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Archive 1 (Jan. 2005 — Jan. 2006) |
TEST saved.........
I think it's non-biased to use the word genocide. Violence is too general and can have multiple interpretations. I am reproducing an excerpt that shows that the violence was indeed a planned genocide.
London, 6/13/71). The Sunday Times....."The Government's policy for East Bengal was spelled out to me in the Eastern Command headquarters at Dacca. It has three elements:
*The Bengalis have proved themselves unreliable and must be ruled by West Pakistanis;
*The Bengalis will have to be re-educated along proper Islamic lines. The - Islamization of the masses - this is the official jargon - is intended to eliminate secessionist tendencies and provide a strong religious bond with West Pakistan;
*When the Hindus have been eliminated by death and fight, their property will be used as a golden carrot to win over the under privileged Muslim middle-class. This will provide the base for erecting administrative and political structures in the future."
PS: Thanks for the ise to ize. I am a little obsessed with British (aka standard) English! :) Urnonav
I want to add more to discuss 'genocide' here. Is what happened an incident of genocide. The George Washington University National Security Archives has some interesting declassified documents in this regard. Amibidhrohi 17:32, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
This discussion is unnecessary. The point is that *many* scholars in and beyond Bangladesh believe that genocide has been committed in Bangladesh, and wikipedia has a responsbility to report that. The article can do with more citations, but the claim is NOT that genocide has been committed, but that there is widespread conviction that it has been committed. It is funny that one needs to look up definitions and such to report that. -- ppm 19:41, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
"Still less familiar to most will be the 1971 genocide in Bangladesh, notable for the systematic use of mass rape as an instrument of war and the deliberate targeting of educational and cultural elites for destruction. " From a review of: Century of Genocide: Eyewitness Accounts and Critical Views Samuel Totten, William S. Parsons + Israel W. Charny (editors) Garland 1997
Atrocities against humanity during the liberation war in Bangladesh: a case of genocide Wardatul Akmam
Journal of Genocide Research Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group Issue: Volume 4, Number 4 / December 01, 2002 Pages: 543 - 559 URL: Linking Options DOI: 10.1080/146235022000000463
Just for example. Again, our job in wikipedia is not to *prove* genocide or otherwise, but to report that it is a widespread belief among many scholars that genocide has occurred. Let's not be the judge, but the reporters. This is independent of the citation situation, that must be improved. But again, we don't need to check any definitions of genocide (clearly widely debalted), to report a widespread claim.-- ppm 20:00, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Also, you still failed to clarify what a centain definition of genocide has to do with all this, which was my main point (I accepted the lack of citations).-- ppm 22:16, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
"Also IMHO any opinion that does not take into account ... is of less use" ... interesting. So any opinion about events far in past formed before such reports are garbage. -- ppm 18:55, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
The reference I put higher up this page (prosecutor v. Radislav Krstic - Appeals Chamber) is the appeal judgement of case the BBC is referring to it explains in detail why killing just 8,000 men could be a genocide. It has to do (amoung other things) with access of the perpetrator to the victim population (think of it as fox in a hen house. If there are 10 houses and the fox only has access to one, if the fox kills all the hens in the first house, then it can be credibly argued that the fox had "intent to destroy" all the hens if it could have gained access to them).
It is not that the definition has been overridden since 1948 but the recent genocide tribunals, the first since the coming into force of the CPPCG, have had to interpret the meaning of the treaty in a court of law. This mean for example defining what "intent to destroy" and "in part" mean for a court trying someone for genocide. With each case, whether the defendant is found guilty or innocent, the legal meaning of the term becomes refined and clearer.
I would agree with your first statement, the format should be it that the XYZ international tribunal found Mr Mass-murderer guilty of genocide in Bangladesh. However you summation of my opinion shows that you misunderstood what I wrote. I am sorry that I did not make myself clear. To reiterate: opinions that do not take into account the recent UN sanctioned tribunals' judgements are of less use than those which do, because the judgements help to clarify what under international law is a genocide.
A person who says "I could murder a beer", does not usually mean that one can literaly murder a beer, it is a figure of speech. Often people use terms like "war crime" and "genocide" as figures of speech. Meaning they think which was done was morally reprehensible. This does not mean that they think the act was literaly and legaly the phrase they have used. As the topic is contriversial a mention on this page that "there is widespread belief that genocide has taken place" needs a source stating this, and it needs to be worded in such a way that it is clear who is stating this. The source needs to be "publish material that is verifiable with reference to reliable, published sources". -- Philip Baird Shearer 20:36, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Philip, I don't know how familiar you are with the various mass killings that took place during the liberation war. That you contest the use of the word "genocide" in this context is reprehensible. Here is what constitutes genocide according to the UN:
Article 2: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately infliciting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
As for your "1.5 million isn't a significant number" statement, remember that the Pakistanis never voluntarily ceased the killing. The killing of Bengalis was only stopped by the millitary intervention of the Mukhti Bahini and the Indian military. There is ample evidence that shows the Pakistani massacres were aimed at the general populous with the intent to 'destroy' the 'in whole and in part'. You can see this when you note the targeting of the intellectuals and of university students (I take it you know of the cases where the Pakistanis locked in female students in their dormitories and then burned the whole building down with them inside?). As for the use of the term "genocide" by US diplomats in the region, see here: [1] . The word is used frequently in the documents collected by the National Security Archives, you'd have found quite a few incidences if you'd look with some sincerity. Amibidhrohi 20:10, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
I've read your comments, and they don't hold water. To know more about what constitutes genocide, check this out: [2]. In layman terms, what constitutes a genocide is the intent to destroy ALL OR PART of a people. Genocide has nothing to do with attempting to make a people of a group extinct, and therefore the fact that 3 out of 75 or so million people were actually killed is not a determinant of whether or not the term is applicable. The targeting of a population of a particular ethnicity or race or religion simply because that population is of that ethnicity or race or religion is enough to meet that requirement. Personally, I don't believe the UN definition should be adhered to anyway. The UN poorly funded organization when considering the magnitudes of the tasks it's burdened with; and as such the UN tends to adopt stringent definitions of such events simply to avoid having to do something about the event, and thus put more pressure on its challenged bodies..As such, the UN definition of genocide is not NPOV at all. Within Bangladesh, the term genocide is precisely the term used by all intellectuals. It's been used by NGOs as well as outside publications as well. Since we cannot agree on calling the atrocity 'genocide', my suggestion is a section titled "Genocide" that documents all the various publications and personalities that have used the term 'genocide' to describe this 'atrocity'. Amibidhrohi 05:40, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
The current text says: "Among them, the infamous Blood telegram from the US embassy in Dacca, East Pakistan, stated the horrors of genocide taking place in East Pakistan." -- but the source given: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB79/BEBB1.pdf does not describe the actions as genocide instead it uses terms like "reign of terror", "systematically eliminating" "systematically attacking" and "murdering". Unless it is an incorrect link the wikipedia text should be changed to reflect the source. -- Philip Baird Shearer 19:13, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Wrong sentence :-( -- Philip Baird Shearer 20:19, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
The start of the section does not have a reference for most of the opening paragraph. It it is to remain in the article in its current format then it needs citations. In most cases the first half of the sentence, or frist of two short sentences, are probably undisputable, but the second half of the sentence, or second sentence, need sources: Eg "at a level that Bangladeshis maintain is one of the worst genocides in history".
To quote from the policy document WP:V "Information on Wikipedia must be reliable. Facts, viewpoints, theories, and arguments may only be included in articles if they have already been published by reliable and reputable sources. Articles should cite these sources whenever possible. Any unsourced material may be challenged and removed." -- Philip Baird Shearer 23:47, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
I think a better and less POV title for this article is Bangladesh War this is also the most common name on Google:
To break those figures down a little, "Bangladesh War of" returns:
If a disambiguation problem with "Bangladesh War" the the name "Bangladesh War of Independence" carries less POV -- Philip Baird Shearer 12:02, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
Why is google god? -- ppm 19:11, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
It is not but it is an indicator of common usage which is part of Wikipedia:Naming conventions. -- Philip Baird Shearer 14:31, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
If this is POV, so is American revolutionary war.-- ppm 04:36, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
It does not matter much what the Bangladeshi and Indian governments call it officially, what matters on Wikipedia is that the name does not have a one sided POV and the common English language usage. What is the war called in Pakistan and what is it called by organisations which are disinterested? -- Philip Baird Shearer 11:04, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
Please could you direct me to the Library of Congress source because I could not find it with a quick search of the article. I had missed out a Google search of ["Bangladesh War" -wikipedia] above so I have added it, and it is 3 times a common as "Bangladesh Liberation War" but because it could refer to more than one one (not sure which other one) was the reason I added 1971 for a secondary search. Doing a seach of gov.uk only returns one page, a search of ac.uk does not return many pages, but it does return more with the name "Bangladesh War". It is a similar case with the domain ".edu":
Doing a search of the Amazon.com site on books returns nearly twice as many book titles "Bangladesh War" as "Bangladesh liberation War" (76 to 41). Can you show me any more UN page which calls it the "Bangladesh Liberation War" because when I google for the phrase including (site:un.org) I get:
and for site:unhcr.org
It seem to me that by any seach I do over a number of different criteria that "Bangladesh War" is more common than "Bangladesh liberation War" and IMHO "Bangladesh War" carries less POV than "Bangladesh Liberation War". I would be interested to hear any arguments that the title "Bangladesh Liberation War" does not carry more POV than "Bangladesh War" -- Philip Baird Shearer 09:59, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
Britannica seems to use "The Bangladesh war (from India)" as a page title. [3] At first glance it seems reasonable to me to omit the "liberation" part from the name but my opinion is pretty irrelevant since I've never edited this page and know nothing about the topic :) - Haukur 19:43, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Both Amazon and Google are sites that use English in their searches. The west is particularly advanced when it comes to using the internet to create pages or discuss things. Amazon is obviously dominated by goods and books retailed in the Western countries. Therefore the results you get back disproportionately represent the opinion of the West. Most westerners have little or no knowlege of the event, save the famine that followed in 1975, so it makes sense that they'd defer to the most simplistic title for the event, namely the "Bangladesh War". To use popular search engines and shop sites like Amazon to determine the title of the article is rather unencyclopedic.
Bit of an off-topic...Is it POV to called what happened to Jews during WW2 a holocaust? POV doesn't mean we presume all sides equal at the cost of accurately depicting history. A neutral eye over what happened in East Pakistan prior to and leading to the war, and all that's happened since pretty much supports the phrase "War of Independence" or "War of Liberation", even from a neutral perspective. Amibidhrohi 17:32, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
IMHO "BD Liberation War" isn't POV at all. It is simply more informative, and I don't see why it is POV or supportive of any side. Someone might opine that Independence of Bangladesh was an awful thing, but it has nothing to do with the FACT that that was the goal of the war! Descriptive names are good for other reasons, as Countries tend to have many wars (not that I want or expect BD to have any more of those) -- ppm 04:19, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
i think pakistanis are either too stupid or too barerous like cavemen.well if mass murdering and gangrapes doesnt account o genocide,what else corresponds to genocide from the pakistani point of view?something even more worse? true,the pakistani army doesnt know how to fight,they only know how to butcher innocent civilian populations like those in bangladesh and balochistan.and another thing they are famous for is raping, especially punjabi pakistanis. 93000 soldiers surrendered unconditionally,what else is required to show that pakistani army is a worthless army.and even more so,the present "president"as mr pervert musharaf calls himself was among those 90000 soldiers who surrendered to mitro bahini,a allied force of mukto bahini and indian army.-- Jayanthv86 04:27, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
What is this? Wikipedia or a soapbox for the Indians to stand on and lecture people?? How about you deal with the genocide of Kashmiris before claiming others to be stupid.
Secondly, this 90,000 soldiers is a common BS mistake used by the Indians all the time. There were a total of 3 Pakistani Divisions in East Pakistan and some independent brigades. Combined, their numbers do not come close to 50,000. If you had a clue about the structure and size of Divisions in Pakistani and Indians armies, you would get an idea as to how shoddy your biased claim here is. The rest of the 90,000 included civilian Pakistani administration in East Pakistan that included police etc. of West Pakistani origin (these were not combatants). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.211.163.213 ( talk • contribs).
Anon 136.159.235.56 ( talk · contribs) continues to add the POV tag almost on a daily basis, without any explanation for that. Since no explanation is given for the tag, I am removing it. Thanks. -- Ragib 21:48, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Once again, the anon 136.159.243.25 ( talk · contribs) from the University of Calgary continues the daily POV tag addition routine ... please add your points here rather than continuously inserting the tag. It is always better to have a discussion. Even if you feel there is a POV, we can work on it through discussion.
Thanks
-- Ragib 03:47, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Is anyone aware of the Bengali population during the war? CJK 02:37, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
OK, thanks. I think should be incorporated. CJK 18:04, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
It was interesting to read the discussion. By the way, when the War was being fought, I was a student of Patna University, India. The situation was really grim. In my state of Jharkhand, thousands of the troops of the Pakistani Army who had surrendered to the Indian Army were lodged. They were kept in camps in Ramgarh (headquarters of the Sikh Regiment) located about 30 km away from my hometown Ranchi. -- Bhadani 14:04, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
I have added an Unreferencedsect to this section. After the first paragraph which does have references there are a lot of specific facts and allegations for which there are no citations. -- Philip Baird Shearer 16:42, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
It is much better. The reason I did not put [citation needed] tag before was that almost every sentence needed one. Now that you have given references for the majority of the section, I have put [citation needed] on those sentences which are not yet covered. Some of them like the undressing do not seem unreasonable, but if there is not an easily available source, then removing such sentences or parts of sentences will not affect the overall tone of the section. -- Philip Baird Shearer 12:19, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
10 days have passed and there text with "[citation needed]" it would be better if citations can be found rather than having to delete the text. -- Philip Baird Shearer 22:31, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
I have added an Unreferencedsect to this section. It makes lots of statments for which there are no citations. For example "Some of the current leaders of Islamic parties like Jamaati-i-Islami were directly involved in carrying out these killing missions." -- Philip Baird Shearer 16:42, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
The two references added are a start but they by no means cover all the assertions made by this section . Eg the first two sentences "The Pakistani ruling class had long had a distaste for Bengali intellectuals and students. They viewed them, correctly, as among the main proponents of the rise of Bengali nationalism in East Pakistan" are not covered by either of the articles.
The first reference has language like this "intellectuals martyred by the selective killing regime of the occupation forces" is not the language of a dispassionate NPOV article I am not sure it qualifies as: Wikipedia:reliable sources.
The second article contains quaified information like "The blue print of crippling the intelligentsia is said to have been chalked" and "The armed cadres of al-badr, a para-military force, is alleged to have executed" etc. The wikipedia article does not reflect this type of qualification -- Philip Baird Shearer 23:52, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
More than a week has passed since the last edit on the section (17 March 2006 by Amibidhrohi). I would like to see this section fully citated or the uncited text removed. -- Philip Baird Shearer 22:37, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
The Liberals and the Religious Right in Bangladesh, M. Rashiduzzaman, Asian Survey, Vol. 34, No. 11. (Nov., 1994), pp. 974-990.
Bangladesh at the Crossroads: Religion and Politics, Partha S. Ghosh, Asian Survey, Vol. 33, No. 7, South Asia: Responses to the Ayodhya Crisis. (Jul., 1993), pp. 697-710.
--
ppm
19:12, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Shouldn't we put in something under US and USSR about the US sending its Seventh Fleet into the Bay of Bengal? That seemed pretty important. Shayon 22:44, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
Reference for allegation of circumcision checks, death of women by forcing bayonets between their legs, gang rape, "leaving of seed" by Pakistani Army
Rape as Genocide: Bangladesh, the Former Yugoslavia, and Rwanda
Lisa Sharlach
New Political Science
Publisher:Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group
Issue:Volume 22, Number 1 / March 1, 2000
Pages:89 - 102
Reference for "Systematic rape as a war tool" in 1971 Bangladesh
THE TRAUMA OF WAR RAPE: A COMPARATIVE VIEW ON THE BOSNIAN CONFLICT AND THE GREEK CIVIL WAR
History and Anthropology
Publisher:Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group
Issue:Volume 14, Number 1 / March 2003
Pages:41 - 44
I hope editors will incorporate them. -- ppm 19:28, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Also,, notice a certain word in the 1st reference. -- ppm 19:35, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
I had added the following sentence to this article: "A smaller number of non-Bengali citizens were also killed in clashes with the Mukti Bahini." It was removed, probably considering a POV. I would definitely learn a thing or two about wikipedia's contribution policy, if someone could please tell me why the above sentence was considered inappropriate. Thanks. Mokal. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 202.69.36.44 ( talk • contribs).
I do not have any leanings or any favourites in Bangladeshi politics and I find it demeaning and disturbing when different parties re-write history for self glorification. Here are just a few points even though I would like to give a longer lecture. 202.52.205.130 23:26, 16 April 2006 (UTC) Raqta
"East Pakistanis noticed that whenever one of them, such as Khawaja Nazimuddin, Muhammad Ali Bogra, or Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy were elected Prime Minister of Pakistan, they were swiftly deposed by the largely West Pakistani establishment." Quoted from the article.
I do not know how far the above mentioned "heroes" can be called one of them(Bangladesh's own). 202.52.205.130 23:26, 16 April 2006 (UTC) Raqta
On 27th January, 1952, Khaja Najimuddin betrayed his commitment and again declared Urdu as the only State Language.
Hmmm does not sound like he is one of Bengal's own. 202.52.205.130 23:26, 16 April 2006 (UTC) Raqta
In 1954 the United Front of Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani, A. K. Fazlul Huq and Hussein Shuhrwardi won the elections. Huq became the Prime Minister. In 1957 Shuhwrardi was the Prime Minister (instead of Bhashani who was the main popular force in the grand electoral victory of '54.)
Bhashani wanted total autonomy for East Bengal (Bangladesh) at the historic Kagmari conference, '57, but Prime Minister Shuhrwardi and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman went the opposite way thus forcing Bhashani out of the party he created -- The Awami League. (This paved the way for Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to come to the centre of Bengali politics later in the 60s.) This event shows the betrayal of East Bengal by (at least) Shuhrwardi (even if we let Mujib off the hook since he was not the Prime Minister).
So IS Shuhrwardi really one of Bengal's own...
(Source: 1 Shadhinata Sangramey Bangalee (Liberation Struggle of The Bangalees) An Album of Photographs by Aftab Ahmed. Third Edition 2nd Poush 1405 (16th December 1998); Published by Aftab Ahmed Barna -Sagar Prokashani, 63 West Rampura, Dhaka 1219. Translated by Mofidul Hoque. 2 Lest We Forget: Moulana Bhasani -- the leader of the oppressed by Engr. M. Inamul Haque. Published by the Daily Star, Dhaka, Monday, November 18, 2002) 202.52.205.130 23:26, 16 April 2006 (UTC) Raqta
"Close ties existed between East Pakistan and West Bengal, one of the Indian states bordering Bangladesh," Quoted from the article.
Well Duh! For millennia it was the same country (Banga, Gongahridoy, etc)... the same people... relatives on both sides of the dividing border... SO OBVIOUSLY they will have close ties. They are one people... separated by a line drawn on the map by the British and drawn in hearts by religious bigots. 202.52.205.130 23:26, 16 April 2006 (UTC) Raqta
"He urged "his people" to turn every house into a fort of resistance. He closed his speech saying, "The struggle this time is for our freedom. The struggle this time is for our independence." This speech is considered the main event that inspired the nation to fight for their independence." Quoted from the article.
A. This speech is considered the main event inspiring the nation to fight by Awami League adherents and may be, the Communist Party of Bangladesh adherents which at that time was allied to Awami League. I do not consider any one event as the main event that inspired the nation. The notion is rather simplistic. There were people who wanted to fight for independence as early as 1962... (Taherer Osomapto Biplob) and yes they were organised. There was an army called the BLF (Shahjahan Siraj) and there were other Maoist guerrilla armies that were preparing for a Pakistani onslaught well before the speech. The students were also far ahead of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.(Swadhinota Juddhe Bamponthider Bhumika) 202.52.205.130 23:26, 16 April 2006 (UTC) Raqta
B. "his people" Quoted from the article.
Not all in the 7th March rally or the country were "his people". As Fakir Alamgir said on Trityo Matra, on Channel I, he and his allies (the leftists) had brought the masses to the rally... and had made it the mammoth rally that it was. I have spoken to non Mujib supporters who had attended the rally. The picture that Awami League wants to portray is that all the work was done by their Great LEADER Mujib and the article seems to speak for Awami League here. Be more neutral. 202.52.205.130 23:26, 16 April 2006 (UTC) Raqta
"They failed to secure permission from higher authorities to broadcast the message. They crossed Kalurghat Bridge into an area controlled by East Bengal Regiment under Major Ziaur Rahman." Quoted from the article.
I urge you to verify the fact. Was that the area controlled by Ziaur Rahman? I would refer you Belal Mohammed, the person who is the hero who organized the rebel radio. If Zia was in command... well and good but do verify... for this could only be BNP's "TRUTH". 202.52.205.130 23:26, 16 April 2006 (UTC) Raqta
"At 19:45 on 26 March 1971, Major Ziaur Rahman broadcast another announcement of the declaration of independence on behalf of Sheikh Mujibur which is as follows." Quoted from the article.
This is misinformation. The declaration was made on the 27th March not 26th. Ask Belal Mohammad for verification since he convinced and brought Zia to the radio station to make the declaration. 202.52.205.130 23:26, 16 April 2006 (UTC) Raqta
"Though smaller maoist style paramilitary bands started emerging, the Mukti Bahini were becoming increasingly visible. Headed by Colonel Muhammad Ataul Gani Osmani," Quoted from the article.
Well actually they were small only according to Awami League and pro Awami League sources. According to Col. Osmani own statements, he commanded only about 80 thousand muktis (men)... (From Osmani's interview) I do not remember the exact figure, but Siraj Sikdar's force (a Maoist style paramilitary as you call it) was larger (please verify). (Refer to, "Role of the Leftists in the Liberation War of Bangladesh) There were other such forces around the country. From what I have found out... 202.52.205.130 23:26, 16 April 2006 (UTC) Raqta
Conclusion (sort of)
Awami League accuses the BNP of manipulating history and itself is probably guilty of the same crime. Please write a balanced history without exaggerations or deletions AND without misinformation. Verify everything... If I am wrong, I will accept correction... if you are wrong... Please make necessary corrections.
The history in this article does not mention Maulana Bhashani, the creator of Awami League and the person who has pushed the country towards independence. The article does not talk about Sirajul Alam Khan, Siraj Shikdar, Huq, Toaha, Rashed Khan Menon, Colonel Taher, Belal Mohammad, Abul Bashar, Shahjahan Siraj, Abdur Rab, Makhan, Siddiqui, Abdul Matin (the main Language Movement leader) and others. I do not care what party they belong to or support but their roles are undeniable and must be mentioned.
Many of these leaders are alive ... why not interview them.... interview the closest associates of those who have died. Get a thorough picture of the war.
Also refer to Col. Osmani's interviews and you will find out many things. For one Osmani claims that he was not told that the Pakistanis were surrendering (refering to the 16th December). He says it was a deliberate act and he was distracted and kept out of the way by an Indian officer. There was also an attempt on his life ON THE 16th OF DECEMBER, 1971. (Also from his interview.) 202.52.205.130 23:26, 16 April 2006 (UTC) Raqta
Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. -- Ragib 01:38, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
I've removed the suggestions for merging it with Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, the reasons of which are as follows:
Thanks -- Ragib 17:43, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
The section on casualties as written now seems to indicate that the number 300,000 is more accurate than 3 million. The truth probably lies somewhere in between, but way too much is written in favour of the 300,000 figure included a vast number of so-called scholarly citations. Am I the only one who feels that the article seems to conclude that 300,000 is the actual figure instead of doing its (the article's) job of illucidating that it is just one more estimate - one provided by the accused? I personally would want to go ahead and rewrite some of this to make it more balanced, but I would like to hear others' comments. Thanks -- urnonav 00:55, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Can someone verify the sentence regarding Mr. Hannan being the first person to broadcast the declaration of independence. Also, the "Political climax" section ought to be expanded, is it not the crux of the whole article? Regards, ImpuMozhi 16:44, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm removing the following from the main page because by a perusal it is not clear whether this is according to the Dawn or some other source. Also, it seems to hint that the 3 million figure is clearly wrong. Although I can't find it now, I seem to remember reading somewhere that this attribution was actually warped during printing.
Ambassador Shamsher M. Chowdhury acknowledged that Bangladesh alone cannot correct this mistake and suggested Pakistan and Bangladesh should form a joint commission to investigate the 1971 disaster and prepare a report. "Almost all scholars agreed that the real figure was somewhere between 26,000, as reported by the Hamoodur Rahman Commission, and not three million, the official figure put forward by Bangladesh and India." [1] [2]
If anyone feels the need to reinstate it, please discuss here and do so. Thanks,
urnonav 23:30, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
I think Agartala Conspiracy Case should be mentioned briefly in this article since it is considered as an important event that led to the eventual seperation. Bharatveer 05:25, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Please do not blank cited information. I don't see why information well referenced from various sources qualifies as Original research. If you feel something is wrong, please mention it here first. Thanks. -- Ragib 17:14, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
I propose that some of the important quotes from the main characters in the war be moved to a subsection titled "Quotes" to ensure that the article reflects the war as with other Wikipedia articles on war and ends with quotes. Speeches and quotes by Sheikh Mujibur, Yahya Khan, Niazi, Indira Gandhi, Nixon et al can be included there. Idleguy 14:20, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
Sounds like a good idea to me. Cripipper 18:24, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
Please read the section #Genocide versus violence issue higher up this page. Please note what I wrote there:
For that reason the quote should stay in-- Philip Baird Shearer 21:20, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
Then you an I disagree lets see what others think. But as it was already in the article for some time in its current state and it is has WP:V citations, please leave it there until there is a consensus to remove it. -- Philip Baird Shearer 22:45, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
There is a ream already written on it on this talk page. As I said you an I disagree lets see what others think so that we can build a consensus on if it should stay as it is go or be edited. But as it has been there for some time it should remain until a consensus emerges. -- Philip Baird Shearer 07:04, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
What ever our motives, two people have requested that you do not remove the quote. It does not seem that you have a consensus to do so, ao unless you can persuade us that your view is the correct one and it should be deleted, please do not delete it again.
If you wish to move it to another place in the article lets talk about it here, before it is moved. Personally I think it is just fine at the end of the paragraph where it sits. One inference that a reader might draw is that as the quote was well known at the time, that his opponents used the 3M number against him. This is one possibility for how the 3M number became common currency in Bangladesh. Or it might be that they kept to the plan and really did kill 3M. Either way putting the quote there gives the reader some information which if we delete it they will not have. -- Philip Baird Shearer 18:22, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
The two sources that are given in this for Mujib repeatedly using the three million figure are not acceptable sources. They are unsourced and uncited repetitions of second-hand information. These are not verifiable sources and are in breach of WP:V. They are not acceptable sources. The problem with much of this article, and which I addressed in the foreign intervention sections in which I have a certain degree of expertise, is that most of this article has been written by people primarily trawling google for info and citing anything they can find to back up their argument. Very few of these conform to the standards of verifiability for Wikipedia, which requests that "Articles should rely on credible, third-party sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. For academic subjects, the sources should preferably be peer-reviewed." Badly-written and poorly cited history articles in wikipedia are one of its weakspots and damage its credibility; the content of the individual articles outside of my expertise (except for howlers and general bad-writing) is not my issue. However, I fully intend to flag up weak citations or no citations at all, and unfortunately this article is full of them. I have left the weak ones (newspapers etc, but you really should start getting out some academic works on this as reference: there is only one single peer-reviewed academic work or publication referenced in this entire article), but fully intend to remove non-credible ones, such as Mr. Hossain's website and correspondance with the GBWR. Cripipper 00:49, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
Represent the truth
Whether it was 3 million or not, does that matter? The actual figure can be more than that as indicated by many foreign journalists during the war before Mujib said something. Wikipedia, please acknowledge the truth. Tell about the dark episodes created by the Pakistan Army against the people of Bangladesh aided by United States and China. Tell about the heroic war of resistance put by the Mukti Bahini. Speak up.
Parvez Monon Ashraf Dallas, USA
"...the West Pakistani establishment came up with the "One Unit" scheme, where all of West Pakistan was considered one province." Is this right? Wouldn't this make West Pakistan less powerful? Clarityfiend 21:04, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I've just read both the article and this talk page from beginning to end. First off, Crippiper has a valid point. This article is a little too stridently pro-Bengali for NPOV. However, Crippiper is going way too far in just trying to censor the parts he doesn't like. This is the first time I have heard that you can't cite original research. I was always told that when you write a report you look for first hand sources. Sumbuddy should go through this and make it a bit more neutral. However, when something is non-neutral but true, I don't waste my time working on it.
I only see one thing that's false or grossly distorted: Economic exploitation. One of the big problems with partitioning British India was the inequality of economic development. West Pakistan included some of the richest areas, while East Bengal was very poor, with very poor infrastructure especially after separating it from Calcutta. The figures say that 46.4% of the national budget went to EP in the early 1950s. I cannot believe that EP was paying anywhere near 46.4% of the taxes. (If they were, this article would cite the unfair tax rates.) I am sure that 46.4% was a subsidy not exploitation. Even 31.7% in the late 1950s might still be a subsidy. I could see EP being only 25% of the total GDP. Even if the late 1950s was truly exploitation, those numbers over 40% look like subsidy again. A rich man failing to give money to a beggar is not theft, and the rich province failing to subsidize the poor province is not exploitation.
If I am wrong, come up with a cite to prove me wrong. Otherwise, that section should be removed or recast to show the actual economic situation. It's likely that people perceived this as exploitation. Separatist leaders in Quebec and Slovakia have appealed to similar misperception. It's possible that both East and West Pakistan suffered economically from union. WP was dragged down by subsidizing EP, while EP wasn't getting foreign aid that it could have gotten as an independent country. -- Randall Bart <wiki@randallbart.com> 07:22, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Rehman Sobhan Pakistan Forum, Vol. 1, No. 4 (Apr. - May, 1971), pp. 6-7 doi:10.2307/2569066". [5]. This shows that,
I flagged the Prelude to War section for several reasons:
I don't know much about this conflict at all; please don't think I have a pro-Bangladesh or anti-Pakistan agenda here. For all I know, my third objection could be completely problem-free. Nyttend 03:51, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
To break those figures down a little, "Bangladesh War of" returns:
So by far the most common name a year ago was "Bangladesh War" and it still is. The name "Bangladesh Liberation War" carries a none WP:NPOV which is not juistified by common English Language usage. So I am moving the page -- Philip Baird Shearer 18:00, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
There has been a discussion see #Bangladesh War. -- Philip Baird Shearer 21:32, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
I was puzzled by that one as well because it was way different from the number I got last year. I was using google.co.uk which must have a broken index on that particular search because when I use google.com I get:
To break those figures down a little, "Bangladesh War of" returns:
However using google.com about 961 for "Bangladesh War of" -wikipedia and about 9,860 for "Bangladesh War of" I don't believe that there are 9,000 wikipedia pages with the term, and I don't see how "Bangladesh War of" returns less pages than "Bangladesh War of independence" unless the indexes are broken!
I would be happy to have the article at either "Bangladesh War" or "Bangladesh Independence War" but I think that "Bangladesh Liberation War" fails both WP:NPOV and WP:NC common usage. -- Philip Baird Shearer 23:04, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Let's analyze the results presented by Philip above:
I could go on and on, but the above analysis of the first page or so shows that your argument about "Bangladesh War" being the most common term is quite invalid. "Bangladesh War" often turns up in google hits because the article has constructs like "Bangladesh. War <something in the next sentence>" rather than being the term for the war.
Even then, 39k vs (21k+13k for the war of liberation/independence) isn't a big difference to show absolute favor for "Bangladesh War". And if we count that many of the 39 k are actually part of "Bangladesh War of Independence" or "Bangladesh War of Liberation" , then your numeric argument falls apart.
In any case, google hits are not an absolute measure of something. Yes, if you could have shown a 10 to 1 or 40 to 1 ratio, that would be convincing, but here the number of hits are too close to warrant a ranking of popularity.
As for NPOV concerns, the war's official name is "Bangladesh Liberation War", as used by Bangladesh and India and a lot of books/publications. Besides, would you consider
American Revolutionary War aka
American war of independence a POV term? That's well established in media and scholarly documents, yet by your argument, it would be a pov title.
Therefore, I strongly oppose any unilateral move of the article, based on some mistaken interpretation and misquotation of google hit statistics. Thanks. -- Ragib 23:18, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Ragib your so called official name is a POV name that is used by only one side that fought the war. Why should a Wikipedia article use a non NPOV name when it also fails common usage? What I am putting forward the same argument that is put forward in
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (events). The analogy with the American war of independence/American Revolutionary War is not pertinent to this: (1) because justifying a name for this article because another has a biased name is not an argument for a breach of the NPOV policy; and (2) although it could be argued that term "American Revolutionary War" is not a NPOV, it is a much finer point to argue, and it is the most commonly used name in the English speaking world to describe the war, so it passes the common usage which "Bangladesh Liberation War" does not.
Of course there will be some pages in "Bangladesh War" which are not about the war but most of them are. It has the advantages that as it does not need a disambiguation, It will show up in searches like those done above and it is neutral, but as I said before I would be happy with the page name of Bangladesh War of Independence if you think that the name "Bangladesh War" is not precise enough. -- Philip Baird Shearer 00:17, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Cripipper please explaine to me your source for "Bangladesh War" is not a name given to this conflict by any historians" when a search of Google Books returns:
As a check take the term Bangladesh-War and remove the term Bangladesh-War-of-Independence gives “ 1510 pages on Bangladesh-War -Bangladesh-War-of-Independence” or slightly more than the 66 above mentioned above. -- Philip Baird Shearer 09:48, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
If the most popular name "Bangladesh War" is not accaptable then what about using "Bangladesh War of Independence" as it is at least a common (and probably more so) and does not have the problems of non NPOV that "Bangladesh Liberation War" has. -- Philip Baird Shearer 23:24, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
There are hundreds to choose from in the list: “ 1510 pages on Bangladesh-War -Bangladesh-War-of-Independence” but taking just two from the first page:
Hope that helps, but if you look thought the list then I am sure you will find books which you think are more appropriate -- Philip Baird Shearer
I will concede that the term Bangladesh War can also be used for the events involving India (which in Wikipedia is termed Indo-Pakistani War of 1971) and that will skew the search. However the term "Bangladesh War Independence" is at least as common, and probably more so than the term "Bangladesh Liberation War", and BWI does not carry the non-NPOV that BLW. The term liberation implies that the nation was is a state of subjugation before the liberation. It may or may not be true, but to including the term in the title carries a none neutral point of view, which is a breach of the Wikipedia:NPOV policy. As I said above if BWL was overwhelmingly used, then there would be some justification with using it, but this is not the case so the title should be changed to a more neutral one. -- Philip Baird Shearer 12:05, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Please stop reinserting these crap sources - they in no way show that Rahman made the 3 million claim. They do show that there is a widespread belief that he made the claim, but they do nothing to verify the fact that he did. One is some loon's personal correspondance with the GBWR, and the other is an unverified assertion in a thesis. You would hardly see them referenced in the Encyclopedia Britannica, would you...? Cripipper 22:05, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Self-published sources (online and paper)
Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources.
Self-published material may be acceptable when produced by a well-known, professional researcher in a relevant field or a well-known professional journalist. These may be acceptable so long as their work has been previously published by reliable third-party publications. However, exercise caution: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so."
SO, just to clarify: personal websites are not acceptable sources, ruling out the second of the two. The thesis is unpublished, and is not written by a historian, but by someone who works in the field of education - not a relevant field. Cripipper 15:09, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
The Office of the Historian of the United States State Department held a two-day conference in late June 2005 on U.S. policy in South Asia between 1961 and 1972. The State Department invited international scholars to express their views on declassified documents recently published in the Foreign Relations of the United States series. Acording to a newspaper report published in both Pakistani and Bangladeshi newspapers, Bangladeshi speakers at the conference stated that the official Bangladeshi figure of civilian deaths was close to 300,000, which was wrongly translated from Bengali into English as three million. Ambassador Shamsher M. Chowdhury acknowledged that Bangladesh alone cannot correct this mistake and suggested Pakistan and Bangladesh should form a joint commission to investigate the 1971 disaster and prepare a report. "Almost all scholars agreed that the real figure was somewhere between 26,000, as reported by the Hamoodur Rahman Commission, and not three million, the official figure put forward by Bangladesh and India." [27][28][29]
I have two questions here:
In general, I have an issue with this section. Most of this is US justification to not intervening in the war. As far as Bangladeshi sources are concerned, from what I recall, the papers seem to treat the speakers as being selectively picked for some ulterior motives. There are numerous conferences held everyday with speakers. Why quote numbers from them? It's not really a reputed academic source, is it, especially given USSD's involvement in the War?
urnonav 22:03, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
I haven't read the whole article, but I have to say, I feel there may be just a tad bit of bias here...
"The Pakistani Army was in a dreadful condition and gradually lost the will to fight because most of their major fortresses had fallen to the allied Bengali-Indian forces. It was a matter of shame for the Pakistani High Command that a well-trained army was losing the war to the common Bengali civilians, who were barely trained and had outdated weapons. To conceal this shameful matter they launched an air attack near the Indian border on December 3 so that the real facts would remain unknown to the common people and people would say that Pakistani Army did not lose to the Mukti Bahini but to more powerful Indian armies. This led India to announce war against Pakistan officially and they started attacking near the Pakistan-India border from the 6th of December. All-out war between Bangladesh-India and Pakistan began. The agility and strategy of the Mukti Bahini, aided by Indian forces, overwhelmed the Pakistani forces and within 10 days of India's joiníng the war, the Pakistani Army was compelled to an unconditional surrender on December 16, 1971."
The phrasing is pretty slanted. The "shameful act?" "So that the real facts would remain unknown to the common people." This needs to be cleaned up.
Agreed. How about this?
-- Ragib 01:52, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
This needs to be reverted at once. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.193.169.229 ( talk) 02:32, 22 February 2007 (UTC).
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 |
Archive 1 (Jan. 2005 — Jan. 2006) |
TEST saved.........
I think it's non-biased to use the word genocide. Violence is too general and can have multiple interpretations. I am reproducing an excerpt that shows that the violence was indeed a planned genocide.
London, 6/13/71). The Sunday Times....."The Government's policy for East Bengal was spelled out to me in the Eastern Command headquarters at Dacca. It has three elements:
*The Bengalis have proved themselves unreliable and must be ruled by West Pakistanis;
*The Bengalis will have to be re-educated along proper Islamic lines. The - Islamization of the masses - this is the official jargon - is intended to eliminate secessionist tendencies and provide a strong religious bond with West Pakistan;
*When the Hindus have been eliminated by death and fight, their property will be used as a golden carrot to win over the under privileged Muslim middle-class. This will provide the base for erecting administrative and political structures in the future."
PS: Thanks for the ise to ize. I am a little obsessed with British (aka standard) English! :) Urnonav
I want to add more to discuss 'genocide' here. Is what happened an incident of genocide. The George Washington University National Security Archives has some interesting declassified documents in this regard. Amibidhrohi 17:32, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
This discussion is unnecessary. The point is that *many* scholars in and beyond Bangladesh believe that genocide has been committed in Bangladesh, and wikipedia has a responsbility to report that. The article can do with more citations, but the claim is NOT that genocide has been committed, but that there is widespread conviction that it has been committed. It is funny that one needs to look up definitions and such to report that. -- ppm 19:41, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
"Still less familiar to most will be the 1971 genocide in Bangladesh, notable for the systematic use of mass rape as an instrument of war and the deliberate targeting of educational and cultural elites for destruction. " From a review of: Century of Genocide: Eyewitness Accounts and Critical Views Samuel Totten, William S. Parsons + Israel W. Charny (editors) Garland 1997
Atrocities against humanity during the liberation war in Bangladesh: a case of genocide Wardatul Akmam
Journal of Genocide Research Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group Issue: Volume 4, Number 4 / December 01, 2002 Pages: 543 - 559 URL: Linking Options DOI: 10.1080/146235022000000463
Just for example. Again, our job in wikipedia is not to *prove* genocide or otherwise, but to report that it is a widespread belief among many scholars that genocide has occurred. Let's not be the judge, but the reporters. This is independent of the citation situation, that must be improved. But again, we don't need to check any definitions of genocide (clearly widely debalted), to report a widespread claim.-- ppm 20:00, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Also, you still failed to clarify what a centain definition of genocide has to do with all this, which was my main point (I accepted the lack of citations).-- ppm 22:16, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
"Also IMHO any opinion that does not take into account ... is of less use" ... interesting. So any opinion about events far in past formed before such reports are garbage. -- ppm 18:55, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
The reference I put higher up this page (prosecutor v. Radislav Krstic - Appeals Chamber) is the appeal judgement of case the BBC is referring to it explains in detail why killing just 8,000 men could be a genocide. It has to do (amoung other things) with access of the perpetrator to the victim population (think of it as fox in a hen house. If there are 10 houses and the fox only has access to one, if the fox kills all the hens in the first house, then it can be credibly argued that the fox had "intent to destroy" all the hens if it could have gained access to them).
It is not that the definition has been overridden since 1948 but the recent genocide tribunals, the first since the coming into force of the CPPCG, have had to interpret the meaning of the treaty in a court of law. This mean for example defining what "intent to destroy" and "in part" mean for a court trying someone for genocide. With each case, whether the defendant is found guilty or innocent, the legal meaning of the term becomes refined and clearer.
I would agree with your first statement, the format should be it that the XYZ international tribunal found Mr Mass-murderer guilty of genocide in Bangladesh. However you summation of my opinion shows that you misunderstood what I wrote. I am sorry that I did not make myself clear. To reiterate: opinions that do not take into account the recent UN sanctioned tribunals' judgements are of less use than those which do, because the judgements help to clarify what under international law is a genocide.
A person who says "I could murder a beer", does not usually mean that one can literaly murder a beer, it is a figure of speech. Often people use terms like "war crime" and "genocide" as figures of speech. Meaning they think which was done was morally reprehensible. This does not mean that they think the act was literaly and legaly the phrase they have used. As the topic is contriversial a mention on this page that "there is widespread belief that genocide has taken place" needs a source stating this, and it needs to be worded in such a way that it is clear who is stating this. The source needs to be "publish material that is verifiable with reference to reliable, published sources". -- Philip Baird Shearer 20:36, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Philip, I don't know how familiar you are with the various mass killings that took place during the liberation war. That you contest the use of the word "genocide" in this context is reprehensible. Here is what constitutes genocide according to the UN:
Article 2: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately infliciting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
As for your "1.5 million isn't a significant number" statement, remember that the Pakistanis never voluntarily ceased the killing. The killing of Bengalis was only stopped by the millitary intervention of the Mukhti Bahini and the Indian military. There is ample evidence that shows the Pakistani massacres were aimed at the general populous with the intent to 'destroy' the 'in whole and in part'. You can see this when you note the targeting of the intellectuals and of university students (I take it you know of the cases where the Pakistanis locked in female students in their dormitories and then burned the whole building down with them inside?). As for the use of the term "genocide" by US diplomats in the region, see here: [1] . The word is used frequently in the documents collected by the National Security Archives, you'd have found quite a few incidences if you'd look with some sincerity. Amibidhrohi 20:10, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
I've read your comments, and they don't hold water. To know more about what constitutes genocide, check this out: [2]. In layman terms, what constitutes a genocide is the intent to destroy ALL OR PART of a people. Genocide has nothing to do with attempting to make a people of a group extinct, and therefore the fact that 3 out of 75 or so million people were actually killed is not a determinant of whether or not the term is applicable. The targeting of a population of a particular ethnicity or race or religion simply because that population is of that ethnicity or race or religion is enough to meet that requirement. Personally, I don't believe the UN definition should be adhered to anyway. The UN poorly funded organization when considering the magnitudes of the tasks it's burdened with; and as such the UN tends to adopt stringent definitions of such events simply to avoid having to do something about the event, and thus put more pressure on its challenged bodies..As such, the UN definition of genocide is not NPOV at all. Within Bangladesh, the term genocide is precisely the term used by all intellectuals. It's been used by NGOs as well as outside publications as well. Since we cannot agree on calling the atrocity 'genocide', my suggestion is a section titled "Genocide" that documents all the various publications and personalities that have used the term 'genocide' to describe this 'atrocity'. Amibidhrohi 05:40, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
The current text says: "Among them, the infamous Blood telegram from the US embassy in Dacca, East Pakistan, stated the horrors of genocide taking place in East Pakistan." -- but the source given: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB79/BEBB1.pdf does not describe the actions as genocide instead it uses terms like "reign of terror", "systematically eliminating" "systematically attacking" and "murdering". Unless it is an incorrect link the wikipedia text should be changed to reflect the source. -- Philip Baird Shearer 19:13, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Wrong sentence :-( -- Philip Baird Shearer 20:19, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
The start of the section does not have a reference for most of the opening paragraph. It it is to remain in the article in its current format then it needs citations. In most cases the first half of the sentence, or frist of two short sentences, are probably undisputable, but the second half of the sentence, or second sentence, need sources: Eg "at a level that Bangladeshis maintain is one of the worst genocides in history".
To quote from the policy document WP:V "Information on Wikipedia must be reliable. Facts, viewpoints, theories, and arguments may only be included in articles if they have already been published by reliable and reputable sources. Articles should cite these sources whenever possible. Any unsourced material may be challenged and removed." -- Philip Baird Shearer 23:47, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
I think a better and less POV title for this article is Bangladesh War this is also the most common name on Google:
To break those figures down a little, "Bangladesh War of" returns:
If a disambiguation problem with "Bangladesh War" the the name "Bangladesh War of Independence" carries less POV -- Philip Baird Shearer 12:02, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
Why is google god? -- ppm 19:11, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
It is not but it is an indicator of common usage which is part of Wikipedia:Naming conventions. -- Philip Baird Shearer 14:31, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
If this is POV, so is American revolutionary war.-- ppm 04:36, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
It does not matter much what the Bangladeshi and Indian governments call it officially, what matters on Wikipedia is that the name does not have a one sided POV and the common English language usage. What is the war called in Pakistan and what is it called by organisations which are disinterested? -- Philip Baird Shearer 11:04, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
Please could you direct me to the Library of Congress source because I could not find it with a quick search of the article. I had missed out a Google search of ["Bangladesh War" -wikipedia] above so I have added it, and it is 3 times a common as "Bangladesh Liberation War" but because it could refer to more than one one (not sure which other one) was the reason I added 1971 for a secondary search. Doing a seach of gov.uk only returns one page, a search of ac.uk does not return many pages, but it does return more with the name "Bangladesh War". It is a similar case with the domain ".edu":
Doing a search of the Amazon.com site on books returns nearly twice as many book titles "Bangladesh War" as "Bangladesh liberation War" (76 to 41). Can you show me any more UN page which calls it the "Bangladesh Liberation War" because when I google for the phrase including (site:un.org) I get:
and for site:unhcr.org
It seem to me that by any seach I do over a number of different criteria that "Bangladesh War" is more common than "Bangladesh liberation War" and IMHO "Bangladesh War" carries less POV than "Bangladesh Liberation War". I would be interested to hear any arguments that the title "Bangladesh Liberation War" does not carry more POV than "Bangladesh War" -- Philip Baird Shearer 09:59, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
Britannica seems to use "The Bangladesh war (from India)" as a page title. [3] At first glance it seems reasonable to me to omit the "liberation" part from the name but my opinion is pretty irrelevant since I've never edited this page and know nothing about the topic :) - Haukur 19:43, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Both Amazon and Google are sites that use English in their searches. The west is particularly advanced when it comes to using the internet to create pages or discuss things. Amazon is obviously dominated by goods and books retailed in the Western countries. Therefore the results you get back disproportionately represent the opinion of the West. Most westerners have little or no knowlege of the event, save the famine that followed in 1975, so it makes sense that they'd defer to the most simplistic title for the event, namely the "Bangladesh War". To use popular search engines and shop sites like Amazon to determine the title of the article is rather unencyclopedic.
Bit of an off-topic...Is it POV to called what happened to Jews during WW2 a holocaust? POV doesn't mean we presume all sides equal at the cost of accurately depicting history. A neutral eye over what happened in East Pakistan prior to and leading to the war, and all that's happened since pretty much supports the phrase "War of Independence" or "War of Liberation", even from a neutral perspective. Amibidhrohi 17:32, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
IMHO "BD Liberation War" isn't POV at all. It is simply more informative, and I don't see why it is POV or supportive of any side. Someone might opine that Independence of Bangladesh was an awful thing, but it has nothing to do with the FACT that that was the goal of the war! Descriptive names are good for other reasons, as Countries tend to have many wars (not that I want or expect BD to have any more of those) -- ppm 04:19, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
i think pakistanis are either too stupid or too barerous like cavemen.well if mass murdering and gangrapes doesnt account o genocide,what else corresponds to genocide from the pakistani point of view?something even more worse? true,the pakistani army doesnt know how to fight,they only know how to butcher innocent civilian populations like those in bangladesh and balochistan.and another thing they are famous for is raping, especially punjabi pakistanis. 93000 soldiers surrendered unconditionally,what else is required to show that pakistani army is a worthless army.and even more so,the present "president"as mr pervert musharaf calls himself was among those 90000 soldiers who surrendered to mitro bahini,a allied force of mukto bahini and indian army.-- Jayanthv86 04:27, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
What is this? Wikipedia or a soapbox for the Indians to stand on and lecture people?? How about you deal with the genocide of Kashmiris before claiming others to be stupid.
Secondly, this 90,000 soldiers is a common BS mistake used by the Indians all the time. There were a total of 3 Pakistani Divisions in East Pakistan and some independent brigades. Combined, their numbers do not come close to 50,000. If you had a clue about the structure and size of Divisions in Pakistani and Indians armies, you would get an idea as to how shoddy your biased claim here is. The rest of the 90,000 included civilian Pakistani administration in East Pakistan that included police etc. of West Pakistani origin (these were not combatants). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.211.163.213 ( talk • contribs).
Anon 136.159.235.56 ( talk · contribs) continues to add the POV tag almost on a daily basis, without any explanation for that. Since no explanation is given for the tag, I am removing it. Thanks. -- Ragib 21:48, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Once again, the anon 136.159.243.25 ( talk · contribs) from the University of Calgary continues the daily POV tag addition routine ... please add your points here rather than continuously inserting the tag. It is always better to have a discussion. Even if you feel there is a POV, we can work on it through discussion.
Thanks
-- Ragib 03:47, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Is anyone aware of the Bengali population during the war? CJK 02:37, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
OK, thanks. I think should be incorporated. CJK 18:04, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
It was interesting to read the discussion. By the way, when the War was being fought, I was a student of Patna University, India. The situation was really grim. In my state of Jharkhand, thousands of the troops of the Pakistani Army who had surrendered to the Indian Army were lodged. They were kept in camps in Ramgarh (headquarters of the Sikh Regiment) located about 30 km away from my hometown Ranchi. -- Bhadani 14:04, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
I have added an Unreferencedsect to this section. After the first paragraph which does have references there are a lot of specific facts and allegations for which there are no citations. -- Philip Baird Shearer 16:42, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
It is much better. The reason I did not put [citation needed] tag before was that almost every sentence needed one. Now that you have given references for the majority of the section, I have put [citation needed] on those sentences which are not yet covered. Some of them like the undressing do not seem unreasonable, but if there is not an easily available source, then removing such sentences or parts of sentences will not affect the overall tone of the section. -- Philip Baird Shearer 12:19, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
10 days have passed and there text with "[citation needed]" it would be better if citations can be found rather than having to delete the text. -- Philip Baird Shearer 22:31, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
I have added an Unreferencedsect to this section. It makes lots of statments for which there are no citations. For example "Some of the current leaders of Islamic parties like Jamaati-i-Islami were directly involved in carrying out these killing missions." -- Philip Baird Shearer 16:42, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
The two references added are a start but they by no means cover all the assertions made by this section . Eg the first two sentences "The Pakistani ruling class had long had a distaste for Bengali intellectuals and students. They viewed them, correctly, as among the main proponents of the rise of Bengali nationalism in East Pakistan" are not covered by either of the articles.
The first reference has language like this "intellectuals martyred by the selective killing regime of the occupation forces" is not the language of a dispassionate NPOV article I am not sure it qualifies as: Wikipedia:reliable sources.
The second article contains quaified information like "The blue print of crippling the intelligentsia is said to have been chalked" and "The armed cadres of al-badr, a para-military force, is alleged to have executed" etc. The wikipedia article does not reflect this type of qualification -- Philip Baird Shearer 23:52, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
More than a week has passed since the last edit on the section (17 March 2006 by Amibidhrohi). I would like to see this section fully citated or the uncited text removed. -- Philip Baird Shearer 22:37, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
The Liberals and the Religious Right in Bangladesh, M. Rashiduzzaman, Asian Survey, Vol. 34, No. 11. (Nov., 1994), pp. 974-990.
Bangladesh at the Crossroads: Religion and Politics, Partha S. Ghosh, Asian Survey, Vol. 33, No. 7, South Asia: Responses to the Ayodhya Crisis. (Jul., 1993), pp. 697-710.
--
ppm
19:12, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Shouldn't we put in something under US and USSR about the US sending its Seventh Fleet into the Bay of Bengal? That seemed pretty important. Shayon 22:44, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
Reference for allegation of circumcision checks, death of women by forcing bayonets between their legs, gang rape, "leaving of seed" by Pakistani Army
Rape as Genocide: Bangladesh, the Former Yugoslavia, and Rwanda
Lisa Sharlach
New Political Science
Publisher:Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group
Issue:Volume 22, Number 1 / March 1, 2000
Pages:89 - 102
Reference for "Systematic rape as a war tool" in 1971 Bangladesh
THE TRAUMA OF WAR RAPE: A COMPARATIVE VIEW ON THE BOSNIAN CONFLICT AND THE GREEK CIVIL WAR
History and Anthropology
Publisher:Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group
Issue:Volume 14, Number 1 / March 2003
Pages:41 - 44
I hope editors will incorporate them. -- ppm 19:28, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Also,, notice a certain word in the 1st reference. -- ppm 19:35, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
I had added the following sentence to this article: "A smaller number of non-Bengali citizens were also killed in clashes with the Mukti Bahini." It was removed, probably considering a POV. I would definitely learn a thing or two about wikipedia's contribution policy, if someone could please tell me why the above sentence was considered inappropriate. Thanks. Mokal. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 202.69.36.44 ( talk • contribs).
I do not have any leanings or any favourites in Bangladeshi politics and I find it demeaning and disturbing when different parties re-write history for self glorification. Here are just a few points even though I would like to give a longer lecture. 202.52.205.130 23:26, 16 April 2006 (UTC) Raqta
"East Pakistanis noticed that whenever one of them, such as Khawaja Nazimuddin, Muhammad Ali Bogra, or Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy were elected Prime Minister of Pakistan, they were swiftly deposed by the largely West Pakistani establishment." Quoted from the article.
I do not know how far the above mentioned "heroes" can be called one of them(Bangladesh's own). 202.52.205.130 23:26, 16 April 2006 (UTC) Raqta
On 27th January, 1952, Khaja Najimuddin betrayed his commitment and again declared Urdu as the only State Language.
Hmmm does not sound like he is one of Bengal's own. 202.52.205.130 23:26, 16 April 2006 (UTC) Raqta
In 1954 the United Front of Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani, A. K. Fazlul Huq and Hussein Shuhrwardi won the elections. Huq became the Prime Minister. In 1957 Shuhwrardi was the Prime Minister (instead of Bhashani who was the main popular force in the grand electoral victory of '54.)
Bhashani wanted total autonomy for East Bengal (Bangladesh) at the historic Kagmari conference, '57, but Prime Minister Shuhrwardi and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman went the opposite way thus forcing Bhashani out of the party he created -- The Awami League. (This paved the way for Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to come to the centre of Bengali politics later in the 60s.) This event shows the betrayal of East Bengal by (at least) Shuhrwardi (even if we let Mujib off the hook since he was not the Prime Minister).
So IS Shuhrwardi really one of Bengal's own...
(Source: 1 Shadhinata Sangramey Bangalee (Liberation Struggle of The Bangalees) An Album of Photographs by Aftab Ahmed. Third Edition 2nd Poush 1405 (16th December 1998); Published by Aftab Ahmed Barna -Sagar Prokashani, 63 West Rampura, Dhaka 1219. Translated by Mofidul Hoque. 2 Lest We Forget: Moulana Bhasani -- the leader of the oppressed by Engr. M. Inamul Haque. Published by the Daily Star, Dhaka, Monday, November 18, 2002) 202.52.205.130 23:26, 16 April 2006 (UTC) Raqta
"Close ties existed between East Pakistan and West Bengal, one of the Indian states bordering Bangladesh," Quoted from the article.
Well Duh! For millennia it was the same country (Banga, Gongahridoy, etc)... the same people... relatives on both sides of the dividing border... SO OBVIOUSLY they will have close ties. They are one people... separated by a line drawn on the map by the British and drawn in hearts by religious bigots. 202.52.205.130 23:26, 16 April 2006 (UTC) Raqta
"He urged "his people" to turn every house into a fort of resistance. He closed his speech saying, "The struggle this time is for our freedom. The struggle this time is for our independence." This speech is considered the main event that inspired the nation to fight for their independence." Quoted from the article.
A. This speech is considered the main event inspiring the nation to fight by Awami League adherents and may be, the Communist Party of Bangladesh adherents which at that time was allied to Awami League. I do not consider any one event as the main event that inspired the nation. The notion is rather simplistic. There were people who wanted to fight for independence as early as 1962... (Taherer Osomapto Biplob) and yes they were organised. There was an army called the BLF (Shahjahan Siraj) and there were other Maoist guerrilla armies that were preparing for a Pakistani onslaught well before the speech. The students were also far ahead of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.(Swadhinota Juddhe Bamponthider Bhumika) 202.52.205.130 23:26, 16 April 2006 (UTC) Raqta
B. "his people" Quoted from the article.
Not all in the 7th March rally or the country were "his people". As Fakir Alamgir said on Trityo Matra, on Channel I, he and his allies (the leftists) had brought the masses to the rally... and had made it the mammoth rally that it was. I have spoken to non Mujib supporters who had attended the rally. The picture that Awami League wants to portray is that all the work was done by their Great LEADER Mujib and the article seems to speak for Awami League here. Be more neutral. 202.52.205.130 23:26, 16 April 2006 (UTC) Raqta
"They failed to secure permission from higher authorities to broadcast the message. They crossed Kalurghat Bridge into an area controlled by East Bengal Regiment under Major Ziaur Rahman." Quoted from the article.
I urge you to verify the fact. Was that the area controlled by Ziaur Rahman? I would refer you Belal Mohammed, the person who is the hero who organized the rebel radio. If Zia was in command... well and good but do verify... for this could only be BNP's "TRUTH". 202.52.205.130 23:26, 16 April 2006 (UTC) Raqta
"At 19:45 on 26 March 1971, Major Ziaur Rahman broadcast another announcement of the declaration of independence on behalf of Sheikh Mujibur which is as follows." Quoted from the article.
This is misinformation. The declaration was made on the 27th March not 26th. Ask Belal Mohammad for verification since he convinced and brought Zia to the radio station to make the declaration. 202.52.205.130 23:26, 16 April 2006 (UTC) Raqta
"Though smaller maoist style paramilitary bands started emerging, the Mukti Bahini were becoming increasingly visible. Headed by Colonel Muhammad Ataul Gani Osmani," Quoted from the article.
Well actually they were small only according to Awami League and pro Awami League sources. According to Col. Osmani own statements, he commanded only about 80 thousand muktis (men)... (From Osmani's interview) I do not remember the exact figure, but Siraj Sikdar's force (a Maoist style paramilitary as you call it) was larger (please verify). (Refer to, "Role of the Leftists in the Liberation War of Bangladesh) There were other such forces around the country. From what I have found out... 202.52.205.130 23:26, 16 April 2006 (UTC) Raqta
Conclusion (sort of)
Awami League accuses the BNP of manipulating history and itself is probably guilty of the same crime. Please write a balanced history without exaggerations or deletions AND without misinformation. Verify everything... If I am wrong, I will accept correction... if you are wrong... Please make necessary corrections.
The history in this article does not mention Maulana Bhashani, the creator of Awami League and the person who has pushed the country towards independence. The article does not talk about Sirajul Alam Khan, Siraj Shikdar, Huq, Toaha, Rashed Khan Menon, Colonel Taher, Belal Mohammad, Abul Bashar, Shahjahan Siraj, Abdur Rab, Makhan, Siddiqui, Abdul Matin (the main Language Movement leader) and others. I do not care what party they belong to or support but their roles are undeniable and must be mentioned.
Many of these leaders are alive ... why not interview them.... interview the closest associates of those who have died. Get a thorough picture of the war.
Also refer to Col. Osmani's interviews and you will find out many things. For one Osmani claims that he was not told that the Pakistanis were surrendering (refering to the 16th December). He says it was a deliberate act and he was distracted and kept out of the way by an Indian officer. There was also an attempt on his life ON THE 16th OF DECEMBER, 1971. (Also from his interview.) 202.52.205.130 23:26, 16 April 2006 (UTC) Raqta
Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. -- Ragib 01:38, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
I've removed the suggestions for merging it with Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, the reasons of which are as follows:
Thanks -- Ragib 17:43, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
The section on casualties as written now seems to indicate that the number 300,000 is more accurate than 3 million. The truth probably lies somewhere in between, but way too much is written in favour of the 300,000 figure included a vast number of so-called scholarly citations. Am I the only one who feels that the article seems to conclude that 300,000 is the actual figure instead of doing its (the article's) job of illucidating that it is just one more estimate - one provided by the accused? I personally would want to go ahead and rewrite some of this to make it more balanced, but I would like to hear others' comments. Thanks -- urnonav 00:55, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Can someone verify the sentence regarding Mr. Hannan being the first person to broadcast the declaration of independence. Also, the "Political climax" section ought to be expanded, is it not the crux of the whole article? Regards, ImpuMozhi 16:44, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm removing the following from the main page because by a perusal it is not clear whether this is according to the Dawn or some other source. Also, it seems to hint that the 3 million figure is clearly wrong. Although I can't find it now, I seem to remember reading somewhere that this attribution was actually warped during printing.
Ambassador Shamsher M. Chowdhury acknowledged that Bangladesh alone cannot correct this mistake and suggested Pakistan and Bangladesh should form a joint commission to investigate the 1971 disaster and prepare a report. "Almost all scholars agreed that the real figure was somewhere between 26,000, as reported by the Hamoodur Rahman Commission, and not three million, the official figure put forward by Bangladesh and India." [1] [2]
If anyone feels the need to reinstate it, please discuss here and do so. Thanks,
urnonav 23:30, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
I think Agartala Conspiracy Case should be mentioned briefly in this article since it is considered as an important event that led to the eventual seperation. Bharatveer 05:25, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Please do not blank cited information. I don't see why information well referenced from various sources qualifies as Original research. If you feel something is wrong, please mention it here first. Thanks. -- Ragib 17:14, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
I propose that some of the important quotes from the main characters in the war be moved to a subsection titled "Quotes" to ensure that the article reflects the war as with other Wikipedia articles on war and ends with quotes. Speeches and quotes by Sheikh Mujibur, Yahya Khan, Niazi, Indira Gandhi, Nixon et al can be included there. Idleguy 14:20, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
Sounds like a good idea to me. Cripipper 18:24, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
Please read the section #Genocide versus violence issue higher up this page. Please note what I wrote there:
For that reason the quote should stay in-- Philip Baird Shearer 21:20, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
Then you an I disagree lets see what others think. But as it was already in the article for some time in its current state and it is has WP:V citations, please leave it there until there is a consensus to remove it. -- Philip Baird Shearer 22:45, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
There is a ream already written on it on this talk page. As I said you an I disagree lets see what others think so that we can build a consensus on if it should stay as it is go or be edited. But as it has been there for some time it should remain until a consensus emerges. -- Philip Baird Shearer 07:04, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
What ever our motives, two people have requested that you do not remove the quote. It does not seem that you have a consensus to do so, ao unless you can persuade us that your view is the correct one and it should be deleted, please do not delete it again.
If you wish to move it to another place in the article lets talk about it here, before it is moved. Personally I think it is just fine at the end of the paragraph where it sits. One inference that a reader might draw is that as the quote was well known at the time, that his opponents used the 3M number against him. This is one possibility for how the 3M number became common currency in Bangladesh. Or it might be that they kept to the plan and really did kill 3M. Either way putting the quote there gives the reader some information which if we delete it they will not have. -- Philip Baird Shearer 18:22, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
The two sources that are given in this for Mujib repeatedly using the three million figure are not acceptable sources. They are unsourced and uncited repetitions of second-hand information. These are not verifiable sources and are in breach of WP:V. They are not acceptable sources. The problem with much of this article, and which I addressed in the foreign intervention sections in which I have a certain degree of expertise, is that most of this article has been written by people primarily trawling google for info and citing anything they can find to back up their argument. Very few of these conform to the standards of verifiability for Wikipedia, which requests that "Articles should rely on credible, third-party sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. For academic subjects, the sources should preferably be peer-reviewed." Badly-written and poorly cited history articles in wikipedia are one of its weakspots and damage its credibility; the content of the individual articles outside of my expertise (except for howlers and general bad-writing) is not my issue. However, I fully intend to flag up weak citations or no citations at all, and unfortunately this article is full of them. I have left the weak ones (newspapers etc, but you really should start getting out some academic works on this as reference: there is only one single peer-reviewed academic work or publication referenced in this entire article), but fully intend to remove non-credible ones, such as Mr. Hossain's website and correspondance with the GBWR. Cripipper 00:49, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
Represent the truth
Whether it was 3 million or not, does that matter? The actual figure can be more than that as indicated by many foreign journalists during the war before Mujib said something. Wikipedia, please acknowledge the truth. Tell about the dark episodes created by the Pakistan Army against the people of Bangladesh aided by United States and China. Tell about the heroic war of resistance put by the Mukti Bahini. Speak up.
Parvez Monon Ashraf Dallas, USA
"...the West Pakistani establishment came up with the "One Unit" scheme, where all of West Pakistan was considered one province." Is this right? Wouldn't this make West Pakistan less powerful? Clarityfiend 21:04, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I've just read both the article and this talk page from beginning to end. First off, Crippiper has a valid point. This article is a little too stridently pro-Bengali for NPOV. However, Crippiper is going way too far in just trying to censor the parts he doesn't like. This is the first time I have heard that you can't cite original research. I was always told that when you write a report you look for first hand sources. Sumbuddy should go through this and make it a bit more neutral. However, when something is non-neutral but true, I don't waste my time working on it.
I only see one thing that's false or grossly distorted: Economic exploitation. One of the big problems with partitioning British India was the inequality of economic development. West Pakistan included some of the richest areas, while East Bengal was very poor, with very poor infrastructure especially after separating it from Calcutta. The figures say that 46.4% of the national budget went to EP in the early 1950s. I cannot believe that EP was paying anywhere near 46.4% of the taxes. (If they were, this article would cite the unfair tax rates.) I am sure that 46.4% was a subsidy not exploitation. Even 31.7% in the late 1950s might still be a subsidy. I could see EP being only 25% of the total GDP. Even if the late 1950s was truly exploitation, those numbers over 40% look like subsidy again. A rich man failing to give money to a beggar is not theft, and the rich province failing to subsidize the poor province is not exploitation.
If I am wrong, come up with a cite to prove me wrong. Otherwise, that section should be removed or recast to show the actual economic situation. It's likely that people perceived this as exploitation. Separatist leaders in Quebec and Slovakia have appealed to similar misperception. It's possible that both East and West Pakistan suffered economically from union. WP was dragged down by subsidizing EP, while EP wasn't getting foreign aid that it could have gotten as an independent country. -- Randall Bart <wiki@randallbart.com> 07:22, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Rehman Sobhan Pakistan Forum, Vol. 1, No. 4 (Apr. - May, 1971), pp. 6-7 doi:10.2307/2569066". [5]. This shows that,
I flagged the Prelude to War section for several reasons:
I don't know much about this conflict at all; please don't think I have a pro-Bangladesh or anti-Pakistan agenda here. For all I know, my third objection could be completely problem-free. Nyttend 03:51, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
To break those figures down a little, "Bangladesh War of" returns:
So by far the most common name a year ago was "Bangladesh War" and it still is. The name "Bangladesh Liberation War" carries a none WP:NPOV which is not juistified by common English Language usage. So I am moving the page -- Philip Baird Shearer 18:00, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
There has been a discussion see #Bangladesh War. -- Philip Baird Shearer 21:32, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
I was puzzled by that one as well because it was way different from the number I got last year. I was using google.co.uk which must have a broken index on that particular search because when I use google.com I get:
To break those figures down a little, "Bangladesh War of" returns:
However using google.com about 961 for "Bangladesh War of" -wikipedia and about 9,860 for "Bangladesh War of" I don't believe that there are 9,000 wikipedia pages with the term, and I don't see how "Bangladesh War of" returns less pages than "Bangladesh War of independence" unless the indexes are broken!
I would be happy to have the article at either "Bangladesh War" or "Bangladesh Independence War" but I think that "Bangladesh Liberation War" fails both WP:NPOV and WP:NC common usage. -- Philip Baird Shearer 23:04, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Let's analyze the results presented by Philip above:
I could go on and on, but the above analysis of the first page or so shows that your argument about "Bangladesh War" being the most common term is quite invalid. "Bangladesh War" often turns up in google hits because the article has constructs like "Bangladesh. War <something in the next sentence>" rather than being the term for the war.
Even then, 39k vs (21k+13k for the war of liberation/independence) isn't a big difference to show absolute favor for "Bangladesh War". And if we count that many of the 39 k are actually part of "Bangladesh War of Independence" or "Bangladesh War of Liberation" , then your numeric argument falls apart.
In any case, google hits are not an absolute measure of something. Yes, if you could have shown a 10 to 1 or 40 to 1 ratio, that would be convincing, but here the number of hits are too close to warrant a ranking of popularity.
As for NPOV concerns, the war's official name is "Bangladesh Liberation War", as used by Bangladesh and India and a lot of books/publications. Besides, would you consider
American Revolutionary War aka
American war of independence a POV term? That's well established in media and scholarly documents, yet by your argument, it would be a pov title.
Therefore, I strongly oppose any unilateral move of the article, based on some mistaken interpretation and misquotation of google hit statistics. Thanks. -- Ragib 23:18, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Ragib your so called official name is a POV name that is used by only one side that fought the war. Why should a Wikipedia article use a non NPOV name when it also fails common usage? What I am putting forward the same argument that is put forward in
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (events). The analogy with the American war of independence/American Revolutionary War is not pertinent to this: (1) because justifying a name for this article because another has a biased name is not an argument for a breach of the NPOV policy; and (2) although it could be argued that term "American Revolutionary War" is not a NPOV, it is a much finer point to argue, and it is the most commonly used name in the English speaking world to describe the war, so it passes the common usage which "Bangladesh Liberation War" does not.
Of course there will be some pages in "Bangladesh War" which are not about the war but most of them are. It has the advantages that as it does not need a disambiguation, It will show up in searches like those done above and it is neutral, but as I said before I would be happy with the page name of Bangladesh War of Independence if you think that the name "Bangladesh War" is not precise enough. -- Philip Baird Shearer 00:17, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Cripipper please explaine to me your source for "Bangladesh War" is not a name given to this conflict by any historians" when a search of Google Books returns:
As a check take the term Bangladesh-War and remove the term Bangladesh-War-of-Independence gives “ 1510 pages on Bangladesh-War -Bangladesh-War-of-Independence” or slightly more than the 66 above mentioned above. -- Philip Baird Shearer 09:48, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
If the most popular name "Bangladesh War" is not accaptable then what about using "Bangladesh War of Independence" as it is at least a common (and probably more so) and does not have the problems of non NPOV that "Bangladesh Liberation War" has. -- Philip Baird Shearer 23:24, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
There are hundreds to choose from in the list: “ 1510 pages on Bangladesh-War -Bangladesh-War-of-Independence” but taking just two from the first page:
Hope that helps, but if you look thought the list then I am sure you will find books which you think are more appropriate -- Philip Baird Shearer
I will concede that the term Bangladesh War can also be used for the events involving India (which in Wikipedia is termed Indo-Pakistani War of 1971) and that will skew the search. However the term "Bangladesh War Independence" is at least as common, and probably more so than the term "Bangladesh Liberation War", and BWI does not carry the non-NPOV that BLW. The term liberation implies that the nation was is a state of subjugation before the liberation. It may or may not be true, but to including the term in the title carries a none neutral point of view, which is a breach of the Wikipedia:NPOV policy. As I said above if BWL was overwhelmingly used, then there would be some justification with using it, but this is not the case so the title should be changed to a more neutral one. -- Philip Baird Shearer 12:05, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Please stop reinserting these crap sources - they in no way show that Rahman made the 3 million claim. They do show that there is a widespread belief that he made the claim, but they do nothing to verify the fact that he did. One is some loon's personal correspondance with the GBWR, and the other is an unverified assertion in a thesis. You would hardly see them referenced in the Encyclopedia Britannica, would you...? Cripipper 22:05, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Self-published sources (online and paper)
Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources.
Self-published material may be acceptable when produced by a well-known, professional researcher in a relevant field or a well-known professional journalist. These may be acceptable so long as their work has been previously published by reliable third-party publications. However, exercise caution: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so."
SO, just to clarify: personal websites are not acceptable sources, ruling out the second of the two. The thesis is unpublished, and is not written by a historian, but by someone who works in the field of education - not a relevant field. Cripipper 15:09, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
The Office of the Historian of the United States State Department held a two-day conference in late June 2005 on U.S. policy in South Asia between 1961 and 1972. The State Department invited international scholars to express their views on declassified documents recently published in the Foreign Relations of the United States series. Acording to a newspaper report published in both Pakistani and Bangladeshi newspapers, Bangladeshi speakers at the conference stated that the official Bangladeshi figure of civilian deaths was close to 300,000, which was wrongly translated from Bengali into English as three million. Ambassador Shamsher M. Chowdhury acknowledged that Bangladesh alone cannot correct this mistake and suggested Pakistan and Bangladesh should form a joint commission to investigate the 1971 disaster and prepare a report. "Almost all scholars agreed that the real figure was somewhere between 26,000, as reported by the Hamoodur Rahman Commission, and not three million, the official figure put forward by Bangladesh and India." [27][28][29]
I have two questions here:
In general, I have an issue with this section. Most of this is US justification to not intervening in the war. As far as Bangladeshi sources are concerned, from what I recall, the papers seem to treat the speakers as being selectively picked for some ulterior motives. There are numerous conferences held everyday with speakers. Why quote numbers from them? It's not really a reputed academic source, is it, especially given USSD's involvement in the War?
urnonav 22:03, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
I haven't read the whole article, but I have to say, I feel there may be just a tad bit of bias here...
"The Pakistani Army was in a dreadful condition and gradually lost the will to fight because most of their major fortresses had fallen to the allied Bengali-Indian forces. It was a matter of shame for the Pakistani High Command that a well-trained army was losing the war to the common Bengali civilians, who were barely trained and had outdated weapons. To conceal this shameful matter they launched an air attack near the Indian border on December 3 so that the real facts would remain unknown to the common people and people would say that Pakistani Army did not lose to the Mukti Bahini but to more powerful Indian armies. This led India to announce war against Pakistan officially and they started attacking near the Pakistan-India border from the 6th of December. All-out war between Bangladesh-India and Pakistan began. The agility and strategy of the Mukti Bahini, aided by Indian forces, overwhelmed the Pakistani forces and within 10 days of India's joiníng the war, the Pakistani Army was compelled to an unconditional surrender on December 16, 1971."
The phrasing is pretty slanted. The "shameful act?" "So that the real facts would remain unknown to the common people." This needs to be cleaned up.
Agreed. How about this?
-- Ragib 01:52, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
This needs to be reverted at once. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.193.169.229 ( talk) 02:32, 22 February 2007 (UTC).
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