Part 1
The war was over, but peace was nowhere to be found.
By 1973, the jubilant cries of victory from December 1971 had faded into a grim, uncertain silence. I was a teenager then, walking the dusty roads of the southwestern districts of Bangladesh—places once vibrant with the spirit of liberation but now gripped by another kind of war. Not one waged by foreign occupiers, but an internal insurgency that sowed seeds of terror, chaos, and political mistrust.
The landscape of southwestern Bangladesh, still scarred from the genocide, rapes, and arson committed during the Liberation War, now faced a new wave of trauma. Underground political outfits began surfacing like spectral remnants of unfinished business—Jatiyo Samajtantrik Dal (JASOD), East Pakistan Communist Party (EPCP), and the Naxalites among them. Some were ideologically driven, others opportunistic, but together they transformed the soil soaked in martyrs’ blood into a theatre of violence and radical experimentation.
JASOD, born from a split within the Awami League, positioned itself as a neo-nationalist group championing ‘scientific socialism.’ To many, especially to those observing from a distance, it appeared like a pseudo-intellectual construct—possibly nurtured by foreign ideological laboratories, maybe even by pro-US currents looking to pivot against Soviet-leaning trends within the ruling establishment.
EPCP, meanwhile, drew on Maoist doctrines, aligning itself with China’s revolutionary zeal. Strangely, they also appeared to carry the ideological aftershocks of the very Pakistan Army that had been defeated in 1971. Were they not the same elements that had opposed Bengali nationalism before? Could it be that the EPCP’s sudden resurgence was a continuation of a war they had never truly abandoned?
And then there were the Naxals—militant, ruthless, and spread across the border. Their incursions into the districts of Jessore, Khulna, and Satkhira created an atmosphere of absolute dread. These groups, using youth indoctrination as a weapon, began forcefully recruiting from colleges, madrassas, and working-class communities. Boys barely older than me were disappearing—either swallowed into training camps or found dead in fields, tortured or executed as ‘traitors.’
What followed was not mere political rivalry; it was full-scale terrorism. Assassinations of political rivals in broad daylight, extortion rackets, brutal bank robberies, and crop looting became commonplace. Farmers with modest land holdings were labelled as “bourgeois enemies of the people” and were made to surrender their harvest. Toll collections became institutionalised, and local businessmen lived in daily fear.
The government’s response came in the form of the Jatiyo Rakkhi Bahini (JRB)—an elite paramilitary force, supposedly created to restore law and order. In reality, it became a tool of repression. Clandestine arrests, torture chambers, forced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings became rampant. JRB did not distinguish between the underground and the dissenting middle class, and its presence only deepened the resentment among the population—especially the freedom fighters who had dreamed of a just and democratic Bangladesh.
Part 2
The insurgency was not confined to one district—it spread like wildfire across the southwestern belt: from Khulna to Jessore, Satkhira to Kushtia, and further north into Natore, Pabna, and Rajshahi. Each of these districts bore the stamp of post-war trauma and the heavy burden of ideological experimentation.
Kushtia, already known for being a spiritual and cultural heartland, became a new battleground of Maoist thought. EPCP factions entrenched themselves in rural pockets, where the state’s presence was thin. They declared “People’s Courts” and handed down death sentences to landowners and ‘class enemies.’ In Pabna, I witnessed how radical factions used coercion to force youth into their camps—first with fiery speeches, then with threats, and finally with abduction.
In Rajshahi, known for its academic institutions, youth politics turned deadly. Student hostels became recruiting grounds, and teachers who refused to promote the underground cause were intimidated or worse. One respected professor from a Rajshahi college was dragged from his home and “tried” by a revolutionary court. His body was later found by the Padma riverbank, mutilated and dumped as a warning.
The regions of Jessore and Satkhira turned into war zones. JASOD’s armed wings clashed not only with the government but often with rival underground outfits. The EPCP and Naxals considered JASOD’s brand of ‘scientific socialism’ too soft and too tied to elite urban nationalism. These ideological schisms often resulted in bloody factional infighting. I remember hearing gunfire near a primary school in Jessore town—the teachers barricading the classrooms with desks while children trembled in fear.
It was a reign of terror, yet strangely ordered in its own twisted logic. Villagers were given “assignments”—spy on your neighbour, collect funds from local markets, burn down the house of a “class enemy.” Entire communities turned upon each other under fear of execution. Assassinations became surgical tools—targeting former freedom fighters who had refused to join the underground, or local leaders still loyal to the Awami League.
JRB’s entry into these regions brought no solace. In many cases, they mirrored the cruelty of the rebels—snatching people in the dead of night, raiding villages suspected of sheltering insurgents, and carrying out executions without trial. The silence of the grave replaced the clamour for justice. People feared both the underground and the government’s forces. A farmer once told me: “আমরা পোকা হয়ে গেছি, ওপরে নেমেছে পাখি, নিচে উঠছে সাপ”—We have become insects, with hawks above and snakes below.
The once-united spirit of liberation was now splintered into factions of ideology, violence, and survival. This internecine war didn’t just destroy lives—it shredded the very hope that independence had promised. For the middle class and intellectual elite, especially those who had celebrated the creation of Bangladesh with genuine dreams of progress and democracy, this was betrayal beyond imagination.
(Part 3)
Looking back now, it’s clear: what we experienced in the 1970s was not just political turbulence—it was the reprogramming of a nation’s soul.
The underground insurgencies in Khulna, Jessore, Satkhira, Kushtia, Natore, Pabna, and Rajshahi didn’t just leave behind graves, ruins, and broken families. They dismantled the collective optimism that had emerged from the Liberation War. They redefined politics not as a platform for change, but as a battlefield where blood was the currency of ideology.
The youth, once inspired by the patriotic call to arms against West Pakistani oppression, became the cannon fodder for a different kind of war—a war of ideological domination. Many of them were indoctrinated with dreams of a classless utopia, only to find themselves caught in the machinery of purges, revenge, and anarchy. Others resisted, but resistance too was punished, often with death or lifelong fear. I remember one friend from Natore who refused to carry a letter for a JASOD operative. He was later abducted, tortured, and left to die in a paddy field.
The East Pakistan Communist Party, with its pro-Chinese stance and shadowy alignment with old Pakistani networks, seemed to pursue not just class revolution, but also a deep, almost pathological hatred of the newly emerging state. Their operations, disguised in Marxist rhetoric, often mirrored the brutality once meted out by the Pakistan Army.
JASOD, for its part, carried the aura of intellectualism and student activism, but its methods were no less violent. Many now speculate whether it was not just a movement born of post-liberation disillusionment, but perhaps a geo-strategic experiment—possibly influenced by foreign players like the United States, seeking to counterbalance Soviet influence in the region through controlled destabilisation.
The Jatiyo Rakkhi Bahini, instead of restoring order, only deepened the wounds. Their extrajudicial killings, clandestine arrests, and indiscriminate crackdowns alienated vast sections of society. Even decorated freedom fighters, if deemed “too critical,” were hunted down. In their attempt to crush the insurgency, the Rakkhi Bahini turned large parts of Bangladesh into fear zones where the lines between friend and foe, loyalist and rebel, became indistinguishably blurred.
What did all this leave behind?
It left a generation wounded by confusion and betrayal. It created a deep distrust in secular politics. It hollowed out the moderate, democratic space and allowed a dangerous ideological vacuum to grow.
Into that vacuum stepped religious nationalism and extremism. Where Marxist or socialist dreams had failed and where state violence had silenced dissent, the promise of religious salvation found new traction. The children of those brutalised in the 70s, now grown up in a society that had failed to deliver either justice or dignity, found solace in new forms of radicalism—this time cloaked in religion.
Thus, the flames of leftist rebellion, which once threatened the state, eventually became the kindling for religious fundamentalism. Both exploited the same wounds: disillusionment, poverty, injustice. Both promised a utopia that never arrived.
This period—often buried in the footnotes of our national history—left an indelible mark on the psyche of the Bangladeshi people. And it taught a cruel lesson: when hope dies, ideologies mutate—and sometimes, those mutations are even more dangerous than the wounds that birthed them.
The Shadows of Rebellion: A Historical Tale of Underground Politics in Post-War Bangladesh (Final Reflections)
Looking back now, it’s clear: what we experienced in the 1970s was not just political turbulence—it was the reprogramming of a nation’s soul.
The underground insurgencies in Khulna, Jessore, Satkhira, Kushtia, Natore, Pabna, and Rajshahi didn’t just leave behind graves, ruins, and broken families. They dismantled the collective optimism that had emerged from the Liberation War. They redefined politics not as a platform for change, but as a battlefield where blood was the currency of ideology.
The youth, once inspired by the patriotic call to arms against West Pakistani oppression, became the cannon fodder for a different kind of war—a war of ideological domination. Many of them were indoctrinated with dreams of a classless utopia, only to find themselves caught in the machinery of purges, revenge, and anarchy. Others resisted, but resistance too was punished, often with death or lifelong fear.
The East Pakistan Communist Party, with its pro-Chinese stance and shadowy alignment with old Pakistani networks, seemed to pursue not just class revolution, but also a deep, almost pathological hatred of the newly emerging state. Their operations, disguised in Marxist rhetoric, often mirrored the brutality once meted out by the Pakistan Army.
JASOD, for its part, carried the aura of intellectualism and student activism, but its methods were no less violent. Many now speculate whether it was not just a movement born of post-liberation disillusionment, but perhaps a geo-strategic experiment—possibly influenced by foreign players like the United States, seeking to counterbalance Soviet influence in the region through controlled destabilisation.
The Jatiyo Rakkhi Bahini, instead of restoring order, only deepened the wounds. Their extrajudicial killings, clandestine arrests, and indiscriminate crackdowns alienated vast sections of society. Even decorated freedom fighters, if deemed “too critical,” were hunted down. In their attempt to crush the insurgency, the Rakkhi Bahini turned large parts of Bangladesh into fear zones where the lines between friend and foe, loyalist and rebel, became indistinguishably blurred.
But it wasn’t just the JRB.
Police and army units were also deployed to thwart the rebels. One must now ask—was this a poorly thought-out strategy or was it a necessary but heavy-handed measure? Did remnants of the Pakistan Army’s ideology survive covertly within the ranks of the new Bangladesh military, waiting for the right moment to see the civilian leadership fail? That possibility cannot be fully ruled out. The military’s aggressive response may have further alienated many.
Most tragically, the harsh retaliations added fuel to the resentment brewing among unemployed, redundant freedom fighters—men who had just a year ago fought heroically for Bangladesh’s independence with unwavering patriotism. Now, they were seen as security threats or political liabilities. Many were harassed, monitored, even detained. The very institutions they once fought to create had turned against them.
From the perspective of law enforcement and the state apparatus, these crackdowns were perhaps justified as necessary to “save the independence.” But to the rebel youth—and to many who felt betrayed by the post-war government—these actions were perceived as annihilation, not justice.
This ruthless suppression may have pushed a generation of disillusioned youth towards anti-government sentiment, planting the seeds of future rebellion—not just in the form of armed resistance, but in a broader cultural disaffection with the establishment itself. That bitterness, that ideological vacuum, would eventually be filled by newer, more insidious forces.
Thus, the flames of leftist rebellion, which once threatened the state, eventually became the kindling for religious nationalism and extremism. Both exploited the same wounds: disillusionment, poverty, injustice. Both promised a utopia that never arrived.
This period—often buried in the footnotes of our national history—left an indelible mark on the psyche of the Bangladeshi people. And it taught a cruel lesson: when hope dies, ideologies mutate—and sometimes, those mutations are even more dangerous than the wounds that birthed them.
Conclusion: A Nation Ensnared—Orchestrated Chaos or Historical Revenge?
As we examine the turbulence of post-liberation Bangladesh, especially between 1972 and 1975, we are left with deeply unsettling but necessary questions: Was the regime ill-advised in its governance? Were the waves of insurgency an organic outcome of ideological fervor, or were they part of a sinister deep-state orchestration—an elaborate revenge by the defeated forces of 1971?
In retrospect, the Awami League-led government inherited a shattered, traumatised nation—ravaged by war, genocide, economic collapse, and institutional void. Yet, the regime’s approach to nation-building—though filled with optimism and vision—often lacked inclusivity, pragmatism, and strategic foresight. A climate of one-party dominance, bureaucratic centralism, and intolerance for dissent alienated many of the freedom fighters, students, and intellectuals who had once been the bedrock of the liberation movement.
The creation of the Jatiyo Rakkhi Bahini (JRB), for example, although aimed at law enforcement and counterinsurgency, evolved into a shadow force accused of extrajudicial executions and repression. Rather than addressing the root causes of dissent—such as unemployment, ideological confusion, and post-war dislocation—the state’s response often resorted to force and suppression. This gave fuel to rebel narratives, making them appear more justified in the eyes of many disillusioned youth and marginalized groups.
But what if this entire insurgency—from the rise of JASOD to the resurgence of EPCP and the Naxalite incursion—was not entirely spontaneous?
There are compelling reasons to suspect that these developments were not merely coincidental, but strategically cultivated by remnants of the defeated Pakistani establishment—perhaps aided by foreign interests invested in destabilising a newly sovereign Bangladesh that leaned too heavily towards India and the Soviet bloc. The reappearance of ideologues with links to the Pakistani military, the sudden influx of arms into southwestern districts, and the ideological pivots of groups like EPCP toward China raise the spectre of external influence working in tandem with internal betrayal.
Could it be that the seeds of rebellion were sown deliberately—to embarrass the nascent government, provoke its overreaction, and thus fracture the unity of post-war Bangladesh? Deep-state machinations—possibly rooted in Cold War geopolitics—cannot be ruled out. There were too many simultaneous breakdowns: in ideology, in policy, in social trust.
Alternatively, one could argue this was a revenge of the vanquished—a last-ditch effort by forces ideologically aligned with Pakistan, who could not accept the birth of a secular, Bengali-majority nation carved out through armed struggle. This silent counter-revolution would not wear uniforms, but would seep into movements, infiltrate institutions, and confuse the ideological compass of a recovering people.
Whether it was poor governance, engineered sabotage, or a combination of both, the outcome was catastrophic: a betrayal of the liberation dream, and a generation permanently scarred.
We may never fully know the extent of manipulation. But the effects are undeniable. The ghosts of that era still haunt Bangladesh’s politics today.
