Bangladesh War #5: The Fourteen Day War

The war finally started. And it happened on both the West and East P fronts. Yet another Yahya gamble had backfired: he had amassed troops on the Punjab border, hoping to spook India. Instead, India just used it as a justification to amass their own troops ensuring that the war, whenever it started, would be on both fronts. It got even better (for India). Pakistan attacked first on the west:

“(Indira) had wanted Pakistan to get the blame. Now it would.”

It had given India the moral high ground on yet another front.

 

You can make out how successful the war was from these lines in Gary Bass’ The Blood Telegram:

“It is a measure of how well the war went that India’s generals have squabbled about credit ever since.”

On the Bangladesh side, India knew it would not just be fighting Pakistan but also the clock. The US would try and stop the war as early as possible, preferably before India’s aims were achieved. So the army decided to race to Dhaka, and ignored other cities that would have been logical targets on the way to Dhaka: Chittagong and Khulna. Present the world with a fait accompli.

 

India thus was fighting with radically different strategies on the two fronts:

“In the east, Indian troops fought a blazingly rapid war for the independence of Bangladesh… needing to get there (Dhaka) before the UN Security Council stopped them in the tracks.”

Soviet vetos would stall the process long enough for India to get the job done. Indian troops got the response George W Bush would dream of (but never get) when he invaded Iraq decades later:

“The euphoric Indian troops were greeted with cheers and hugs by local Bengalis.”

Immediately, India recognized Bangladesh as an independent country. To piss off Nixon, Indira cited (but misquoted) Thomas Jefferson:

“The Government of Bangladesh is supported by the will of the people, substantially expressed.”

Later, in another communication with Nixon, she cited yet another part of America’s own declaration of independence:

“That Declaration stated whenever any form of Government becomes destructive on man’s inalienable right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, it was the right of the people to alter or abolish it.”

 

On the western front, it was very different. Pakistan, knowing there was no realistic chance of holding on to Bangladesh, hoped to “compensate” by seizing land in the west, preferably even more chunks of Kashmir. Also, Pakistani troops in the west were far better trained and armed. But still, Pakistan would need help to hold off India.

 

Nixon & Co worried that India’s intentions weren’t limited to Bangladesh alone. Was India determined to smash through W Pakistan and destroy their enemy for good? When they tried asking India directly, the foreign minister evaded and instead mockingly asked what America’s intention in Vietnam was. The US was now very worried how far India might go and the worrying optics: a Soviet backed country destroying an America backed one was simply unacceptable.

 

And so Nixon considered three dangerous options: (1) smuggle American fighter jets into Pakistan via Iran, Jordan and Saudi (remember, US law prevent them from sending arms to a genocidal regime), (2) ask China to deploy its troops on the Indian border, and (3) send in a US aircraft carrier to threaten India.

 

Nixon, never one to obey any laws, didn’t care that #1 broke American law. He was a habitual offender, a criminal. Watergate is just where he got caught…

 

Ultimately, all 3 options were carried out. The extra fighter jets barely tilted the balance. China weighed its options and decided against risking a Soviet attack on themselves. And so, the only visible measure became the American aircraft carrier that came to the Bay of Bengal. It was the closest carrier, and it happened to be armed with nuclear weapons. (We’ll see in a later blog why this matters).

 

Finally, after the UN resolution calling for a ceasefire was passed, “India lost whatever appetite it might have had for wider war”. The war had ended.