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The Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 was a major military conflict between India and Pakistan. The war is closely associated with Bangladesh Liberation War (sometimes also referred to as Pakistani Civil War). There is an argument about exact dates of the war. However, the armed conflict on India's western front during the period between 3 December 1971 and 16 December 1971 is called the Indo-Pakistani War by both the Bangladeshi and Indian armies. The war ended in a crushing defeat for Pakistan military in just a fortnight.

Background

. The Indo-Pakistani conflict was sparked by the Bangladesh Liberation War, a conflict between the traditionally dominant West Pakistanis and the majority East Pakistanis. The war ignited after the 1970 Pakistani election, in which the East Pakistani Awami League won 167 of 169 seats in East Pakistan, thus securing a simple majority in the 313-seat lower house of the Pakistani parliament. Awami League leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman presented Six Points and claimed the right to form the government. After the leader of the Pakistan People's Party, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, refused to give premiership of Pakistan to Mujibur, President Yahya Khan called in the military, which was made up largely of West Pakistanis.

Mass arrests of dissidents began, and attempts were made to disarm East Pakistani soldiers and police. After several days of strikes and non-cooperation movements, Pakistani military cracked down on Dhaka on the night of March 25, 1971. The Awami League was banished, and many members fled into exile in India. Mujib was arrested and taken to West Pakistan.

On 27 March 1971, Ziaur Rahman, a rebellious major in the Pakistani army, declared the independence of Bangladesh on behalf of Mujibur. In April, exiled Awami League leaders formed a government-in-exile in Boiddonathtola of Meherpur. The East Pakistan Rifles, an elite paramilitary force, defected to the rebellion. A guerrilla troop of civilians, the Mukti Bahini, was formed to help the Bangladesh Army.

India's involvement in Bangladesh Liberation War

On 27 March 1971, the Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, expressed full support of her government to the Bangladeshi struggle for freedom. The Bangladesh-India border was opened to allow the tortured and panic-stricken Bangladeshis safe shelter in India. The governments of West Bengal, Bihar, Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura established refugee camps along the border. Exiled Bangladeshi army officers and voluntary workers from India immediately started using these camps for the recruitment and training of Mukti Bahini guerrillas.

As the massacres in East Pakistan escalated, an estimated 10 million refugees fled to India, causing financial hardship and instability in the country. The United States, long a close ally of Pakistan, continued to ship arms and supplies to West Pakistan.

Gandhi launched a diplomatic offensive in the early fall of 1971 touring Europe, and was successful in getting both the United Kingdom and France to break with the United States, and block any pro-Pakistan directives in the United Nations security council. Gandhi's greatest coup was on 9 August when she signed a twenty-year treaty of friendship and co-operation with the Soviet Union, greatly shocking the United States, and providing India with insurance that the People's Republic of China would not be involved in the conflict. China, an ally of Pakistan, had been providing moral support, but little military aid, and did not advance troops to its border with India.

Operation of the Mukti Bahini caused severe casualties to the Pakistani Army, which was in control of all district headquarters. As the flow of refugees swelled to a tide, the economic costs for India began to escalate. India began providing support including weapons and training for the Mukti Bahini, and began shelling military targets in East Pakistan.

India's official engagement with Pakistan

By November, war seemed inevitable; a massive buildup of Indian forces on the border with East Pakistan had begun. The Indian military waited for winter, when the drier ground would make for easier operations and Himalayan passes would be closed by snow, preventing any Chinese intervention. On 23 November, Yahya Khan declared a state of emergency in all of Pakistan and told his people to prepare for war.

On the evening of Sunday, 3 December, the Pakistani air force launched sorties on eight airfields in north-western India. This attack was inspired by the Arab-Israeli Six Day War and the success of the Israeli preemptive strike. However, the Indians had anticipated such a move and the raid was not successful. The Indian Air Force launched a counter-attack and quickly achieved air superiority. On the Eastern front, the Indian Army joined forces with the Mukti Bahini to form the Mitro Bahini (Allied Forces); the next day the Indian forces responded with a massive coordinated air, sea, and land assault on East Pakistan.

Yahya Khan counter-attacked India in the West in an attempt to capture territory which might have been used to bargain for territory they expected to lose in the east. The land battle in the West was crucial for any hope of preserving a united Pakistan. The Indian Army quickly responded to the Pakistan Army's movements in the west and made some initial gains, including capturing around 5,500 sq. miles of Pakistan territory (land gained by India in Pakistani Kashmir and the Pakistani Punjab sector were later ceded in the Shimla Agreement of 1972, as a gesture of goodwill). The Indian Army described its activities in East Pakistan as:

"The Indian Army merely provided the coup de grace to what the people of Bangladesh had commenced--active resistance to the Pakistani Government and its Armed Forces on their soil."

At sea, the Indian Navy proved its superiority by the success of Operation Trident, the name given to the attack on Karachi's port. It also resulted in the destruction of 2 destroyers and one minesweeper, and was followed by the successful Operation Python. The waters in the east were also secured by the Indian Navy. The Indian Air Force conducted 4,000 sorties in the west. In the east, the small air contingent of Pakistan Air Force No. 14 Sqn was destroyed achieving air superiority in the east. Faced with insurmountable losses, the Pakistani military capitulated in just under a fortnight. On December 16, the Pakistani forces in East Pakistan surrendered. The next day India announced a unilateral ceasefire, to which Pakistan agreed.

American involvement

The United States supported Pakistan both politically and materially. President Richard Nixon denied getting involved in the situation, saying that it was an internal matter of Pakistan. But when Pakistan's defeat seemed certain, Nixon sent the USS Enterprise to the Bay of Bengal. Enterprise arrived on station on December 11, 1971. This move was seen

Several documents released from the Nixon Presidential Archiveshttp://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB79/ show the extent of the tilt that the Nixon Administration demonstrated in favor of Pakistan. Among them, the infamous Blood telegram from the US embassy in Dacca, East Pakistan, stated the horrors of genocide taking placehttp://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB79/BEBB1.pdf. Nixon, backed by Henry Kissinger, wanted to protect the interests of Pakistan as he was apprehensive of India. Archer Blood was promptly transferred out of Dacca. As revealed in the newly declassified transcripts released by the State Department,http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/nixon/xi/index.htm President Nixon was using the Pakistanis to normalize relations with China (see Sino-American relations#Rapproachement). This would have three important effects: opening rifts between the Soviet Union, China and North Vietnam, opening the potentially huge Chinese market to American business and creating a foreign policy coup in time to win the 1972 Presidential Elections. Since Nixon believed the existence of Pakistan to be critical to the success of his term he went to great lengths to protect his ally. In direct violation of the Congress-imposed sanctions on Pakistan, Nixon sent military supplies to Pakistan and routed them through Jordan and the Shah-ruled Iran.http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/issue47/articles/a07.htm

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations George H. W. Bush branded the Indian action as "aggression" at the time and took up the matter in the UN Security Council. The United States believed that should Pakistan's armed forces in the east collapse, India would transfer its forces from there to attack West Pakistan, which was an ally in the Central Treaty Organization. This was confirmed in official British secret transcripts declassified in 2003 War secrets showing that India could have invaded West Pakistan - BBC Nixon also showed a bias towards Pakistan despite widespread condemnation of the dictatorship even amongst his administration, as Oval Office records show. Kissinger wanted China to attack India for this purpose. As a gesture of solidarity, on 10 September 1971, an American task force headed by the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise was dispatched from the Gulf of Tonkin to the Bay of Bengal. This move was viewed by the Indians as a nuclear threat. On 6 December and 13 December, the Soviet Navy dispatched two groups of ships, armed with nuclear missiles, from Vladivostok; they trailed U.S. Task Force 74 in the Indian Ocean from 18 December until 7 January 1972.

Effects

The war led to the immediate surrender of Pakistani forces to the Indian Army. Bangladesh became an independent nation, and the third most populous Muslim country. Loss of East Pakistan demoralized the Pakistani military and Yahya Khan resigned, to be replaced by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Mujibur Rahman was released from West Pakistani prison and returned to Dhaka on January 10, 1972.

The exact cost of the violence on the people of East Pakistan is not known. R.J. Rummel cites estimates ranging from one to three million people killed. Other estimates place the death toll lower at 300,000.

On the brink of defeat around December 14, the Pakistani Army and its local collaborators systematically killed a large number of Bengali doctors, teachers and intellectuals, part of a pogrom against the Hindu minorities who constituted the majority of urban educated intellectuals. Young men, who were seen as possible rebels, were also targeted, especially students.

The cost of the war for Pakistan in monetary and human resources was high. In the book Can Pakistan Survive? Pakistan based author Tariq Ali writes, "Pakistan lost half its navy, a quarter of its airforce and a third of its army." India took 93,000 prisoners of war that included Pakistani soldiers as well as some of their East Pakistani collaborators. It was one of the largest surrenders since World War II. India originally wished to try them for war crimes for the brutality in East Pakistan, but eventually acceded to releasing them as a gesture of reconciliation. The Simla Agreement created the following year, also saw most of Pakistani territory (more than 13,000 sq. km) being given back to Pakistan to create "lasting peace" between the two nations.

Important dates

  • March 7, 1971: Sheikh Mujibur Rahman declares that, "The current struggle is a struggle for independence", in a public meeting attended by almost a million people in Dhaka.
  • March 25, 1971: Pakistani forces start Operation Searchlight, a systematic plan to eliminate any resistance. Thousands of people are killed in student dormitories and police barracks in Dhaka.
  • March 26, 1971: Major Ziaur Rahman declares independence from Kalurghat Radio Station, Chittagong. The message is relayed to the world by Indian radio stations.
  • April 17, 1971: Exiled leaders of Awami League form a provisional government.
  • December 3, 1971: War between India and Pakistan officially begins when West Pakistan launches a series of preemptive airstrikes on Indian airfields.
  • December 14, 1971: Systematic elimination of Bengali intellectuals is started by Pakistani Army and local collaborators.
  • December 16, 1971: Lieutenant-General A. A. K. Niazi, supreme commander of Pakistani Army in East Pakistan, surrender to the Allied Forces (Mitro Bahini) represented by Lieutenant General Aurora of Indian Army at the surrender. Bangladesh gains independence.

Important battles

Military awards

For bravery, a number of soldiers and officers on both sides were awarded the highest military award of respective countries. Following is a list of the recipients of the Indian award Param Vir Chakra, the Pakistani award Nishan-E-Haider and the Bangladeshi award Bir Sreshtho:

India

Recipients of the Param Vir Chakra:

Pakistan

Recipients of the Nishan-E-Haider:

Bangladesh

See: Recipients of Bir Sreshtho

See also

Bangladeshi Armed Forces and Mukti Bahini

Indian army

Pakistani army

References

Further reading

  • D K Palit The Lightning Campaign: The Indo-Pakistan War 1971 Compton Press Ltd (1972), ISBN 0900193107
  • J R Saigal Pakistan Splits: The Birth of Bangladesh Manas Publications (2004), ISBN 817049124X
  • J Hanhimaki The Flawed Architect: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy Oxford University Press (2004)

External links

1971 | History of Bangladesh | Indo-Pakistani War of 1971

Troisième guerre indo-pakistanaise

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Indo-Pakistani War of 1971".

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