Bangladesh War #2: Yahya Overplays his Hand

It soon became clear, writes Gary Bass in The Blood Telegram that West P would not accept the outcome of the elections. They stalled, and as the resentment grew, started flying more and more troops into East P.

 

These events set off alarm bells in India. Would Yahya start a war with India to divert attention? To justify his martial law? So India suspended West P’s flights carrying troop from flying over Indian skies. That move raised fears in West P: was India trying to isolate East P? Would India foment rebellion in East P?

 

In parallel, Yahya had Mujib arrested, and his party was banned. And then the killings began. Yahya assumed that the “soft” Bengalis wouldn’t last long, and he could wipe out those who harped about election results and greater autonomy quickly. Had he and the West P army focussed on that agenda alone, they would have almost certainly succeeded. With America looking the other way, nobody else would have intervened (it was an “internal” matter, after all).

 

But the West P army made several choices that escalated the situation. They began to use weapons and other equipment given by the US in their brutal acts. Why did this matter? Because it dragged the US into the topic: such usage against civilians violated the terms of sale. Shouldn’t actions then be taken against Pakistan by the US? Nixon, of course, didn’t want to let down his Cold War ally, so he just ignored it.

 

But even worse, the West P army decided to use this as an “opportunity” to kill and drive out as many Hindus as possible. As much as 90% of the refugees pouring into India were Hindus. The American consulate in Dhaka began to ask very inconvenient questions:

“Was this a genocide against the Bengalis, or against the Hindu minority among the Bengalis?”

Nixon was furious. Not at Yahya, but at the American staffers in Dhaka! How dare they put the US in a situation where support for Yahya’s continuing rule was coming under increasing scrutiny?

 

As the scale of massacre reached the US, opposition politicians in the US jumped at the chance to rip into Nixon. India was happy to help. It invited Senator Ted Kennedy to visit the refugee camps, and hear the horror stories for himself. Kennedy came, was treated like royalty (he was carrying India’s message, after all), and tore into Nixon when he returned. It was a masterful PR move:

“For India, Kennedy’s visit was a bonanza.”

 

As the massacre and selective targeting of Hindus increased, inevitably the refugees pouring into neighbouring India got out of control. Indira Gandhi was tempted to act “by a mix of lofty principle and brutal realpolitik”, writes Bass:

“Demanding an end to the slaughter of a civilian population and upholding the popular will of voters in a democratic election, but also seizing a prime opportunity to humiliate and rip apart India’s hated enemy.”

But as I said in an earlier blog, her generals convinced her that the time wasn’t right. Let’s wait for the monsoons to end, they argued, else we will get bogged down in the swamps of East P. Even better, wait for the winter as the winter would freeze the Himalayas, and prevent China from intervening. (While Napoleon and Hitler were stopped by the Russian winter, India intended to use the winter to its advantage. Some people do learn from history…).

 

See where this is heading? If the Indian army wanted to wait till winter, but it was still only April, it was key that the situation in Bangladesh should not die down by then. And so:

“With extraordinary swiftness and maximum secrecy, India backed the rebellion.”

With arms, ammunition, organizational advice, transit facilities, and medicine, at first. Then the BSF and even the army started training the East P guerrillas. Not only would they prolong the conflict, the guerrillas who would come to be called the Mukti Bahini would help create a “bottomless ditch which will suck the strength and resources of West Pakistan”, making them easy pickings for the Indian army when it finally moved in.

 

India’s aim, for now, had become “to sustain the struggle” of the Bangladeshis.

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