AN OFFICER AND A TRUE GENTLEMAN
This month marks the centenary of Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw who was the Chief of the Indian Army in the crucial years from 1969 to 1973. Brigadier Behram M Panthaki (Retd), who served as his Aide-decamp, and Zenobia Panthaki have written a fascinating b
1 971 brought with it ominous forebodings of war on the Indian subcontinent. In 1970 the Awami League, an East Pakistan political party, won a majority of seats in Pakistan’s federal elections, marginalising Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party of West Pakistan. This made Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, a Bengali Muslim and the leader of the Awami League, the top contender for the post of prime minister of Pakistan… the Sheikh was not invited to form the government. This sparked a civil disobedience movement in East Pakistan, and the president and chief marshal law administrator, Gen. Yahya Khan, ordered army action. A military crackdown began on March 25, 1971 and in the early hours of March 26 Mujib was arrested from his home in Dacca and flown to West Pakistan. The next day, on March 27, Maj. Ziaur Rahman, on behalf of Sheikh Mujib, declared independence of the sovereign ‘Republic of Bangladesh’ from Pakistan and the eastern half of the country ceased to exist… East Pakistan went up in flames… Gen. Tikka Khan was sent to quell the uprising. This resulted in civil war as Bengali officers in the Pakistan Army and soldiers of the East Bengal Rifles deserted and formed the ‘Mukti Bahini’ or ‘Liberation Army’. Tikka launched ‘Operation Searchlight’. Thousands of intellectuals in universities were killed in pogroms and protestors were mercilessly butchered, creating a humanitarian crisis. In the months that followed, waves of refugees, totalling over ten million, poured into India and the economic, financial and logistical burden on the border states of West Bengal, Assam and Tripura became non-sustainable. Repeated appeals by India to Pakistan to rein in the military action against unarmed civilians fell on deaf ears and the influx of these displaced persons finally became inimical to peace in the region.
Towards the end of April 1971… the army chief was invited to a cabinet meeting. The prime minister and her cabinet wanted the army to launch an immediate offensive against Pakistan. … Sam refused to be bulldozed into a misadventure. Referring to the routing of the Indian Army in 1962 by the Chinese, Sam is believed to have said to Mrs Gandhi, ‘Madam Prime Minister, you may not mind being in the same position as your father was in 1962 but I certainly don’t want to be in the position that he [the army chief ] was.’
A very grim prime minister dismissed the cabinet but asked Sam to stay back…. Sensing her anger he asked, ‘… would you like me to send in my resignation on grounds of health, mental or physical?’ ‘Sit down, Sam. Is everything you told me true?’ ‘Yes, it is my job to tell you the truth.’ If war was the option of last resort, it would be at his call. ‘It is my job to fight and it is my job to win.’ He assured the prime minister that East Pakistan would capitulate within a month, but only if he was given a free hand, if the timing was of his choice, and if he had only one political master to report to, the prime minister… Narrating this, while delivering a lecture at the DSSC on November 11, 1998 on ‘Leadership and Discipline’, he said that on that day he had successfully walked the fine line ‘between becoming a field marshal and being dismissed!’ … Plans were recalibrated… In May 1971 Maj. Gen. Onkar Singh Kalkat (8 GR) was posted to Eastern Command as director of operations to train and equip the Mukti Bahini and to oversee its operations. During the war this ancillary force did an outstanding job of disrupting the Pakistan Army’s logistical bases and communication facilities in East Pakistan. …
Sam visited all formations on the front… His very presence was electrifying. Addressing troops in simple language he spelt out his expectations. ‘A soldier’s business is to fight and win battles not to rape and loot. When you enter Pakistan, treat the women with respect like your mothers and sisters. Anyone who disobeyed orders will be court-martialled. I am commanding soldiers, not thieves.’ His words had a profound impact on the men who were primed for battle.
With formation commanders Sam was much tougher. .. He would accept an error of judgement but any formation commander who deliberately misinformed him regarding the ground reality would be sacked forthwith. Nor would he condone rape, but to his officers this directive was conveyed in true Manekshaw style, ‘If you feel an urge, if you feel tempted, put your hands in your pockets and think of Sam Manekshaw.’
...on December 3, 1971 at 3.50 pm the Pakistan Air Force strafed eleven Indian airfields on the western front from Srinagar to Jodhpur, including the air base at Agra, 201 km east of New Delhi… Orders were issued to strike back by land, by air and by sea and with that India and Pakistan went to war for the third time since Independence.
The Indian Army, along with the Mukti Bahini, launched a three-prong attack on East Pakistan. The enemy forces were outnumbered and outflanked. Pakistan ground forces could get no support from their air force since the Dacca airfield had been strafed and twenty aircraft on the tarmac were destroyed. The Indian Navy had blockaded the Bay of Bengal, making sure that no reinforcements could reach by sea. In an orchestrated move, rumours were spread that India intended to launch a major assault on Dacca. On December 11 two Caribou aircraft, with ‘dummies’ dressed like paratroopers, lifted off from Agra. The Pakistan Army was conned into believing that the entire Parachute Brigade had been deployed while in actual fact only the 2nd Parachute Battalion, commanded by Lt Col. K.S. Pannu, was dropped at Tangail in East Pakistan and ordered to march on and surround Dacca. Pakistani troops were taken by surprise and abandoned their positions… Maj. Gen. Rao Farman Ali, military advisor to the governor general of East Pakistan, lost his nerve and approached the UN Security Council for a ceasefire…
Sam had it all down to the wire. As soon as he got word that our troops had surrounded Dacca, he went on the airwaves, calling on Pakistani soldiers to lay down their arms. Pamphlets of his speech, translated into Urdu, Punjabi, Pashto and Bengali, the languages spoken by Pakistani soldiers, were dropped over East Pakistan. The impact of this message from no less a person than the Indian army chief demoralised the Pakistan forces further and, according to defence analysts, is supposed to have shortened the war by two weeks.
Sam’s strategy worked, for on December 14 he received a message… that Lt Gen. A.A.K. Niazi, commander of the Pakistani forces in East Pakistan, was prepared to surrender to the Indian Army. ..
At 4.30 pm on December 16, at Dacca’s Ramna Race Course, Lt Gen. Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi signed the Instrument of Surrender and handed over his pistol, lanyard and badges of rank to Lt Gen. Jagjit Singh Aurora, GOCin-C Eastern Command, thereby placing Pakistan’s eastern army under the command of the Indian Army and bringing the war to an end with the unconditional surrender of 92,000 officers and men.
…On the day Dacca fell Mrs Gandhi could barely contain her excitement. She ran up the stairs of Parliament House and interrupted proceedings to announce victory. Pakistan had been trounced in less than two weeks against a projected time frame of four to six weeks. The house exploded with jubilation; it was India’s finest hour.