India Invaded Pakistan In 1971: Know The Facts, And The Enemy

[Tiki Tam Tam]

Like Arundhuti Roy's claim to fame is her one book wonder.

Bose is a relative of Netaji Subash Bose!

 

[Md Akmal]

I USED GOOGLE TRANSLATE

@ You are a real Bangla fighter. How could you do it ? You are the real digital "Suntan"(son) of Sk Hasina. I am really thrilled. I know a little bit urdu(read up to class 7) but could not translate, all forgotten. Thanks once again.

@ So, I learned it now. See....i

Bengalis on war crimes charges

Forty years ago, after a brief but violent civil war, separated from Pakistan and Bangladesh became an independent country.
File photo

According to the book of war crimes against humanity committed by both sides was

As possible in the civil war that killed an estimated three million people.

According to BBC correspondent aylstyyr false association with the independence of Bangladesh to bring out a new book about the incident have been extremely controversial results.

Sharmila Bose's book ryknng Dad, I was told that the bloody wars in the last half century, only the winning side of a story that dated from the nineteen hundred and seventy were described in Bangladesh to independence from Pakistan are indigenous nationalists.

Author wrote that "both sides of this battle are still locked in battle hostile asatyr.

Introduction of the book was the bloody struggle for independence of Bangladesh, the Pakistani army in killings, but this book is not as bad alzmh in Bangladesh in which they will be considered the most controversial The book that is in favor of independence and fighting against the Bengalis, too, hate the atrocities deserve half.
File photo

Sharmila Bose published war-related documentary material author of the study, aged villagers in Bangladesh and Pakistan conducted interviews with retired military officers have questions.

The book's author, Dr. Bose, a senior researchers at Oxford University and he previously worked for the BBC. They fight for the independence of the Pakistani Army's perception of a 'horrible law' as made and the "terrible charges which have not been any evidence of 'the Bengalis' victim' was displayed.

That's why they say 'Bengalis by separatist violence and atrocities were not only deny them, and showed less intensity but they were accurate.

and military counter-action in the only way to soften further, 'concocted his end result is a delivery error.

Mhymn Naeem said, nineteen hundred and seventy of the author to highlight the complex issues again demonstrated the lack of curiosity. So why the killings began, the Government of India as well as the Bengalis the cruel treatment and demonstrated The reaction was so violent.

However, by a Western author about the war, the first book to be written independently of the situation was prjayzh.
By a Western author about the war to be written more or less independently of the circumstances in which this is the first book was prjayzh.

Dr. Bose, the author of this book before writing this book about the war, published a study of documentary material. They can be aged in remote villages of Bangladesh to the interviews. After that he traveled to Pakistan and Several retired military officers have questions.
Blow to the brutality

According to the revolt of the Bengali nationalists, non-Bengalis in East Pakistan against the intolerable level of violence has changed. Particularly in West Pakistan, mostly Urdu-speaking citizens and also those who were targeted by Hindu tqysm had migrated from East Pakistan and India said they were AB.

Dr. Bose said, "In the name of Bengali nationalism, the ethnic violence in the Bengali men, women and children was a massacre." Deaths, according to the ctagang, Khulna, Jessore santahr and during the war and After ten months were up.

Author writes, "the victim of racist murder of hundreds of non-Bengalis and in some cases thousands of men, women and children were killed ... the genocide victims of racism and the extreme brutality of the murder was tragic.

Dr. Bose says that some of the worst violence and atrocities of Bengalis on his own people to defend the unity of Pakistan and Bangladesh for the freedom fighters were at each other.

Three million Bengalis by the Pakistani army killed popular words do not refer to an official report

Dr. Sharmila Bose

There is kash.

Dr. Bose says, "The thing that's clear evidence of non-Bengali Bengali victims of racist violence.

He writes, "the Pakistani army targeted Bengali men came to earth was filled with bodies and bodies of water in the river were stopped and they were the bodies of non-Bengalis Bengali rebels were killed '.
Extraordinary tale

Some of the worst violence on his own people were Bengalis

Dr. Bose has also reviewed the reports that Pakistani forces had killed three million Bengalis. This number as a big rumor, he said the figure is not based on a census or survey.

The "three million Bengalis by the Pakistani army killed popular words do not refer to an official report.

Naeem mhymn Dr. Bose's estimates of casualties during the war are rejected. "Junaid Qazi as the researchers were in the media about the various estimates of casualties are presented. But in any case it was three million or three million deaths it becomes a low level of genocide. "

Pakistan in his book, Dr. Bose and his supporters did not ignore the atrocities and the several chapters in the book are available. They concluded that in his book that the political and extra judicial killings by the Pakistani army, which In some cases, race was a blast.

The love story of a female soldier based on the film was halted after allegations that he is trying to distort history.

 

[Roybot]

@ You are a real Bangla fighter. How could you do it ? You are the real digital "Suntan"(son) of Sk Hasina. I am really thrilled. I know a little bit urdu(read up to class 7) but could not translate, all forgotten. Thanks once again.

Google Chrome

 

[EjazR]

i agree to disagree with you when bhutto was in power till he was hanged by america what he did for muslim ummah?????do you know OIC?hemade OIC He made OPEC and used oil as a weapon against US.No matter what Bhutto was not a bad person he was a gift we couldnt manage to handle.and about muslim brotherhood did you ever went to a library searched a book or the web for something called islamic empir or khilafah or chaliphate?which existed form the time of prophet Mohammad PBUH till 1921?did u ever heard of that?

Unfortunately, you are banned but I want to clear some myth-making that is happening here.

Bhutto MADE OPEC??? OPEC initially began taking shape in 1949 when Iran, Iraq and KSA held meetings around this and by 1960 it was officially established. No Bhutto connection anywhere.

The OIC's first meeting or the founding meeting took place in Rabat Morocco in 1969 and here King Faisal and the king of Morocco as well as Iran all unanimously invited India to be a FULL MEMBER of the newly formed body because it had the third largest Muslim population in the world at that time.

"Laraki told the envoy that King Faisal of Saudi Arabia had proposed, the King of Morocco had seconded, and all other participants had unanimously agreed that India should be invited to sit at the OIC table as a member."

Here again Pakistan played its role in dividing the Muslim world by threatening to boycott the newly formed OIC if India is invited as full member (Yahya Khan was president then as well). The result was OIC became an ineffectual organization with no credibility all because the ego of Yahya Khan and some Pakistanis was more than what is good for Muslims in general.

So even now, Pakistan is the only country that doesn't want India in OIC which shows how much the leadership cares for muslims. The average Pakistani is probably not a problem but I am talking about the leadership here.
Time to end India’s isolation in OIC
The Hindu : India, Pakistan and the OIC
Why India didn't make it to OIC - Times Of India

so relying on past experience of 1947 independence war and 1971 independence war.which one was for a better cause?uniteing muslims or dividing muslims in bd and pk

You mentioned that 1947 as war of independence, reality is there was no war like 1971 then. And it actually divided Muslims into two and was a step to dividing Muslims into three parts in the subcontinent. Before the locals in mecca and other parts of the Arab world would refer to Muslims from the subcontinent as Hindi, but now they are referred to as Hindi, Pakistani and Bangladeshi.

 

[Imran Akhtar]

Indian Role Behind East Pakistan Separation

By Sajjad Shaukat

16th December is the day of tragic memory when Pakistan was dismembered and a new state of Bangladesh was created in 1971 as part of Indian plot which still continues. At present, New Delhi has been supporting separatism in Balochistan, Sindh, and insurgency in various regions in order to further weaken the federation of Pakistan.

Visit Original Article Here..

 

[OrionHunter]

C'mon man, grow up and avoid posting crap written by pipsqueaks from third rate tabloids! 1971 is stone age history. Don't get stuck in a time warp just for scoring brownie points. Move on...

 

[Zabaniyah]

Prepare for some harsh trolling here.

 

[Kyusuibu Honbu]

 

[Gautam]

everyone knows we did that and created a new country. now what are you going to do about it? how many threads you want to digest this fact?

 

[T90TankGuy]

is it still such a sore point ? cant you get over it ?

 

[Gonjo]

We wanted an independent nation and India cleverly took the opportunity for assisting us. However it is, we have won the game. This is a crystal clear fact, why people keeps asking about this?

 

[Raja.Pakistani]

We wanted an independent nation and India cleverly took the opportunity for assisting us

I dont mind the creation of bangldesh but indian asistance was not selfless. Assistance was there to take revenge from Pakistan.. Why they are not helping Kashmiri, west benagli or any other freedom movements in India ?

 

[Lyrical Mockery]

west bengali freedom moveent? really?

ULFA chief acknowledged taking support from ISI and said that it was a mistake.

 

[shuntmaster]

WAR TACTICS
Play it your way, Sam!
By R. Prasannan
Story Dated: Friday, November 25, 2011 16:28 hrs IST
How Indira and her generals crafted a perfect war

Help from across the border: An Indian armoured vehicle in Jessore

The second half of 20th century witnessed three ‘perfect' wars. Two of them were waged and won by women—Indira Gandhi and Margaret Thatcher.
A perfect war is one in which everyone gets it right, plays it right and achieves a clean victory—the political leaders, the diplomats, the generals, the planning staff, the field commanders, the strategists, the tacticians, even the quartermaster.
The sense of perfection in Israel's six-day war of 1967 (waged by Prime Minister Levi Eshkol), India's Bangladesh liberation war of 1971 and Britain's Falklands war of 1982 was the result of the harmonisation of every factor that usually goes into conduct of a war and achievement of a clean victory—conception of grand strategy, definition of strategy, conduct of diplomacy, sense of timing, the harmony between political and military leaderships, harmony among the various arms and services, brilliance in execution of tactics, management of logistics, complete achievement of the political and military objectives of the war, and above all, knowing when and where to end the victory run.
The Pakistan army began its crackdown in the east on March 25, 1971. That night, Indira Gandhi and her senior cabinet ministers asked Indian Army chief, Gen. S.H.F.J. (Sam) Manekshaw if he could “assist the people of East Pakistan”. Sam wouldn't. A few days later, the cabinet met again and asked Sam if he could intervene. He still wouldn't. What if the cabinet ordered, Indira asked him. In that case, she could ask for the resignation of her army chief on the ground of insanity, Sam replied.
Indira smiled. The crafting of the war towards perfection began at that moment.
Sam wanted a few months to set up his logistics—move the strike divisions to the borders, equip the engineers with bridges to cross the Bengal rivers and canals, move a few tank formations to the west, where holding operations and token intrusive strikes would have to be undertaken, mobilise the northern units to hold back the Chinese, and get even the medial teams ready.
In the next few months, Indira got Sam virtually every toy he 
wanted. The bureaucracy, known for its delaying tactics, was simply told to get what he fancied. Why, the chief could even get his man appointed as head of an ordnance factory! Indeed, mistakes happened. The Grad-P single-barrel rocket launcher, bought on Sam's insistence, was a disaster. But they carried on knowing that to err is human.
Inter-service cooperation was at its best. At the outset, Sam told the Prime Minister that if she wanted she could ask Admiral S.M. Nanda or Air Chief Marshal P.C. Lal to head the chiefs of staff committee. He wanted one of them to be the first among equals.
Leaving the chiefs to arming themselves and planning the war, Indira Gandhi went on a diplomatic offensive. The world public opinion was outraged by the atrocities committed by the Pak army in Bangladesh, but political opinion, especially in the west, was against India that seemed to be bent on settling scores with Pakistan, and also was getting friendlier with the Soviets.
The diplomatic offensive was multi-pronged. First, the Arab world, which controlled the oil that fuelled not only the economy but also the battle-tanks, warships and fighter jets, had to be won over. Pakistan could play the Muslim card. Indira sent family friend Mohammad Yunus to talk to the Arabs.
US cooperation was counted out from the outset. Even India's pro-US ambassador in Washington, L.K. Jha, could not get Richard Nixon and his security adviser Henry Kissinger to see things from the Indian perspective. As refugees poured in from East Pakistan, Indira made a whirlwind tour of the world capitals. The regimes remained indifferent, but she charmed the western media and the public. This had the desired effect. Even as the western regimes remained indifferent or hostile, the pro-India mood among the western public—there were pro-Bangla rallies even in Washington, London, Berlin and Paris—ensured that the regimes didn't act against India. Bulk of the Indian weaponry was of western, mainly British, origin, and needed spares. If the regimes had gone for sanctions or embargo, the Gnat fighters and Leander class warships would have been immobilised without spares.
At the UN, the much-respected foreign minister Swaran Singh held the front. Initially it seemed a lone battle of a frail old man against virtually the entire western world. Once when he moved a motion, he got just five votes in favour. Yet, he slogged on regardless, once speaking for two days at a stretch to delay a voting, till relief came in the shape of Soviet veto in the Security Council.
The diplomatic masterstroke was achieved in Moscow. The Soviets had been offering a treaty of friendship for long, but India had not responded. Suddenly in August, Indira remembered the offer and signed the treaty.
Once he got the treaty in his pocket, Leonid Brezhnev shook the world for India. His ambassadors cast veto after veto at the UN to block resolutions against India.
Brezhnev was at his combative best, too. Indira and Manekshaw were worried about the chicken neck of Siliguri corridor. The military situation there was precarious—a Chinese commander could march in after lunch and have his evening tea in a Darjeeling garden. Brezhnev ordered 40 divisions—they never had a shortage—to mobilise on his border with China. For once the dragon trembled before the mighty bear, forgot about the Indian border and kept its gaze fixed on the border with the USSR.
The Americans were a different cup of tea. Nixon, who was secretly befriending the Chinese, counted on Mao. But Mao wouldn't move in. As Nixon's Seventh Fleet, led by USS Enterprise which packed enough firepower to sink half the Indian Navy, crossed the Strait of Malacca and steamed towards Chittagong, Brezhnev sent his nuclear submarines to tail it, and put his long-range missiles on high alert.
The politician in Indira Gandhi trusted the Soviets—that they would take care of the Chinese and even the Americans. Not the military minds, always suspicious. Despite all assurances, Sam would not roll his guns and tanks into East Bengal till the rivers had ebbed and the snow had blocked all the Chinese ingress routes across the Himalayas.
Admiral Nanda, too, was worried. What could his INS Vikrant do against USS Enterprise? He called the PM. The Americans are on a dry run; call them on board, and give them enough drinks, she is said to have told him.

In short, General Secretary Brezhnev and ‘General Snow' (to borrow a phrase from Soviet World War II military folklore) together blocked the Chinese. And Nixon and Kissinger were virtually bluffed into believing that there would be a nuclear war if they so much as touched India.
As the political leadership and the foreign service bureaucracy were managing the world, the chiefs were perfecting their own working arrangements in tandem with the political leadership. Brilliant battle tactics were crafted by all three. The Army's redoubtable eastern commander, Lt-Gen. Jagjit Singh Aurora, planned a swoop into East Pakistan from all three sides. He ordered his formation commanders: leave the highways, take to the bylanes.
A word about military tactic-crafting is called for. A good general is one who thinks not only from the enemy's point of view but also how the enemy sees him. In other words, Aurora read not only Gen. Niazi's mind, but also how Niazi was reading his mind.
This is what happened: Niazi would expect Aurora to make a quick dash towards Dacca. To block Aurora, Niazi would station the bulk of his troops to defend the roads and bridges to Dacca.
Niazi was right in reading Aurora's intentions. But wrong in the way he planned to reach Dacca. He told his field commanders to forget the well-defended highways, but take to the small roads, bylanes and dry open fields for a cross-country race towards Dacca. This took Niazi completely by surprise. In about 10 days, Aurora's forces were leaning on the defences of Dacca and asking Niazi and his 90,000 men to surrender.
Equally brilliant tactics were crafted by the Navy and Air Force, too. The coast-confined Navy's role till then was to defend Bombay, Madras and Visakhapatnam. Admiral S.M. Nanda correctly read the Pak navy chief's mind. He would expect the Indian Navy to attack Karachi and Chittagong. That meant the bulk of the Pak fleet would remain confined around these two western and eastern ports. That would also mean, Nanda calculated, that no one would attack Bombay or Visakhapatnam. “How can I have a war if my fleet and my enemy's fleet remained around the ports?” Nanda once told this correspondent. “So I decided that I will move out.”
Nanda's brilliant bombing of Karachi using small missile boats, twice in a week, took not only Pakistan, but the world by surprise. As military historians noted, for the first time in two millennia, Indian strategic thinking broke out of the confines of the chessboard. Mobility became the mantra for the first time.
Equally brilliant were the Air Force tactics. On the pretext of a civil plane hijack, Indira Gandhi had prohibited Pak civil or military planes from overflying India between the eastern and western wings early in the year. The move had rendered Pak air force virtually absent from the eastern skies.
But in the west, the Pak air force was just brilliant. The war started with amazingly daring attacks by Pak Sabre jets on India's western airfields. The IAF's puny Gnats were no match for the modern Sabres, but the IAF's brilliant tactics more than made up for that inferiority. Once the military aim in the west was defined as mere holding operations, the Air Force could be deployed effectively to stop Pak tanks on their tracks, literally. As Pak tanks rolled into Longewala, IAF jets took to the air and simply bombed them out. The battle has been re-enacted brilliantly in the film, Border, by far Bollywood's best ever war film.
Equally brilliant was a tactic adopted in the east. As the Pak commanders, though surrounded and asked to surrender, prevaricated, expecting a bailout by the Americans, a flight of MiG-21 supersonics roared past the governor's office, shooting a line of holes on its roof, but without damaging the structure or killing him. It was like a sheriff in a cowboy film shooting the whiskey-glass from the baddie's hand without leaving so much as a scratch on his finger—not at all lethal, but completely unnerving. It scared the wits out of Niazi and in no time he agreed to surrender. Incidentally, that brilliant precision-strike, by a squadron of pilots who had never before flown supersonic planes, was more precise than the laser-guided bombing of Al-Jazeera office in Kabul by US satellite-guided warjets 30 years later.
The war was perfect in terms of achievement of the political and military objectives, too. The military objective was to hold on in the west with minor intrusions into Pak territory, and to completely overrun the east. The political objective was to liberate the east and show utmost restraint in the west so as not to provoke the world into thinking that India wanted complete elimination of Pakistan.
The final act of brilliance was in halting the war. The moment Dacca was surrounded, Indira Gandhi called for a unilateral ceasefire and asked for surrender. As she admitted later, she did it then because she knew she would not be able to do it later.
It was here that the sagacity of the political and military leadership showed itself in sparkling colours. History tells us that stopping a war when everything is going in one's favour is the most difficult politico-military decision. Indira and Sam did it. Heaven-born generals have walked into traps of temptation, as Charles Townshend, triumphant at Basra, walked into the quicksands of Mesopotamia in World War I. The names of the Indian soldiers who walked with him, and to death without him, are inscribed on India Gate in Delhi.
No such fate befell the boys under Indira, Sam and Aurora. They knew that in triumph, one had to be modest and moderate.

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WAR TACTICS
The role of the superpowers
Story Dated: Friday, November 25, 2011 16:30 hrs IST

Big brother's support: Indira Gandhi with Leonid Brezhnev


Both the Soviet Union and the United States were involved in the war, which took place during the peak of the Cold War. The Nixon administration in the US threw its weight behind Pakistan. India had already secured the support of the Soviet Union through the Indo-Soviet Friendship Treaty signed on August 9, 1971. The US introduced a cease-fire resolution in the UN Security Council on December 4, immediately after Pakistan launched air strikes on India. It was vetoed by the Soviet Union.
The US repeatedly prodded China to open a front against India and assured its support in case of a Soviet retaliatory attack on China. As China refused to oblige, President Nixon ordered a carrier task force of the US Navy's Seventh Fleet, led by the USS Enterprise, into the Bay of Bengal, to put pressure on India. Some Soviet reports also cite the movement of British carrier HMS Eagle towards the Bay of Bengal. The Soviet Union responded by dispatching two groups of cruisers and destroyers from its Pacific fleet and a submarine armed with nuclear missiles from Vladivostok. The US and British ships were thus forced to move out of the Bay of Bengal. On December 12, the Chinese formally conveyed their stand on the crisis and decided not to open a front in India's northeast, much to the chagrin of Pakistan and the US.

 

[shuntmaster]

MUJIB WE KNEW
A gentle giant
By Mandira Nayar
Story Dated: Friday, November 25, 2011 16:22 hrs IST
Two close associates remember Sheikh Mujibur Rahman

Fearless and charismatic: Even today, Bangladeshis flock to Mujib's house in Dhaka, which is a museum, to understand the father of the nation better

His trademark thick black frames dominate the landscape in Dhaka even now. In Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman will be forever young. The strapping, tall leader was a giant in more ways than one—he was over six feet, a rarity in this part of the world.
“There has never been a Bengali like him, nor shall there ever be,'' says Anwar Hossain Manju, a politician and the publisher of Daily Itefaq. “This region had never been independent before. It was chaotic, undisciplined and ungovernable. I don't know what made him think that he could make this a country. But he did. He said, ‘I know you intellectuals will criticise me. But one thing you can't denounce, I created a nation and gave you a passport.'”
Hossain remembers an incident after he had just won a seat in a students' hall. He was busy preparing his speech when he was taken to Mujib's house. “He came out in a vest and a lungi. There had been some violence earlier and he caught hold of one of the young student leaders and said, ‘Aren't you ashamed for being beaten up?' Then he gave him 500 takas.”
He then turned to Hossain and gave him an iron rod. The second storey of his house was being built. Bangabandhu told him: “Carry this with you always.” Says Hossain: “I was a changed man. He was mesmerising.''
Mujib's house in Dhanmandi, where he was arrested and later assassinated, ironically on August 15, 1975, is now a museum. His daughter, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, is very emotional about the house, which is busy even at closing time. Students, non-resident Bangladeshis and villagers flock here just to get closer to him.
It is a Thursday, the last working day before the Bakr-Eid holiday. Most people have left town and the streets are full of well-fed cows with confetti garlands round their necks. 21 Dhanmandi, Dhaka's most famous address, is still crowded.
“I remember he was asked by David Frost, ‘What are your qualifications, Mr Prime Minister?' He said, ‘I love my people.' Frost then asked, ‘What are your disqualifications?' Bangabandhu said, ‘I love them too much,''' recalls Tofail Ahmed, Mujib's political secretary, who was a student leader and an integral part of Mujib Bahini (resistance movement).
A simple man, Mujib travelled across the world. According to Hossain, he famously won over the Saudi sheikhs, by saying, “I'm a sheikh, too. The only difference is that you're rich. I'm poor.” One of his requests to his staff when he went abroad was to ensure that they get food from Bangladeshi homes.
Arrested and kept in Pakistan after the March 25, 1971 crackdown, Mujib narrowly escaped death several times. Ahmed remembers an incident when Mujib went back to Pakistan, this time as the leader of Bangladesh. “We were in the guest house when this short man came to meet us. He stayed for half an hour. Before he left he told me that he had been his jailer. He told me that they had even dug a grave for him.”
Mujib was unfazed by his certain death. He told his jailer that he knew he was going to be killed. He had only one request that he be buried in Bangladesh. “‘After they kill me could you please send my body home?' he had asked his jailer,'' remembers an emotional Ahmed.
He never thought he had anything to fear from his own people. Ahmed was to meet him at his house in the morning he was gunned down by his own soldiers—he apparently believed he had nothing to fear and walked out to meet them. It was only through radio that Ahmed learnt that Mujib had been killed. Says Ahmed: “He was a dreamer. He once took me to see a tree in the garden. He told me that this tree had grown to its fullest. It wouldn't grow anymore. It would only shrivel up and die. He said like the tree he knew he couldn't go up any further, but before he died, he wanted to contribute to his people.”

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HERO
Officer and gentleman
Story Dated: Friday, November 25, 2011 16:33 hrs IST

Every war needs a hero, a swashbuckling kind. In the 1971 war, India found hers in Field Marshal Sam ‘Bahadur' Manekshaw. If Indira Gandhi was the one who wore the pants in the Union cabinet, Sam was her military equivalent. He was everything that you could want in a real hero—the kind that would make the reel ones look like teenagers.
He had a fine sense of humour. Once, brought in almost dead from a battlefield in Burma, riddled with bullets in his liver, kidney and lungs, he told the doctor that he had been “kicked by a donkey”. He was irreverent, eccentric and, as one old-timer put it, “genuine”. He was also the architect of India's most perfect war—it is difficult to beat the score of a 13-day decisive battle and 93,000 surrendered troops.
There have been many stories about Sam. He famously told Indira, “I am always ready, sweetie,” on the eve of the war when she asked whether he was ready to go in. But two incidents bring out the lesser known side of the man. Brigadier V. Mahalingam, a major in 1971, 
remembers sitting on the ground listening to Sam before the war began. “In his typical style, he told senior officers, ‘I want to talk to them [juniors]. You get lost.' Then he went on to say that war will come, and that people may tell us otherwise. ‘When you cross the border,' he said, ‘people would have left, there will be empty houses, old people and women. I will not have anyone touch anything there. You will treat people with respect.'”
It was his ability to rally troops and win their loyalty that made him Sam Bahadur. He was army commander in Calcutta on the eve of the 1965 war, when he saw Subedar Shivramanujan, an instructor he had promoted when he was commandant of the infantry school. “Shivraman was conducting some training there in the parade ground,” recalls Mahalingam. “Sam saw him, called out to him and hugged him. Shivraman said ‘Sahib, where are you? Bahut din se dikhe nahi. Chalo rum peethe hain [Haven't seen you for long. Let's drink rum].' Sam told him that he could not at the moment, but promised to meet him at 7 p.m. He was at the mess at 7 sharp. No officer was there, except maybe the CO. Sam was that kind of man. In the Army, this was just unheard of.”

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THE SURRENDER
Over in 30 minutes
By Lt Gen. (retd) J.F.R. Jacob
Story Dated: Friday, November 25, 2011 16:39 hrs IST
How General Niazi crumbled and the Pakistan army surrendered

Moment of glory: Jacob (extreme right) looks on as Niazi signs the surrender agreement on December 16

On December 13, a resolution introduced by the Americans at the UN was vetoed by the Soviets. The US fleet was on the Strait of Malacca. There was consternation in Delhi. Matters were made worse when Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw sent us an order to go back and capture all towns we had bypassed. It was an impossible task. We were outside Dacca and there was no mention of Dacca! The order was copied to the core commanders. I told them to ignore it. When someone accused me of disobeying orders, I said, “Yes.”
On December 16, Manekshaw telephoned me and said, “Jake, go and get a surrender.” I said, “I have sent you a draft. Should I negotiate on that?” He said, “You know what to do. Just go.” I told him that I had been talking to General Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi, commander of the Pakistani forces in Bangladesh, for three days on the wireless, and that he had invited me over for lunch....
At Dacca, I was met by UN representatives, who said they were coming with me to take over the government. I said, no, thank you. Niazi had sent an army car and a brigadier. The Mukti Bahini had not observed the ceasefire. Five hundred yards down the road, a string of Mukti Bahini fighters fired at me. I jumped out with my hands up, and they stopped firing. They had recognised me. They knew I was coming—it was on the radio. I asked them to let us go. I told them that their own government will take over the next day.
When I met Niazi and read out the Instrument of Surrender, he said, “Who said I am surrendering? You have only come here for a ceasefire.” He accused me of blackmail and our talks turned hostile. “Who said this is joint command?” Niazi asked. “We don't recognise the Mukti Bahini. We don't accept [surrender].”
I did not know what to do. I called Niazi aside and told him I cannot give him a better deal. I said we would treat the surrendering troops like gentlemen. I knew my position was weak. They had 26,400 troops in Dacca. We had 3,000 some 30 miles out.
I told Niazi that if he did not surrender, I would not be able to protect their families and ethnic minorities. And that I would order resumption of hostilities and the bombing of Dacca. I said, “I give you 30 minutes. If you don't surrender within that time, I will order resumption of hostilities and bombing of Dhaka cantonment.” Then I walked out.
I thought, “My God, what have I done? Suppose he says no. I have nothing in my hand. The ceasefire expires in the evening. We will all be captured. Niazi can fight for at least two weeks more.”
I went back after 30 minutes. The paper was lying on the table. I said, “General, do you accept that paper?” He didn't answer. I asked him three times. Then I picked it up and said, “I take it that you have accepted.”
There was no answer. I told him that he will surrender in public at the Ramna Race Course in Dacca. He said, “I won't.” I said, “You will. I have already given instructions and you will provide a guard of honour.” He said, “I have no one to command.” I said, “Your ADC [aide-de-camp] is there. He will command.”
Then I went for lunch. All the silver was out. But I didn't eat anything. I felt dejected, and I did not want to eat with them. There was no vehicle for me to go back. I had to travel in Niazi's car to the airport.
I quote from the report of the Hamidur Rahman commission, formed by Pakistan to look into the 1971 war: “Gen. Niazi, when you had 26,400 troops in Dacca...you could have fought on for two more weeks.... Why then, did you accept a shameful, unconditional public surrender?” Niazi said he was blackmailed.
It is rubbish. I did not blackmail him. Getting that surrender was a matter of touch and go. I, to this day, don't understand why he crumbled.
As told to Mandira Nayar

---------- Post added at 11:33 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:32 AM ----------

HERO
The man who bombed Karachi
By Mandira Nayar
Story Dated: Friday, November 25, 2011 16:42 hrs IST
Vijay Jerath remembers the historic night of December 8

The warrior at peace: Jerath at his home in Delhi / Photo: Sanjay Ahlawat

December 8, 1971, 8.45 p.m., off the coast of Karachi.
It was pitch dark. Close to 30 Indians aboard INS Vinash, a tiny craft loaded with four missiles, were on a daring mission: to attack Karachi, Pakistan's busiest harbour. Vijay Jerath, the commanding officer of Vinash, was on quarterdeck watching the sea when the controls went on autopilot, thanks to an electrical failure.
“I was thinking that over the past six days, Vinash had experienced breakdown of the autopilot, and earlier in the evening, we had lost two AK-230 shells,'' he says. “Things happen in threes, we believe.”
Jerath, who had trained for over a year in Vladivostok in Russia, knew he could fire the missiles using battery power. “Essential services like autopilot and communication sets run on batteries,” he says in his raspy smoker's voice, a legacy of his days in Russia, where he spent most of his stipend on cigarettes. “Vinash had a lot of battery power. The only thing that would not work would be the radar Rangout—I was blinded. I could still fire my missiles using bearing and range data from one of the escorting ships.”
Not to alarm his seniors, Jerath sent out a message: “My radar non-operational. In case it does not come on in time, request one ship take station directly one mile astern and pass me bearings and ranges to fire my missiles.” There was a simple ‘roger out' in reply, he says.
The plan was to hide near the coastline and attack in groups. Whether they came back or not was not important. The mission, christened Operation Python, was meant to serve as an answer to the Pakistani attack on Dwarka in Gujarat during the 1965 war.
“I did not have to imagine the approaches to Karachi and the coastline. The naval chart in the enclosed bridge below had all the details, which I had acquainted myself with thoroughly before sailing from Bombay. The Python force was charging blindfolded into Karachi,” says Jerath.
However, as luck would have it, by 11 p.m. Vinash had her electrical power restored. “I charged down to have a look at the radar picture. The night was black, except for starlight,” he says. When the radar came back on, Jerath noticed that the ship had sailed off course. Later, like all sailors, he believed that his boat had a mind of her own. “As I plotted the ship's position and drew the course, the parallel ruler passed directly through the Keamari oil farm,” he says. “As soon as the first missile's checks were completed, I commenced the firing procedure. I put the range to ‘manual' and set it to maximum. I put the homing radar range to maximum and fired.”
Three more missiles were fired. By the fourth, Jerath remembers wondering where the Pakistani navy was. He would know only later that PNS Dacca, a Pakistan navy tanker, had narrowly escaped the bombardment. “The fourth missile was no less powerful than the others. Having read the accounts from across the border, I salute, in true naval style, the commanding officer of Dacca, who, with his acumen and presence of mind, saved his ship and her crew. Wars will come and go, and warriors shall continue to fight for their respective countries. But respect for each other must remain,” says Jerath.
After finishing Operation Python, he signalled: ‘Four Pigeons happy in their nests. Rejoining.' “In hindsight, a totally crazy signal,” says Jerath. He received a reply: ‘From F-15 to Vinash: this is the best Diwali that we have ever seen.'
It was 11:30 p.m. “Karachi burnt for seven days and seven nights,” he says with a broad smile.

---------- Post added at 11:34 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:33 AM ----------

FORGOTTEN HERO
Fearless falcon
By Lt-Col (retd) Quazi Sajjad Ali Zahir, Bir Proti
Story Dated: Friday, November 25, 2011 16:47 hrs IST
Remembering the supreme sacrifice of Lance Naik Albert Ekka

Gallantry personified: Albert Ekka

All he wanted to do was make a living; instead, he made history. This was the single thought that kept running through my mind as I entered the small, humble home of Lance Naik Albert Ekka, who was posthumously awarded the Param Vir Chakra for his gallantry in the Bangladesh Liberation War. I wanted to know about Ekka—who was this man who fearlessly laid down his life in the battlefield for the liberation of my country?
Like millions of his countrymen, Ekka was a man of humble beginnings. He was born in the village of Jari in the district of Gumla in Jharkhand. A member of the Oraon (Falcon) tribe, Ekka joined the Bihar Regiment on December 27, 1962 and was later transferred to the Guard Regiment. He was a man whose sense of duty and courage was only rivalled by his kind heart and his sense of pride in being Oraon and a soldier—it was something he talked about all the time whenever he visited his family on leave. That Ekka took pride in coming from a tribe long known for its valour should come as little surprise. The Oraon have a glorious tradition of bravery in battles in Rohtasgarh against the Aryans, in Chotanagpur against the oppressive zamindars and against the British Army. It was a legacy that Ekka lived up to when his time came to serve.
Curious villagers walked by my side as I approached his home. His elderly widow, Balamdine, hurriedly came out to greet me, leaning on her walking stick. By her side was her only son, Vincent, who was one year old when his father joined the war.
As we talked, Balamdine told me she had heard about Bangladesh and about Gangasagar, the place where Ekka was martyred. I showed her photographs of Gangasagar, the Pakistan defence positions and the spot where he was killed. She touched the photographs gently, with deep affection and held them close to her bosom. She cried softly, the tears sliding off her wrinkled cheeks, her face marked by sorrow, as she tried in vain to dry her face with the edge of her sari. In a quavering voice, she recalled that four or five days after Ekka's death, a group of soldiers came to her house with the bad news. She remembered crying out aloud, feeling that the world had come to a standstill. She also recollected the soldiers trying to console her, saying he was martyred for the cause of the nation and that his act of heroism had saved the lives of his unit soldiers.
Balamdine touched my hand gently. It was the first time she had ever seen a Bangladeshi. She held on to my hand, and Vincent held the other, as if we were connected at that moment by a lifetime of bloodlines and memories. Finally, she broke the silence, curious to hear about Ekka's last battle and about Gangasagar. I quietly recounted the role of 14 Guards in the battles of Dholoi and Gangasagar and how bravely Ekka charged towards the enemy lines, destroying them from bunker to bunker. Despite being wounded, he continued to advance, until he was fatally wounded by machine-gun fire. I narrated everything that I had studied about the battles, and Balamdine and Vincent listened, engrossed. They could not get enough. Finally Balamdine asked: “Did he put up a good show? Did he die well?”
Balamdine said she wanted to visit the place, but her own poverty never made that possible. Living on the five acres given to her family by the government after litigation, she makes ends meet with the monthly pension of 05,000. Vincent's auto-rickshaw is out-of-order. I could only assure the “Veer Ramani” that if she desired, it would be my honour to arrange for her visit to Gangasagar.
But ultimately, this soldier who fought and died for a cause greater than his own was a father and a husband, and while the memory of his sacrifice has dimmed with the passage of time, his absence is felt every day and grieved by the ones who loved him the most. I can still see Balamdine weeping bitterly as she said, “I did not want him to die so young and make Vincent an orphan.”
It was time for me to leave. It was dark as the mother and son walked me to the car, but I could make out the deep sadness etched in their faces. I, too, felt a deep sorrow, as if I was leaving a part of my family behind, a tie forged by the blood and sacrifice of a man for a country that was to become my own. As we made our way back, I felt an urgency to stop near the statue of Ekka in the small town square of Chinpur. I stood there for a long time. It was as if Ekka was telling me, “Wait with me for a while, when many others have stopped waiting for me.”
Forty years have passed since Ekka's death, yet so few of us know of him and others like him. In their untimely deaths, each soldier and civilian has asked for very little. Perhaps, they did not expect to be forgotten, their lives, hopes and their sacrifices, erased not just by the passage of time, but our own inability to remember and record that they lived and that their contributions mattered. For the living, this is the ultimate responsibility—the task of documenting the struggles and sacrifices of the ordinary woman, man and child—and that task is far from complete. It is a task we should embrace with humility, urgency and a profound sense of honour and gratitude.
It was my fortune to be able to visit the home of Ekka and pay my respects to his family. Their sacrifice and Ekka's unflinching sense of ultimate duty are forever enmeshed in the history of my country's independence. I am proud to have taken part in the same war with Ekka, and having fought for the same cause. A cause we would all do well to remember and honour.
Sajjad works with the Bangladesh 
government to document friends of Bangladesh in India.

---------- Post added at 11:35 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:34 AM ----------

REVISITING HIST
Corrected vision
By Mark Tully
Story Dated: Friday, November 25, 2011 17:1 hrs IST
One needs to look beyond the over-simple version of the birth of Bangladesh

Looking back on the bloodstained birth of Bangladesh after 40 years, I realise that an over-simple version of those nine long months of labour has been accepted as history. The simple story of gallant Bengalis, oppressed by bullying Punjabis, rising in revolt and battling for their freedom does not stand up any longer. But given the ferocity of the Pakistan army's original crackdown and our habit of painting the past and the present in black and white, of putting people in categories of absolute good or absolute bad, this uncomplicated version is still widely believed. It would be better for the three most populous largest countries of South Asia—Pakistan, Bangladesh and India—if a version of history with more nuances came to be accepted.
I was in the first party of journalists to be allowed to travel freely in the then East Pakistan after the tanks rolled out of Dhaka cantonment and the Pakistan army crackdown started. That was on the night of March 25/ 26. It was now May. By this time the Pakistan army had regained control over all the major towns, but the ravage they had caused had not been repaired. Driving down the road from the airport, I saw buildings which had been reduced to rubble by tank fire. Normally one of South Asia's most crowded cities, Dhaka seemed remarkably empty. The army and the police brought in from Punjab were very much in evidence. The Bengalis I did meet were, not surprisingly, sullen. They were particularly resentful of the Punjabi police—5,000 of whom had been brought from West Pakistan to enforce martial law. Among Bengalis, the crackdown was seen as a Punjabi and not a West Pakistani invasion.
I experienced the bitterness between Bengalis and Punjabis when I was arrested by a Punjabi policeman. I was taking photographs of a shop which had been destroyed by the army in the Hindu area of Dhaka, known as Shankaripara, when the policeman got hold of my arm and marched me to the nearest police station. He wouldn't listen when I protested that I had been told I could go anywhere and take what photographs I liked. At the police station he produced me before the Bengali station house officer. When I explained what had happened, the Bengali officer exploded. Berating the Punjabi policeman he said, “You people come to our country. You can't speak our language, you don't know our customs, you don't even understand the orders of your own government. He's quite right. He is allowed to go anywhere.” And off I went much to the embarrassment of the deflated Punjabi policeman.
Driving west from Dhaka towards Rahshahi, I could see how the army had established control over the countryside and restored communications. Village after village by the roadside had been set on fire and destroyed. Mukti Bahini sources had told me that they had blown up a bridge on the way. I did find there had been an explosion under the bridge, but the slight damage it had caused had been repaired. This did increase my confidence in the few reports we got of Mukti Bahini activity.
The reports were always firmly denied by Major Siddiq Salik, the army public relations officer, who had been told to “look after” us foreign correspondents. Tall and formidable in appearance, with a head of hair that fitted like a helmet and covered much of his forehead and a neatly trimmed military moustache, Salik seemed to be everywhere. He managed to keep tabs on our every move. We had regular briefings from the suave Major General Rao Farman Ali who was in charge of the civil administration. He appeared to believe that a military solution was the only way to deal with the uprising in East Pakistan. The general maintained there was no question of a political solution and in particular of talks with Sheikh Mujib, then in prison in West Pakistan.
Although the army had restored control and as yet Mukti Bahini and other resistance was limited, military operations were continuing in the form of “sweep operations” and “clearing operations”. The former consisted of house searches while the latter comprised full-scale military operations against areas where there were reports that Mukti Bahini had gathered. Field guns and mortars were used as well as recoilless rifles.
The press was censored and radio came under the control of Major Salik. His attempts to broadcast positive propaganda backfired. He ordered the authorities to broadcast hymns in praise of God and his Prophet in the hope that this would remind listeners of the original Islamic bond between East and West Pakistan. Salik was not amused when he heard a broadcast of the devotional song “Row my boat to the safety of the shores, O Ali, my Lord”. The boat is a symbol of the Awami League, Sheikh Mujib's party. When Salik ordered plays glorifying the Pakistan movement to be broadcast, the authorities put on a play in praise of freedom fighters who listeners would clearly identify as the Mukti Bahini.
Salik was among the prisoners of war rounded up when the Pakistan army surrendered. When he eventually got back to Pakistan he wrote a remarkable book, Witness to Surrender. When I read it I realised that, although General Rao Farman Ali had tried to convince us that a military solution was the only answer, he had, in fact, been pressing for an amnesty, but was told “the time for politics is over”. Salik believes that an opportunity to attempt to make peace with East Pakistan was lost in the months between the army restoring control and Indian training and support making the Mukti Bahini an effective resistance force. Apparently, after the crackdown, the president of Pakistan, General Yahya Khan, did not take any decisions about the east wing of his country until he eventually ordered an amnesty in September. By then, according to Salik, it was too late.
I returned to my job in London as one of the BBC World Service commentators on South Asia. On my way back I visited West Pakistan, where angry officials in Islamabad showed me a list of names they said were being given to the BBC by Pakistani listeners. They included the British Bagwas (nonsense) Corporation and the Bharat Broadcasting Corporation. I had expected hostility because we were broadcasting bad news from the point of loyal Pakistanis, but the extent of anger which I met did worry me. On the other hand, among Bengalis I had found an enthusiasm for the BBC which led them to believe we were on their side. Of course, we were not. I have often wondered since whether we got the balance right. As I have no access to my reports now I can only say that we tried.
That question has been revived in my mind by a recent book written by an Indian Bengali scholar, Sarmila Bose, and called Dead Reckoning, Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War. She convincingly challenges some of the figures commonly quoted by journalists. For instance, she points out that the 93,000 people taken into custody by the Indian Army after the surrender of Dhaka couldn't all have been in the military. There were nowhere near that number of soldiers in East Pakistan. Sarmila Bose also challenges the claims that three million Bengalis were killed in 1971, and that the Pakistan army committed genocide on a massive scale. She reminds her readers that the killing wasn't only on the Pakistani side, that Biharis and Hindus were massacred by Bengalis.
Sarmila Bose says, “The claim of three million dead, or variations thereof, was repeated in South Asian and western academia and media for decades.” Does it really matter whether academics and journalists accepted figures too readily or not? Isn't it all past history? After all, Bangladesh is firmly established as an independent nation and Pakistan accepts that. I would suggest that getting history right does matter. If it's recognised that the size of the defeated army was much smaller than usually believed, if the extent of the Indian Army's involvement in the Mukti Bahini and during the last stages before the war in the actually fighting is acknowledged, then the defeat the Pakistan army suffered is less humiliating. If that army is no longer charged with genocide on a mass scale, its record is still tarnished, but much less so. The adjusted numbers may help Pakistan confront what happened in 1971, something Sarmila Bose says neither Pakistan nor Bangladesh has done. If Bangladesh admits that the Bengali record during the liberation struggle is not unblemished it will realise the depth of communal hatred which was part of the explosive mixture of Bangladeshi nationalism and is still there among some of those whose politics are viscerally anti-Indian. Peter Hazelhurst, reporting for The Times, London, on Sheikh Mujib's return to his country, wrote of the resentment against Indians which he found, and of “xenophobia so deep that only those who speak East Bengali with a pure dialect are considered sons of the soil”. When India fully acknowledges its role in the break-up of Pakistan it will have to accept that there is a debt which must be repaid generously if there is to be the much-desired, and far too long delayed, mature relationship with its neighbour.
Mark Tully is a veteran journalist 
and writer.

---------- Post added at 11:36 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:35 AM ----------

MEMORIES 1971
Star support
By Waheeda Rehman
Story Dated: Friday, November 25, 2011 17:2 hrs IST

The situation was pathetic. The Bangladeshi refugees were facing a lot of problems. A committee was formed with Maharashtra Governor Ali Yavar Jung as the patron to find solutions. There were many industrialists like Arvind Mafatlal and Harish Mahindra who were part of the effort. The film industry got involved, too. I was made the chairperson of the fund-raising committee.
We organised many premieres, including those of a few Hollywood films. Sarod maestro Ustad Vilayat Ali Khan performed. We had a huge show in Brabourne Stadium. Kalyanji Anandji composed the music of the show. Everyone from the industry came out in full force—the likes of Lata Mangeshkar, Sunil and Nargis Dutt and Sharmila Tagore. The show was titled Stars and Strings. I remember we collected lots of money. We had gone from house to house and star to star. People were so curious about the show that they were willing to pay anything to just see it. It took time to get things organised and the show happened just a week before the war was declared. I used to get nightmares about what would happen if the bombings began when the show was on. There was a lot of tension. But everything finally went off well. As it was winter, we bought lots of medicines and warm clothes. I remember people donating ambulances for Dacca and Chittagong.
There weren't many refugees in Bombay. There were many in Calcutta. But it wasn't about Bangladesh. Or that it was a neighbouring country. It was about human beings and their suffering. People were indeed suffering. It was about what we could do. And how we could do. A terrible time it used to be then. Nights were greeted with sirens. We had blackouts.
After the war, Sunil Dutt used to entertain the jawans. He once asked me to join him as part of the troupe. There we saw the ambulances that we had donated and we felt very happy.
As told to Mandira Nayar