Bangladesh Liberation War 1971: The partition of Pakistan
The rise of Mujib’s campaign for Bengali nationalism and the gradual fall of his political opponents left little doubt in our minds about the future course of events. It was apparent that Mujib would muster enough support, by the polling date, for his Six Points.
Would Pakistan stay in its present shape if the Six Points were implemented? If they were really secessionist in intent, how could the trend be arrested? Vice-Admiral SM Ahsan, Governor of East Pakistan, raised this issue of the Six Points versus national integrity at one of the Cabinet meetings presided over by General Yahya Khan.
He said, ‘Before we proceed, let me get one thing clarified. Is propagation of his Six Points a violation of Martial Law Regulation 16 (which prohibited any talk against national integrity)?’ He was told, ‘Don’t worry.’
But many in the country did. It was perhaps to allay public fear that the President, in spite of his ex-officio engagements, found time to come on the air on 30 March and declare. ‘I would not accept anything that cuts across the basic principles of our nationhood.’
He followed his announcement, next day, by issuing the Legal Frame work Order (LFO) which laid down the fundamental principles of the future constitution to guarantee the ‘inviolability of national integrity’ and the ‘Islamic character of the Republic’.
I was relieved to read the LFO because it cut across the Awami League politics which preached the secular character of the Republic and its division into virtually self-governing provinces. The Legal Framework Order irked Mujib sorely. He was particularly irritated at Sections 25 and 27 which vested powers of authentication of the future constitution in the President. It implied that Mujib would not be free to implement his Six Points, even if he obtained majority seats in the National Assembly (Parliament) unless his Constitution Bill received the President’s approval.
It is on this issue that Mujib had said, ‘I shall tear LFO into pieces as soon as the elections are over.’ The President flew to Dacca to handle the situation himself. He invited Mujib, on 4 April, for a friendly chat. I was there when Mujib arrived. He was received with a lot of warmth and courtesy. As they settled down for a tête-a-tête, I withdrew. An hour later, I was sought out from a friend’s house to draft a press note on behalf of the Cabinet Division amending LFO in those parts (Sections 25 and 27) to which Mujib had taken exception. I drafted the note and handed it back.
Luckily, it was not issued because somebody had, meanwhile, advised Yahya Khan not to disarm himself completely against the politicians. When Yahya Khan was about to fly back to West Pakistan on 10 April, he faced the Dacca press on the disputed clauses of the LFO at the airport. I was present, too. When pressed hard on the issue of the President’s powers ‘to veto the Constitution Bill passed by the people’s representatives’, Yahya Khan said, ‘That’s a procedural formality only. I have no intention of using them.’ A pro-Awami League journalist whispered over my shoulder, ‘He has assured Sheikh Sahib (Mujib) that he would not exercise them. They are like certain constitutional formalities vested in the Queen of England.’ I do not know what ‘assurances’ General Yahya Khan received in return for this commitment to Mujib.
I do know that it further confirmed the Awami League chief in his belief that he had attained a height of popularity where ‘even Yahya Khan cannot say “no” to what I want.’ Within two months of this Yahya-Mujib understanding, Mujib felt confident enough to show his hand a little more openly.
On 4 June, he declared, ‘My party is going to participate in the ensuing elections taking it as a referendum on the Six Points programme.’ Mr Nurul Amin, PDP Chief, challenged this next day saying that if the elections were a referendum on the programme and if the programme received no support from West Pakistan, in that case East and West Pakistan would fall apart’.
This provoked Mujib to be more explicit the following day when he said, ‘We won the 1946 referendum in spite of opposition from Gandhi, Nehru and their British overlords. And we are going to win this time, too, in spite of Mr Nurul Amin and his overlords (West Pakistan).’
The historical parallel drawn by Mujib was very ominous. It implied that he was following in the footsteps of the creator of Pakistan who won the 1946 referendum as a prelude to the establishment of an independent state. Was Mujib working for a similar end? He was questioned on this issue privately by one of Yahya’s representatives in Dacca, but he denied the implications. It was not his first political somersault, nor was it his last.
I recall several such occasions when he appeared a terror in public but turned tame in private. This duality helped him in coercing the masses into his fold, while convincing the authorities of his pious intentions. Skilfully riding his political surfboard, he climbed the crest of popularity.
Operation Searchlight
In what must have been, and sounded like, a pre-recorded message, the Sheikh proclaimed East Pakistan to be the People’s Republic of Bangla Desh. The full text of the proclamation is published in Bangla Desh Documents released by the Indian Foreign Ministry.
It said, ‘This may be my last message. From today Bangla Desh is independent. I call upon the people of Bangla Desh, wherever you are and with what-ever you have, to resist the army of occupation to the last. Your fight must go on until the last soldier of the Pakistan occupation army is expelled from the soil of Bangla Desh and final victory is achieved.’
I didn’t hear this broadcast. I only heard the big bang of the rocket launcher fired by the commandos to remove a barrier blocking their way to Mujib’s house. Lieutenant-Colonel ZA Khan, the commanding officer, and Major Bilal, the company commander, themselves had accompanied the raiding platoon.
As the commandos approached Mujib’s house, they drew fire from the armed guard posted at his gate. The guards were quickly neutralised. Then up raced the 50 tough soldiers to climb the four-foot-high compound wall. They announced their arrival in the courtyard by firing a sten-gun burst and shouted for Mujib to come out. But there was no response. Scrambling across the verandah and up the stairs, they finally discovered the door of Mujib’s bedroom. It was locked from outside.
A bullet pierced the hanging metal, and it dangled down. Whereupon Mujib readily emerged offering himself for arrest. He seemed to be waiting for it. The raiding party rounded up everybody in the house and brought them to the Second Captain army jeeps.
Minutes later, Major Jaffar, Brigade Major of 57 Brigade, was on the wireless. I could hear his crisp voice saying ‘BIG BIRD IN THE CAGE… OTHERS NOT IN THEIR NESTS…, OVER.’ As soon as the message ended, I saw the ‘big bird’ in a white shirt being driven in an army jeep to the cantonment for safe custody.
Somebody asked General Tikka if he would like him to be produced before him. He said firmly, ‘I don’t want to see his face.’ Mujib’s domestic servants were released immediately after identification while he himself was lodged in the Adamjee School for the night. Next day, he was shifted to Flag Staff House from where he was flown to Karachi three days later.
Subsequently, when complications arose about the ‘final disposal’ of Mujib (such as international pressure for his release), I asked my friend Major Bilal why he had not finished him off in the heat of action He said, ‘General Mitha had personally ordered me to capture him alive.’
While Mujib rested in the Adamjee School, the city of Dacca was in the throes of a civil war. I watched the harrowing sight from the verandah for four hours. The prominent feature of this gory night was the flames shooting to the sky. At times, mournful clouds of smoke accompanied the blaze but soon they were overwhelmed by the flaming fire trying to lick at the stars. The light of the moon and the glow of the stars paled before this manmade furnace. The tallest columns of smoke and fire emerged from the university campus, although some other parts of the city, such as the premises of the daily People, had no small share in these macabre fireworks.
At about 2 am the wireless set in the jeep again drew our attention. I was ordered to receive the call. The Captain on the other end of the line said that he was facing a lot of resistance from Iqbal Hall and Jagan Nath Hall. Meanwhile, a senior staff officer snatched the hand-set from me and shouted into the mouth-piece: ‘How long will you take to neutralize the target 7… Four hours!… Nonsense… What weapons have you got?…Rocket launcher, recoilless rifles, mortars and… O.K., use all of them and ensure complete capture of the area in two hours.’
The university building was conquered by 4 am but the ideology of Bengali nationalism preached there over the years would take much longer to subdue. Perhaps ideas are unconquerable.
After day-break, Bhutto was collected from his hotel room and escorted to Dacca airport by the Army. Before boarding the plane, he made a general remark of appreciation for the Army action on the previous night and said to his chief escort, Brigadier Arbab, ‘Thank God, Pakistan has been saved.’ He repeated this statement on his arrival at Karachi.
When Bhutto was making this optimistic remark, I was surveying mass graves in the university area where I found three pits—of five to 15 metres diameter each. They were filled with fresh earth. But no officer was prepare to disclose the exact number of casualties. I started going round the buildings, particularly Iqbal Hall and Jagan Nath Hall, which, I had thought from a distance, had been razed to the ground during the action.
Iqbal Hall had apparently been hit by only two, and Jagan Nath Hall by four, rockets. The rooms were mostly charred, but intact. A few dozen half-burnt rifles and stray papers were still smouldering.
I hurried back to the cantonment for lunch, I found the atmosphere very different there. The tragedy in the city had eased the nerves of defence personnel and their dependents. They felt that the storm after a long lull, had finally blown past leaving the horizon clear. The officers chatted in the officers’ mess with a visible air of relaxation. Peeling an orange, Captain Chaudhry said, ‘The Bengalis have been sorted out well and proper—at least for a generation.’ Major Malik added, ‘Yes, they only know the language of force. Their history says so.’
Dacca: The Last Act
Governor Malik, General Niazi and two other senior officers sat in a comfortable room at Government House. They did not talk much. Every few minutes, silence overtook the conversation. The Governor did most of the talking and that, too, in general terms. The crux of his discourse was: things never remain the same. Good situations give way to bad situations and vice versa. Similarly, there are fluctuations in the career of a General. At one time, glory magnifies him while at another defeat demolishes his dignity.
As Dr Malik uttered the last part of his statement, the burly figure of General Niazi quaked and he broke into tears. He hid his face in his hands and started sobbing like a child. The Governor stretched out his elderly arm to General Niazi and, consoling him, said: ‘I know, General Sahib, there are hard days in a commander’s life. But don’t lose heart. God is great.’
While General Niazi was sobbing, a Bengali waiter entered the room with a tray of coffee and snacks. He was immediately howled out as if he had desecrated the room. He came out and announced to his fellow Bengalis, ‘The Sahibs are crying inside.’ The remark was overheard by the West Pakistani Military Secretary to the Governor, who told the Bengalis to shut up. That is how Governor Malik received the most truthful and convincing operational briefing on the war in East Pakistan.
After the exchange of words for tears, he said to General Niazi, ‘As the situation is bad, I think I should cable the President to arrange a cease-fire.’ General Niazi kept quiet for a moment and then, with his head down, said weakly, ‘I will obey.’ The Governor sent a message to Yahya Khan accordingly. No action was, however, taken on this proposal.
General Niazi came back to his headquarters and shut himself in his room. He virtually lay in hibernation for the next three nights. During this period, I went to his room on the night of 8/9 December. Till then, I did not know about the Government House meeting. I saw him resting his head on his forearm, his face totally hidden from the entrant’s view. I cannot say whether he was crying.
I only remember the remark he made during the brief conversation. He said, ‘Salik, thank your stars you are not a general today.’ It showed his agony. I left but his words echoed in my ears the whole night and I pitied him. Three days—7, 8 and 9 December—were very heavy for General Niazi. During this period, all the divisions lost their coherence. Many of them had been pushed even beyond the so called ‘line of no penetration’.
To make it worse, no gains had been made on the West Pakistan front to compensate for the losses suffered in East Pakistan. General Niazi had lost all his gaiety and had ceased to crack the jokes for which he was so famous. He saw very few people and looked agitated and withdrawn. His eyes showed visible signs of sleeplessness. The strain of responsibility obviously weighed heavy on him.
Surrender
When I left Dacca airport for the last time at 1530 hours on 20 December, how different it was from January 1970 when I had first landed there! The khaki of the Pakistani soldiers had been replaced by the green uniform of the Indian Army. The Bengalis sat still on the fence, watching the developments with bewilderment. Perhaps they were flabbergasted at a change which may well augur a new and worse era of domination.
Had they merely changed yokes? Soon after our arrival at Fort William, Calcutta, I took the opportunity of discussing the war, in retrospect, with General Niazi, before he had had the time, or the need to reconstruct his war account for the enquiry commission in Pakistan. He talked frankly and bitterly. He showed no regrets or qualms of conscience. He refused to accept responsibility for the dismemberment of Pakistan and squarely blamed General Yahya Khan for it.
Here are a few extracts from our conversation: ‘Did you ever tell Yahya Khan or Hamid that the resources given to you were not adequate to fulfil the allotted mission,’ asked. ‘Are they civilians? Don’t they know whether three infantry divisions are enough to defend East Pakistan against internal as well as external dangers?’
‘Whatever the case, your inability to defend Dacca will remain a red mark against you as a theatre commander. Even if fortress defence was the only concept feasible under the circumstances, you did not develop Dacca as a fortress. It had no troops.’ ‘Rawalpindi is to blame. They promised me eight infantry battalions in mid-November but sent me only five. The remaining three had yet to arrive when the West Pakistan front was opened—without any prior notice to me. I wanted to keep the remaining three battalions in Dacca.’
‘But when you knew on 3 December that nothing more could come from West Pakistan, why didn’t you create reserves from your own resources?’ ‘Because all sectors had come under pressure simultaneously. Troops everywhere were committed. Nothing could be spared.’ ‘With what little you had in Dacca you could have prolonged the war for a few days more,’ I suggested.
‘What for?’ he replied. ‘That would have resulted in further death and destruction. Dacca drains would have choked. Corpses would have piled up in the streets. Civic facilities would have collapsed. Plague and other diseases would have spread. Yet the end would have been the same. I will take 90,000 prisoners of war to West Pakistan rather than face 90,000 widows and half a million orphans there. The sacrifice was not worth it.’ ‘The end would have been the same. But the history of the Pakistan Army would have been different.
The Six Points: Bangabandhu’s Historic DemandS
On June 7, 1966, the Awami League called a countrywide strike in East Pakistan in support of the Six-Point programme for regional autonomy. The Six Points have been widely acknowledged as the “charter of freedom” for Bengalis. The nation has since been observing June 7 as the Six-Point Day.
POINT 1: The character of the government shall be federal and parliamentary, in which the election to the federal legislature and to the legislatures of the federating units shall be direct and on the basis of universal adult franchise. The representation in the federal legislature shall be on the basis of population
POINT 2: The federal government shall be responsible only for defence and foreign affairs and, subject to the conditions provided in (3) below, currency
POINT 3: There shall be two separate currencies mutually or freely convertible in each wing for each region, or in the alternative a single currency, subject to the establishment of a federal reserve’s system in which there will be regional federal reserve banks, which shall devise measures to prevent the transfer of resources and flight of capital from one region to another
POINT 4: Fiscal policy shall be the responsibility of the federating units. The federal government shall be provided with requisite revenue resources for meeting the requirements of defence and foreign affairs, which revenue resources would be automatically appropriable by the federal government in the manner provided and on the basis of the ratio to be determined by the procedure laid down in the Constitution. Such constitutional provisions would ensure that the federal government’s revenue requirements are met consistently with the objective of ensuring control over the fiscal policy by the governments of the federating units
POINT 5: Constitutional provisions shall be made to enable separate accounts to be maintained of the foreign exchange earnings of each of the federating units, under the control of the respective governments of the federating units. The foreign exchange requirements of the federal government shall be met by the governments of the federating units on the basis of a ratio to be determined in accordance with the procedure laid down in the Constitution. The Regional Governments shall have power under the Constitution to negotiate foreign trade and aid within the framework of the foreign policy of the country, which shall be the responsibility of the federal government
POINT 6: The governments of the federating units shall be empowered to maintain a militia or paramilitary force in order to contribute effectively towards national security
Dramatis Personae
Sheikh Mujibur Rehman
Cofounder of the Awami League, he became the President (1971-72; 1975) and Prime Minister (1972-75) of Bangladesh. He is also known as the Father of the Nation, or by the honorific, Bangabandhu
General AM Yahya Khan
Commander in chief of the Pakistani armed forces, he served as the third President of Pakistan from 1969 to 1971. On 25 March 1971, he initiated Operation Searchlight, a genocidal crackdown by the Pakistan Armed Forces to suppress Bengali dissent
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
Founder of the Pakistan People’s Party, he served as President (1971-73) and Prime Minister (1973-77) of Pakistan. In 1974, he publicly apologised for what he called the “shameful repression and unspeakable crimes” committed in Bangladesh by the Pakistani Army
Gen. Abdul Hamid Khan
He was the Chief of Staff of the Pakistan Army under President General Yahya Khan during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, and is accused of inflicting genocide
Lt. Gen. SGM Peerzada
He was one of the chief aides who accompanied Yahya Khan to Dhaka to hold talks with Mujibur Rehman
Lt.-Gen. Sahabzada Yakub Khan
He was the martial law administrator in East Pakistan as well as commander Eastern Command. In 1969, he had conceived Operation Blitz to counter any unrest in East Pakistan
Vice-Admiral SM Ahsan
He was appointed Governor of East Pakistan in September 1969. He came up with the Ahsan Formula, which would lead to Pakistan becoming a confederation of the two wings, giving East Pakistan a degree of autonomy
Maj. Gen. Khadim Hussain Raja
He was the General Officer Commanding of 14 Division during the Bangladesh Liberation War. He was in charge of planning Operation Searchlight to curb the Bengali nationalist movement
Lt. Gen. Tikka Khan
As martial law administrator of East Pakistan in 1971, Lt-General Tikka Khan earned the epithet ‘Butcher of Bangladesh’. He launched the lethal Operation Searchlight
Lt. Gen. Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi
In April 1971, he was sent as Commander of Eastern Command to East Pakistan
Maj. Gen. Rao Farman Ali
He was the military adviser to the governor of East Pakistan in 1971 and was considered to have had complete knowledge of the events leading to the fall of Dhaka
Dr AM Malik
He was the last Governor of East Pakistan before being sentenced to life imprisonment for waging war against Bangladesh