India (Delhi and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), as well as in co-curated photo exhibitions in New Delhi (2013 and 2014), and in Mizoram's two main towns, Aizawl (2014) and Lunglei (2015). I would like to thank Joy Pachuau for her comments and an anonymous Modern Asian Studies reviewer for helpful suggestions.

References

1 There is a vast literature on this war. For various introductions, see Sisson, Richard and Rose, Leo E., War and Secession: Pakistan, India and the Creation of Bangladesh (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1990)Google Scholar; Zaheer, Hasan, The Separation of East Pakistan: The Rise and Realization of Bengali Muslim Nationalism (Karachi: Oxford University Press, and Dhaka: University Press Limited, 1994)Google Scholar; Biswas, Sukumar (ed.), The Bangladesh Liberation War: Mujibnagar Government Documents 1971 (Dhaka: Mowla Brothers, 2005)Google Scholar; Biswas, Sukumar (ed.), History from Below, 1971: Accounts of Participants and Eyewitness (Dhaka: Muktijuddho Gobeshona Kendro, 2007)Google Scholar; Chowdhury, Afsan (ed.), Bangladesh 1971 (Dhaka: Mowla Brothers, 2007)Google Scholar, 4 vols; Husain, Syed Shahid, What Was Once East Pakistan (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2010)Google Scholar; Saikia, Yasmin, Women, War, and the Making of Bangladesh: Remembering 1971 (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bass, Gary J., The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger and a Forgotten Genocide (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013)Google Scholar; and Raghavan, Srinath, 1971: A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 First recommended by the Pakistan Educational Conference in November 1947, a few months after Pakistan came into existence.

3 As Afsan Chowdhury (author of the four-volume study Bangladesh 1971) has said, the war of 1971 has long been approached as a ‘sacred’ topic and not intellectually explored, so ‘taboo’ is not an inappropriate term. ‘Afsan Chowdhury's four-volume history of 1971—interview with Farhad Ahmed’, The Daily Star, 19 May 2007.

4 India used the term ‘East Bengal’ at least from October 1971.

5 On the need to ‘expand the archive’, see Saikia, Yasmin, ‘History on the Line: Beyond the Archive of Silence: Narratives of Violence of the 1971 Liberation War of Bangladesh’, History Workshop Journal, 58 (2004), pp. 275–287CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Cilano, Cara, ‘Editorial: Too Soon? Pakistan and the 1971 War’, Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies, 2:3 (2010), pp. i–ixGoogle Scholar.

6 This is true even of the military regime of General H. M. Ershad, which could not point to its leader's glorious role in the war—Ershad served the Pakistan Army in West Pakistan throughout and he even got a promotion during the war. van Schendel, Willem, A History of Bangladesh (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 195–197CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 277; Mohan, P. V. S. Jagan and Chopra, Samir, Eagles over Bangladesh: The Indian Air Force in the 1971 Liberation War (Noida: Harper Collins Publishers, 2013), p. 37Google Scholar.

7 Nayanika Mookherjee speaks of the ethical dilemmas of presenting more complex narratives in the face of both statist and activist agendas. Researching themes that fall outside the scope of Story 1 remains a challenge. For example, the killing of non-Bengalis in East Pakistan (before 25 March 1971) and Bangladesh (after 16 December 1971) targeted not just ‘Biharis’ (now known as ‘Stranded Pakistanis’) but also other ethnic minorities. Other themes are the poor planning and internal rows among pro-Bangladesh leaders; the middle-class bias of the historiography; the numerous Bengalis sitting on the fence throughout the war; the West Pakistanis who supported the Bangladesh side in the conflict; and so on. Mookherjee, Nayanika, ‘Friendship and Encounters on the Political Left in Bangladesh’, in Armbruster, Heidi and Laerke, Anna (eds), Taking Sides: Ethics, Politics and Fieldwork in Anthropology (Oxford: Berghahn, 2008), pp. 65–87Google Scholar; Chowdhury, Afsan, ‘1971 History: Letting the Memories of the Majority to Die’, The Daily Star—Independence Day Special 2012, 26 March 2012, p. 1Google Scholar.

8 Examples of such interference and obstruction by administrators and politicians—as in the Bangladesh War of Independence Documents (Muktijuddher Dolilpatra) Project and stalled Bangla Academy initiatives—offer an important subject of future research on these restrictions. See ‘Afsan Chowdhury's four-volume history’.

9 This name has stuck: ‘Special Issue: The 1971 Indo-Pakistan War’, Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies, 2:3 (2010).

10 Often such attempts have diverted attention from the larger dimensions of the war by redefining trivial issues as being of crucial importance. For example, dualistic party-political interpretations after 1971 have enshrined a conflict about the authorship of the declaration of independence as a prime marker of significance, generating heated debate. Thus the Awami League foregrounds the short declaration that their leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, wrote just before he was arrested on the night of 25–26 March 1971. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party, on the other hand, extols the radio message that their leader, Ziaur Rahman, broadcast on 27 March. For the texts of these two declarations, see Guhathakurta, Meghna and van Schendel, Willem, The Bangladesh Reader: History, Culture, Politics (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2013), pp. 225–226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 The third direction that second-generation war historiography has taken is that of debunking the myths. This is an inevitable approach that emerges after all wars to sort the facts from war propaganda and to work towards a more unified understanding of events. In a way, it is the exemplary second-generation historiography because war historians have an important role to play as myth-busters. But they can be convincing only if they are scrupulously careful in presenting the current state of knowledge production, weighing the evidence, critiquing their sources, and referencing their data. Only then can they hope to persuade knowledgeable others; a successful debunker must adhere to the highest professional standards. As yet the one example of this genre that we have for the 1971 war is, however, the polemical and controversial work by Sarmila Bose. It has been received with indignation in Bangladesh and has been sharply criticized on methodological grounds and for its lack of professional rigour. Her ‘Anatomy of Violence: Analysis of Civil War in East Pakistan in 1971’, Economic and Political Weekly, 40:41 (8 October 2005), pp. 4463–4471; ‘Losing the Victims: Problems of Using Women as Weapons in Recounting the Bangladesh War’, Economic and Political Weekly, 42:38 (22 September 2007), pp. 3864–3871; and Dead Reckoning: Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War (London: Hurst & Company, 2011) have triggered numerous disapproving reviews. See, for example, Mookherjee, Nayanika, ‘A Prescription for Reconciliation?’, Economic and Political Weekly, 41:36 (9 September 2006), pp. 3901–3903Google Scholar; Mandal, Akhtaruzzaman and Mookherjee, Nayanika, ‘“Research” on Bangladesh War’, Economic and Political Weekly, 42:50 (15 December 2007), pp. 118–121Google Scholar; Mohaiemen, Naeem: ‘Flying Blind: Waiting for a Real Reckoning on 1971’, Economic and Political Weekly, 46:36 (3 September 2011), pp. 40–52Google Scholar; Bose, Sarmila, ‘“Dead Reckoning”: A Response’, Economic and Political Weekly, 46:53 (31 December 2011), pp. 76–79Google Scholar; Mohaiemen, Naeem, ‘Another Reckoning’, Economic and Political Weekly, 46:53 (31 December 2011), pp. 79–80Google Scholar.

12 Such scholarship can build on impressive documentation projects of which the results have been published only partially. See, for example, Hafizur Rahman, Hasan, Bangladesher Swadhinata Juddha—Dalilpatra/History of Bangladesh War of Independence: Documents (Dhaka: Hasan Hafizur Rahman on behalf of the Ministry of Information, 1982–85)Google Scholar, 15 volumes; Biswas (ed.), History from Below, 1971; Chowdhury, Bangladesh 1971; and the oral history project carried out by Ain-O-Shalish Kendra (ASK; Legal Aid and Human Rights Organization). See also eyewitness accounts at www.genocidebangladesh.org, [accessed 22 August 2015].

13 Mookherjee's work is especially groundbreaking with regard to public memories of sexual violence during the war, whereas Saikia has strongly contributed by situating the war within historical processes of state violence and othering in South Asia and by dislodging received ideas about victimhood and transgression. Mookherjee, Nayanika, ‘“Remembering to Forget”: Public Secrecy and Memory of Sexual Violence in the Bangladesh War of 1971’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.), 12 (2006), pp. 433–450CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mookherjee, Nayanika, ‘The “Dead and Their Double Duties”: Mourning, Melancholia, and the Martyred Intellectual Memorials in Bangladesh’, Space and Culture, 10:2 (2007), pp. 271–291CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mookherjee, Nayanika, ‘Gendered Embodiments: Mapping the Body-Politic of the Raped Woman and the Nation in Bangladesh’, Feminist Review, 88 (2008), pp. 36–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mooherjee, Nayanika, ‘“Never Again”: Aesthetics of “Genocidal” Cosmopolitanism and the Bangladesh Liberation War Museum’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.), 17 (2011), S71–S91CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mookherjee, Nayanika, ‘The Absent Piece of Skin: Gendered, Racialized and Territorial Inscriptions of Sexual Violence during the Bangladesh War’, Modern Asian Studies, 46 (2012), pp. 1572–1601CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Saikia, ‘History on the Line’; Saikia, Women, War, and the Making of Bangladesh. These themes are also addressed in D'Costa, Bina, Nationbuilding, Gender and War Crimes in South Asia (London: Routledge, 2011)Google Scholar.

14 For example, Palit, D. K., The Lightning Campaign: The Indo-Pakistan War 1971 (Salisbury: Compton Press, 1972)Google Scholar; Singh, Lachhman, Indian Sword Strikes in East Pakistan (Sahibabad: Vikas Publishing House, 1979);Google ScholarUban, S. S., Phantoms of Chittagong: The ‘Fifth Army’ in Bangladesh (New Delhi: Allied Publishers, 1985)Google Scholar; Salik, Siddiq, Witness to Surrender (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1998 [1977])Google Scholar; Rahman, Abdul, East Pakistan—the End Game: An Onlooker's Journal 1969–1971 (Karachi, etc.: Oxford University Press, 2004)Google Scholar; and Niazi, A. A. K., The Betrayal of East Pakistan (Dhaka: University Press Limited, 1999)Google Scholar.

15 Gill, John H., An Atlas of the 1971 India-Pakistan War: The Creation of Bangladesh (Washington, D.C.: Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, 2003)Google Scholar; Mohan and Chopra, Eagles over Bangladesh.

16 Recorded oral evidence from different regions and localities comes in many forms. Some examples are Biswas (ed.), History from Below; Md. Mahbubar Rahman, Ekattore Gaibandha (Dhaka: Bangladesh Charcha, 2005); and Tareque and Catherine Masud's documentary film Muktir Kotha (1999).

17 It is especially urgent to interest young historians with a Pakistani background in this topic. It was a West Pakistani–East Pakistani conflict, and Pakistani–Bangladeshi teamwork is needed to rise above the incompatibility of Stories 1 and 2—and to bridge the gap between the focus on war crimes and devastation (Story 1) and the focus on high politics (Story 2).

18 This is the usual translation of the Bengali term Muktijuddho (literally, ‘Liberation War’).

19 See footnote 1.

20 I would like to thank them all for their generosity and their permission to reproduce these images. The photographs included in this article are from the collections of H. Zoramliana, K. Lalthansangi, Lalsangliana Sailo, the Mizo National Front, and R. Zamawia.

21 For introductions, see Burke, Peter, Eyewitnessing: The Uses of Images as Historical Evidence (London: Reaktion Books, 2001)Google Scholar; Edwards, Elizabeth, ‘Objects of Affect: Photography beyond the Image’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 41 (2012), pp. 221–234CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Pinney, Christopher, ‘Seven Theses on Photography’, Thesis Eleven, 113:1 (2012), pp. 141–156CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Up to 1952 Mizoram was known as the Lushai Hills, a name British administrators gave it after the military annexation of the region in the 1890s. Administratively, it was part of the province of Assam. In 1947 the Mizo Union, the first political party, submitted a memorandum demanding that the area be known as Mizoram and its inhabitants as Mizos. In 1952 it was renamed Mizo Hills District, and in 1972 it was separated from Assam to become the union territory of Mizoram. In 1986 its status was elevated to that of a state of the Indian Union. ‘Memorandum Submitted to His Majesty's Government, Government of India and its Constituent Assembly Through the Advisory Sub-Committee by the Mizo Union on 26.4.1947’, in Zorema, J., Indirect Rule in Mizoram 1890–1954 (The Bureaucracy and the Chiefs) (Delhi: Mittal Publications, 2007), pp. 189–194Google Scholar; Bareh, H. M., Encyclopaedia of North-East India: Volume 5—Mizoram (New Delhi: Mittal Publications, 2001), pp. 179–180Google Scholar.

23 Also known as the Reid-Coupland Plan. Reid, Robert, ‘The Excluded Areas of Assam’, The Geographical Journal, 103:1/2 (1944), pp. 18–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Syiemlieh, David R., ‘The Crown Colony Plan for the Hills of North East India: Concept to Collapse 1941–1946’, in Nag, Sajal, Gurung, Tejimala, and Choudhury, Abhijit (eds), Making of the Indian Union: Merger of Princely States and Excluded Areas (Delhi: Akansha Publishing House, 2007), pp. 241–248Google Scholar; Bareh, Encyclopaedia of North-East India: Volume 5, p. 177.

24 ‘Memorandum Submitted to His Majesty's Government’; Sangkima, Mizos: Society and Social Change (1890–1947) (Guwahati: Spectrum Publications, 1992), p. 138.

25 These sentiments found expression in a private letter of the period: ‘In fact the whole Mizo people are unwilling to be directly under Pakistan or Hindustan. But they were given to understand that is quite hopeless for them to call for the British Govt. to stay on, so as to lead them at least for some years more . . . Some of the Mizos are thinking to find out way [sic] so that they may join Burma. But that too appears to be rather uncertain to be really practicable although the Mizo-ram never was within India proper either before British Govt or after the British Govt. Before the British Govt the Mizo-ram was quite independent from either India or Burma.’ Letter from Saptea, Thakthing, Aijal, 5 July 1947, to Archibald Ian Bowman. The ‘case of the Mizo people for self-determination’ was also made in ‘A Memorandum of Mizo Union Council Submitted to His Majesty's Government . . .’, Aijal, 1 July 1947, signed by R. Vanlawma (secretary) and Pachhunga (chairman). Both documents can be found in Papers of Archibald Ian Bowman, Indian Civil Service, chiefly relating to the Lushai Hills Total Defence Scheme and ‘V’ Force 1942-44. MSS Eur F229/19, British Library, London.

26 Sajal Nag, ‘Tribals, Famine, Rats, State and the Nation’, Economic and Political Weekly (24 March 2001), p. 1029. The Indian state defines over 90 per cent of the population of Mizoram as ‘tribal’.

27 Nag, ‘Tribals, Famine, Rats, State and the Nation’, p. 1029; Aplin, Ken P. and Lalsiamliana, James, ‘Chronicle and Impacts of the 2005–09 Mautam in Mizoram’, in Singleton, Grantet al. (eds), Rodent Outbreaks: Ecology and Impacts (Los Baños: International Rice Research Institute, 2010), p. 25Google Scholar.

28 Bareh, Encyclopaedia of North-East India: Volume 5, pp. 183–187.

29 The radicalization of the Mizo National Front in the years leading up to 1966 is described in Zamawia, R., Zofate Zinkawngah (Zalenna Mei a Mit Tur a Ni Lo) (Aizawl: The author, 2007), pp. 171–265Google Scholar. I am grateful to Joy L. K. Pachuau for translations from this book.

30 Zamawia, Zofate Zinkawngah, p. 266. Christianity is the majority religion in Mizoram.

31 Before the revolt, the Mizo National Army had been known as the Mizo National Volunteers. Zamawia, Zofate Zinkawngah, p. 379.

32 Lalthakima, ‘Insurgency in Mizoram: A Study of its Origin, Growth and Dimension’, PhD thesis, Mizoram University, 2008; Bareh, Encyclopaedia of North-East India: Volume 5, pp. 208, 212–232.

33 Lieutenant-General Sam Manekshaw, General Officer Commanding, Eastern Command of the Indian Army, at a press conference in Kolkata in 1966. Quoted in Subir Bhaumik, Insurgent Crossfire: North-East India (New Delhi, etc.: Lancer Publishers, 1996), p. 151.

34 Zamawia, Zofate Zinkawngah, pp. 295, 297.

35 Dommen, Arthur J., ‘Separatist Tendencies in Eastern India’, Asian Survey, 7:10 (1967), pp. 726–739CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nunthara, C., Impact of the Introduction of Grouping of Villages in Mizoram (Delhi: Omsons Publications, 1989)Google Scholar; Bhaumik, Insurgent Crossfire; Verghese, C. G. and Thanzawna, R. L., A History of the Mizos, Vol. 2 (Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1997), pp. 72–75Google Scholar; Denise Adele Ségor, ‘Tracing the Persistent Impulse of a Bedrock Nation to Survive Within the State of India: Mizo Women's Response to War and Forced Migration’, PhD thesis, Fielding Graduate University, 2006; Pachuau, Lalsangkima, ‘Ethnic Identity and the Gospel of Reconciliation’, Mission Studies, 26:1 (2009), p. 50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sundar, Nandini, ‘Interning Insurgent Populations: The Buried Histories of Indian Democracy’, Economic and Political Weekly (5 February 2011), pp. 47–57.Google Scholar

36 Zamawia, Zofate Zinkawngah gives the most detailed account of the various campaigns, clashes, and encounters.

37 I am grateful to all the ex-combatants who shared their images (see footnote 20) for the information they provided about depicted locations and individuals, as well as about dates.

38 A few villages in the Sajek borderland are inhabited by ethnic affiliates, notably Lushai (known as Mizo in Mizoram) and Pangkhua (known as Pang in Mizoram). The Mizo rebels’ capital was established in Mahmuam, a Lushai village. Kim, Amy, Roy, Palash, and Sangma, Mridul, The Kuki-Chin Communities of Bangladesh: A Sociolinguistic Survey (Dallas, Texas: SIL International, 2011)Google Scholar.

39 Hluna, J. V., ‘MNF Relations with Foreign Powers’, in Prasad, R. N (ed.), Autonomy Movements in Mizoram (New Delhi, Vikas Publishing House Pvt. Ltd., 1994) p. 190Google Scholar; Bhaumik, Insurgent Crossfire, pp. 145–149; Lalthakima, ‘Insurgency in Mizoram’, pp. 81–82.

40 From left to right: Commissioner Thangkima, Pu V. L. T. Muana, Brigadier General Muankima, R. Zamawia, Commissioner Vanlalzika (groom), Muani (bride), Zohmingi, Zangi, Tinsangi, Nurse Rami. Mahmuam Baptist Church, 7 October 1969.

41 Among the men are Senator L. M. S. Colney, Chawnglianthuama, V. L. T. Muana, Chawnghnuna, and Tlangrawta.

42 Then spelled ‘Dacca’. Zamawia, Zofate Zinkawngah, p. 478.

43 Nirmal Nibedon, Mizoram: The Dagger Brigade (New Delhi: Lancers Publishers, 1980), p. 157.

44 See van Schendel, Willem, Mey, Wolfgang, and Dewan, Aditya Kumar, The Chittagong Hill Tracts: Living in a Borderland (Bangkok: White Lotus, 2000)Google Scholar; Mohaiemen, Naeemet al. (eds), Between Ashes and Hope: Chittagong Hill Tracts in the Blind Spot of Bangladesh Nationalism (Dhaka: Drishtipat Writers’ Collective, 2010)Google Scholar.

45 John Gill erroneously shows this area to have been ‘captured by India/Mukti Bahini [pro-Bangladesh Freedom Fighters] prior to 3 December’. Gill, An Atlas of the 1971 India-Pakistan War, p. 16.

46 The National Day commemorated the establishment of the Mizo National Front on 22 October 1961. Together with Independence Day (1 March) it represented the ceremonial high point of the Mizoram political calendar.

47 The portrait, taken at the bungalow of the deputy commissioner of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, shows the president of Mizoram (Laldenga) sitting in the middle. To the left is the secretary to the president (Zoramthanga) and to the right the establishment secretary and area commissioner of Rûn (V. L. T. Muana). Standing from left to right are the director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (Zahmingthanga), the commissioner (Lalhleia), and the police commissioner (Lawmthanga).

48 From left to right: Colonel Lallawta, Lieutenant Colonel Sangliana, Captain Tawnluia, and A. D. (S.) Thangzela.

49 It was not a peaceful bubble by any means, however. For internal squabbling among Mizos in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, see Bareh, Encyclopaedia of North-East India: Volume 5, pp. 147–154.

50 They also received help from the Chinese consulate in Dhaka. In the Bangladesh Liberation War, the United States supported the Pakistan side, and India and the Soviet Union the Bangladesh side. Hluna, ‘MNF Relations with Foreign Powers’; Bareh, Encyclopaedia of North-East India: Volume 5, pp. 149–150.

51 From left to right: Police Commissioner Lawmthanga Colney, Superintendent of Police Lalnghenga, and Inspector of Police Lalmawia.

52 Bareh, Encyclopaedia of North-East India: Volume 5, p. 149.

53 Nibedon, Mizoram, p. 164.

54 Cf. Zamawia, Zofate Zinkawngah, p. 346.

55 From left to right: Superintendent of Police Lalnghenga, Captain Lalhleia, Thanthuama, and Lalsangliana (all members of the State Security Agency). With them are commandos of Pakistan's Special Services Group and the son of an East Pakistan police officer.

56 Uban, Phantoms of Chittagong, p. 101; cf. Gill, An Atlas of the 1971 India-Pakistan War, p. 32.

57 Bareh reports Indian airplanes over the Chittagong Hill Tracts and (rumours of) Indian soldiers in these hills as early as April 1971, Encyclopaedia of North-East India: Volume 5, pp. 151–152. The first Indian aircraft sweeps over East Pakistan took place on 30 March 1971, four days after the beginning of the war. Mohan and Chopra, Eagles over Bangladesh, p. 78.

58 The Indian armed forces entering the Chittagong Hill Tracts from the east were under Major General S. S. Uban. They were not part of the regular Indian Army but formed ‘an irregular Tibetan unit [that] the RAW [Research and Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency] operated’. It was based in Lunglei in Mizoram ‘battling Mizo insurgents and so was leveraged for the war’. Mohan and Chopra, Eagles over Bangladesh, pp. 256–257, 283; Uban, Phantoms of Chittagong.

59 Lalsangliana Sailo, quoted in Nibedon, Mizoram, p. 166.

60 Alternate spellings: Rakhine (Myanmar).

61 This river, officially named Rainkhyang (alternate spellings: Renikhyong or Rainkhiang), also has a Mizo name, Tatkawng.

62 See Nibedon, Mizoram, pp. 166–170; Bareh, Encyclopaedia of North-East India: Volume 5, pp. 155–157; Uban, Phantoms of Chittagong, pp. 109, 113.

63 Other images of the Bangladesh Liberation War that can be understood as reflecting adventure and romance rather than terror and devastation are discussed in Mookherjee, Nayanika, ‘Mobilising Images: Encounters of “Forced” Migrants and the Bangladesh War of 1971’, Mobilities, 6:3 (2011), pp. 399–414CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

64 This happened on 22 December 1971. Nibedon, Mizoram, p. 170.

65 Bareh, Encyclopaedia of North-East India: Volume 5, pp. 63–64, 150. Contacts between these two insurgent groups dated back to 1967. ‘In the second half of 1967, a branch of the Burmese Communist Party, the head of the Arakan Communist Party, Kra Hla Aung, and three others had come to Mizoram. They held talks with the Vice-President [of the Mizoram government, by the name of Lalnunmawia], who was then in the Lurh division [of Mizoram]. Their main agenda was to get Mizo support in fighting the Burmese government and the need for uniting in the struggle.’ Zamawia, Zofate Zinkawngah, p. 620.

66 Bareh, Encyclopaedia of North-East India: Volume 5, p. 63.

67 Nibedon, Mizoram, pp. 173–174.

68 The military face of the insurrection became known as the Shanti Bahini (Peace Forces) and its political face as the Parbotto Chottogram Jono Shonghoti Shomiti (United People's Party of the Chittagong Hill Tracts).

69 Even though the Chittagong Hill Tracts War came to an end with a peace treaty in 1997, intense militarization, antagonism, and lower-level conflict continue to this day. Mohsin, Amena, The Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh: On the Difficult Road to Peace (Boulder/London: Lynne Rienner, 2003)Google Scholar; Chakma, Bhumitra, ‘The Post-Colonial State and Minorities: Ethnocide in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh’, Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, 48:3 (2010), pp. 281–300CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Pandey, Pranab Kumar and Jamil, Ishtiaq, ‘Conflict in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh: An Unimplemented Accord and Continued Violence’, Asian Survey, 49:6 (2009), pp. 1052–1070CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mohaiemen, Naeem (ed.), Between Ashes and Hope: Chittagong Hill Tracts in the Blind Spot of Bangladesh Nationalism (Dhaka: Drishtipat Writers’ Collective, 2010)Google Scholar. See also regular updates provided by the Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission: www.chtcommission.org, [accessed 22 August 2015]; and http://www.chtnews.com, [accessed 22 August 2015].

70 Bareh, Encyclopaedia of North-East India: Volume 5, pp. 190–194.

71 Bhaumik, Insurgent Crossfire, p. 264; Verghese and Thanzawna, A History of the Mizos, Vol. 2, p. 110.

72 Saikia's voice has been the strongest to urge for a new historiography that should blur the boundaries and thus could act as a first step towards reconciliation. Saikia, Women, War, and the Making of Bangladesh.

73 Thus this case joins other contributions to second-generation narratives of the war (notably those by Mookherjee and Saikia, mentioned earlier) that have challenged the good/bad categorization and demonstrated the importance of being attentive to persons, situations, and cases that straddled this divide during the war.

74 For introductions, see Mohsin, Amena, The Politics of Nationalism: The Case of the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh (Dhaka: University Press Limited, 1997)Google Scholar; Adnan, Shapan, Migration, Land Alienation and Ethnic Conflict: Causes of Poverty in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh (Dhaka: Research and Advisory Services, 2004)Google Scholar; and Jhala, Angma D., ‘Daughters of the Hills: Legacies of Colonialism, Nationalism and Religious Communalism in the Chakma Raj Family, Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bengal, c. 1900–1972’, South Asian History and Culture, 4:1 (2013), pp. 107–125CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Further perspectives are provided by Siddartha Chakma, Proshongo: Parbotyo Chottogram (Calcutta: Nath Brothers, 1392 B.E. [1985–86]); Shelley, Mizanur Rahman (ed.), The Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh: The Untold Story (Dhaka: Centre for Development Research, 1992)Google Scholar; and Roy, Raja Tridiv, The Departed Melody (Memoirs) (Islamabad: PPA Publications, 2003)Google Scholar.

75 Ahsan, Syed Aziz-al and Chakma, Bhumitra, ‘Problems of National Integration in Bangladesh: The Chittagong Hill Tracts’, Asian Survey, 29:10 (1989), pp. 959–970CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pandey and Jamil, ‘Conflict in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh’; Uddin, Nasir, ‘Living on the Margin: The Positioning of the “Khumi” within the Sociopolitical and Ethnic History of the Chittagong Hill Tracts’, Asian Ethnicity, 9:1 (2008), pp. 33–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chakma, ‘The Postcolonial State and Minorities’; Mohaiemen (ed.), Between Ashes and Hope.

76 For example, apart from everyday violence and coercion, in its first few years the Pakistan state turned murderously violent against rebelling policemen (1948) and demonstrating students (1952) in Dhaka.

77 The Ansars were the largest of a number of volunteer militias in East Pakistan; others were the Muslim (League) National Guards, the Pakistan National Guards, the Mujahids, and the Razakars. Eastern Pakistan Ansars Ordinance 1948 (12 February 1948); Ansar Act (1948); First Annual Report on the Ansars (Dacca, 1949), in Home (Police) Department, Branch Police, B. Proceedings P10A-76/49(11-49), National Archives of Bangladesh, Dhaka. See also van Schendel, Willem, The Bengal Borderland: Beyond State and Nation in South Asia (London: Anthem Press, 2005), pp. 96–97Google Scholar, 277.

78 Niazi, Betrayal, pp. 75–79.

79 Alternative spelling: ‘Jatiya Rakshi Bahini’. ‘Jatiyo Rokkhi Bahini Act, 1972’ (President Order no. 21). Karim, S. A., Sheikh Mujib: Triumph and Tragedy (Dhaka: University Press Limited, 2005), pp. 272–274Google Scholar.

80 Riaz, Ali, ‘Bangladesh in 2004: The Politics of Vengeance and the Erosion of Democracy’, Asian Survey, 45:1 (2005), pp. 112–118CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Momtaz, Suraya, ‘Human Rights Violations in Bangladesh: A Study of the Violations by the Law Enforcing Agencies’, Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 13:4 (2013), pp. 101–117Google Scholar.

81 Such links involved many partners. A good example is Indian Major General S.S. Uban who, first, headed the operations against insurgents in Mizoram; then, second, trained the Mujib Bahini (one of the units of Bangladesh Freedom Fighters struggling against the Pakistan armed forces in East Pakistan in 1971); third, invaded the Chittagong Hill Tracts in December 1971, battling Mizo fighters there; and, fourth, acted as advisor to the Bangladesh government in the creation and training of the Rokkhi Bahini in 1972. Karim, Sheikh Mujib, pp. 215, 271–272.

82 Conversely, Mizo involvement in the Bangladesh Liberation War has been of little concern to Mizoram historians. There are a number of published accounts in English, and the most detailed memoir is in the Mizo language. In addition to Nibedon (Mizoram) and Bareh (Encyclopaedia of North-East India: Volume 5), English publications include: Vumson, Zo History: With an Introduction to Zo Culture, Economy, Religion and their Status as an Ethnic Minority in India, Burma, and Bangladesh (Aizawl: the author, 1993); and Verghese and Thanzawna, A History of the Mizos, Vol. 2. The most prominent source in Mizo is Zamawia, Zofate Zinkawngah.