1971: A time to remember, a time to tell

We had begun the project because all of us had felt that there was a need to construct a history that would not be located in a personal or political space. We were not overtly ambitious. We hoped to construct a book of around 500 pages with a core chapter on life in the villages of 1971, the rest touching the main topics of related history. It would be like a bright sunflower with the core chapter in the middle and the rest like petals spread around it.

The other chapters would be desk work based, chapters constructed on the documents and narratives of 1971 that had gained credibility over time. The 15 volumes of documents popularly known as 'Dolilpatra' has stood the test of time and as we had access to the first edition, we felt we would find enough materials to do this work. Obviously, we had underestimated the scale of our endeavour.

As work progressed so did the scope of work. The initial plan of 10 chapters reached 22 and after adding the interviews and personal narratives, the book crossed 1500 royal-sized pages. We have most probably read every book that has come out in Bangladesh on 1971, many books by Indian and Pakistani authors and perused what we could lay our hands on. Had we known about the enormity of the task, I am not sure if we would have dared. The book took a life of its own almost dictating where it would go and how, a bit like our own 1971. We followed the logic of our task.

To participate in such a journey, which for some could be a sacred one, was in the end an adventure for us. To hold a job full time and work on such a vast book project wasn't easy for most of the older members of the project who had been involved with its birth. As they fell away, pulled by demands on their time and livelihood, it's the young who stepped in and finally influenced the tone of the book. Free from political baggage, they seemed very keen to participate in a task which would present the history just as it was and face some of the ignored or evaded questions that haunt our history. In the end, it was about the meaning and exercise of intellectuality in history writing rather than constructing a heroic or a tragic narrative.

We had of course felt that the social experiences especially of those who are not part of the star cast had been neglected over time. They are seen only as victims or warriors and the whole description of survival didn't seem adequate. We felt uncomfortable with that approach. We wanted a fuller and more well-rounded description of the past, an analysis of the historical process and not just the narrow confines of nationalist historiography. Perhaps, we were not making a point about who was right or wrong. We wanted to say it as it happened and expect the events to explain what occurred. I hope we have achieved some part of that ambition.

In the end, it's of course a platter full of several histories. Just as we observe three States in three stages - one collapsing, one emerging and one expanding - we also pondered on the nature of these states. Yet our own focus was on bringing society in 1971 as alive as possible because we know so little and collective forgetting has set in. Some of that has been possible because of the designated chapters and some because of over 200 interviews that are in the book where the original voices have been kept as pristine as possible. These interviews of Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis ranged from the topmost leadership to those of ordinary villagers. By putting them at the same level, we found a sense of balance and 1971 looked more real, liberated from the hypes of the accuser and the accused.

It was also humbling because once the task was over we realized how flawed the work is. Oh, if we could go on and on, far beyond the ten revisions of the work. I wish we had another ten but it's the existential hazard of attempting something like this which has to be completed and presented.

For me personally, it became a race to finish the book before my health totally collapsed. With each diagnosis of a fresh symptom, I would not see the end of my body but the end of the work, left unfinished. I resented my body for being a stumbling block. It was a humbling experience but the great journey and adventure is almost done.

Why should our book be worth such importance or attention? Quite frankly, it's not worth it. Yet it has a right to exist along with other works. It's not a history of subalterns or even by them or of leaders and experts but it's a chorus of which the words and tunes have been agreed after polishing and sweating through hard work. The collective words drown out the individual voice and in this history there is no glory seeker. Just as the war was a great leveller, the book is perhaps one attempt when people of all shades and types got together and constructed the work, a collective history of ordinary people, about themselves, their society and their State. The absence of official patronage has perhaps preserved this integrity.

The history of 1971 began long before the first gun was fired in anger and continues long after the warring guns fell silent. It's a process, not an event. We have wrestled with that thought and knowing that the task remains unfinished is the best description that we can offer of what we have tried to do.

Afsan Chowdhury is a columnist for various newspapers and journals in South Asia. He did his master's in history from Dhaka University.