They shaped the psyche of the nation

The cherished goal, with its inevitable finality, came after a nine-month long War of Independence, officially beginning on March 26, 1971, and ending on December 16 of the same year. In many strange ways the saga of the Bengalis would remind one of epics of Homeric proportion, more like the trials and tribulation of Ulysses on his way back to his home, Ithaca.

The Bengalis, each a Ulysses prior to finding Ithaca, drifted in the haze of treachery and deceit that was Pakistani rule for painful 23 years. Like Ulysses, Bengalis had to endure many adversities -- some deceptive, some threatening in nature -- in their quest for equality and equity in sharing state power. The undercurrent of denial became conspicuous right from the creation of a flawed country having two wings separated by a thousand miles of another independent country. The bizarrely deformed nation was doomed to die prematurely, which it did in 1971.

If the geographical distance was conspicuous, the cultural, mental, and intellectual difference between the peoples on the two sides of the divide was overwhelmingly wide. The Pakistani rulers were clever enough to foresee the predicament and lost no time in installing a mechanism, a coalition of civil and military forces, for plundering the wealth of Bengal before the time came to pack up. With the help of some local quislings, Bengali and Urdu speaking, Pakistani military rulers and a hoard of traders began the process of denuding Bengal of its pristine resources in the name of tarakki and tamaddun (development).

They needed a potent drug to dope the simple-thinking people of the land so that they could not perceive the ulterior motive. And what else but religion could come to their help? The Pakistanis fully capitalized on the religious sentiment to allure and coerce the simple thinking but hard working people of Bengal. They kept pointing their fingers at India, and made serious attempts at fanning an anti-Indian jingoism or xenophobia to divert the attention of the Bengalis from their furtive scheme of plundering. "Islam khatrey mey hai" (Islam is in danger) became the infamous slogan of the time.

But Ulysses never lost the sense of the direction of land, even for a moment. He never lost the zeal for survival; never lost the will to fight back against the evil, and never wavered from his mission to reach home. When Bengalis began to see clearly through the haze of Pakistan-made Islamic frenzy, the saga turned into a manuscript of mayhem. The chapter of overall resistance began from here on.

But resistance needs guidance. To resist effectively one needs knowledge. To resist a powerful enemy and to reach the ultimate goal requires imbibing certain essential knowledge and principles that go into preparing the collective psyche of the people to take up arms to attain freedom. Before charging for that final goal, the mind and soul of the people need to be imbued with the essence of the elements -- patriotism, love for tradition, language, culture, and customs -- so that the ethos of freedom finds its roots deep in the soul. Once the emotion and the rationale successfully converge at a given point to forge an inseparable bond, the march along the path for victory turns out to be an idyllic journey.

But who would imbue the people? How would the elements of emotion or rationale be instilled in the souls of the masses? Can such molding be done in one day, in one month, in one year? Obviously not. Then again, who are best suited to mould the thoughts of the masses and prepare them for greater suffering and sacrifice before pushing for the shore in the distance, as Ulysses did?

It is the writers, poets, artists, singers, playwrights, journalists, stage artistes, teachers, columnists, and social thinkers in a society who carry out that arduous task of rekindling the flame in the hearts of the millions so that their souls get illuminated and they could separate right from wrong. And the intellectuals of Bangladesh had been doing that to the best of their ability since the 1950s, especially more vigorously since the Language Movement in 1952. Since that historic moment they never put down their pen until victory became theirs.

In their newspaper articles, short stories, poems, plays, songs, in seminars, meetings, and social interactions, the intellectuals of Bengal boldly and blatantly spoke about the economic exploitation of the people by the corrupt rulers from Pakistan. Some of the politicians of the land began to speak openly in public meetings about the disparity that existed between West and East Pakistan and demanded equal share if not more in the distribution of wealth. But the Pakistanis were not in the mood to listen and comply. Sensing a greater movement brewing in the imminent future the military junta, in cahoots with an equally corrupt civil administration, accelerated the pace of plundering and torture.

Bengalis realized it was time for total freedom. Their eyes had opened up and they had come out of the haze. Now they had knowledge and they are ready for nothing less than total independence. The intellectuals had done their duty well. Now it was time for the students, teachers, workers, and farmers to meet on the battlefield to defeat the enemy and snatch victory. Ithaca had been sighted. The final battle remained.

It came in the shape of March 25, 1971. The brutality of a well-armed enemy got befitting reply throughout the swathe of the landscape for nine months. On December 16, the hyenas accepted an ignoble defeat and receded to the bushes to lick their wounds. In the month of December, Bengalis the world over remember in silence the sacrifice of the martyred intellectuals. We shall not forget them.

Shahnoor Wahid is senior Assistant Editor, The Daily Star.