The daily star: I was born in Pakistan, a few months before the war which resulted in the creation of Bangladesh on December 16, 1971. And it was only after I moved to the US that I recognised the magnitude of human rights abuses the Pakistani army committed against their Bengali “brothers and sisters in faith.” So now, whenever I come across a Bengali in the West, I offer her/him a sincere apology.
The last time it happened was in Canada.
It was past midnight and we were having a blast at my sister’s — who had recently moved to Canada from Pakistan — when my niece’s friend bailed out on colour printing a class assignment. We found a 24-hour open Fed-Ex store a few miles away. I rode in a car full of cousins and within 30-minutes we were collecting colour prints from a Bengali looking spirited young man at the Fed-Ex store. (I know — Pakistanis, Indians, Bengalis and Sri Lankans are a jumbled up mass of nearly 2 billion people to an average American eye but we immigrants have our tricks.) So I politely asked: “Are you from Bangladesh?” “Yes,” he replied. “I am from Pakistan and I am very sorry for what my country did to your people in 1971,” I said it without a warning. Immediately, his face turned red and his eyes welled up. “You don’t have to be sorry sir, you didn’t do anything wrong.” “But it was done by my country, my people, in my name. Granted, I was in diapers back then but that’s precisely why I am apologising to you now,” I insisted.
Before you label me a self-hating Pakistani, let’s agree on what I never read in my Pakistan Studies textbooks.
The roots of this apology lie many time zones away from a Canadian Fed-Ex store, when in 1947 East and West Pakistan gained independence as a united nation. However, despite having a larger population, East Pakistanis were significantly under-represented in civil, military and political arenas. Funds spent on East Pakistan consistently remained under 50% as a percentage of West Pakistan’s spending and the representation of Bengali officers in the Pakistani army was a mere 5% until 1965. I never read this in any Pakistani textbook.
Categories: Asia