Bangladesh: Looking back at how a nation was born, 43 years ago on this day

By Nitin Gokhale

• Pakistan's Lt. General AAK Niazi signing the instrument of surrender on 16 December 1971 in the presence of India's Lt. General Aurora file photos

Time has dimmed memory and caught as we are in the hurly-burly of here and now, the events of December 1971 when the map of the Indian sub-continent was redrawn, are all but forgotten.

But as new power equations emerge in the Asia-Pacific and as New Delhi finds itself competing with China for pre-eminence in South Asia, December 16 is a good occasion as any to recall the events of 1971 and more importantly, some of the individual stories of heroism, sacrifice and camaraderie that inevitably emerge from the cauldron of conflict.

To my mind, the 1971 war—call it a war of liberation, call it India’s greatest military victory — could never have been achieved had the Bengalis of East Pakistan not risen against the tyranny of the Pakistani Army. Period.

In a way, the 13-day war was actually the culmination of people’s resistance that began in the immediate aftermath of the horrific massacre on March 25-26, 1971. From that day on, the Mukti Bahini in particular and ordinary people in general, mounted a fierce resistance to Operation Searchlight, launched by the Pakistani Army in March 1971. The underground network of ‘mukti jodhas’ or freedom fighters—a motley mix of university students, ordinary villagers and trained soldiers—harassed the large body of Pakistani army troops deployed in East Pakistan so effectively that despite their large numbers, Pakistani soldiers lost the will to fight by the time the war ended on 16 December 1971.

But the creation of Bangladesh came at a great cost. Over 7,000 Bengalis were slaughtered on Day 1 of the crackdown alone in March 1971. Thereafter, the spiral of death, pillage and destruction just went out of control. There is of course a large body of literature on the genocide unleashed by the Pakistani army in East Pakistan. My interest in what happened between March and December 1971 was once again revived by two recent books, one by a professional author, the other a collection of individual reminiscences by a group of military veterans who took part in the 1971 war.

While Salil Tripathi’s book, The Colonel Who would not Repent: The Bangladesh War and its Unquiet Legacy, chronicles in great detail the rise of Bengali nationalism and the blood-soaked short history of Bangladesh, Liberation: Bangladesh--1971 brought out by the Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS) gives a glimpse into the unique combination of grit, resourcefulness and leadership that the Indian military and the Mukti Bahini displayed in 1971.

Tripathi’s book can easily be described as an updated version of Anthony Mascarenhas’ two earlier works, The Rape of Bangladesh and Bangladesh: The Legacy of Blood. Anthony Mascarenhas, it should be remembered, was a Karachi-based Pakistani journalist whose report in June 1971, many believe, simply entitled ‘Genocide’ changed the course of history. On 13 June 1971, London’s Sunday Times exposed the brutality of Pakistan's suppression of the Bangladeshi uprising. Tripathi of course takes a look at the post-1971 developments in Bangladesh much more closely. Like Mascarenhas before him, Tripathi traces the history of Bengali nationalism and the paranoia West Pakistan’s elite and the Army had about Bengalis. As Tripathi recalls, state directives were issued not to play Tagore's songs on radio as they were not "in line with the ideology of Pakistan."

Amidst that brutal violence in 1971, Bangladesh was born in blood. The gruesome assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh's first prime minister, and most of his family in 1975, the coups and counter-coups which followed, accompanied by prolonged periods of military rule were responsible for the country's inability to come to grips with the legacy of the liberation war and its aftermath. The title of his book comes from Tripathi’s meeting with Farooq Rahman, the major who led the killers of Sheikh Mujibur. Tripathi found Rahman unrepentant, lending the book its name “The Colonel who would not Repent".

If Tripathi’s book makes for grim reading, Liberation: Bangladesh-1971 lifts the spirit with its collection of anecdotes and episodes of human endurance, valour and quest for liberty. 

Take the story of Shahed Ali of Rangpur, described as ‘Bangladesh’s first successful guerrilla leader.’ Inspired by Bangabandhu Shikha Mujib’s call for independence (Ebarer Shangram Muktir Shangram, Ebarer Shangram Swadhintar Shangram— The struggle today is for freedom, The struggle today is for Independence), and ‘direct action,’ Shahed Ali, barely in his 20s, assembled a group of friends in his village in the northern district of Rangpur, waylaid a raiding party of 29 Cavalry regiment and killed five Pakistani soldiers including an officer on 24 March. That Shahed Ali would be hunted down by the ruthless and desperate Pakistani troops was in a way inevitable but as Lt Col Sajjad Ali Zahir, himself a decorated officer writes: “Shahed was no more, but in his death, thousands of Shaheds emerged from all corners of Bangladesh...Shahed Ali fell early on in the Liberation War, but he provided inspiration to the people to fight for freedom.”  Zahir and Maj Gen (Retd) Dhruv Katoch, co-authors of the book, have included many such stories but to me, as a student of military history, the airborne assault of the Indian Army’s 2 Para battalion group over Tangail is an event that needs wider dissemination.

Executed on December 11, 1971, it is by far one of the best examples of Army-Air Force coordination and the ability of the Indian military leadership to seize the initiative through unusual means. One thousand paratroopers from the 50 Independent Parachute Brigade, under the 2 Para battalion group were airdropped by 50 transport aircraft assembled by the Indian Air Force. The assault in broad day light, took the Pakistanis by complete surprise and hastened the end of the war as a retreating Pakistani brigade was decimated at Tangail between 11 and 13 December. 

Again, it was a combination of a bold Indian para-commando Capt TK Ghosh and a young, fiery guerrilla leader Kader ‘Tiger’ Siddiqui who prepared the DZ (dropping zone) for the commandos. Ghosh, who retired as a brigadier, spent over 10 days behind enemy lines to prepare the ground with Mukti Bahini for what was to become the biggest airborne assault post-WWII! The book is replete with personal memories and many chapters recount those exciting days when a nation was born and the history of the Indian sub-continent changed forever.

The compilation allows all of us to recall the contribution of all those who made the liberation of Bangladesh possible, if only to derive lessons from what is clearly India’s biggest politico-military-diplomatic triumph since 1947.