Bangladesh: Why India actually lost the liberation war of 1971

Sheikh Hasina is considered India’s friend. She revealed recently about the horrors and murders her family witnessed when Bangladesh was about to be liberated. However, there is another side to the story that has gone unnoticed, which MDDTimes tries to decode.

The story of Bangladesh doesn’t start with 1947, when it became East Pakistan with the affluent Dacca (Dhaka) as its hub. It actually starts when Bengal was partitioned by the British in 1905. Unable to manage the uprisings that had started following the 1857 revolt, the Britishers divided Bengal into East and West Bengal – East had the most fertile regions like West Pakistan.

Rattled by the unity among all Indians during the revolt, they did this considering the differences between the Hindus and Muslims. They used the “Divide and rule” policy to drive a permanent wedge between the two communities, which became a permanent fixture of the UK’s policy and later the West’s in dealing with India.

However, India ie Bharat has a culture that pervades people across its land that transcends language, race and even religion. This is something that people failed to notice then and even now. By the time it became East Pakistan (after failed attempts to snatch away Kolkata, etc, see Need weapons to protect women of Kolkata – MDDTimes), the only thing that was not common between India and Pakistan was Islamism, an ideology that was too foreign for the Bengalis with a significant majority of Hindus as well.

This was bound to be a thorn in Pakistan’s flesh that wanted to move to autocracy, a Taliban style government, though Jinnah and others projected modern ambitions to win over the West, especially the UK in order to win favours and lifestyle that they liked.

It was natural for Pakistan leaders to see East Pakistan as more like India and developed racist hatred towards them. They wanted the Hindus to be subjugated and Urdu to be imposed – the two main obstacles in the way of the hardliners. However, Bengalis had been stung by communalism and both the ideas appeared to be forced on them. Revolt started and the hollow democracy that Pakistan projected went against West Pakistan, with majority of seats going to East Pakistanis again and again.

There were a few possibilities – allow East Pakistan to cede with India or let it become a new country. Ceding with India would have meant that the idea of Pakistan had failed, so the second one was the only option.

That’s when a new plan took birth. It was to eliminate as many Hindus as possible (Operation Searchlight was actually a Holy War or Jihad), loot the resources and leave. It was time for army rule, and the army was promised the war booty not after but before the end of the war, which was meticulously planned – the exodus, the killings, the loot, the rape, the time of the year, and the surrender. However, no country would agree to such a plan, which thereby gave a need to a third-party.

Kill three million of them and the rest will eat out of our hands

President Yahya Khan in February 1971

The powerful US and the UK were strong supporters of Pakistan, given USSR’s support for India, and all the planning must have been known to the CIA. The US sent a congratulatory message to Pakistan after the war. However, what is unknown is the deep hidden ties between some leaders of India and Pakistan (read Is Ajmal Kasab really dead? BJP’s forgotten demand for re-investigation into 26/11 – MDDTimes). India had to be the third-party.

Indira Gandhi was to be the hero of India and Yahya Khan that of Pakistan for removing the cancer but not before rewarding its army. Is this a conspiracy theory? Of course it is. But the reasons are strong and as follows.

Why the war (13-day; one of the shortest in history) did not benefit India:

1. Lost significant numbers of army, also in the western front.
2. Punjab and Kashmir exposed and became focus of Pakistan
3. No soldiers or area bargained for the release of thousands (93 thousand!) of Pakistani soldiers
4. No Pakistani soldiers executed for war crime – almost as if pre-planned
5. No punishment to Pakistan, no exchange of revenues or resources
6. Propelled the rise of Islamism in Bangladesh
7. Hollow democracy in Bangladesh
8. Islamic country; Hindu population declining
9. Influx of millions of refugees in Odisha and Assam – West Bengal refused; earlier Hindus, now Muslims
10. No resolution of the precarious Chicken Neck
11. Lost crucial regions near Tripura and potential ports there
12. No serious treaties with new government in Bangladesh
13. No bargaining of PoK
14. No consequences for the Pakistan govt – no sanctions, etc

All that happened was a meek surrender after a sumptuous lunch.

So, who did it help?

1. Pakistan attacked the western front, failed, but it was a hero
2. Another Islamic country
3. More hard-line Islamism Pakistan
4. War booty announced before surrender – targeted rape of Hindus
5. Easy surrender and release

Despite what Indians may wish to believe, and the chest-thumping around a photograph in which the Paki army is signing the instrument of surrender, it is clear that the Bangladesh “liberation” war was initiated by Pakistan because it wanted it. India merely helped execute its plan.

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MDDTimes Staff Writer

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