This week Bangladesh celebrated its 49th Independence Day. There’s no denying that our eastern South Asian neighbour has come a long way since 1971. It’s a country that was born out of a bloody nine-month-long Liberation Struggle that led to the deaths of 3 million people, displacement of 10 million people and the rape of 250,000 women. Indeed, Bangladesh at its birth was a sea of blood and carcasses. And as a land prone to cyclonic calamities, it wasn’t going to be easy for the new nation to find its feet.

But despite all the difficulties, political turmoil and other domestic hiccups, Bangladesh not only found its feet but is today taking great strides. In 1971, it was far poorer than the country it had seceded from. Today, Bangladeshis are almost as rich as Pakistanis and will become richer in a few years’ time. In fact, if Bangladeshi statistics are to be believed, this has already happened. Bangladesh’s growth rate last year was 7.8% compared to Pakistan’s 5.8%. Its foreign exchange reserve of $32 billion is four times that of Pakistan’s $8 billion. And its total exports are worth $35.8 billion compared to Pakistan’s $24.8 billion.

All of this despite Pakistani forces doing everything in their power to ensure that Bangladesh was still-born at birth. The Pakistani army supported by its collaborators had carried out a systematic campaign to eliminate Bengali intellectuals and change the very character of the Bengali people. In its extreme, this heinous campaign even took the despicable form of an unofficial mission to change the ‘genetic make-up’ of the Bengali people. This is precisely why thousands of Bengali women and girls were violated by Pakistani army personnel and the Razakars.

In fact, Bangladesh’s Liberation War Museum in Dhaka has meticulously archived evidence of Pakistani army’s atrocities during the Liberation War. In the exhibit on the hidden suffering of women, I was particularly shaken by photographs from inside a Pakistani army camp at Shalutilkar Airport in Sylhet where Bengali women were kept as prisoners. The explicit graffiti on the walls of the camp bore testimony to the heinous sexual slavery that Bengali women were subjected to during the war period. I have put up some of those photographs here.

After the Liberation War, Bangladesh was saddled with tens of thousands of war babies who had to be rehabilitated. Such was the monstrosity of the Pakistani army during the nine-month-long turmoil. Thus, the new generation of Bangladeshis today would do well not to forget the massive suffering that their forefathers had to bear so that their children and grandchildren could breathe freely in independent Bangladesh. Thus, all Bangladeshis have a responsibility to honour the sacrifices of their forefathers. And what better tribute could there be than besting Pakistan in all economic and social departments.