Why are they left out?

[Pippy]

I was born many years after the liberation war. When I was a child I used to hear stories of the war from my mother. She used to tell me how she spent every day with fear and anxiety. Every morning my mother would wonder if she would live to see another day or was that the last day of her life. Her stories were thrilling, yet it failed to give me a clear idea about the horrors and devastation of a war. In school I was taught the history of my country, the language movement, the Agartala Conspiracy and many more. The textbooks focused only on the political matters. Thus all that information failed to quench my thirst to know what was happening in the lives of people. I wanted to know the stories of the people. I was more curious about the people who had fought the war, faced its terror and how they had survived.

Luckily the media, both print and electronic, became a great source of information. Every year on the Language Movement Day, on the Independence Day and the Victory Day all the local channels broadcast different dramas, talk shows and programmes. Most of the newspapers bring out special supplements. And numerous numbers of books have been written on the liberation war.

Yet something still remains missing. I do agree that both print as well as the electronic media have tried their best to portray the picture of the war in front of the post liberation war generation, but unfortunately to me the picture remained incomplete.

The army did not fight the war alone. Large number of people fought for freedom including young children who worked as informers. Along with students of Dhaka University, there were poor illiterate farmers who had undergone months of training for the war. There were a large number of women who took part in the war. All these people joined together and had created an army that absolutely denied to accept defeat.

But when the freedom fighters are mentioned, besides the Bir Shreshthas, the ones who are given importance are ones who were either in higher ranks in the army or who received some kind of an award for braver in the war.

I believe that taking part in a war itself is an act of bravery. People might demonstrate extraordinary act of courage, but that does not make the other fighters less courageous. Then why half the freedom fighters still remain unknown to us? So many freedom fighters might be scattered all around the country, but is it too difficult to find them and tell other people their story? A history book may only contain the political facts, but what about a special supplement or a TV show? If the talk shows can focus on the intellectuals, then that very show can also focus on other freedom fighters as well.

Abdul, Kashem, Akkas, theses could be the names of the unknown freedom fighters who remain unknown to all. And perhaps no one will ever know who they were and what they had gone through for the nine excruciating months. Ferdousi Pryobhashini, a witness and a contributor to the liberation war says, ?A part of the liberation war history is still missing. Some of the history has been retrieved, but that is not enough. Some of the fighters are trying but the entire history hasn't been retrieved yet.?

Now the question is why so many of these brave people are left out? Why didn't anyone ever take the initiative to find these people? Once a freedom fighter is always a freedom fighter. Perhaps it is not possible to reward each and every one of them, but their story could be told to the people of the country. They deserve that respect and we the people deserve to know our heroes.

Copyright (R) thedailystar.net 2007