Intrinsic magnitude of Pak crimes

A 'Secret of a War Baby' is a novel with a deconstructive title that puzzles the readers with an overwhelming irony. What is the secret? The dramatic tension informed by the title does not release readers until the end.
Novelist Shahazada Basunia projects in it the intrinsic magnitude of crimes the Pakistan occupation army committed against humanity in the 1971 War of Liberation. Written in English the novel is the first of its kind in the country, and B2asunia uses his extraordinary craftsmanship of blending the fact and the fiction-both the perpetrator and the victim.
The novel mirrors a fact that Anwara, a village woman of Bangladesh, was raped in 1971 and gave birth to a "war baby" that was named Sumon. Sumon feels depressed when the neighbours say, "You are the child of Pakistani soldiers." Labeled as an abominating "war baby", a stigma that has long clouded and disturbed his mind, Sumon, nonetheless, concludes that "his birth was entwined with the birth of the nation…As a war baby he ought to have been honored and his mother ought to have been recognized to be a war heroine (Birangana)…"
To win the recognition of honour and pride replacing hatred, he made up his mind to take a survey on the rape victims in the district to record the untold pains of sexual violence committed by the army. Rajakar Raihan feels disturbed inwardly and hatches a plot to silence the "war baby" and evict them from the village to hide the crime he committed in connivance with the Pakistan army. The plot gives rise to a conflict between them, unfolds actions and counteractions staged by a variety of characters that appear in defense of the protagonist and the villain, and develops to its dramatic climax disclosing a "secret" that Sumon is the "illegitimate" son of Rajakar Raihan, not a "war baby". Anwara makes her public statement saying:
"I want to confess … that I was forced by Raihan Bepary. While Pakistani soldiers captured our village, he had entered into my room to compel me in taking physical intercourse that was hidden all these years because of his frequent threats on the way of my life. My son isn't a war baby. He's every right to live in this village; he is the son of this village. The culprit-Raihan Bepary is his biological father."
Raihan accepts Sumon as his son and collapses on stage.  
However, the mystery that Anwara maintains the secret unfolds at the end to dramatize the legacy of the "sin" committed by her "suitor" who turned a 'rajakar' to fulfill his sexual desire. The "war baby" is the personification of the "sin" committed by the occupation army of Pakistan. The growing up of the "war baby", which is symbolic growth of a "sin", has been a constant source of anxiety looming equally large in the psyche of the perpetrator, which uncovers an underlying strength to magnify the glory of the rape victim's "supreme sacrifice" in the war of liberation.  
Depression sweeps the heart of the hero that he is a war baby, which he hates to accept while rape victim Anwara's struggle for restoring the dignity violated in 1971 represents the indomitable spirit of liberation from the clutch of ignominy, a symbol used to seal her destiny.
Consequently, the protagonist's "stubborn" determination to launch his inquiry into the "truth" invites terror the rajakar has to hatch and use to stop it in a process that involves all characters to play the game set to achieve varying interests. A special appeal offered by the story in its subtle development is the post-war reconciliation of contentious interests and values, expression of allegiance, reconstruction of (pro-contra) identities and reformation of alliance in the power discourse of network dynamics.
Stigmatizing dominates actions to create an identity crisis of the protagonist, exert social control over the actor's struggle to change the status quo, and create a new identity above the systemic constraints. The silent acceptance of the stigma by the victims is associated with the perceived threat of insecurity and injustice, which eventually yields the benefits for the perpetrator to hide his "sin" and responsibility. "Sin" and "adultery" are the strong political weapons labeled to disempower and overpower the opponents. Notably, the 'war baby' is haunted by consciousness that awakens in him the irresistible passion for challenging the status quo/convention and rediscovering an identity which is socially and politically abominating and dehumanizing,  and the value of self-worth invoking the passion for right to live with dignity molested by the institutional power manifesting conventional judgments and practices. It is of special interest that the actors define and redefine certain terms to justify acceptance and rejections of social order that affects them.
The novel makes progress through inner and intra-conflicts assuming personal, moral, social, economic and political dimensions, and invokes special appeal in terms of passionate actions led by diabolism, sensationalism, and dramatization. The inquiry leads to conflict with the perpetrator (rajakar Raihan Bepary) who assuming a new benevolent role plots to silence, "evict, "oust" and "banish" the victims from the village.
The "War" signifies a metaphysical struggle of the protagonists for liberation from the clutch of social control that is exercised (by the lords/power mongers) to create benefits out of the sanction they impose on individuals/rebels labeled as "outcasts". The story tells us how the arch rajakar and his aides/cronies conspire to set a "legitimacy" trap and make abuse of the social rejection of the war "heroine" and her "illegitimate" baby in independent Bangladesh.
The unbearably shocking silence of a rape victim (Anwara) and the quest of the victim's "war baby" for an identity, justification of existence challenged by social values, norms, principles, customs and practices are of special interest.
Passion (Sumon's inquiry), inner and external conflicts, ethos, pathos (the victims), sympathy (offered and supported by the police officer), hypocrisy, intrigue (fellow freedom fighters), love and marriage are in contrast with the horror of rape and physical force.
The author has made the subtle use of metaphors, irony, hyperbole, allusion, etc, to depict his characters, especially to portray Raihan as "the most infamous and notorious in playing pioneering role against the freedom fighters".  The depiction of Sumon as "all alone in the world walking through a painful passage of life" is the vivid representation of the moral crisis that grips the heart of social consciousness.
Imagination provides an interesting space for blending fact and fiction-both the perpetrator and the victim are real while other characters are imaginary. They engage in actions and interactions with the plot developing to its climax. The author juxtaposes the real and the unreal using the witty craftsmanship that is surprising and shocking, especially when he projects the post-war grounds where the diabolic rajakar and a dedicated freedom fighter negotiate their allegiance and alliance to "cook up a plan" against the fellow fighter and war victims to achieve narrow interests.
The novelist demonstrates his powerful craftsmanship of portraying the hero and the heroine as rebellious creatures, and dramatizes the conflicts between emotion and reason, trust and distrust, and belonging and banishment that toss the hero's identity crisis. The hero's hesitation to accept himself as a "normal" being on the social scale contrasts the heroine's acceptance of a "war baby" challenging the social conventions, norms and values society as echoed in her argument, "Nothing is wrong. It is wrong with the society. You are a child of nature created by God."
The rape victim's offer of financial assistance for reinstating the tea stall destroyed by the perpetrator and his people appears a magnificent token of love to honor his dignity and help restart life. The use of symbols in contrasting representation of evil and good, love and hatred, and destruction and reconstruction remains manifest in the postwar political struggle for rebuilding life and hope destroyed by the evil design of the collaborators that still exist in the social fabric. The author successfully portrays the Rajakar Rayhan as the immortal descendant of Satanic spirit that would never submit to the spirit of liberation. The story implies that the war was not enough to stop the working of the occupation evil force on the free, independent and sovereign soil of Bangladesh.
The novel is remarkable for its characters that have been portrayed vividly in a convincing manner.
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A SECRET OF A WAR BABY
A novel written by Shahazada Basunia
published by Somoy (2016)