Can there be a nonpartisan history of the Liberation War of Bangladesh that avoids rigid binaries? Conversations with Bangladeshi scholars suggest a largely pessimistic answer. Most do not deny the importance of neutrality as an ideal. They doubt its possibility under existing political and institutional conditions. Instead, it presents a lived reality in which historical writing has been inseparable from power since 1971. The problem is that contestation in Bangladesh has been governed by regime change, ideological policing, and moral sanctification. Neutrality never persisted here, not because historians failed, but because political authority never allowed it to stabilise. What we have instead is a cycle of concealment and exaggeration.
The Marxist historian Kosambi once argued that history reflects successive changes in the means and relations of production. Whether one fully accepts this formulation or not, it offers a valuable lens. In Bangladesh, history has been written under the shadow of the ruling ideology and its transformations. Archives, textbooks, commemorations, and silences all move with power. When we ask whose history was written by whom, we are asking about authority over memory. With each political transition, textbooks change and terminology shifts. Heroes are emphasised or sidelined. The result is a population that often knows the war through fragments and contradictions rather than through a coherent historical account.
One of the most uncomfortable truths is that not everyone who later benefited from independence truly wanted a free Bangladesh or actively participated in the struggle. The distinction between actual history and motivated storytelling becomes crucial here. Actual history is never complete or pure. It is always provisional and contested. But it is disciplined by evidence and method. Motivated stories, by contrast, are complete because they do not allow challenge. They sanctify certain facts and criminalise others. Disagreement itself becomes suspect. The historian E H Carr warned long ago that facts do not speak for themselves. They are selected and interpreted. He also noted that there are basic facts that form the backbone of history, regardless of interpretation. The existence of the Liberation War is one such backbone fact. Yet in Bangladesh, this backbone has been claimed as exclusive political property. When the Liberation War becomes owned by a single party, history becomes an extension of governance. The ruler’s narration becomes national memory. Anything outside it is dismissed as a distortion or a betrayal. This is why many scholars respond negatively when asked about neutral history. They are not denying evidence. They are pointing to an environment where evidence does not enjoy equal protection.
The politics of memory becomes especially visible when we examine influential books. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s unfinished autobiography has been treated as an unquestionable source by many. Humayun Ahmed’s novel Deyal has been treated with suspicion and controversy. These two works do not serve the same purpose. One is autobiographical and political. The other is fictional and imaginative. Yet their reception reveals how Bangladesh sorts its narratives by political acceptability rather than by genre or method.
Ahmed’s willingness to include ambiguity and non-Awami characters provoked unease. His work faced revision and controversy. The issue was never simply factual accuracy. It was anxiety about losing control over the symbolic ownership of 1971. Fiction that imagines alternatives can feel dangerous in a political culture that relies on a single authorised story. This anxiety also explains why certain academic framings provoke outrage. Some scholars have described 1971 as a civil war in analytical terms. This description is not unique to Bangladesh and appears in comparative conflict studies. Yet in Bangladesh, raising this terminology can invite harassment. The issue is not the label itself but the fear that it dilutes moral clarity and political ownership. Scholarship becomes risky speech when certain questions are treated as threats.
One way to make sense of Liberation War historiography is to recognise its plurality. Hegel once spoke of original reflexive and philosophic history. A similar multiplicity exists in Bangladesh, though it is rarely acknowledged openly. One strand may be described as secular, centric, liberal writing. Works like Muldhara 71 draw on access to administrative archives and emphasise the war as a national struggle rooted in Pakistan’s post-1947 contradictions. These accounts highlight linguistic inequality, political exclusion, and leadership failures. They often repeat the idea that before March 25, few wanted secession, and after it, few wanted unity. This narrative is persuasive but can oversimplify the diversity of political intentions that existed before the crackdown.
Another strand is nationalistic centric writing produced by freedom fighters themselves. Oli Ahad and Major Jalil belong here. Their works are emotionally charged and often critical of post-liberation governance, corruption, and authoritarianism. Their anger is not merely personal. It reflects disillusionment with how independence was institutionalised. Yet without a careful method, such narratives can slide from critique into counter myth.
A third strand consists of anti-liberation or revisionist narratives. Figures like Golam Azam attempted to reframe 1971 by pointing to earlier support for Pakistan among independence leaders. Others produced memoirs that justify collaboration or deny culpability. These texts are political interventions aimed at moral rehabilitation. They should not be erased, but they must be read critically and tested against evidence, especially regarding violence and collaboration.
Golam Murshid’s attempt to write a non-partisan history is essential precisely because it admits failure. He argues that neutrality has not emerged because research is often conducted from party positions and because personal roles are exaggerated. Even this modest claim unsettles those invested in narrative monopoly.
So, can there be a non-partisan history of the Liberation War that avoids binaries? Yes, but only if neutrality is understood not as individual detachment but as an institutional achievement. A non-partisan history does not mean a history without values. It implies a history where values do not replace evidence. This would require structural changes. Archives must be plural and accessible. Textbook production must be insulated from regime change. Scholarly disagreement must be protected rather than punished. Critique must not be equated with treason.
There is also a difficult task that remains largely unexplored. Bangladesh needs a psychoanalytic history of the Liberation War. We do not only argue about 1971 as an event. We live it as trauma pride and moral capital. Denial, projection, and repetition shape our public life. A psychoanalytic approach would not replace political economy or archival research. It would complement them by asking why certain stories feel emotionally necessary even when they are fragile.
The Liberation War is a foundational fact. But its meanings were never singular. Our future will not be built by policing interpretation. It will be built by widening the space where evidence can speak, disagreement can exist, and history can finally become more than politics in academic disguise.
The views expressed in the article are solely of the author’s
The writers are PhD students based in the USA
