Citizens to Traitors
Bengali Internment in Pakistan, 1971–1974
Seiten
2025
Cambridge University Press (Verlag)
978-1-009-56824-1 (ISBN)
Cambridge University Press (Verlag)
978-1-009-56824-1 (ISBN)
This book recovers the hitherto untold story of the way in which citizens were made and unmade after the Bangladesh War by studying the predicament of Bengali military and civil personnel interned in West Pakistan as a bargaining chip to facilitate the return of Pakistani prisoners of war held by India.
The break-up of Pakistan in 1971 following a bloody civil war and military defeat by India is wrapped in layers of silences, making it difficult to ferret out the truth from the mistruths. The war ended with over 90,000 Pakistani prisoners of war (POWs) captured in East Pakistan–turned-Bangladesh, who were then transferred to Indian custody. Pakistan responded by interning roughly the same number of Bengali co-religionists in West Pakistan as leverage for the return of its captured POWs. Neither group would return home immediately in what arguably became one of the largest cases of mutual mass internment since 1945. Drawing on a wide range of untapped sources, this book traces the trajectory of this crisis of captivity in which the Bengalis found themselves as rightless citizens with 'traitor' and 'enemy' status after the Bangladesh War. Over half a century after the 1971 war, the internment of Bengalis remains a non-event in the most significant political crisis in Pakistan's history. This book explains this silence in the historiography.
The break-up of Pakistan in 1971 following a bloody civil war and military defeat by India is wrapped in layers of silences, making it difficult to ferret out the truth from the mistruths. The war ended with over 90,000 Pakistani prisoners of war (POWs) captured in East Pakistan–turned-Bangladesh, who were then transferred to Indian custody. Pakistan responded by interning roughly the same number of Bengali co-religionists in West Pakistan as leverage for the return of its captured POWs. Neither group would return home immediately in what arguably became one of the largest cases of mutual mass internment since 1945. Drawing on a wide range of untapped sources, this book traces the trajectory of this crisis of captivity in which the Bengalis found themselves as rightless citizens with 'traitor' and 'enemy' status after the Bangladesh War. Over half a century after the 1971 war, the internment of Bengalis remains a non-event in the most significant political crisis in Pakistan's history. This book explains this silence in the historiography.
Ilyas Chattha is an Associate Professor of History at LUMS, Lahore. He is the author of The Punjab Borderland (Cambridge University Press, 2022) and Partition and Locality (Oxford University Press, 2012).
List of Figures; List of Tables; Foreword: Ora Phire Elo – Unsteady Return to an Imagined Community Naeem Mohaiemen; Preface and Acknowledgements; Note on Transliteration; List of Abbreviations; Introduction; 1. Making of a Traitor: Being Bengali in (West) Pakistan; 2. Military Encampment; 3. Civilian Internment; 4. 'General Repatriation Centres'; 5. Stranded Bengalis Outside the Camps; 6. Escape or Die: Heroic Stories; 7. The Politics of Triangular Repatriation; Conclusion: Legacies, Meanings, and Memoires; Glossary; Bibliography; Index.
| Erscheinungsdatum | 26.08.2025 |
|---|---|
| Reihe/Serie | Muslim South Asia |
| Zusatzinfo | Worked examples or Exercises |
| Verlagsort | Cambridge |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Themenwelt | Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Zeitgeschichte |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte | |
| ISBN-10 | 1-009-56824-8 / 1009568248 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1-009-56824-1 / 9781009568241 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
| Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR) | |
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