Brutal Birth OF Bangladesh
Fearful of a civil war that could spread into its territory, India prepared a multi-pronged assault on Bangladesh. With the world’s nuclear powers watching, failure was not an option
It could have been the greatest exodus in modern history, a displacement unseen since the Partition in 1947. In the summer of 1971 Bengalis from what used to be East Pakistan escaped their towns and villages for India, where they sought shelter in squalid refugee camps. Conditions in these temporary habitats were appalling. Millions of starving, half-naked men and women, together with innumerable children, spent their days in hovels separated by open sewers dug by hand. The flies were a pestilence. Cholera spread quickly, claiming hundreds of lives.
These desperate people were fleeing a brutal persecution that began in March, when Pakistan’s dictator Yahya Khan sent Pakistan’s army to crush Bengali dissidents. East Pakistan’s reigning political party had swept the previous year’s elections, and there was both anxiety and outrage over the fact the Awami League’s champion, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, would be denied the prime minister’s office.
Rather than accept the election results, West Pakistan’s rulers – the politicians and generals who had no belief in sharing their mandate – approved Operation Searchlight. On 25 March, Pakistani troops deployed all over Dhaka, the regional capital, setting fire to its slums and besieging its university. Gunfire echoed throughout the first dreadful night and continued in the evenings that followed.
The American diplomat Archer Blood, witnessing the scale of the violence unravelling around him, did his best to gather as much evidence as he could. The following month, on 6 April, he sent his superiors in Washington, DC a telegram that was seething with outrage. The most damning part read, “…But we [the USA] have chosen not to intervene, even morally, on the grounds that the Awami conflict, in which unfortunately the overworked term genocide is applicable, is a purely internal matter of a sovereign state. Private Americans have expressed disgust.”
However, what became known as the ‘Blood Telegram’ accomplished little. The Nixon administration at the time considered Pakistan a vital Cold War ally, and the chaos in its eastern half was considered none of America’s business, or responsibility.
For several months the same problem bedevilled India, whose eastern provinces bore the brunt of the humanitarian crisis.
Now ensconced in Calcutta, members of the Awami League had already tried to launch a guerrilla war to save the country they had called Bangladesh. The effort failed and soon the weather turned foul as seasonal rains drenched South Asia.
India’s leader, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, had conferred with her cabinet to discuss a quick solution to the Bangladeshi question. The Awami League’s cadres-in-exile had failed to sustain a guerrilla war in their homeland, and New Delhi didn’t believe in promising too much support for the freedom fighters. India had its own problems – Kashmir and the volatile border with Pakistan, the Maoist Naxal guerrillas in its southern jungles and the Chinese in their outposts in Arunachal Pradesh.
“THE NIXON ADMINISTRATION AT THE TIME CONSIDERED PAKISTAN A VITAL COLD WAR ALLY, AND THE CHAOS IN ITS EASTERN HALF WAS CONSIDERED NONE OF AMERICA’S BUSINESS”
Perhaps, the prime minister suggested, a quick and decisive intervention was in order. India did possess a competent military with enough strength to hammer the Pakistanis. A sudden assault on the new country of Bangladesh, whose terrain was flat and offered few difficulties for mechanised columns, made an attack a viable option.
Prudence wins
But the prime minister’s intentions were far from reasonable according to Chief of Staff General Sam Manekshaw, a decorated World War II veteran who had the distinction of being India’s highest-ranking Parsi – a Zoroastrian Persian born and raised in the subcontinent.
‘Sam Bahadur’, as he was called with fondness, pointed out that once the monsoon began that year from June until October Bangladesh’s rivers would overflow and become impassable. The flat, dry paddies would be submerged and even bridges might be inaccessible. In addition, nearly 200 Indian tanks were out of commission. Most of all, Sam Bahadur concluded, he needed time. The troops weren’t in position and supplies weren’t ready.
Prime Minister Gandhi deferred to her most capable general and bided her time. Besides, if she did launch an intervention, so could the Chinese. Worse, the Americans, whose carrier strike groups in the Pacific could reach the
Bay of Bengal unopposed, could also become embroiled in the conflict.
India’s support for the Mukti Bahini guerrillas didn’t increase until September, when trainers from the Special Frontier Force – an elite group that once received support from the American CIA – established rudimentary camps in the states adjacent to Bangladesh, such as West
Bengal, Assam and Tripura. There was no shortage of manpower, as up to 20,000 young men were processed each month in a huge build up.
Another talented Indian strategist was tasked with ironing out the plans for attacking Bangladesh. This was Lieutenant General J.F.R. Jacob, whose Jewish faith made him India’s perfect emissary to Israel in the years after the war. In 1971, however, Lieutenant General Jacob had to conceive an operation that would earn Manekshaw’s approval and strike at the enemy’s ‘centre of gravity’.
India’s preparations were far from simple. The area of operations, encompassing Bangladesh’s entire territory, was divided into four sectors, three of which had a corps assigned to it. In the north, near the narrow Siliguri Corridor near Bhutan, was XXXIII Corps with two elite units, the 20th Mountain Division and the 71st Mountain Brigade. XXXIII Corps was supposed to work in conjunction with the 95th Mountain Brigade in the central sector. The western sector had II Corps and was heavy on armour and infantry.
The eastern sector was the staging ground for IV Corps and had the advantage of naval aviation providing cover.
In October Mukti Bahini units resumed their infiltration of Bangladesh to conduct hit-and-run attacks on Pakistani outposts and infrastructure. No decisive battles were fought in the next two months, but the raids forced the Pakistanis to spread their soldiers over towns and villages, leaving roads and railways unprotected.
The first deadly blow
On 23 November a sizable Pakistani force backed by American-made M24 Chaffee tanks tried to attack the Mukti Bahini in West Bengal. The objective was a command and supply base in the town of Boyra that straddled the border. The brazen operation miscalculated the response from India, which was swift and terrible. Indian troops fought alongside the guerrillas, and a combination of air strikes and artillery knocked out a dozen enemy tanks. These losses were a worrying setback for the Pakistanis, who may not have lacked for manpower but did have a shortage of artillery and fighting vehicles.
The tit-for-tat skirmishes escalated the following week, and in December entire battalions of Mukti Bahini launched assaults on railways and other vital infrastructure in their homeland. Pakistan retaliated with a wave of air strikes using its F-86 Sabres, targeting Indian bases and airports believed to be supplying the guerrillas. The trap was sprung. Feigning outrage over these airborne provocations and confident the diplomatic efforts in the months prior would stave off any condemnation from Washington and Beijing, Prime Minister Gandhi let her generals settle the Bangladesh question.
On 4 December more than 100,000 troops struck from four directions. In the north, XXXIII Corps followed the path of the Brahmaputra
River and moved south at a rapid pace. In the west and east, II Corps and IV Corps avoided concentrations of dug-in Pakistani troops and raced towards their objectives. The Indian Air Force had done an impressive job neutralising Pakistani airfields, nearly all of which were along the border.
The most crucial engagement in the opening days of the war – the third time India and Pakistan had come to blows since both gaining independence from Britain – was the flawless blockade of Bangladesh’s long and fractured coast. None of the belligerents possessed formidable navies, but India risked its new aircraft carrier, the INS Vikrant, on a hazardous mission to attack Pakistani forces from the air in the eastern sector.
The Pakistanis didn’t have anything larger than gunboats to protect the coast, but there was the PNS Ghazi, a submarine that could stalk and eliminate the Vikrant and its escorts one by one. Luckily for the Indian flotilla, the Ghazi wasn’t stationed in Chittagong at the outbreak of the war and was still on its way from Karachi, Pakistan’s gleaming coastal metropolis.
In the days before hostilities began, Indian cryptanalysts had intercepted Pakistan’s sensitive communications network in Bangladesh. It was discovered that the Ghazi had to trace India’s long coastline before it could attempt an ambush on the Vikrant. Should it fail this mission, its next objective was to plant mines along India’s eastern coast.
But the Indian Navy was fully aware of the Ghazi’s presence in their waters and sent an aging destroyer, the INS Rajput, to eliminate it. The Rajput calculated the Ghazi’s likely position and went to intercept the submarine. In the early hours of 4 December Rajput dropped
“MUKTI BAHINI UNITS RESUMED THEIR INFILTRATION OF BANGLADESH TO CONDUCT HIT-AND-RUN ATTACKS ON PAKISTANI OUTPOSTS AND INFRASTRUCTURE”
several depth charges and later reported that it had successfully destroyed the Ghazi. While the Ghazi was indeed destroyed on 4 December, the cause of its destruction is contentious.
Indian divers who searched for wreckage in the shallows of Visakapatnam eventually found the Ghazi torn apart by a massive internal explosion. Pakistan claimed the submarine was destroyed in a mine-laying accident.
Flawless operational art
Meanwhile in Bangladesh, the war was progressing well for India. Pakistani fighter jets were either neutralised or stranded in their airfields within two days of the invasion. This allowed Indian columns to move unmolested
across the countryside. Like the Arab-israeli wars before it, this conflict in South Asia served as a proving ground for Soviet and Western technology. This time, the Sovietmade kit showed its mettle. Striking from the western sector, II Corps managed to secure its objectives, the towns of Jhenaidah and Jessore, in less than a week.
This was made possible by the Soviet designed PT-76, an amphibious tank that used an elongated hull equipped with propellers to traverse water. India had imported hundreds of these tracked vehicles, and even if its armour was too thin for comfort, its 76mm main gun could take on anything thrown at it.
Unfortunately for Pakistan, their best antitank weapons in the Bangladesh theatre were jeeps mounted with a recoilless rifle. The PT-76S became indispensable for crossing streams, canals and rivers, often with an infantry squad riding on top. This spared engineers the gruelling task of floating pontoons or repairing bridges under fire.
India’s rapid progress meant the Mukti
Bahini were reduced to spectators in this final showdown. This was intentional, as India’s generals knew having irregular troops in their order of battle would compromise their remarkable operational tempo.
While Indian casualties were quite serious in a few engagements, the biggest hurdles in the war were the local roads. In many places these were little more than dirt tracks, and the Indian army didn’t have enough transports, such as APCS or helicopters, for rapid movement. If India’s army had stocked up on hundreds of Soviet Mi-2 helicopters, for example, it would have made even better progress.
The air assault proved decisive in the war. One of its most daring operations was the insertion of the Para Battalion Group, a crack unit, deep behind enemy lines. The objective was in the northern sector, in a town called Tangail. On the eighth day of hostilities, 500 paratroopers were ferried by plane and dropped over their objective, which was captured without a fight.
As insignificant as the operation appeared, Tangail marked the beginning of the end for Pakistan’s desperate stranglehold on Bangladesh. The town northwest of Dhaka had a highway leading straight to the capital. With IV Corps already occupying the banks of the Meghna River and II Corps reaching the Padma River, Tangail’s fall completed the encirclement of Bangladesh’s largest city and seat of power.
India’s high command could then have sent the Mukti Bahini, whose numbers reached almost 100,000 men, to liberate Dhaka on their own, street by street, with the Pakistanis fighting to the death. But common sense prevailed, and surgical air strikes were launched on the city. On 14 December, after Mig-21s and Hunters had bombed and rocketed Government House, East Pakistan’s highest ranking civilian, Governor Abdul Motaleb Malik, emerged from a nearby bunker. Trembling and almost speechless with shock, he found a scrap of paper to scrawl his resignation on. At the end of that undignified moment, Dhaka was ripe for the taking.
“INDIA’S RAPID PROGRESS MEANT THE MUKTI BAHINI WERE REDUCED TO SPECTATORS IN THIS FINAL SHOWDOWN”