Denial Cannot Rewrite 1971: Jamaat Must Face Its History

There are some things a political party can change: its candidates, slogans, campaign strategy, leadership and even the language it uses to appeal to a new generation. But there is one thing no party can change -- history.

That is the uncomfortable truth Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami must confront after Jamaat MP Mufti Amir Hamza reportedly dismissed the terms “Razakar” and “Al-Badr” as an “Indian drama” at a rally in Kushtia on 16 August. If accurately reported, the remark is not a serious response to the historical record. It is an attempt to change the subject.

The problem for Jamaat is that the history of 1971 does not depend on today's political opponents. It does not depend on India, one newspaper or one government. It is preserved in contemporary documents, historical accounts, reference works, Pakistani sources, political publications and judicial records.

The evidence examined by Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal is particularly difficult to dismiss. In the Kamaruzzaman proceedings, the Supreme Court judgment reproduced historical material describing Al-Badr as an “action section” or armed wing associated with Jamaat and its student organisation, Islami Chhatra Sangha. The judgment also examined the relationship between Jamaat leaders and the Pakistani military authorities and the formation of Al-Badr and Al-Shams.

The Ghulam Azam judgment went further, examining evidence concerning Jamaat's contribution to the formation and functioning of the Peace Committee, Razakar, Al-Badr and Al-Shams in opposition to Bangladesh's independence. Whatever one's view of the politics surrounding the tribunals, these are judicial records containing detailed examinations of historical evidence -- not material that can simply be dismissed as an Indian invention.

So when a Jamaat leader describes the historical labels of Razakar and Al-Badr as an “Indian drama”, the obvious question is: what exactly is India supposed to have invented?

Did India invent Jamaat's opposition to Bangladesh's independence? Did it invent the wartime activities of Jamaat's student organisation? Did it author the contemporary accounts documenting collaboration with the Pakistan army? Did it manufacture the historical record concerning Al-Badr, Al-Shams and the Peace Committee?

These questions expose the weakness of the “Indian conspiracy” argument. The evidence comes from multiple sources and was examined in judicial proceedings. The real question is not whether India created this history, but whether parts of the history remain too uncomfortable for Jamaat to confront honestly.

Banglapedia, an established reference work on Bangladesh, describes Al-Badr as a paramilitary force formed during the 1971 war under the patronage of the Pakistan government to assist the occupation forces. Its account of the genocide also records the role of Razakar, Al-Badr and Al-Shams alongside the Pakistani military in suppressing the independence movement.

This is not simply a question of whether one likes Jamaat or dislikes it. It is a question of evidence.

And the evidence matters because the consequences were not theoretical.

The killing of Bangalee intellectuals in December 1971 remains one of the darkest chapters of the Liberation War. Historical and judicial records have examined the role of Pakistani military authorities and their local collaborators in the campaign against intellectuals.

Yet this is precisely where recent Jamaat rhetoric raises an even more serious question.

On 14 December 2025, Jamaat Secretary General Mia Golam Parwar claimed that the killings of intellectuals were part of a “well-planned conspiracy” by the Indian army and intelligence agencies. He argued that Pakistani forces, Razakars and Al-Badr members were then preoccupied with surrendering or fleeing and therefore could not have carried out the killings.

That is not merely a disagreement over historical interpretation. It is a fundamental challenge to a long-established account of one of the most traumatic episodes of Bangladesh's history.

If Jamaat has new evidence, it is entitled to present it. But outlandish historical claims require extraordinary evidence. They cannot become established fact simply because a senior political leader says them from a public platform.

The recent debate also exposes an unresolved tension within Jamaat's own messaging.

In May 2025, following the Supreme Court's acquittal of Jamaat leader ATM Azharul Islam in his crimes-against-humanity case, Jamaat Ameer Shafiqur Rahman offered an unconditional apology to anyone harmed by the party or its activists.

Then, in October, Shafiqur Rahman again offered an unconditional apology for suffering caused by Jamaat since 1947. Importantly, he acknowledged that Jamaat had opposed the breakup of Pakistan in 1971 and said its leadership should have respected the aspirations of the people of Bangladesh.

That acknowledgment deserves to be noted. But a broad apology is not the same thing as a detailed historical reckoning. It leaves unanswered crucial questions about the party's organisational role, its relationship with the Pakistani military authorities and the activities of forces associated with its political and student networks.

And when such an apology is followed by senior Jamaat figures offering radically different explanations of the intellectual killings, the public is entitled to ask whether the party has truly confronted its past or merely changed the language with which it discusses it.

The case of ATM Azharul Islam requires a similar distinction. After the Supreme Court cleared him in May 2025, he called the executions of other Jamaat leaders convicted during the war-crimes proceedings “judicial killings” and demanded prosecution of those responsible.

The Supreme Court's decision in his individual case must be respected. But an acquittal in one criminal case does not, by itself, settle the much broader historical question of Jamaat's political and organisational position during the Liberation War.

That distinction is essential.

Jamaat's present leadership is entitled to argue that today's party is different from the organisation of 1971. Political parties can change. Organisations can reform. New generations can inherit and revise the ideas of their predecessors.

But genuine transformation requires an honest reckoning with the past.

If today's Jamaat is genuinely different, it should be able to say plainly: we acknowledge the historical record, we recognise the suffering of the victims, and we reject the political position that placed our predecessors against the aspirations of the people of Bangladesh.

Anything less risks creating the impression that the party wants the political benefits of rehabilitation without the moral burden of accountability.

There is another argument from some Jamaat voices that deserves rejection: that today's young Bangladeshis no longer care about the Liberation War.

That assumption is not only wrong; it is dismissive.

Young Bangladeshis may debate 1971 differently from their parents and grandparents. They may question the political use of Liberation War history. They may reject attempts by any political party to monopolise its legacy. But none of that means they have forgotten.

Indeed, the continuing controversy proves the opposite. Jamaat itself continues to defend, explain, reinterpret and dispute aspects of 1971. If the history were truly irrelevant to the younger generation, there would be little reason for today's political leaders to spend so much effort trying to reshape it.

To tell young Bangladeshis that they should not care is not political sophistication.

It is arrogance.

The Liberation War is not the property of the Awami League, BNP, Jamaat or any other political organisation. It belongs to Bangladesh.

Its history belongs to the people who lived through it -- the families who lost loved ones, the millions displaced by the war, the freedom fighters who fought for independence and the countless civilians who endured violence and persecution.

That is why Jamaat should be extremely careful about turning every uncomfortable historical question into an Indian conspiracy.

Bangladeshis are entitled to ask questions. They are entitled to demand evidence. They are entitled to examine competing accounts. And they are entitled to reject attempts to rewrite the country's founding history without compelling evidence.

Jamaat has every democratic right to participate in politics. Its supporters have every democratic right to defend the party and challenge its critics. But democracy does not give any political organisation to rewrite the history or the right to dictate what the nation must remember.

Jamaat can change its candidates, rewrite its slogans, reinvent its campaign strategy and offer apologies for the past. It can rebrand itself and present a new political face to a new generation.

But it cannot reinvent 1971.

It cannot rewrite the choices made by its predecessors, erase the documentary record or make history conform to today's political convenience. No rebranding can alter the past; no slogan can silence it; and no political campaign can make the Liberation War disappear.

The documents remain. The testimony remains. The historical record remains. And the memories of the victims remain.

Most importantly, Bangladesh remains.

If Jamaat genuinely wants to close the chapter on its past, there is only one credible way to do so: confront the chapter honestly. Acknowledge what the evidence establishes. Explain what was wrong with the political choices made in 1971. Recognise the suffering of the victims. And demonstrate, through words and actions, what has fundamentally changed.

That would be political maturity.

What Jamaat cannot do is tear out the pages it dislikes and then accuse Bangladesh of remembering them.

History does not disappear when politicians deny it.

The dead cannot answer the denials. The documents can. The evidence can. The memory of a nation can.

Jamaat's real test, therefore, is not whether it can persuade Bangladeshis to forget 1971.

It is whether it can demonstrate that it has truly learned from it.

Until then, every attempt to dismiss the historical record as an “Indian drama”, every effort to shift responsibility for the intellectual killings, and every suggestion that young Bangladeshis no longer care about the Liberation War will only deepen the question Jamaat has yet to answer:

Has the party really confronted its history -- or has it simply learned to speak about it differently?

Jamaat may want to move beyond 1971.

Bangladesh has no obligation to move beyond the truth.a