পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (চতুর্দশ খণ্ড).pdf/৭৪৫

বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ চতুর্দশ খন্ড শিরোনাম সূত্র তারিখ ২৭৫। পূর্ব-বাংলার ঘটনাবলীর গতি-প্রকৃতি ফ্রন্টিয়ার ২৪ এপ্রিল, ১৯৭১ FRONTIER. APRIL 24, 1971 Across The Border TRENDS IN EAST BENGAL By Sumanta Banerjee In the welter of romantic reports about Bangladesh in our Bengali newspapers, the political significance of the happenings in East Bengal is lost, The heroic resistance against the Pakistan army is spearheaded by young members of the East Pakistan Rifles. East Bengal Regiment, Mujahids. Ansars and students. The leaders of the Awami League, elected by the people to the National and Provincial Assemblies are nowhere to be seen near the battlefronts. They are in Calcutta, Delhi. Agartala or Bongaon-busy setting up committees or forming a government. Although All India Radio and Government statements are determined to describe the liberation forces as Mujib's army, the fighters whom I saw in Jessore, Khulna and other areas could not care less about who was their leader. For them it was a battle of resistance to one of the most ruthless forces in the modern world. With Second World War 303 rifles and a few light machine-guns, they are fighting against tanks heavy mortars and often air raids. A couple of EPR boys whom I met in a deserted village near Jessore town regretted that the leaders had failed to arm the villagers who otherwise might have stayed on in the villages and helped the liberation forces. When I came back from the front to the headquarters of the Awami League at a safer place near the Indian border and asked the local leader why the peasants were not armed, he said they could not be as otherwise they would indulge looting and fighting among themselves. The middle-class distrust of the peasantry has kept the majority of the rural poor at a distance. They seemed to be uninvolved in the war evident from their immediate decision to evacuate villages whenever the Pakistan forces were sighted nearby. A liberation war cannot be fought only by a few EPR boys and student volunteer, however heroic they might be. The bulk of the people the peasantry-will have to be drawn into it. While the Awami League leaders still believe in keeping the masses at a distance, and winning the war in the conventional way by defeating the army on the battlefield, those who are fighting the war-the EPR and the volunteers, are fast realizing the need for guerilla warfare. This explains the sharp differences in the behavior of the leaders' and the fighters.