My Grandma’s Experience During the Bangladesh Liberation War

In 1971 a war broke out in Bangladesh, which at the time was known as East Pakistan. The reason of this war was because East Pakistan wanted to break away from West Pakistan since West Pakistan had been taking the East Pakistan’s money and were binding them behind bars. So as this war started, many lives were affected and most of the elders in my family had experienced the pain and horrors of this war. Although many of my family members have vivid experiences I have decided to write only about my dad’s mother, my grandma.

As the war began my grandma and her family were in a lot of danger as they had lived in the second biggest city in East Pakistan, Sylhet. In Sylhet there were many Hindus and the West Pakistanis despised them. So they would slaughter any Hindu. This made life even more dangerous for my grandma. My grandma’s family was the only family to have a brick house and underneath the house was a bunker, where the neighboring family would come and hide during air raids. My grandma had told me that when they were all in the bunker people would pray for their safety and were petrified. She also told me that luckily no bombs landed near her house except for one, which had actually gone really deep within the Earth that it made not much affect but it did send a load of debris onto the brick house. The debris had chipped the bricks and left holes in the structure.

Gathering food was very hard for my grandma’s father and the neighbors, so when ever they could get their hands on food they would get as much as they could. Everyone would share out the food they had, however it wasn’t enough and many people would starve.

When things seemed it couldn’t get worse my grandma’s mother had died from cancer. Her and her siblings were even more terrified and upset. To lose a mother in a war must be hard for anyone.

The war had begun getting even more intense, therefore my grandma and her family evacuated to their village.The villages were less affected than the cities but people were still frightened if an army decided to attack them. Life in the village was much better than the city as they manged to get more food and it didn’t have to be shared between a crowd of people. Everyone had their own storage for food.

When war began to die out my grandma and family had returned to the city. When they returned they were gobsmacked by the wreckage. Almost every house had been burnt down. Families that had stayed had been murdered. Women had been raped and abused by the West Pakistan soldiers. My grandma’s neighbors next door were a Hindu family of four girls. Two had escaped to India and were safe but the other two had experienced the abuse. Some close friends to my grandma were killed or abused as well.

As the war came to an end and India teamed with East Pakistan they managed to defeat West Pakistan. Bangladesh had been born. Although the joy of freedom filled the Bangladeshis many of them were still distraught over the trauma they went through. For my grandma building life back up again was a struggle but they managed.