Politico-Military Strategy of the Bangladesh Liberation War, 1971

Guru Saday Batabyal

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000317664
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book critically examines the politico-military strategy of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh during the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971. What began as a power struggle and cultural conflict between West and East Pakistan, later compelled India to intervene—an intervention that decisively shaped and influenced the geo-politics of the region and the global order.

This volume is a systematic study of the situation of events, operational art and tactics, cold war politics, international reactions, and their impact on the formulation of the national grand strategy of all three nations. The book discusses various key themes such as the creation of Pakistan and events leading to its secession, the military geography of East Pakistan, state of armed forces of India and Pakistan and India's humanitarian intervention, the role of Mukti Bahini, and the ambiguous stance of the United Nations in the war. The book offers an appraisal of the performances of the opposing forces and reflects on the inevitability of war and its outcome. It also gives an overview of the state formation of the three nations, encompassing the defining moments of the modern history of these South Asian countries and highlighting the socio-economic progress they have made half a century after the liberation war.

A compelling treatise in the history of politico-military strategy, this book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of politics and international relations, partition studies, modern history, military history, South Asian studies, international security, defence and strategic studies, language politics, Islamic history, and refugee and diaspora studies. It will also appeal to general readers interested in the histories of Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Maps

3.1 Map of East Pakistan-1971

6.1 Bangladesh Liberation War-1971: operational plan of the opposing forces

6.2 Planning and conduct of 33 Corps Operation

6.3 Planning and conduct of 2 Corps operation

6.4 Planning and conduct of 4 Corps operation

6.5 Planning and conduct of 101 Communication Zone Operation

6.6 Advance to Dacca

6.7 Comparative Force Level in the Western Theatre

7.1 Sector-wise area of operation of the Mukti Bahini

8.1 Overview of Air and Naval Operations

Figures

1.1 Distribution of various language groups in Pakistan

1.2 Government spending 1947-55

1.3 Trade between East and West Pakistan: 1948-70

2.1 Comprehensiveness of strategy

2.2 The Lykke model

6.1 Signing of instrument of surrender

7.1 Mukti Bahini organisational structure

8.1 Comparative Strength of the Opposing Naval Forces

8.2 Comparative Force Level in the Western Theatre

9.1 The Influx of Refugees

Tables

1.1 Representation of two wings in civil and military services

3.1 Month-wise Temperature Conditions

8.1 Overall Losses of the Opposing Naval Forces

8.2 IAF Inventory at the Time of 1971 Indo-Pak War

8.3 PAF Inventory in 1971

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book, based on my doctoral thesis, would not have been completed but for the support of so many people and institutions from various parts of the world who have helped me in innumerable ways during my journey to complete this research and to whom I owe a debt of gratitude.

At the outset, I would like to thank the Indian Army, my regiment, the Fourth Gorkha Rifles, and all the military institutions where I learnt the principles of war, nuances of strategy and tactics, and practiced the same in my battalions and the formations wherever I served. My book being a study on the grand strategy of the Bangladesh Liberation War, my army education and service helped me greatly.

I would like to place on record my deep gratitude to Prof. Sandip Basu Sarbadhikary and all the academic staff of the Department of History, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, for their kind encouragement, motivation, constructive criticism, and professional advice on viewing the subject objectively with historical perspective, which helped me in structuring the research to its logical conclusion.

My thanks are due to Dr. Keka Datta Roy of Acharya Prafulla Chandra College, Kolkata; historian of repute Professor Muntassir Mamoon of Dhaka; and Dr. Samina Sultana and Dr. Nazmun Nahar Laizu of Itihas Academy, Dhaka who helped me in many ways to get requisite research inputs. I am indebted to Prof. Delwar Hossain of Dhaka University, Department of History for sharing his insights about the Liberation War along with helping me access library of Dhaka University, Bangladesh Liberation War Museum, and National Museum of Bangladesh, Dhaka. I am also thankful to many in Bangladesh whose names find mention in the bibliography.

My thanks to all those who spared their valuable time for oral interviews. They are Lt Gen JFR Jacob and Brig. RS Sodhi (both these Bangladesh war veterans have since departed for their heavenly abode), as well as General Shankar Roy Chowdhury. I would also like to thank Brig. H.S. Nagra for helping me with important inputs related to the capture of Dhaka, and Mr. Ajai Chowdhry, Director Indian Foreign Service Academy New Delhi, for arranging my access to the MEA Archive. I am indebted to Col. John H. Gill of the Washington National Defense University for allowing me to use a couple of maps from his book, Atlas of 1971 India–Pakistan War, and sharing his insights when I was pursuing my doctoral thesis. Maps 6.7 and 8.1 are inspired by his work.

My grateful thanks are due to Mr. Jay Bhattacharya, an eminent columnist, for painstakingly perusing manuscript of this volume and for his valuable comments. My friend Maj Gen P K Mallick; one of my role models Brig Rumel Dahiya, ex-Deputy Director of IDSA, New Delhi; Maj Gen Biswajit Chakraborty; Mrs. Shikha Chaki; and Mrs. Rita Das have inspired me all throughout to produce this book, in addition to supplying research materials. A special thanks to Col. Sabarinath, Col. Deependra Jasrotia, and Kamal Gurung—all from my regiment, the 4th Gorkha Rifles—for helping me prepare the maps I have used in this book.

I am thankful to many institutions, namely the National Library, Kolkata; the Army Library at Fort William, Kolkata; the National Archives of India; the Nehru Memorial Library; the Museum New Delhi, Historical Division – Ministry of Defence, MEA (Foreign Ministry) Archive, New Delhi; and the Bangladesh National Museum, Dhaka. I would like to thank the many archives whose online viewing facilities have helped in my research; the British National Archives at Kew, where India Office Records have been housed; the U.S. National Archives and Records of Administration, Maryland; and the Archive of Dawn Newspaper, Pakistan. The archives of Ananda Bazar Patrika and The Statesman, located in Kolkata, were incredible resources. Their insightful editorials covering the 1971 war were indeed of great value.

I am grateful to the Editor, Military Review, U.S. Army and Mr. Antony T. Hincks for allowing me to reuse quotes published by them. I also thank the U.S. Army War College for allowing me to reuse two models highlighting national strategy published in their Journal on National Security Issue. I am deeply indebted to Mr. George Morgan and Wylie Agency, UK, who hold the copyright of Allen Ginsberg’s works, for permitting me to use a few stanzas from Ginsberg’s poem “September on Jessore Road” gratis. My sincerest thanks to Dr Shashank Sinha, Ms. Antara Ray Chaudhary, Ms. Anvitaa Bajaj and the editorial staff of Routledge, and Arnab Sen Sarma, my research assistant, for their kind cooperation and unwavering support but for which this book would not have seen light of the day.

And as always, thanks to my ever-supportive wife Bharati, daughters Nayan and Kajal, my sons-in-law Amritaputra and Soumya, and my nephew Major Nilanjan Batabyal for their moral and material support.

Names of many I am grateful to may not have figured here: they have contributed no less. All errors and omissions are my own.

Dated: 7th March 2020
Guru Saday Batabyal

PREFACE

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.

―Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities¹

For the first time, 23 years after its creation, a free and fair general election was held in Pakistan in December 1970—not by any democratically elected head of the state but by the military dictator, General Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan, Chief Martial Law Administrator and President of Pakistan. The Bengali nationalist party, Awami League led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, notched a landslide victory in the eastern wing of Pakistan, securing majority in the Pakistan National Assembly. It is debatable whether the election was held with good intent or was just a pretence, but it is undeniable that the result was a real shock to the establishment in Pakistan. After many rounds of discussions, Yahaya promised to convene the newly elected national assembly on 3 March 1971. And when Mujibur Rahman was all set to form the government and become Prime Minister of Pakistan, his plan was usurped by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, a leader from West Pakistan whose party PPP had secured fewer seats. After all, it was too much for Bhutto and his fellow supporters, including many generals and bureaucrats from West Pakistan, to accept Bengali leaders from East Pakistan as their rulers. The trouble started when Bhutto aired his views that “winning the election is not enough” and came out with a bizarre compromise of two Prime Ministers for the two wings of Pakistan: Mujibur Rahman in the East and he in the West. Bhutto’s formula did not appease Mujib, and in a mammoth protest rally in Dacca on 7 March, shifting from his previous stance on autonomy for East Pakistan, he announced, “This time it is [a] struggle for independence.” Further negotiations for a constitutionally acceptable solution spearheaded by Yahaya Khan reached a deadlock because both Mujib and Bhutto stood their ground so resolutely that neither was ready to concede an inch to the other. Yahaya ran out of patience, as did thousands of Bengalis, who thronged the streets of Dacca in protest and brought the administration to a standstill. Bhutto was unrelenting. President Yahya and his generals fell into his trap and chose a harsh military solution, aiming to terrify the restive Bengali population into quietude.²

The egregiousness of ‘Operation Searchlight,’ launched by the Pakistani Army from 25 March 1971 in order to suppress the Bengali nationalist movement, resulted in civil war in East Pakistan. Hundreds of thousands of people got killed and numerous hapless women of all ages were raped. These mass rapes and killings created such terror that almost ten million people, majority of them Hindus, fled to the neighbouring India, leaving their home and hearth. The magnitude of refugee problem, President Yahya Khan’s government’s disallowance of any political space to Mujib’s Awami League, and the cold response of international bodies pushed India to become a partner in the 1971 Liberation War of Bangladesh. Indira Gandhi, then Prime Minister of India, became deeply anguished with the flow of the events and its likely fallouts. But she responded in a calibrated manner and did not take any hasty action to recognise Bangladesh as an independent nation; nor did she, under pressure, opt for an immediate military option without exhausting all other avenues. India’s foreign affairs minister, Swaran Singh, was averse to war at such an early stage as he felt the diplomacy route had not been exhausted yet. And the Chiefs of the Services, particularly the army chief, Sam Manekshaw, wanted adequate time and resources to prepare the war machine for a successful campaign: a grim reminder to Indira Gandhi of what happened to the unprepared Indian army in 1962 during the war with China. India’s Ambassador to Soviet Russia, D.P. Dhar, whose views Indira Gandhi respected, opined that “an all-out war at this juncture is not the only alternative. India’s strategy should be to use the Bengali human material and the Bengali terrain to launch a comprehensive war of liberation.”³

No sooner had the Pakistan army launched Operation Searchlight on the fateful night of 25 March 1971, that Bengali soldiers of the East Bengal Rifles revolted and created the nucleus of Mukti Joddhas (liberation warriors). Their nationalistic spirit and courageous act spontaneously motivated thousands of men and women from all walks of life to join the liberation army. India condemned the brutal military suppression in East Pakistan and appealed to Yahya Khan to adhere to the election verdict. Burdened with gargantuan refugee crisis and pained by the blatant violation of human rights, as part of the strategy, instead of a full-scale interstate war, ab initio India intervened by covertly sponsoring a Bengali guerrilla insurgency within East Pakistan. India secretly supported Mukti Bahini in training, equipping, and organising—a colossal project managed by the Indian army and Border Security ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Index