Liberation of Bangladesh: Involvement of India and Russia

Liberation of Bangladesh: Involvement of India and Russia

Dr. Raj Kumar Kothari
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science
Vidyasagar Univeristy
West Bengal, India
Email: kothari65@hotmail.com

The Soviet Union sympathized with the Bangladeshis, and supported the Indian Army and Mukti Bahini during the liberation war of Bangladesh. The USSR very rightly realized that the independence of Bangladesh would weaken the position of its rivals—the United States and China. The USSR gave assurances to India that if a confrontation with the United States or China developed, it would take counter-measures. This assurance was enshrined in the Indo-Soviet friendship treaty signed in August 1971.

The United States, in contrast, supported Pakistan both politically and materially. President Richard Nixon and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger feared Soviet expansion into South and Southeast Asia. Pakistan was a close ally of the People’s Republic of China, with whom Nixon had been negotiating a rapprochement. Nixon feared that an Indian invasion of West Pakistan would mean total Soviet domination of the region, and that it would seriously undermine the global position of the United States.

US sympathized with Pakistan, because of various reasons. Among them two reasons were that: firstly, Pakistan belonged to American led military Pact, CENTO and SEATO; secondly, US believed any victory of India will be considered as the expansion of Soviet influence in South Asia.

By November 1971, war seemed inevitable. Throughout November, thousands of people led by West Pakistani politicians marched in Lahore and across West Pakistan, calling for Pakistan to Crush India. New Delhi responded by starting a massive buildup of Indian forces on the border with East Pakistan. On 23 November 1971, Yahya Khan declared a state of emergency in all of Pakistan and told his people to prepare for war.

The Indian government repeatedly appealed to the international community, but failing to elicit any response, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on 27 March 1971 expressed full support of her government for the independence struggle of the people of East Pakistan. The Indian leadership under Prime Minister Gandhi quickly decided that it was more effective to end the genocide by taking armed action against Pakistan than to simply give refuge to those who made it across to refugee camps. Exiled East Pakistan army officers and members of the Indian Intelligence immediately started using these camps for recruitment and training of Mukti Bahini guerrillas. Thus the 1971 India-Pakistan war became inevitable. The present paper focuses on the role played by India and Russia in the liberation struggle of Bangladesh within the framework of offencive realism. The paper also takes into account the support extended by US and China to Pakistan during the 1971 war.
Paper

Locke, Smith, and Kant: Three pillars of liberal internationalism
The classical Realists from Thucydides onward described an international state of war that could be mitigated, but not overcome, short of a world Leviathan. The classical Liberals, with important variations, broke with this skeptical tradition and announced the possibility of a state of peace among independent, sovereign states. Contemporary scholarship on liberalism and international relations looks back at three distinct traditions of liberalism, attributable to three groups of theorists: John Locke ─ the great founder of modern liberal individualism, who claimed that states have themselves rights derived from individual rights to life and liberty (political independence) and property (territorial integrity), thereby providing the liberal foundations of international law; Adam Smith, Montesquieu, and Joseph Schumpeter ─brilliant explicators of commercial liberalism and what they saw as its natural result, liberal pacifism; and finally Immanuel Kant and Giuseppe Mazzini ─ liberal republicans who theorized an internationalism that institutes peace among fellow liberal republics. The liberal republican tradition, while incorporating to some degree both liberal individualism and commercial liberalism, has exerted the greatest influence on contemporary liberal international relations theory. It argues that liberal democracy leaves a coherent international legacy on foreign affairs: a separate peace. Liberal states are peaceful with each other, but they are also prone to make war on non-liberal states.

Mearsheimer stands out as one on the most controversial and influential contributors to the contemporary realist tradition. The aim of Mearsheimer’s theory is to explain why relations between the great powers of the modern state system are fraught with conflict. Echoing Kenneth Waltz (1979), Mearsheimer argues that the structure of international politics is key in understanding this state of affairs. Specifically, Mearsheimer relies on five core assumptions shared more or less by most contemporary realists, which characterize the essential traits of international politics. First, international politics is played out in an anarchical realm meaning that there is no ‘government of governments’ to enforce rules and punish perpetrators. Second, no state can ever be absolutely sure of each other’s intentions nor be sure that other states will not use force against them. Furthermore, states suffer from imperfect information about each other’s intentions and intentions are in constant flux. Third, survival is the primary motivation of all states in the international system. Survival must have top priority since the autonomy of the state is a prerequisite for the achievement of all other ends. Fourth, states are rational entities in the instrumental sense of the word, that is, they think strategically about their external situation and choose the strategy that seems to maximize their basic aim of survival. Finally, states always possess some military capacity enabling them to hurt and possibly to destroy each other. Marrying together these assumptions, Mearsheimer infers that the states soon realize that the most efficient way to guarantee survival in anarchy is to maximize their relative power with the ultimate aim of becoming the strongest power that is, a hegemon. However, not all states can maximize their relative power simultaneously and, therefore the state system is destined to be an arena of relentless security competition as long as it remains anarchic.

Mearsheimer’s work constitutes an important addition to Kenneth Waltz’s structural realism. Arguing that the logic of anarchy is consistent with expansionist state behaviour Mearsheimer’s core theory of offensive realism solves hitherto unsolved anomalies in defensive structural realism such as why a number of great powers have sought hegemony and why conflict is so frequent between states, which is hard for defensive realists to explain.

Background of the 1971 War
Before 1971, Bangladesh used to be a part of Pakistan as East Pakistan. According to Najam Sethi, a well respected and honoured journalist from Pakistan, East Pakistan always complained that they received less development funds and less attention from the West Pakistan (Punjabi) dominating government. Bengalis in East Pakistan also resisted the adoption of Urdu as the state language. The revenue from export, whether it was from the Cotton of West Pakistan or Jute of East Pakistan, was handled mainly by West Pakistan. Lastly, in an election conducted just some months before the war, the victory was gained by the East Pakistani leader and still he was not given the power, thus fueling the movement in East Pakistan.

The Indo-Pakistani conflict was sparked by the Bangladesh Liberation war, a conflict between the traditionally dominant West Pakistanis and the majority East Pakistanis. The Bangladesh Liberation war ignited after the 1970 Pakistani election, in which the East Pakistani Awami League won 167 of 169 seats in East Pakistan and secured a simple majority in the 313-seat lower house of the Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament of Pakistan). Awami League leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman presented the Six Points to the President of Pakistan and claimed the right to form the government. After the leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, refused to yield the premiership of Pakistan to Mujibur, President Yahya Khan called the military, dominated by West Pakistanis, to suppress dissent.

Mass arrests of dissidents began, and attempts were made to disarm East Pakistani soldiers and police. After several days of strikes and non-cooperation movements, the Pakistani military cracked down on Dhaka on the night of 25 March 1971. The Awami League was banished, and many members fled into exile in India. Mujib was arrested on the night of 25–26 March 1971 at about 1:30 a.m. and taken to West Pakistan. The next action carried out was Operation Searchlight, an attempt to kill the intellectual elite of the east.

On 27 March 1971, Ziaur Rahman, a major in the Pakistani army, declared the independence of Bangladesh on behalf of Mujibur. In April, exiled Awami League leaders formed a government-in-exile in Baidyanathtala of Meherpur. The East Pakistan Rifles, a paramilitary force, defected to the rebellion. Bangladesh Force namely Mukti Bahini consisting of Niyomito Bahini (Regular Force) and Gono Bahini (Guerilla Force) was formed under the Commander-in-Chief General Mohammad Ataul Ghani Osmany.

Pakistani army started its operation in East Pakistan to contain the movement and anger among the Bengalis. It is reported that the army was involved in mass killing of public and mass rape of women. India was aware of this and was only waiting for a trigger to start the war. India started receiving huge number of refugees which became unmanageable, pushing it to intervene in the situation.

Indira Gandhi, the Indian prime minister in those times decided to tour most of the Western capitals to present Indian stand and gain support and sympathy for the Bengalis of East Pakistan. On November 4th and 5th she met Nixon in Washington. Nixon straight forwardly told her that a new war in the subcontinent was out of the question.
The pressure increased in East Pakistan, which attracted Indian attention. Indians were preparing for war and were concentrated on the Eastern front. To divert the pressure, on December 3, in the dark of night, even before India could attack East Pakistan, Pakistan opened western front and air raided six Indian Airfields in Kashmir and Punjab. The CIA reported to the US President that Indian Prime Minister believes that the Chinese will never intervene militarily in North India, and thus, any action from China would be a surprise for India and Indian military might collapse in tensed situation caused by fighting in three different fronts (East, North and West). Hearing this, on December 9, Nixon decided to send the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise into the Bay of Bengal to threaten India. The plans were to Surround India from all four sides and force them to retreat and leave East Pakistan.

Role of the USSR in the Indo Pakistan 1971 War
As India had decided to go on with the war, and Indira Gandhi had failed to gain American support and sympathy for the Bengalis who were being tortured in East Pakistan, she finally took a hard move and on August 9, 1971 signed a treaty of peace, friendship and cooperation with Soviet Union.

On December 4, just one day after Pakistan raided Indian airfields in Kashmir and Punjab declaring war on India, America’s proxy involvement in the war was becoming clear. Thinking that the Soviet Union might enter the war if they come to know this, which could cause a lot of destruction to Pakistan and American equipment given to Pakistan, US ambassador to the United Nations George H W Bush introduced a resolution in the UN Security Council, calling for a cease-fire and the withdrawal of armed forces by India and Pakistan. Believing India can win the war and Indira Gandhi being determined to protect the interest of Bengalis, Soviet Union vetoed out the resolution, thus letting India fight for the cause. Nixon and Kissinger pressurized Soviets to a very extent but luck did not support them.

On 3rd December, 1971, the World was shaken by another war between India and Pakistan. Pakistani air force raided Indian cities and airstrips. The Indian PM, Indira Gandhi, brought the country in the state of emergency and ordered Indian army to reflect the aggression. Fierce military operations developed on the ground, in the air and in the sea.
in the very first day of the conflict the Indian destroyer ‘Rajput’ had sunk a Pakistani submarine with deep bombing. On December, 4 and 9, the speed boats of India had destroyed and damaged 10 Pakistani battle ships and vessels by Soviet anti ship P-15 missiles. In addition 12 Pakistani oil storage were burned in flame.”

During the course of the war, Indian and Pakistani forces clashed on the eastern and western fronts. The war effectively came to an end after the Eastern Command of the Pakistani Armed Forces signed the Instrument of Surrender, on December 16, 1971 following which East Pakistan seceded as the independent state of Bangladesh. Between 90,000 and 93,000 members of the Pakistan Armed Forces including paramilitary personnel were taken as Prisoners of War by the Indian Army It is estimated that between 2,000,000 and 3,000,000 civilians were killed in Bangladesh, and four hundred thousand women raped by the Pakistani armed forces, especially Hindus. As a result of the conflict, a further eight to ten million people fled the country at the time to seek refuge in neighboring India

“The Soviet Intelligence has reported that the English operative connection has come nearer to territorial India, water led by an aircraft carrier “Eagle” [On December 10]. For helping friendly India, Soviet government has directed a group of ships under the command of contr-admiral V. Kruglyakov.”

But Soviet Union didn’t have enough force to resist if they encountered the British Carrier. Therefore, to support the existing Soviet fleet in the Bay of Bengal, Soviet cruisers, destroyers and nuclear submarines, equipped with anti ship missiles, were sent from Vladivostok.

In reaction English Navy retreated and went South to Madagascar.

The news of American carrier Enterprise and USS Tripoli’s advancement towards Indian water came.

The Soviet ships had small range rockets (only upto 300 KM). Therefore, to hold the opponent under the range, commanders ran risks of going as near to the enemy as possible.

“The Chief Commander had ordered me to lift the submarines and bring them to the surface so that it can be pictured by the American spy satellites or can be seen by the American Navy!’ It was done to demonstrate, that we had all the needed things in Indian Ocean, including the nuclear submarines. I had lifted them, and they recognized it. Then, we intercepted the American communication. The commander of the Carrier Battle Group was then the counter-admiral Dimon Gordon. He sent the report to the 7th American Fleet Commander: ‘Sir, we are too late. There are Russian nuclear submarines here, and a big collection of battleships’.

Americans returned and couldn’t do anything. Soviet Union had also threatened China that, if they ever opened a front against India on its border, they will receive a tough response from North.

The war ended with the surrender of Pakistani army as they missed American help due to quick Russians who blocked both America and China from preventing India to advance. With this, a new country named Bangladesh was formed, which was recognized by the whole world and by Pakistan next year on Shimla Agreement.

India’s involvement in Bangladesh Liberation War
The Pakistan army conducted a widespread genocide against the Bengali population of East Pakistan, aimed in particular at the minority Hindu population, leading to approximately 10 million people fleeing East Pakistan and taking refuge in the neighboring Indian states. The East Pakistan-India border was opened to allow refugees safe shelter in India. The governments of West Bengal, Bihar, Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura established refugee camps along the border. The resulting flood of impoverished East Pakistani refugees placed an intolerable strain on India’s already overburdened economy.

In the eastern theatre of the war, the Indian Eastern Naval Command, under Vice Admiral Krishnan, completely isolated East Pakistan by a naval blockade in the Bay of Bengal, trapping the Eastern Pakistani Navy and eight foreign merchant ships in their ports. From 4 December onwards, the aircraft carrier INS Vikrant was deployed, and its Sea Hawk fighter-bombers attacked many coastal towns in East Pakistan[55] including Chittagong and Cox’s Bazaar. Pakistan countered the threat by sending the submarine PNS Ghazi, which sank en route under mysterious circumstances off Vishakapatnam’s coast reducing Pakistan’s control of Bangladeshi coastline. But on 9 December, the Indian Navy suffered its biggest wartime loss when the Pakistani submarine PNS Hangor sank the frigate INS Khukri in the Arabian Sea resulting in a loss of 18 officers and 176 sailors.

The damage inflicted on the Pakistani Navy stood at 7 gunboats, 1 minesweeper, 1 submarine, 2destroyers, 3 patrol crafts belonging to the coast guard, 18 cargo, supply and communication vessels, and large scale damage inflicted on the naval base and docks in the coastal town of Karachi. Three merchant navy ships – Anwar Baksh, Pasni and Madhumathi – and ten smaller vessels were captured.[60] Around 1900 personnel were lost, while 1413 servicemen were captured by Indian forces in Dhaka. According to one Pakistan scholar, Tariq Ali, the Pakistan Navy lost a third of its force in the war.
Air operations

After the initial preemptive strike, PAF adopted a defensive stance in response to the Indian retaliation. As the war progressed, the Indian Air Force continued to battle the PAF over conflict zones, but the number of sorties flown by the PAF gradually decreased day-by-day.[64] The Indian Air Force flew 4,000 sorties while its counterpart, the PAF offered little in retaliation, partly because of the paucity of non-Bengali technical personnel. This lack of retaliation has also been attributed to the deliberate decision of the PAF High Command to cut its losses as it had already incurred huge losses in the conflict. Though PAF did not intervene during the Indian Navy’s raid on Pakistani naval port city of Karachi, it retaliated with bombing the Okha harbour destroying the fuel tanks used by the boats that attacked.

In the east, the small air contingent of Pakistan Air Force No. 14 Sqn was destroyed, putting the Dhaka airfield out of commission and resulting in Indian air superiority in the east. The Soviet Union sympathized with the Bangladeshis, and supported the Indian Army and Mukti Bahini during the war, recognizing that the independence of Bangladesh would weaken the position of its rivals—the United States and China. The USSR gave assurances to India that if a confrontation with the United States or China developed, it would take counter-measures. This assurance was enshrined in the Indo-Soviet friendship treaty signed in August 1971.

The United States supported Pakistan both politically and materially. President Richard Nixon and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger feared Soviet expansion into South and Southeast Asia. Pakistan was a close ally of the People’s Republic of China, with whom Nixon had been negotiating a rapprochement and where he intended to visit in February 1972. Nixon feared that an Indian invasion of West Pakistan would mean total Soviet domination of the region, and that it would seriously undermine the global position of the United States and the regional position of America’s new tacit ally, China. In order to demonstrate to China the bona fides of the United States as an ally, Nixon sent military supplies to Pakistan, routing them through Jordan and Iran, while also encouraging China to increase its arms supplies to Pakistan. The Nixon administration also ignored reports it received of the “genocidal” activities of the Pakistani Army in East Pakistan, most notably the Blood telegram. This prompted widespread criticism and condemnation both by Congress and in the international press.

Then-US ambassador to the United Nations George H.W. Bush—later 41st President of the United States—introduced a resolution in the UN Security Council calling for a cease-fire and the withdrawal of armed forces by India and Pakistan. It was vetoed by the Soviet Union. The following days witnessed a great pressure on the Soviets from the Nixon-Kissinger duo to get India to withdraw, but to no avail.

It has been documented that President Nixon requested Iran and Jordan to send their F-86, F-104 and F-5 fighter jets in aid of Pakistan.

When Pakistan’s defeat in the eastern sector seemed certain, Nixon deployed a carrier battle group led by the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise into the Bay of Bengal. The Enterprise and its escort ships arrived on station on 11 December 1971. According to a Russian documentary, the United Kingdom deployed a carrier battle group led by the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle to the Bay, although this is unlikely as the Eagle was decommissioned at Portsmouth, England in January 1972.

On 6 December and 13 December, the Soviet Navy dispatched two groups of cruisers and destroyers and a submarine armed with nuclear missiles from Vladivostok; they trailed U.S. Task Force 74 into the Indian Ocean from 18 December 1971 until 7 January 1972. The Soviets also had a nuclear submarine to help ward off the threat posed by USS Enterprise task force in the Indian Ocean