1971: Beyond the shibboleths

The author has pulled off a notable feat by presenting new perspectives on a well-worn subject

There is an enormous body of work centred on the 1971 Indo-Pak War that led to the creation of Bangladesh. It has been sliced and diced multiple ways by retired soldiers, military historians, diplomats, political scientists, politicians and civilians of various descriptions.

The author has pulled off a notable feat by presenting new perspectives on this well-worn subject. He started with an advantage given that he’s a Bengali diplomat who was involved at the time, and afterwards, in the reconstruction of a war-shattered nation. Chandrashekhar Dasgupta has also delved through many records including archives at the Ministry of External Affairs, which are not easily open to the public. He’s probably read everything in the public domain going by the extensive footnotes and bibliography.

Most of the geopolitical analysis of Bangladesh follows a pattern of “Monday Morning Quarterbacking” as the American football fans call it. We know the outcomes. Hence the policy objectives of winners are assumed, working backwards from outcomes.

Importantly, this book presents a description of Indian policy objectives as these actually changed dynamically through 1971. There are also a few shibboleths about the war that tend to be repeated over and over. This book examines them and confirms some, while debunking others. It does so credibly, by quoting historical evidence and backing that up with plausible analysis.

Dasgupta does confirm the underlying reasons for the dichotomy in US policy as evidenced by the Blood Telegram and Richard Nixon’s brinkmanship with the Seventh Fleet. The US spoke in two tongues throughout 1971 because the Oval Office ignored the State Department’s assessments and recommendations. This was due to President Nixon’s personal dislike of Indira Gandhi and fondness for Yahya Khan, and also by Henry Kissinger’s efforts to connect diplomatically to China via Pakistan.

On the other hand, India did not seek independence for Bangladesh until quite late in the day, although many commentators assume India was always hell-bent on fracturing Pakistan. India tried through various channels to persuade the Pakistani leadership to negotiate with Mujibur Rahman. 

Nor was Kashmir ever on the table during the Simla Agreement, as Dasgupta categorically states. India did not see this victory as an opportunity to fix the LoC as an international border, given domestic political compulsions in both countries.

As this book describes it, India started with very limited aims, and the policy objectives expanded and evolved dynamically. Even in the middle of the actual shooting war in December, as the army achieved objective after objective, India’s policy-makers would have settled for less than they got.

As the book relates, there were enormous fault-lines in Pakistan, relating to language, demographic composition, and attitude to India. The Eastern wing had a larger population, and it was overwhelmingly Bengali. The East also had a substantial Hindu minority. It was poorer than the West, but it had jute, which was pretty much Pakistan’s only export-worthy commodity.

The East had very low representation in the armed forces and civil services. It had not seen armed conflict in 1947-48, and only a few aerial skirmishes in 1965. The Bengalis resented West Pakistani domination of language and of financial allocations; the Eastern politicians did not desire conflict with India; they had been angling for greater provincial autonomy for decades.

When Pakistan held its first General Election in December 1970, after many years of military rule, the Awami League, which was entirely a Bengali political party, led by the charismatic Mujibur Rahman, won an absolute majority by sweeping the Eastern arm. The President of Pakistan, General Yahya Khan, was reluctant to hand over political power to a Bengali formation and obfuscated.

That pushed the Easterners into more hardline demands for autonomy, which had, by late March 1971, become demands for independence. The Pakistani army cracked down, unleashing a regime of mass-rape, torture, arrests and genocide. That caused a flood of refugees, running into the millions, overwhelming India’s resources in the border states.

INDIA AND THE BANGLADESH LIBERATION WAR

Author: Chandrashekhar Dasgupta

Publisher: Juggernaut

Pages: 305

Price: Rs 699

India responded in multiple ways as conflict escalated. It allowed the Awami League to set up a government-in-exile, complete with an independent radio station. It trained and offered logistics support, and covert military support to Bangladeshi guerrillas. Gandhi and her foreign minister, Swaran Singh, canvassed global support for “East Bengal” and appealed to the world to help solve the refugee problem.

Initially, India’s involvement was very circumspect for it did not wish to face accusations of interfering in Pakistan’s domestic politics. It did want a quick end to the crackdown. It supported the Eastern demand for autonomy for convoluted reasons, which make sense only to those who have studied, or lived through, the Naxalite insurgency of the time. India’s policy-makers were terrified that, given a long-drawn insurgency in East Pakistan, the insurgents would inevitably make common cause with their Bengali-speaking Naxal brethren in West Bengal and, equally plausibly, end up being influenced or worse still, controlled by China.

Eventually it became apparent the East would willy-nilly separate from the West. The generals would not negotiate with Mujib and too much blood had been spilt. By then India’s armed forces had set up contingency plans for an invasion. That had to wait till mid-winter when it would be difficult for China to intervene militarily.

In addition, India needed a diplomatic counterpoise to dissuade the Chinese from attempting any other form of intervention. That led to the Indo-Soviet Peace and Friendship Treaty. This book describes the delicate, fast-dancing back-and-forth over the USSR treaty, and the fact that Swaran Singh was, for a while, blindsided by the double-speak of the US.

When a full-on military conflict started, India carried out a holding operation on the Western Front, while rapidly overrunning Bangladesh, taking 93,000 prisoners after the Pakistani surrender. The War concluded with Mujibur Rahman taking over in Bangladesh, and then the Simla Agreement. 

The concluding paragraph quotes Kissinger’s description of Bangladesh circa 1972 as a “basket-case”. Five decades later, Bangladesh has higher per capita than Pakistan and India, and it is also ahead of India and Pakistan on life expectancy, gender gap, years of schooling, nutrition, etc. Aptly enough for a former diplomat, the author mentions the fact that Bangladesh has overtaken Pakistan, but omits to mention that it has also overtaken India.