02/08/2025
Today is August 1st: On this day in 1971, the "Concert for Bangladesh" was held at New York's Madison Square Garden. World-famous British Beatles musician George Harrison wrote in his autobiography, "While we were preparing for the concert in New York, the Americans were sending weapons to Pakistan." Thousands of deaths are happening every day, but only a few lines in the newspapers, “Oh, yes, it’s still going on. We were able to attract a lot of attention. I still meet waiters in Bengali restaurants who say, “Oh, Mr. Harrison, when we were fighting in the jungle, it meant a lot to us to know that someone was thinking about us outside.”
How horrible and terrible it was in March of ’71 when the Pakistani army attacked innocent Bengalis all over the country, they just needed land, so they were killing thousands of people indiscriminately, one of the most horrific genocides in civilization is being written.
When almost 4 weeks had passed after the black night of the Dhaka massacre on March 25, in April 1971, the legendary Bangladeshi sitar player Pandit Ravi Shankar was recording an album called ‘Raaga’ in England.
He was regularly receiving news of the brutal killings and suffering of the helpless countrymen from Anthony Mascarenhas’s series of reports. One night, he came to a dinner party and told his fellow artist and another Beatles legend George Harrison about his deep sorrow. Among the refugees who took refuge in India were relatives of his ill-fated Pandit Ravi Shankar. It was very difficult and painful to bear the reality of refugees, especially children, dying of hunger and disease.
The little that people in the outside world know, that too at the risk of their lives, was collected by a few fearless journalists like Simon Dring and Anthony Mascarenhas! Meanwhile, millions of Bengali refugees who have crossed the border and taken refuge in India are facing unimaginable hardships every moment, thousands of men, women, children and the elderly are dying of deadly diseases including cholera.
From then on, George Harrison got busy organizing Ravi Shankar's proposed 'Concert for Bangladesh'. After a long 3-month preparation, the event was held on Sunday, August 1, 1971, at 2.30 and 8.00 pm at Madison Square Garden in New York City in the presence of about 40,000 spectators. A large group of world-famous musicians participated in this event, among whom Ravi Shankar, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Billy Preston, Leon Russell, Bad Finger and Ringo Rockstar were notable.
The organizers themselves were surprised by the presence of such a large number of spectators. The amount of money received from Concert for Bangladesh and other organizations was about 2,43,418 US dollars, which was spent on helping refugees through UNICEF.
The truth is that when we were not involved in the Liberation War, we did not know about this Concert for Bangladesh. Later, when I first got a 'record player' when I was a student in Europe in 1974, I went to buy some singles and LPs and came across the three-volume LP of the 'Concert for Bangladesh' album. I bought it immediately. I still have that album. Although the era of record players is over, I still have the album. My second daughter Isabel has pledged to reserve the album. So this time, I will gift the album to Isabel on the day after tomorrow, Sunday, as she has an 'antique gramophone'.
