By early October, India was reeling under the refugee crisis and stood alone as the international community was not prepared to exert pressure to compel Yahya Khan to negotiate with the Awami League. On the other hand, the Mukti Bahini had stepped up its game against the Pakistan Army in East Pakistan. The West, in particular the US, wagered that the fightback by the Mukti Bahini would force Pakistan’s hand and trigger a military response, leading to war. However, to reiterate, nobody was willing to squeeze Yahya Khan to stop the genocide in East Pakistan.
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The Indians had learnt that Kissinger had ordered the CIA to initiate contacts with factions of the leadership of the government-in-exile to prepare the ground for negotiations and a settlement with West Pakistan. Kissinger has left an account of one man operating under the nom-de-plume of Qaiyum, who was the contact with the US consulate in Calcutta. This contact went live in the last week of July on behalf of a certain Bangladeshi leader. The conditions Qaiyum set were Mujib’s participation in the negotiations and acceptance of the six points in return for something less than independence. US intelligence wanted to contact the foreign minister of the exiled government, Khondakar Mostaq Ahmed, directly and link him up with Yahya Khan, who had shown willingness to engage in secret talks. According to journalist Lawrence Lifschultz, around eight secret meetings were held between the CIA and Khondakar. However, by early September, when Qaiyum was asked to arrange a key meeting, he pleaded his inability do so due to the surveillance of Indian intelligence agencies. On September 3, Qaiyum warned the US consul that the Indian government had formally asked the Bangladesh leadership to route all contacts with the US through New Delhi. Though Khondakar managed a meeting with the US consul on September 28, by the end of October, according to Kissinger, all channels to the Bangladesh leadership dried up. And that the Indian press was raising a shindig over stories of a key Bangladesh cabinet minister’s contacts with foreign representatives.
Khondakar did not report this entire opening up of the channel with the US to his cabinet colleagues.
***
From early October, the Indian Army had been supporting attacks by the Mukti Bahini on Pakistani border posts. This initially took the form of artillery fire on Pakistani positions and the participation of a small number of Indian groups in an offensive. By the second week of October, the Indian Army’s eastern command ordered its formations to not only defend the border but also carry out offensive operations up to 16 km inside East Pakistan. The idea was to capture an important salient in East Pakistan that would assist in the eventual full-fledged military intervention. The captured territory was, however, held by Mukti Bahini with the Indian troops retreating behind the borders.
On October 12, US ambassador to India Kenneth Keating called on Foreign Minister Swaran Singh to convey Washington’s concern over the increasing risk of war between Pakistan and India. He said that the US had specific information that 60,000 Mukti Bahini fighters were poised to cross the border during October. Mukti Bahini operations on this scale could not be achieved without Indian support. If this report was correct, Pakistan would create a military response in the west. Nobody could accuse India of initiating the problems, but India had the responsibility of preventing it from escalating into war.
By the end of October, India was baking its final plans for a military and diplomatic assault, and the maintenance of secrecy became paramount. On October 27, 1971, DP Dhar flew to Calcutta to apprise Tajuddin of India’s concern regarding Khondakar. The question was: could Khondakar be trusted as India and the Mujib Nagar Government were about to begin joint planning for the final stage of the liberation war? Tajuddin wanted to sack him, but to maintain party unity, Khondakar was shifted to another ministry, and his foreign secretary, Mehboob Alam Chashi, was dismissed from office on disciplinary grounds. Khondakar did not forget this humiliation; he became a part of the anti-India cabal and extracted his revenge in more ways than is known. Tajuddin Ahmed was assassinated on November 3, 1975 in Dhaka Central Jail, since called Jail Killing Day, followed by COAS Khaled Mosharraf on the 7th. Was this orchestrated by Khondakar?
Back in the battlefield, around the end of October, the Indian Army’s IV Corps faced a huge setback near Sylhet; it is now called the Battle of Dhalai.
With the monsoon tapering off, the Mukti Bahini, including East Bengal Rifles (EBR), were raiding tea gardens to target power plants, machinery, or tea godowns. The Pakistanis had fortified the area of the tea gardens and, fed up of the constant pin pricks, shelled the town of Kamalpur in India on the Dhalai river which had an airfield. This was between October 14 and 20, leading to an exodus of the civilian population.
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Lt Gen Sagat Singh told Gonsalves that he did not want an EBR defeat, especially when they were meeting success elsewhere. EBR had successfully carried operations to capture the communication hubs of Kasba and Saldanadi between Akhaura and Comilla. Sagat Singh sent out instructions that his forces were not to surrender any moral superiority, and a decision was taken to use regular troops to capture the Border Out Post and the built-up area. This led to a near uncontrollable spiral of violence which sucked in the entire 61 Brigade.
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By October 31, Sagat Singh heard of the series of debacles; the Jats had suffered heavy casualties with seventy killed or injured. He was disquieted to hear loose talk amongst his headquarters staff that perhaps the Indian Army did not have the gumption to fight such battles of attrition. Accepting a setback was not in Sagat Singh’s nature. His ruthless and dogged streak, so evident while he was commanding troops in Sikkim and Mizoram, made him determined not to give up the battle of Dhalai on a losing note, especially as he had not been fed authentic information on the strength of the enemy there.
Sagat Singh flew to Kamalpur in bad weather in an IAF helicopter piloted by the squadron’s flight commander, Flt Lt Jayaraman. The corps commander remained adamant that Dhalai would not be a defeat for the Indian Army, and Brigade Commander Tom Pande committed himself and put his reputation at stake. A bitter battle followed between October 31 and November 6, where more than 100 troops of the Indian Army laid down their lives before the Indians got better of the Pakistanis.
The battle of Dhalai is important from two perspectives. First, Sagat Singh realised that the Pakistan soldier, though harried and dispirited, was no pushover. Properly lead, he held his ground, and his battle drills were superior to that of the Indians. In adherence to Niazi’s directions, he was willing to contest every inch of ground in East Pakistan to the bitter end.
Second it reinforced a fact that the Pakistanis are known to play a strong game with a weak hand, and you can’t afford to take the foot off the pedal while dealing with them.
***
The battle throws a unique light on some of the facets of Sagat Singh’s character, especially as a war leader: his ruthlessness in getting the job done, his reluctance to compromise on his orders, his unwillingness to lose face, his supreme confidence in his own knowledge and ability even in face of reverses, and his abhorrence to allowing the troops to disgrace the unit’s name by withdrawing from the battlefield with a taint of defeat.
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As the battle raged in Dhalai, on October 31 Mrs Gandhi met British PM Edward Heath and clearly enunciated the fear that war might break out as Islamabad and the Awami League were not able to resolve the crisis peacefully. India definitely did not seek conflict, but if it was attacked, it would be compelled to fight. Heath wrote to Yahya Khan on November 9, asking him to consider releasing Mujib and negotiating with the Awami League. Yahya Khan rejected the appeal, stating that was impossible for him to negotiate with Mujib. Heath told members of the cabinet committee on defence and overseas policy, ‘In the long run our interest probably lay more with India than Pakistan. I think we should take care not to repeat a 1965 experience when we had suffered maximum disadvantage without compensating benefits from either side.’
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While the tempo of irregular warfare had picked up velocity, India had to ensure complete secrecy of the training camps and mandated that no Indian should participate in any crossborder operation lest they be caught. The principle of plausible deniability was of supreme importance. This became even more important as the Indian PM set of on a tour of Europe and the US.
It was this concern that worried the commanders sick when Leading Seaman Chiman Singh who was training the frogmen in Plassey inadvertently walked into East Pakistan with his Mukti Bahini Frogmen Commandos on November 1. He was immediately declared MIA (Missing in Action). He was under strict instructions not to cross the India-East Pakistan border. His death, or worse his capture, would reveal India’s hand in the covert war and provide the evidence the Pakistan Army was so desperately seeking.
***
By all accounts, Nixon’s face-off with Mrs Gandhi in the Oval Office was angry, protracted, and explosive. Nixon thought she was a warmonger, and she thought he was helping along genocide. The conversation was propelled not just by totally opposite views of a brewing war but a hearty personal contempt they had for each other.
According to Kissinger, Mrs Gandhi’s tone was that of a ‘professor praising a slightly backward student’, which Nixon received with ‘glassy eyed politeness’. She hammered away at Pakistan’s persistent hate-India campaign, policies in Baluchistan and the North-West Frontier Province, and its treacherous and deceitful mistreatment of the Bengali people.
Nixon denounced the Bengali insurgents for interfering with relief supplies on ships near Chittagong harbour, emphasising that this kind of guerrilla warfare would have to rely on sophisticated training and equipment.
This was moment the PM was prepared for, being nailed for directly training the Mukti Bahini. It can be safely speculated the Indian PM was aware that Chiman Singh was MIA and the last thing she wanted to be confronted with was picture of him having been arrested by the Pakistan Army while she feigned innocence.
Mrs Gandhi’s reply delivered calmly is a classic: ‘India has been accused of supporting guerilla activity, but the situation was not clear.’ Gandhi deflected the issue and skipped to Mujib’s trial and Yahya Khan’s talk of jihad.
Kissinger understandably winced at Gandhi’s protestations that she knew nothing about the guerrillas in East Pakistan and was incensed by India’s relationship with the Soviet Union. He was also bitter at India for winning support in the US media and Congress.
Nixon wound up with a steely warning. He said it was impossible to calculate with precision the steps other great powers might take if India were to initiate hostilities, indicating not just the reaction of the United States but also the possibility of Chinese intervention. This implicit threat hung in the Oval Office as the final ugly moment.
Kissinger later declared this was undoubtedly the worst meeting Nixon had had with any foreign leader. Mrs. Gandhi remarked, ‘My visit to Nixon did anything but avert the war.’
The memorial to the summit meeting could not have been better put as Kissinger said, ‘The Paks are up the creek.’ And Nixon replied, ‘The Indians have screwed us.’
Around the same time, in early November, an eight-member delegation, including Air Marshal Rahim Khan and Lt Gen Gul Hasan, accompanied Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to the People’s Republic of China. Zhou spoke about Sino-Pak relations but made no mention of any external threats to Pakistan or defending its territorial integrity. Bhutto summed it up by saying, ‘Pakistan can hope for little help from China’ and told the Shah of Iran, ‘I returned empty-handed.’
There is reason to believe the Indians were not aware of the Chinese position. But it is curious that despite Bhutto’s assessment, GHQ Rawalpindi kept assuring Pakistani forces in the east that the Chinese will open up a front with India. Maybe it was on the basis of assurances from the White House.
On her return to India, Mrs Gandhi made a statement in Parliament on 15 November without any exaggerated claims of success. She argued that the root causes of the problem were the refusal of the Pakistani military regime to respect the electoral verdict, the reign of terror it let loose on the people of Bangladesh, and the resultant influx of refugees into India. These hard realities were highlighted to the leaders she met. She added that her visit helped to restore relations with Britain, which had suffered a serious setback in 1965. She summarised by saying India could not depend on the international community to solve problems for them. Her piece de’ résistance was what she said in an interview to Newsweek: ‘It is our assessment that East Bengal cannot remain united with Pakistan ever again in the same way it has been.’
The subcontinent was hurtling towards war.
The battle lines were drawn. In the eastern front, the scale and intensity of operations by the Mukti Bahini rose sharply in November. The fiercest of these operations took place at Boyra, close to Jessore, on the night of November 12. This infiltration (by 2 Sikh LI of the Indian Army) remained undetected till the 19th and the Pakistani brigade in Jessore was assigned to dislodge the intruders. Two companies from the Pakistan Army’s 22nd and 38th Frontier Force were ordered to attack and dislodge the intruders, and this exercise failed miserably. Later, the 38th Frontier Force was forced back from its defences, leaving behind all their equipment. This incident proved that on one hand the Pakistani troops had lost both their morale and their staying power, and on the other, the Indians were fully determined to succeed.
On November 21, at 6 am when the attack was launched by the Pakistanis, and as they advanced, the Indian’s amphibious tanks (PT 76 of 45 Cav) opened up from hidden positions behind a grove of trees. The Pakistanis had assumed that this was an area not accessible to tanks. The Pakistan Air Force was called in, and when the Sabres appeared overhead, they were intercepted by Indian Folland Gnats. Pakistan lost three aircraft and India captured two pilots—Parvaiz Mehdi Qureshi, the future chief of the PAF, and Flt Lt Khalil Ahmed—bailed out over Indian soil. Flying Officer Abdul Qayyum Mazhar was killed in action and Wg Cdr Afzal Chaudhry crash-landed near a PAF base and escaped capture.
All the 13/14 American-made M24 Chafee light tanks made a disastrous thrust over open ground into concentrated fire from Indian tanks and recoilless guns. Pakistan lost these tanks and many men.
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On November 23, Yahya Khan released a Proclamation of Emergency and issued the Defence of Pakistan Ordinance which invested the government with sweeping powers.
Hasan Zaheer, a civil servant and author, had gone to Islamabad during the Eid holidays in the middle of November and he added an official business to his trip. He found that the regime exuded confidence. The official media repeated that the overwhelming majority of Bengalis want a united Pakistan, that the stories of atrocities were fabrications of India and the foreign correspondents, and that any attack on East Pakistan would mean an all-out India-Pakistan war. The independent press was even more hawkish, and it even accused television and radio of not projecting the ideological patriotic theme enough to boost the morale of the people. It was obvious that war with India was imminent, and the consensus among the vocal and influential class was that this is the only solution to the crisis. Everyone was expecting substantial gains on the western front, which would counterbalance the Indian military moves in the east.
The Pakistan Army’s doctrine was based on the principle that the defence of the east lay in defending the western wing. East Pakistan would be defended on the plains of Punjab. No one was thinking about the separation of East Pakistan, and it figured as a side issue; the prevailing psyche was to retrieve the fruits of victory that the nation had been deprived of by Ayub Khan when he accepted the ceasefire in 1965. Private cars and public vehicles were plastered with ‘Crush India’ stickers and the radios blared martial music exhorting people to be ready for jihad interspersed with vulgar parodies of Indian films songs about Indira Gandhi. Citizens, including the well-educated classes, parroted that one Muslim was equal to ten Hindus, which caught the imagination of even professional soldiers who ought to have known better.
This exuberance was in sharp contrast to the bleak life in East Pakistan where the army had been moved to the borders and the guerrillas were having a free run of Dacca except during a few daylight hours. The likes of Zaheer and Muzaffar Hussain who had been witnessing the gradual demoralisation in fatigue of the army and the increasing boldness of the Mukti Bahini over the last seven months had no illusions about the army’s capability to hold on to East Pakistan. Governor Dr Abdul M Malik and Chief Secretary Muzaffar Hussain were also in Islamabad in the last week in November, and the president gave no inkling to them that he had decided to declare war in a few days, whose impact would largely be borne by the east. Zaheer says Yahya knew that East Pakistan was indefensible and would soon collapse. The president had to decide whether to let it happen or invoke the conventional strategy of defending it by opening the western front where, for the time being, Pakistan had some superiority.
There was no evidence the Indians were planning to attack West Pakistan at the time, where the hostilities would have ended with the fall of East Pakistan. Gul Hassan gave vent to the army’s anger and declared he had to take this action in the west, otherwise ‘we will not be able to wear our uniforms’. Yahya Khan took the decision to open the western front on November 29 in consultation with the service chiefs. The date was fixed for December 2, but later it was shifted to December 3. Pakistan’s defence plans envisaged immediate retaliation on the western front in case of an Indian attack on East Pakistan.
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On November 19, DP Dhar held wide-ranging discussions with Tajuddin and senior Mujib Nagar officials regarding military cooperation to take the liberation struggle to a speedy and successful conclusion and bring Indian troops back home within a specific period of time. The question of getting Sheikh Mujib released and the restoration of law and order; disarming of freedom fighters; recovery of weapons from Razakars; speedily repatriating and rehabilitating 10 million Bengali refugees from India; repairing communication infrastructure, roads bridges, railways, and ports damaged during the liberation of war; distribution of foodstuff and other essential commodities; and restoration of administrative machinery were recorded in the minutes of the meeting between DK Bhattacharya, joint secretary in the PMO, and Hossain Tawfiq Imam, cabinet secretary of the Mujib Nagar Government.
On November 28, Cabinet Secretary Swaminathan reported to the prime minister that all the preparations necessary in case of full-scale hostilities were in place. Defence, civil supplies, security arrangements, state police, and foreign exchange reserves were all reviewed and kept war ready. The home ministry reported all the states, particularly those on the border, had been informed that necessary measures for the maintenance of internal security had been taken to maintain communal peace.
By the end of November, India had completed its military and diplomatic preparations for a short and decisive military campaign leading to the liberation of Bangladesh. Its armed forces were in position. It had ensured that the Soviet Union would veto hostile US or Chinese resolutions in the UN Security Council, and signals had also been received from France and the UK, indicating their differences with their US ally.
On December 2, Yahya Khan wrote a letter to Nixon formally, invoking article 1 of the Pakistan-US bilateral agreement of March 5, 1959 for direct military assistance against Indian aggression.
On December 3, Roedad Khan was asked to be present at GHQ Rawalpindi at 4.25 pm. He was taken by the Chief of General Staff to the Air Force operation room. Pakistan Air Force commenced attacks on Indian Airforce bases code named Changez Khan at 5.20 pm.
From the ops room, President Yahya Khan dictated a brief statement and directed it to be broadcast immediately. This was done by interrupting the regular programme on Radio Pakistan at 5.40 pm.
Pakistan’s defence advisor and the foreign secretary heard the news on the radio. The foreign secretary was asked to bring the Chinese and US ambassadors separately to the president’s house on night of December 3 for a briefing. Around the same time Pakistan Army formations launched offensive operations as planned in the western front. The immediate result of the opening of the Western Front was to give India a free hand to carry out its plans without any cover of the Mukti Bahini.
This was exactly what the Indians wanted.
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Bass writes that the White House prematurely blamed India for starting the war. Kissinger later realised that India waited for the right moment when conditions were favourable, including the end of rains and closed passes from China. Further, Indian forces intervened after the Mukti Bahini had weakened the Pakistan Army. When it was pointed out that the Pakistanis had struck first, Kissinger suggested the US line that they were provoked into aggression: ‘It’s like Finland attacking Russia.’ Nixon ordered an immediate stop to military and economic aid to India.
Back in Mianwali, Pakistan, Mujib’s trial by the military court had started in August, and the case was closed on 1 December. On December 4, the court, except for the civilian judge who was absent on that day because of the death of his father, unanimously found Mujib guilty of all the charges and sentenced him to death subject to confirmation by the convening authority—the chief martial law administrator. No judgement analysing evidence or reasons for the findings are required to be given by the military courts.