Killing CGI Pakistan soldiers: Bangladesh keeps nationalism alive through video games

Bangladesh’s struggle for freedom was a bloody one, filled with massacres and mass rape. In 1971, erstwhile West Pakistan launched Operation Searchlight, a mission to suppress the rising political voices who were calling for self-determination rights, and any military power in East Pakistan. Operation Searchlight pursued the systematic elimination of nationalist Bengali civilians, students, intelligentsia, religious minorities and armed personnel.

According to reports, Pakistani President Yahya Khan, at a military meeting, once said, "Kill three million of them and the rest will eat out of our hands."

And so it happened. The resultant military action led to genocide and rapes of almost half a million people, and the displacement of almost 10 million.  But the resistance put up by Bangladeshi nationalists paid off, of course, aided by Indira Gandhi's stellar and successful intervention. On December 16, 1971, Lieutenant General AAK Niazi of the Pakistan Armed Forces signed the Instrument of Surrender.

And thus Bangladesh was born.

The atrocities of the war and Operation Searchlight are almost half a century behind us now, and yet the citizens of Bangladesh remember. Or at least their government will not let them forget it.

According to a report in 1843 Magazine, a video game has reached peak popularity in Bangladesh and it is a game about the Bangladesh Liberation war. Named Heroes of 1971: Retaliation, it is a sequel to Heroes of 1971, a game released on the anniversary of Bangladesh’s independence in 2015. The sequel (released in 2016) has a simple objective: liberate East Pakistan and, in the process, kill as many Pakistani soldiers as possible.

State-sponsored video games

Here’s the weird part, though. This is not "just some game". It is a game that has been, at least partly, sponsored by the Bangladeshi government. The credits in the game mention two government bodies from the country: ICT Division and the Bangladesh Computer Council. 

The ICT or the Information and Communication Technology division, according to their website, was created by the government to attain overall socio-economic development of the country by establishing access to information technology for all. The ICT division was, in fact, later upgraded to a ministry in 2011.

The Bangladesh Computer Council is a statutory body under the ministry of posts, telecommunications and information technology, that aims at providing support for information technology related activities, that includes formulating national strategy and policy for ICT.

It looks a bit odd, that two government bodies in Bangladesh are helping build and propagate a violent video game that gives you points for killing Pakistani soldiers, set in the era of the Bangladeshi freedom struggle. But then you would also have to look at who is ruling the country. The Bangladesh Awami League, the current ruling party and one of the only two major parties in the country, led the struggle for independence under the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who is known as the founding father of Bangladesh.

The party, of course, takes keeping war memories alive pretty seriously. The party recently announced that they plan to reach out to the UN, with a request to declare March 25 as “Genocide Day” globally, in remembrance of the atrocities carried out by the Pakistan Army on the same day in 1971. Keeping all this in mind, it is not altogether unimaginable that the party would take to video games to keep the flames of their independence struggle alive in the hearts of Bangladeshi millennials.

But what’s the game like?

According to 1843 Magazine, the graphics of this sequel are far better than the original game – which was only a success because it gave teenagers the opportunity to punish Pakistani soldiers – along with several additions to the game play. The new version, that supported both on PC and Android devices, has been downloaded more than 4 million times already since it was released in 2016. The game also features a new character, Anila, a female guerilla fighter freed from captivity.

New missions in the game include disrupting Pakistani supply lines, saving women from a Pakistani prison camp, and punishing members of East Pakistan’s fundamentalist parties who collaborated with the Pakistani army. 

Virtual retribution

But what exactly is Bangladesh trying to achieve with this virtual retribution? 

The obvious answer would require us to look a little to the west, towards our own country, India. A continued nationalistic fire is what has gotten the BJP into power. Of course, there were other factors as well, but the almost zealot-like patriotic values that the leaders of the saffron party hold, is the one that has been mirrored by a majority of the nationalism-fetishising citizens.

Perhaps the key to staying in power, especially when the opposition is weak, is to invoke an overwhelming feeling of past injustice. Where Hindu nationalists have their guns aimed at long-dead Mughal rulers and communist leaders, the Bangladeshi government continues to remind its people of the role it played in their bloody struggle for freedom.

And this strategy seems to be working like clockwork. A gamer from Dhaka (who even wasn’t born in 1971, during the freedom struggle) – told 1843 Magazine that playing Heroes of 1971 made him feel like he is fighting for his country’s freedom.

Another Bangladeshi citizen, Azmayen Khan, wrote about the game on Google Play, “I must say this is not only a game; this proves there are people who love the country. And this teaches us how the people of our country fought with enemies”.

Mission accomplished. As long as the citizens continue to experience a vague sense of patriotism, even if it is through killing Pakistani soldiers in a video game, the party shall continue to enjoy power.

Also read - 1971 Bangladesh war: RAW heroes India forgot to honour