Bhutto, India and the 1971 Surrender in Bangladesh

[BudZilla]

^^ Whats wrong with Pakistani Punjabies?

 

[Rocky25]

Jinnah authoritarianism was the biggest flaw of his personality. In the last few years of Pakistan movement, his health was in questionable state which must have made a negative impact on his decision making abilities yet his authoritarianism prevented any viable transition of power to a successor. This also lead to catastrophic vacuum of leadership upon his sudden death and is responsible for much of the mess in Pakistan today. Rather than picking our mistakes and correcting the course our leaders are content by propagating that sudden death of Jinnah was part of a wide anti-Pakistan conspiracy! You can cheat a hangman but not death!

I think there is some disconnect here reg Jinnah's abilities... Jinnah has abilities to get a separate land for the Muslims in the sub-continent... But his abilities to handle a newly found country does NOT have an answer....

His counterpart Nehru... did some good things... But he largely steered the nation into Communist way and particularly 1962 he handled it so poorly!

 

[Silverblaze]

It would have been a losing battle because the Bengalis and the IA outgunned and out-numbered PA. If you can hear the surrender announcement, they were surrounded by all sides on many fronts and had to make the choice between surrender or total annihilation. Wars are fought with planning not blind emotionalism and the general would not be worth his salt for taking him men into certain death unless off-course it was WW2 and the belligerents had no respect for Geneva Convention. Overall the IA treated the surrendered soldiers very well.

Pointing fingers to Punjab is not going to help, remember 54% of Pakistan landmass and ironically also the No-go province for any Pakistani is Baluchistan not Punjab. It would be orderly to sort our own home first before pointing fingers at others.[/QUOTE]

Unfortunately, I disagree. India was under immense internatonal pressure, mainly from US. If you read Manickshaw's account of history, he does accept that Mrs. Gandhi gave him very little time. General Jacob also tells how they outwitted Tiger Niazi.

Lastly, you see, greater the power greater the responsibility. Whites were blamed for discriminating against many in their own countries because they did do it.
Punjabis expect that the same level of patriotism must exist everywhere as it is in Punjab.

You look at the symptoms and not the problem. The Punjabi military and civil beauracracy is aristocratic; therefore, Punjab gets the blame. I will not say more, you know better what the history has been in Pakistan.

 

[Matrixx]

From very beginning Pakistan wanted to destroy and India wanted to develop...It is matter of ideology....nothing else....

Learn your mistake from history....unless present will teach you a lesson...

 

[kalu_miah]

All South Asian Muslims should accept the fact that partition was the biggest blunder. Partition gifted the Hindu's a Ram Rajya and enabled them to poke at South Asian Muslims with impunity who got divided into 3 parts used by Radcliffe borders. Now this mistake cannot be undone and there has to be other ways to balance the threat from this Ram Rajya. And yes Jinnah takes a large part of the blame, because he was supposedly looking out for South Asian Muslim interest. The break up of two wings of Pakistan was a foregone conclusion, Lord Mountbatten gave it 25 years max and it lasted exactly 24 years and 7 months.

 

[airmarshal]

Jinnah appeasement policies to the Islamist factions sowed the seeds of disintegration long before the country could even stand on its feet.

I have read the thorough and very well researched account of Jinnah by Stanley Wolpert. There is no mention of Jinnah ever appeasing to someone. least of all the mullah brigade of India.

If you look at the mullah brigade then and now, their policy has been to be acceptable to their overlords. This is a defeatist policy and Jinnah was so anti-status quo. So I can never believe that Jinnah ever pandered to this group of people.

All South Asian Muslims should accept the fact that partition was the biggest blunder. Partition gifted the Hindu's a Ram Rajya and enabled them to poke at South Asian Muslims with impunity who got divided into 3 parts used by Radcliffe borders. Now this mistake cannot be undone and there has to be other ways to balance the threat from this Ram Rajya. And yes Jinnah takes a large part of the blame, because he was supposedly looking out for South Asian Muslim interest. The break up of two wings of Pakistan was a foregone conclusion, Lord Mountbatten gave it 25 years max and it lasted exactly 24 years and 7 months.

Great! You have Bangladesh, so be happy and live in it.

Partition was never a mistake. Muslims of South Asia greatly benefited from it. If the Muslims are stupid and could not keep themselves united, its not the fault of Jinnah. Its our fault and we dont want to take blame for our disunity and infighting.

If partition was a great mistake, I would advise you go ahead and make Bangladesh part of India. You have your own free country, run by a traitor's daughter totally inclined to towing India's line!

 

[indiatester]

I went through the videos, the thing that seemed pretty impressive was the professional way in which both sides talked and behaved.
Be it the Colonel from Pakistan or the special Envoy from India.
Even the political leaders Indira Gandhi & ZA Bhutto were open minded. No body blindly ratted out any rhetoric.
There was calm acceptance of truth and each seemed to understand their responsibilities.

After seeing those videos, I feel we have moved too much to the right in all the three countries.

 

[Jackdaws]

Here is another video of a British fact finding mission. If any country would treat its citizens in this manner, then civil war and unrest become inevitable.

Bengal Refugee Camps In India - YouTube

 

[kalu_miah]

I have read the thorough and very well researched account of Jinnah by Stanley Wolpert. There is no mention of Jinnah ever appeasing to someone. least of all the mullah brigade of India.

If you look at the mullah brigade then and now, their policy has been to be acceptable to their overlords. This is a defeatist policy and Jinnah was so anti-status quo. So I can never believe that Jinnah ever pandered to this group of people.

Great! You have Bangladesh, so be happy and live in it.

Partition was never a mistake. Muslims of South Asia greatly benefited from it. If the Muslims are stupid and could not keep themselves united, its not the fault of Jinnah. Its our fault and we dont want to take blame for our disunity and infighting.

If partition was a great mistake, I would advise you go ahead and make Bangladesh part of India. You have your own free country, run by a traitor's daughter totally inclined to towing India's line!

I stand by my statement. I did say partition cannot be undone. So please do not make infantile statements. It is better for all nations to understand where they went wrong in history. You don't cut out a small state out of a bigger one, it reduces your geopolitical reach. Turkics and Turko Mongol rulers created a united India, but we Muslims gifted most of it to Hindu's because of our stupidity. Any good impartial historian will say the same thing. And please spare us your hero worship of Jinnah. No historical figures should be above criticism.

 

[Sugarcane]

^^ Whats wrong with Pakistani Punjabies?

We did mistake - Instead of Making Punjab an autonomous country we agreed to divide and join Pakistan

 

[Android]

I stand by my statement. I did say partition cannot be undone. So please do not make infantile statements. It is better for all nations to understand where they went wrong in history. You don't cut out a small state out of a bigger one, it reduces your geopolitical reach. Turkics and Turko Mongol rulers created a united India, but we Muslims gifted most of it to Hindu's because of our stupidity. Any good impartial historian will say the same thing. And please spare us your hero worship of Jinnah. No historical figures should be above criticism.

you mean mauryans, guptas, cholas etc or later on marathas were Turkic, Mongols???

 

[my2cents]

Contanary to popular belief the rage of our Ummah Brothers to hack 93,000 POW into pieces was high enough to even concern our arch enemy India into protecting Pakistani's and ex-East Pakistani service men. This is not something I said, the BBC reporter in the documentary said.

You could easily see the abuse of Pakistani soldiers by east Pakistani soldiers in the first video. Those 93000 soldiers who were rescued would have been coming back in body bags if not for the intervention of India. I am not justifying the Indian action of active engagement in 1971 but this act of bringing to end this genocide and rescuing of soldiers was the saving grace of our action.

 

[rubyjackass]

I posted them for historical review and the opinion of leaders on both side not for the purpose of trolling.
One should not take sides when reading history because that leads to indoctrination.

One should not be shy of facts and not bury their head under sand.

1971 Surrender and defeat is a solid fact and the future generations should learn a lesson from it. Let this become a historical fact that Islamic brotherhood and ummah fervor could not hold Pakistan together and linguistic national triumphed over ideological socialism!

Contanary to popular belief the rage of our Ummah Brothers to hack 93,000 POW into pieces was high enough to even concern our arch enemy India into protecting Pakistani's and ex-East Pakistani service men. This is not something I said, the BBC reporter in the documentary said.

Thanks for the Bhutto video. First time watching it. I was wondering how he would have taken the result of the war.

Also first time watching the video about how IA held the situation.

It seems that IA was on par with the most modern armies of the time even in 1971 in terms of following Rules of Engagement, treatment and protection of prisoners and maintaining law and order. From the bad reputation in J&K, I used to think that IA is not capable of behaving like American soldiers in Hollywood movies. But even in 1971, they were amazing.
I guess urban and guerilla warfare takes its toll on the spirit of the most disciplined force.

Thanks a lot.

 

[rubyjackass]

It would have been a losing battle because the Bengalis and the IA outgunned and out-numbered PA. If you can hear the surrender announcement, they were surrounded by all sides on many fronts and had to make the choice between surrender or total annihilation. Wars are fought with planning not blind emotionalism and the general would not be worth his salt for taking him men into certain death unless off-course it was WW2 and the belligerents had no respect for Geneva Convention. Overall the IA treated the surrendered soldiers very well.

Pointing fingers to Punjab is not going to help, remember 54% of Pakistan landmass and ironically also the No-go province for any Pakistani is Baluchistan not Punjab. It would be orderly to sort our own home first before pointing fingers at others.

Unfortunately, I disagree. India was under immense internatonal pressure, mainly from US. If you read Manickshaw's account of history, he does accept that Mrs. Gandhi gave him very little time. General Jacob also tells how they outwitted Tiger Niazi.

Lastly, you see, greater the power greater the responsibility. Whites were blamed for discriminating against many in their own countries because they did do it.
Punjabis expect that the same level of patriotism must exist everywhere as it is in Punjab.

You look at the symptoms and not the problem. The Punjabi military and civil beauracracy is aristocratic; therefore, Punjab gets the blame. I will not say more, you know better what the history has been in Pakistan.

Thanks for the video.

Btw you are judging Niazi as a chicken because he surrendered and 'outwitted'. But he did make the right decision. Even if the Indian headcount outside Dhaka was 3000 then, his army was soon going to be surrounded and pounded from all sides and with greater force and impunity as time passes. The wrong decision that he made was probably to surrender at the Race Course publicly. It made for a bad photoop. May be he just thought he was taking responsibility bravely or may be he was forced to do so by IA(more plausible). General Jacob's threat was real even though he might want to say he outwitted Niazi.

I wonder if any Pakistani journalist asked these questions to Niazi in his lifetime. No wonder Pakistanis don't care about their history.

Even if we take the surrender at face value, Niazi may be a bad general. But decisions like this are what kept India and Pakistan from worse bloodletting. Compared to the razing, bomber raiding wars that European countries waged against each other, our wars have been of consideration. There are unwritten pacts between our air forces to not bomb each other's cities.

 

[kalu_miah]

you mean mauryans, guptas, cholas etc or later on marathas were Turkic, Mongols???

No disrespect to them, I did not mention them because they were before arrival of Central Asian Muslims in South Asia on a large scale. And India has already fragmented after unified states like Mauryans, Guptas and Palas were created centuries ago. Cholas and Marathas were regional states at best, so I do not believe they count. Only Turkic Delhi Sultanate and Turko-Mongol Mughals unified almost all of South Asia, AFAIK.