Crowd Violence in East Pakistan / Bangladesh 1971–1972
Christian Gerlach
From the book Genocide and Mass Violence in Asia
Edited by: Frank Jacob
2019
East Pakistan/Bangladesh in 1971/72 serves as a case study. This may be useful because of the multitude of victim groups, including many attacked by crowds, and because of the abundance of incidents. Conflicts in East Pakistan erupted in the wake of the first nationwide bourgeois-democratic elections in Pakistan. This paper may lead to some insights into the relation between mass participation in politics and mass violence in general. After some initial observations regarding traditions of political militancy in East Pakistan before 1971I trace the occurrence of physical violence from among crowds through different phases from early 1971 to the spring of 1972. (Author)
