Curse of the majors
Did history pre-dispose Bangladesh to military interventions?
As with judicial decisions, so it is with transgressions where precedence matters a lot. If you’ve never smoked illegal substance, or flirted in the absence of your spouse, it will be hard for you to even contemplate a cocaine addled orgy. But one is on a slippery slope when, well, a certain Rubicon is crossed.
That’s how it has been with military interventions, from the time of the Romans (and even earlier) all the way to Bangladesh. If a general gets away with toppling a government and annulling the constitution, his successors are encouraged by the precedence. All of Bangladesh’s army chiefs until Lt Gen Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury were commissioned in the Pakistan army, and thus had the precedence of Gen Ayub Khan’s dabbling in politics as far back as the early 1950s. Lt Gen HM Ershad chose to act on those precedence, thereby creating precedence of his own for Lt Gen ASM Nasim and Lt Gen Moeen U Ahmed.
Of course, Bangladesh experienced military interventions way before Ershad became the army chief. In fact, none of the military coups — successful or otherwise — of the first decade was led by the highest ranking officers — Maj Gen Shafiullah, Maj Gen Khalilur Rahman and Maj Gen Ziaur Rahman. It appears that there was more to the mayhem of the 1970s than the ghost of Ayub Khan.
And there was. Insidious precedences were created in the very foundational moments of the country by bona fide war heroes like Ziaur Rahman and Khaled Mosharrof — the majors in the title. In March 1971, motivated by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s leadership, these officers of Pakistan army — trained to follow orders, ostensibly to defend Pakistan — rejected their allegiance to that country for ‘Bangla Desh’. After the crackdown in Dhaka on 25 March, they led their entire units into rebellion. Others joined them in individual capacity. Some even escaped from Pakistan to join the Mukti Bahini.
How do we know that they were motivated by some political ideology, and not personal reasons such as safety?
We know that not every Bengali in Pakistan army joined them. Jahanzeb Arbab — the brigadier who arrested Sheikh Sahib on 25 March — tells us of a Major Abdul Mannan who helped the assault on Comilla and Chittagong. One of the BNP nominees for the controversial Election Commission in late 2006 surrendered with Lt Gen AAK Niazi on 16 December. Qaiyum Chowdhury — brother of prominent intellectuals Munier (killed by the Al Badr on 14 December) and Kabir (national professor in liberated Bangladesh) — stayed on in Pakistan after 1971. HM Ershad, army dictator turned key ally of the Awami League, served in the military court set up to try those who joined the Mukti Bahini.
Major Zia could have easily stuck with the Pakistanis. Instead of identifying himself on the radio, he could have simply melted away in the crowd, and reported for duty once the Pakistanis captured Chittagong. What he, and other majors, did was not just heroic, but crucially, entirely political.
Zia demonstrated political acumen by his repeated radio declarations, first in his own name and claiming to be the head of the state, and then on behalf of the ‘Great National Leader, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’. Our pathetic history wars focus on who got to the mike first, and we lose the political relevance of Zia’s radio speeches. His messages were in English, telling the world that a new country was born and Pakistan was now an occupying power. He was telling the world that there was a government, led by Mujib who had won the people’s mandate in December 1970. He was telling the world that Bangladesh would abide by all international rules and obligations that befit a sovereign state. These were the stuff of politics.
Through Rehman Sobhan, Khaled implored the Awami League leaders to form a government as quickly as possible and commission the rebel commanders appropriately. Until this was done, the majors and their men were nothing more than mutineers and defectors. Zia, Khaled and others organised a conference in Teliapara to co-ordinate the resistance strategy.
Not just Zia or Khaled, but also Abu Taher, or MA Jalil, or Abul Manzur — they all understood very well that choosing Bangladesh over Pakistan was a political act.
The thing is, once you’ve defied orders and rebelled for one political reason — no matter how justified the reason may be — you have also created the precedence for someone else to defy orders for some other political reason. Once Major Zia took control of a radio station and made one historic announcement, he created a precedence for a Major Dalim to make another announcement.
At this point, let me state something clearly — there is nothing inevitable about history. Things happen because of specific actions by specific people at specific point in time reacting to specific incentives and exigencies. So coups were not inevitable in Bangladesh. They could have been avoided in the past, and they can certainly be avoided in the future.
Zia’s actions in 1971 did not make Dalim’s actions in 1975 inevitable. And Ayub’s actions in the 1950s didn’t make Ershad’s in the 1980s inevitable. Just the way Zia and others created a precedence of mutiny, they also created the precedence of following political leadership. They fought the war under the command of Gen MAG Osmani, who was appointed by the government led by Tajuddin Ahmed and composed of politicians.
From the nationalist and radical colonels of Arab armies to the reactionaries who ruled Greece, the 1950s and the 1960s saw a global trend of heavily politicised, ideologically indoctrinated mid-ranking army officers launching revolutions and toppling governments. Pakistan had been, indeed has continued to be, a major exception to this global development. While the army has formally or informally governed the country for decades, there has been no coup or rebellion of junior officers, March 1971 being the sole exception.
Clearly, the Bengali captains and majors of the Pakistan army were susceptible to the global trend of ‘free officers’ (Gamal Abdel Nasser’s term for his coterie). The rebel units of uniformed soldiers formed the nucleus of the Mukti Bahini, alongside the mass participation of peasants and student activists to form guerrilla forces. Without the already-trained military men, India would have found it significantly more difficult to organise a long war. Indeed, without these rebel soldiers, it is quite possible that the political resistance would have collapsed.
And yet, political power in the newborn country did not initially emanate from the barrel of a gun. Many a country has been born through a violent conflict. And in many other cases a charismatic leader had assumed power with some form of popular mandate. It is hard to think of a case where the armed men voluntarily lowered their guns and did not assume a seat at the table of power once victory was achieved, deferring to a leader who chose to remain absent from the battlefield. Except Bangladesh, that is.
That is, the majors did not curse us after all. History was such that our country was born with a high risk of susceptibility to coups. To overcome that susceptibility, we needed judicious leadership. Something, regrettably, we didn’t get in our first years.
This follows the history of coups in Bangladesh, and will be followed up by a piece on how to keep the military out of politics in the future. These pieces draw on materials previously published in other blogs.
Further reading
Bangladesh Chiefs Split on Ideology
Lewis M Simons, 4 Nov 1976
Pakistan’s apology to Bangladesh is a thorn in the throat. Neither can move past it
Ayesha Siddiqa, 6 Jan 2022
Ali Usman Qasmi, 21 Mar 2022
শিলিগুড়ি সম্মেলনের উজ্জ্বল ও ধূসর দিক and গোপন সম্মেলনের অজানা নথি
মোহাম্মদ সাজ্জাদুর রহমান, 20 Oct 2022
জিয়াউর রহমান ৭ই নভেম্বর সামরিক শাসক হওয়ার পরের সপ্তাহজুড়ে কী করেছিলেন
সাইয়েদা আক্তার, 8 Nov 2022
Muhammad Mozammel Hussain, 16 Dec 2022
Mohammad Taqi, 6 Feb 2023