The Colonel Who Would Not Repent: The Bangladesh War and its Unquiet Legacy

Salil Tripathi brings together the narrative skill of a novelist and the analytical tools of a political journalist to give us the story of a nation that is absorbing haunting and illuminating. Kamila Shamsie author of A God in Every Stone. Between March and December 1971 the Pakistani army committed atrocities on an unprecedented scale in the countrys eastern wing. Pakistani troops and their collaborators were responsible for countless deaths and cases of rape. Clearly religion alone wasnt enough to keep Pakistans two halves united. From that brutal violence Bangladesh emerged as an independent nation but the wounds have continued to fester. The gruesome assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman the countrys charismatic first prime minister and most of his family the coups and counter-coups which followed accompanied by long years of military rule were individually and collectively responsible for the countrys inability to come to grips with the legacy of the Liberation War Four decades later as Bangladesh tries to bring some accountability and closure to its blood-soaked past through controversial tribunals prosecuting war crimes Salil Tripathi travels the length and breadth of the country probing the countrys trauma through interviews with hundreds of Bangladeshis. His book offers the reader an unforgettable portrait of a nation whose political history since Independence has been marked more by tragedy than triumph.