Chapter 14- The 1971 Liberation War: A Freedom Fighters Perspective

It's been MONTHS since I’ve sat at my desk, put my headphones back on, dusted off the microphone and tuned back in. I’m about to take you on an emotional rollercoaster with this episode as we delve into my mother’s past as well as many of your parents pasts as well. To fully understand the background of this fight for freedom in Bangladesh, we need to travel back to 1947, when India won its independence from the British. At this time India was a huge country, even bigger than it is today, but after British rule there ended, the country split into two new states: India and Pakistan, who would both rule themselves. Pakistan was split across two areas - Pakistan and East Pakistan - which were 1,240 miles apart. Partition happened in this way because the majority of Indian people were part of the Hindu religion, but the people living in the areas that became Pakistan and East Pakistan, were mainly Muslim. Although the people living in East and West Pakistan were both Muslim, they had little else in common with different cultures and language. Most people in East Pakistan were part of a racial group called Bengali, and were the majority in Pakistan overall. However they feared being dominated and controlled by minority group in West Pakistan. Over time people living in East Pakistan began to feel more and more controlled by the government in West Pakistan. To tell her perspective of this story, I invite my mother Nazma Begum on to the podcast who witnessed the war unravel and is still somewhat suffering from the generational trauma it carried with it. Just as a disclaimer, me and Ma are not historians so please keep in mind that not all of the information disclosed will be factually correct. Our aim was to provide a perspective and we hope you enjoyed our conversation, see you next time!