Dead Reckoning: Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War

Dead Reckoning: Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War is a controversial book on the Bangladesh Liberation War written by Sarmila Bose.[1] The book caused an uproar in Bangladesh, where it has been accused of flawed and biased methodology, historical negationism and downplaying war crimes.[2][3][4][5][6]

Dead Reckoning: Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War
AuthorSarmila Bose
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
GenreHistory
PublisherC. Hurst & Co.
Publication date
1 April 2011
Media typePrint (hardback and paperback)
Pages288
ISBN978-1849040495

Overview

Bose uses personal interviews from all sides of the war.[7] It accuses Bangladeshis and Pakistanis of "myth making."[7]

Controversies

Criticism

Bose's study has been criticized by various Indian historians and academics for numerous inaccuracies and excessive reliance on Pakistani military and government sources, thereby giving a low estimate of the 1971 Bangladesh genocide.[8] Researchers have accused her of flawed and biased methodology, historical revisionism and downplaying[9] war crimes.[10][3][4][5] In several cases, she misquoted her interviewees and other academics that she cites as reference.[11] Bose has been criticised for her bias towards Pakistani Army in the language she deploys – Bangladeshi accounts are labelled "claims", Pakistani officers' accounts are straightforward accounts.[12] Bose's impartiality has also been questioned due to her previous role as an advocate of US arms sales to Pakistan.[13][14][15][16][17][18]

Srinath Raghavan, the author of 1971: A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh, calls Bose's book a "disturbing misrepresentation of the 1971 war"[19] and further writes that "it is impossible to review the entire catalogue of evasions, obfuscations, omissions and methodological errors that suffuses the book".[20]

Minimization of rapes

The most severe criticisms against Bose report that Bose's claims that allegations of genocide and rape by the Pakistan Army were exaggerated by Bangladesh and India.[21][22][23] She is alleged to have presented selective interviews of witnesses in favour of her opinions.[10][17]

Bose has been criticized long before publishing the book for her research methodologies. She accepts the statement of Pakistani Brigadier Taj that no women were tortured in Rajarbag to be true even though Taj was not present during the operation. But she invalidates the testimony of an eyewitness of the incidents of rape done by Pakistani Army as the witness is illiterate. In another case, she asserted that since one rape victim feared for her life, she must have consented to having sex with Pakistani soldiers.[24]

Bose's book implies a claim to being the 'first' to dissect the death toll of 3 million in 1971, Zunaid Kazi had already documented 12 different media estimates of death tolls.[1]

Response

Bose has responded to three of her most notable critics – Naeem Mohaiemen, Urvashi Butalia, and Srinath Raghavan.[25] Sarmila Bose has responded to her critics,[25] and maintains that her research is unbiased and those she calls her critics who were accusing her of "betrayal" were "those who have profited for so long from mythologizing the history of 1971."[7] Bose also maintains that books written by Pakistanis on Pakistan Army's atrocity during 1971, were 'limited'.[26]

References
  1. Lawson, Alastair (16 June 2011). "Controversial book accuses Bengalis of 1971 war crimes". BBC. Archived from the original on 8 July 2013. Retrieved 30 December 2013.
  2. Ahsan, Syed Badrul (13 July 2011). "Sarmila Bose and bad arithmetic". The Daily Star. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 21 December 2013.
  3. "Naeem Mohaiemen, "Flying Blind: Waiting for a real Reckoning on 1971", Economic & Political Weekly, vol xlvi no 36, 3 September 2011" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 April 2012. Retrieved 20 December 2013.
  4. "Sarmila Bose, "'Dead Reckoning': A Response"; Naeem Mohaiemen, "Another Reckoning"; Economic & Political Weekly, vol xlvi no 53, 31 December 2011" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 July 2013. Retrieved 20 December 2013.
  5. Zeitlin, Arnold (17 November 2013). "Thoughts on Dead Reckoning". The Daily Star. Retrieved 16 December 2013.
  6. Mohammed Parvez Imdad, Debunking Bose's Myths, The Daily Star, 26 March 2018
  7. Bose, Sarmila (9 May 2011). "Myth-busting the Bangladesh war of 1971". Opinion (1). Aljazeera. Aljazeera. Archived from the original on 5 June 2017. Retrieved 3 May 2017.
  8. Bergman, David (24 April 2014). "Questioning an iconic number" (1). The Hindu. The Hindu. Archived from the original on 28 December 2020. Retrieved 28 September 2016.
  9. Bhaumik, Subir (29 April 2011). "Book, film greeted with fury among Bengalis". aljazeera. Archived from the original on 30 January 2014. Retrieved 21 December 2013.
  10. Sahgal, Gita (18 December 2011). "Dead Reckoning: Disappearing stories and evidence". The Daily Star. Archived from the original on 20 October 2013. Retrieved 19 December 2013.
  11. Mohaimen, Naeem (3 October 2011). "Flying Blind: Waiting for a Real Reckoning on 1971". The Daily Star. Archived from the original on 6 December 2011. Retrieved 20 December 2013.
  12. Butalia, Urvashi (13 August 2011). "She Does Not Know Best". Tehelka. Archived from the original on 18 July 2013. Retrieved 21 December 2013.
  13. Sobhan, Zafar. "Bose is more Pakistani than Jinnah the Quaid". The Sunday Guardian. Archived from the original on 12 December 2013. Retrieved 16 December 2013.
  14. Mookherjee, Nayanika (7 June 2011). "This account of the Bangladesh war should not be seen as unbiased". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 28 December 2020. Retrieved 19 December 2013.
  15. Raghavan, Srinath (30 July 2011). "A Dhaka Debacle". The Indian Express. Archived from the original on 28 November 2013. Retrieved 19 December 2013.
  16. Zia, Afia (12 January 2012). "Reading and writing 1971". The Express Tribune. Archived from the original on 22 December 2013. Retrieved 20 December 2013.
  17. Nasir, ABM (14 March 2011). "Return of Sarmila Bose". bdnews24. Archived from the original on 16 December 2013. Retrieved 20 December 2013.
  18. Milam, William (11 April 2005). "The right stuff: F-16s to Pakistan is wise decision". The Christian Science Monitor. Archived from the original on 22 December 2013. Retrieved 16 December 2013.
  19. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 18 April 2018. Retrieved 5 July 2017.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  20. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 18 April 2018. Retrieved 5 July 2017.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  21. Woodrow Wilson Center Woodrow Wilson Center Book Launch event Archived 17 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine
  22. Anatomy of Violence: Analysis of Civil War in East Pakistan in 1971 Archived 25 April 2012 at the Wayback Machine by Sarmila Bose in the Economic and Political Weekly, 8 October 2005
  23. Losing the Victims: Problems of Using Women as Weapons in Recounting the Bangladesh War Archived 25 April 2012 at the Wayback Machine by Sarmila Bose in the Economic and Political Weekly, 22 September 2007
  24. Rahman, Mashuqur (December 2007). "The continuing rape of our history". The Daily Star. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 21 December 2013.
  25. Bose, Sarmila (31 December 2011). "'Dead Reckoning': A Response". Economic & Political Weekly. 46 (53): 76–79. Retrieved 19 March 2015.
  26. Bose, Sarmila (2011). Dead Reckoning. Columbia University Press. p. 195.

Further reading
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