Dr. Kasturi Bhadra Ray
In August 1947, the British ended their 200-year long rule in the Indian subcontinent. During their rule they had systematically broken up the subcontinent consistently as Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan were chipped away one by one, and as a last twist before departure, the British divided the remaining Indian subcontinent into two separate nations, Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India. A historical outrage on the people of the subcontinent that went on to have devastating and horrendous consequences, were immediate and far reaching.
The Dominion of Pakistan comprised two geographically and culturally separate areas to the east and the west with India in between. The western zone was popularly (and for a period, also officially) termed West Pakistan and the eastern zone (modern-day Bangladesh) was initially termed East Bengal and later, East Pakistan. Although the population of the two zones of Pakistan was close to equal, political power was concentrated mainly in West Pakistan and it was widely perceived that East Pakistan was being exploited economically, leading to many grievances. Administration of the two discontinuous territories was also seen as a challenge.1
Rising political discontent and cultural nationalism in East Pakistan were brutally retaliated by suppressive force from the ruling elite of the West Pakistan establishment, in what came to be termed as Operation Searchlight. On the night of 25 March 1971, the Pakistani Army launched Operation Searchlight to “crush” Bengali resistance. Ordered by the central military government in West Pakistan, the original plans2 envisioned taking control of all of East Pakistan’s major cities on 26 March, and then eliminating all Bengali opposition, whether political or military, within the following month.
In response to the violence, however, the Mukti Bahini, a guerrilla resistance movement formed by Bengali military, paramilitary and civilians—launched a mass guerrilla movement
against the Pakistani military3. Pakistani military dictator General Yahya Khan ordered the Pakistani military to restore the Pakistani government’s authority, thus beginning the civil war. The military’s widespread genocide against their Bengali citizens, particularly aimed at the minority Bengali Hindu population led to approximately 10 million people seeking refuge in the neighbouring states of Eastern India flooding into the eastern provinces of India, namely, West Bengal, Tripura and Assam. The Indian Government repeatedly appealed to the international community for assistance, but failed to elicit any response.
The US wanted to open another front in the cold war against the Soviet Union by mending ties with China4. And Pakistan’s the then dictator Yahya Khan was facilitating the diplomatic engagement between the White House and the then Chinese premier Zhou Enlai. President Nixon and the Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger did not want to upset West Pakistan by calling out Pakistan’s inhuman treatment of its civilians in the East. Fallout with Yahya would have rendered the whole rapprochement process with China dead in stillbirth. A long standing ally of Pakistan, China was encouraged by US to mobilise its armed forces along its border with India. However, due to lack of dominant positions on the Sino-Indian border, the Chinese did not respond to this encouragement since the Indian Army’s Northern Command was well prepared to guard the Line of Actual Control and was already engaging and making advances against the Pakistan Army’s X Corps in the Line of Control.5
Unlike the 1962 Sino – Indian War when India was caught entirely unaware, this time the Indian Army was prepared and had deployed eight mountain divisions to the Sino-Indian border to guard against such an eventuality6. The Indian army had waited until December, before joining the war when the drier ground in the East post monsoon made for easier operations and the Himalayan passes were closed by snow, preventing any Chinese intervention. A major predicament for the Chinese military at that time also was the death of China’s defence minister Lin Biao in September 1971 in Mongolia. So China instead threw its weight behind demands for an immediate ceasefire.
India had been facing a mounting humanitarian and economic crisis with a deluge of people seeking refuge post Operation Searchlight. In April 1971, Indian Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi had asked the Indian Army Chief General Sam Manekshaw if he was ready to go to war with Pakistan. According to Manekshaw’s own personal account, he refused, citing the onset of monsoon season in East Pakistan. He offered his resignation, which Gandhi declined7. Manekshaw then said he could guarantee victory if she would allow him to prepare for the conflict on his own terms, and set a date for it; Gandhi accepted his conditions. In reality, Gandhi was well aware of the difficulties of a hasty military action, but she needed to get the military’s views as public opinion, at that point, was critical of India’s restraint.
India entered the war on December 3, 1971, and in the ensuing conflict, Indian forces thwarted the Pakistani army and India was able to win the war against Pakistan through a combination of superior military strategy and the support of Bengali forces in East Pakistan. The Mukti Bahini got training and ammunition from India and India employed a combination of military strategies, including air strikes, naval blockades, and ground offensives, to achieve its objectives in the war. By December 16, 1971, the Pakistani military had surrendered and agreed to the formation of an independent Bangladesh.8 The war changed the geopolitical landscape and balance of power of South Asia, as Bangladesh emerged as an independent nation in its wake.
References
1. The Sydney Morning Herald : Problems of Partition, June 14, 1947.
2. Hossain Abu Md. Delwar : Operation searchlight, In Sirajul Islam and Ahmed A. Jamal (ed.). Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (Second ed.), Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, 2012.
3. Ahmed Jamal: Mukti Bahini and the liberation war of Bangladesh: A review of conflicting views, Asian Affairs. 30, 5–17 October 2008.
4. Hayes Jarrod : Securitization, social identity and democratic security: Nixon, India and the ties that bind, International Organization. 66 (1), 2012, pp. 63–93.
5. Economic Times, . What you don’t know about the 1971 Bangladesh war , 8 April, 2017.
6. India and Pakistan: over the edge, Time. 13 December 1971.
7. Dikshit, Sandeep : The Hindu, How he and his men won those wars, 28 June 2008..
8. Times of India.: How India -Pakistan war of 1971 started, how we won and significance of Vijay Diwas, , December 16, 2022.