Battles of 1971

[eastwatch]

Firstly, there was no Islamabad when Pakistan gained independence, hence Karachi was given the capital status, however when Islamabad was purposely built in early 60s, it became the overall capital for both East and West wings, Rawalpindi never had this designation.
In 1970 Awami League wins with majority and Sheikh Mujib is invited to take office, but he wants to shift the country's capital, the army HQ, the State bank and all others to Dacca. Now I ask the question, if East Pakistan was my country, how did say Sheikh Mujib considered West Pakistan, ? Wasn't that his country. !!!

Secondly say Sheikh Mujib's conditions are met and all gets shifted to Dacca, what about the next election, say a political party in West Pakistan wins alas wants to drag back all to Islamabad once again, hence we end up playing musical chairs with the country's set up.
The tragedy is a great number of young Bangladeshi are oblivious to the silly political games that were being played in the 70s.

I will tell you a small LATIFA. When a very poor father in a village family died, among others he left behind also a milk cow and a blanket for his two sons. Elder brother is very simple and the younger one is very smart.

So, the younger brother insisted that they should divide the milk cow and blanket in such a way that it benefits both. How? The younger brother suggested the milk cow be divided in a way that the front half is taken by the older brother, and the back half by the younger one. Blanket also was divided in a similar way. Elder brother will keep it during day time, and the younger during the night.

Now, the older brother feeds the cow because the front is his, and the younger one milks the cow because the back side is his. Similarly, since the younger brother has the right to possess the blanket at night, he sleeps in comfort. But, the elder brother cannot sleep at night because of cold.

I do not have to say any more to make people including all your Sherwani clad politicians to understand how you had been cheating us in the name of Islamic BROTHERHOOD. It was NAJAIZ in the eyes of Allah. But, you still do not understand that you had been cheating us for long 23 years. This is sad.

 

[Windjammer]

The point is, you can not keep everything in W. Pakistan when majority of poplulation living in E. Pakistan. In six point demand, it was Navy head quarter which needed to be shifted in Eastern Wing not the army head quarter.

May i remind you that most of the industry was in East Pakistan, if you ever manage to locate an Urdu text book of that era, they were full of such names as, Khulna, Rajshahi, Bharamputra and of course Chitagong. As for your point scoring remark, certain realities have to be considered before randomly locating your assets. We saw the images of BAF aircraft floating in water after a cyclone, the rest is common knowledge.

 

[eastwatch]

LETTER OF 1971
This is the translation of a second letter. This was written by a freedom fighter named A. B. M. Mahbubur Rahman to his mother in 1971.

April 5, 1971


Mother,

I will be in a far away place when you receive this letter. Mother, I did not tell you about my departure, because I knew you will resist it. Only when I take revenge on the perpetrators of raping our women and when we free our land from the enemies, only then I will be back to you.

Please pray so that our wishes are fulfilled.

Your poor son.

 

[sadiqams]

I suppose you are happy under indian hegemony. The majority of the insurgents were hindus disguised as mukti bhani according to your own sources. A lot of human rights violations were carried out by these so called 'mukti Bhani'. Bangladesh is no power at the moment but has a government which is compliant to Indian demands. The fact it is sinking into the bay of bengal and due its size it will not become a military or economic power anytime soon. I can see a future where it will eventually be absorbed into the Indian Union by hook or crook as RAW is working overtime on it.

 

[sadiqams]

If there was no Pakistan there would never have been a Bangladesh.

 

[gromell]

Hello,

I am not a BD member, but yes, I am a humble student of Pakistan’s history. As far as 1971 episode is concerned, that is true that both, the West and East Pakistan’s politicians were responsible and I would put the blame equally on the two parties. West Pakistan is more responsible because it was not only the politicians but the military and civil bureaucracy was also responsible and much more than the politicians.

You may choose to disagree with me, but allow me to say that East Pakistan’s demand of Bengali as the second national language was not correct (at least at that time). Lots of politics was played on this unnecessary issue. There is no doubt that Bengali was the single most spoken language in the united Pakistan (owing to the largest population of the East Pakistani Bengalis), but Bengali was not widely spoken or understood in the West Pakistan. Contrary to which, Urdu was spoken and understood in both, East as well as West Pakistan. Additionally, Urdu was a neutral language, as it was not the language of any ethnic population of the United Pakistan except for those who migrated from the Muslim majority areas of British India. To this day, I am failed to understand why East Pakistanis took the language issue so seriously. There is no doubt that Bengalis (both on the East and the West Bengal) love their culture and admire Bangla Bhasha more than any language.

Contrary to this, in West Pakistan, the Urdu was readily accepted in particularly by the Punjabis. No province played more important a role in the development of Urdu language in West Pakistan than Punjab. Most notable literary work was undoubtedly done by the people from Punjab albeit of the fact that Urdu was not their mother tongue. I heard from many older folks that in Karachi (where Urdu speaking mohajirs are in majority), a barbershop would have a signboard in English such as “Hair cutting salon”, while in Punjab (where fewer Urdu speaking mohajirs lived), it would have a signboard in true Urdu language “Zulf Tarash”.

Anyway, all I am trying to say is, the language issue unnecessarily stirred up the pot, and caused lots of misunderstanding between the East and the West Pakistan. The issue of language and so early in the life of Pakistan did lots of damage. It was from that point onwards, an antipathy developed against the East Pakistanis in the West Pakistan.

Than of course there were legitimate issues such as the underrepresentation of the East Pakistanis in virtually every department especially in the civil services and the armed forces; uneven distribution of resources (the financial problems got worse time to time due to the floods, and cyclones which frequented Bay of Bengal) etc. These problems could have been resolved if there was some continuity of the democratic process, but alas, first Iskander Mirza hijacked Quid e Azam’s Pakistan, and after him, Ayub and Yahya. In reality, during Iskander’s and Ayub’s time, there existed virtually no political process, and all was literally a one-man show.

The 1965 war unveiled the vulnerability of the East Pakistan against any possible attack from India. There is no doubt that the ‘realization’ of this vulnerability eventually emboldened India and the separatist elements (who existed long before 1971 because of the language plus other issues) who knew that if East Pakistan was ever attacked internally or externally or combined, the West Pakistan would never be able to defend it due to the geographical separation of the two wings.

Bhutto is the most misunderstood (at least in my opinion) person; he was blamed for the separation of the East Pakistan not only in the East Pakistan, but as much or perhaps more in the West Pakistan. First of all, Bhutto became a true leader and a politician only after the 1971 debacle. He started his career in the time of a dictator, Iskander Mirza; eventually reached to the post of the foreign Minister in the time of another Dictator, Ayub Khan. During all this time, he was not a politician but a very shrewd bureaucrat who could feel the pulse of the time. Bhutto was so close to Ayub Khan that he used to call him ‘Daddy’. It was only after the 1965 war, when Ayub realized that Bhutto was not that intelligent and foresighted as he used to present himself. After the war, Ayub’s fall was already started, and no one knew that more precisely than Bhutto, his foreign minister. Bhutto was approached by the Americans who were also through with weak and useless Ayub, and proposed him to establish his own political party. Bhutto left Ayub, came into public and lured them telling about the half baked stories of Tashkent agreement. The iron was red hot, people were fed-up of failed policies of Ayub and ever increasing inflation in Pakistan, and embraced Bhutto as their new hope. Pakistanis never realized that Bhutto was not one of them, he could never be; he had a feudal background, was literally raised and groomed by the Military Dictators, and who had started his party (PPP) with the advice and support of the American CIA.

The 1970 national elections…Awami league took the majority seats in the national assembly, followed by Pakistan People’s Party which arose as the majority party in the West Pakistan. All Yahya had to do was to invite the leader of the majority winning party to form the Government. He did not fulfill his duty, instead his refusal paved way for the demonstrations in the East Pakistan. He may have been under pressure by Bhutto, but could Bhutto force him not to invite Mr. Mujib to form the government? I do not think so. Yahya was not a weak president; he was the Army Chief, who had full support of the Army. If he had invited Mr. Mujib to form the Government, what Bhutto could have done? Gone on the streets? On which issue? That a majority winning part was invited to form the Government? I do not think that it was possible for him to bring the people on the streets following an illegitimate demand. So the blame does not fall as much on Bhutto as much it falls on Yahya Khan. Again, it was not Bhutto who unleashed the military might on the East Pakistanis, it was Yahya, under whose direct orders Pakistan Army went on conquering its own country. Things would have never turned that ugly if the military operation was not conducted in the first place which simply resulted in a domino effect. Things were no longer in control of Mr. Mujib and his senior party members as ordinary Bengalis wanted to defend themselves against the indiscriminate military operation. Undoubtedly, atrocities were committed from both the sides largely as a desire to take revenge of the personal losses. It is not that only Bengalis were massacred by the Pakistan Army/Security forces, non-Bengalis were also killed by the activists of the Mukti Bahini, proportionately less because they were already in minority.

But as I said above, all this could have been avoided if Mr. Mujib’s six points were considered favorably (none of which were non-negotiable), and if wisdom had prevailed over arrogance and racial superiority complex of the West Pakistan’s ruling elite class.

You are entitled to your opinion as much as we all are. However, you got something wrong in the history there. When we learn history, we should consider all sides of the story and then put some rational thought on it, rather than just consuming exactly as it is written by some writers. Because even though history should be facts, at the end of the day it is coming from some human being made of flesh, blood and most importantly a mind. I have never found someone with exactly 50:50 sense of justice and neutrality.

I have written long paragraphs before about the language issue in pre71 Pakistan. Urdu is a great language that formed in Lucknow and Delhi. Muhajirs brought it into Pakistan and West Pakistanis loved it. Now name me one language that has a local root in your Pakistan and has a rich literary tradition, which has produced writers of international acclaim and works that could be highly valued in terms of modern western literature(I am not talking about signboards)?! Punjabi? Pashtun? Baluchi? Sindhi? Which one can you name? I do not think you have any answer there! Urdu has produced some really fascinating works in some genre of poetry but then for every Urdu poet I can name 50 famous Bengali poets whose works are world renown. You see Bengali developed as a rich literary language that influenced the Bengali revolution, the Indian version of French revolution if you want to put it in simple words. There are many reasons for that. The British had colonised Bengal before any other parts of India. The Bengali language, with its already strong millinary long traditional roots, caught the western literature that came along with the British system of education. Great Bengali thinkers revolutionized the language. The Bengali identity evolved around the language. There are plenty of proofs for it. Rabindranath won the nobel prize in literature for his poetry in Bengali language as the first Asian in 1913. There were plenty of others too. When punjabi and pathan muslims were serving in the british army, it was through the Bengali language that Kazi Nazrul Islam and sukanta bhattacharya lead the Bengalis against the British raj to gain independence. I do not think you have any idea how much the Bengali language contributed shaping up the society and culture in Bengal. For the understanding of Urdu language, I think you have been deceived by the excellent grasp of Urdu language by people like ALZakir in this forum. Trust me even I was impressed local West Pakistani languages have similar root with urdu and their dialect have a lot of similarities. Bengali may have few word because of borrowing them from Arabic or Farsi but a Bengali speaker would never understand Urdu speaker instinctively in the same way that you mentioned west pakistanis would not udnerstand Bengali easily. To you Urdu was not that hard. To us, it was an alien language. I think you need to realize this first before going further on this issue. To a French, the Italian language would be easier to understand and learn than the German language because of the same Latin root. Similarly one can notice the similarities between Urdu and say Punjabi. That does not exist between Bengali and Urdu. Islam was probably taught in Urdu in your region even before partition. As the centre of Islamic education was in the northern and central part of India, both Pakistanis and Bengali alems went there to learn. But Urdu was never used in Bangladesh to teach Islam or Arabic. Islam was preached in Bengali even by the Persian and Turkic saints who brought the religion into Bengal. The bureaucrats in post 47 Pakistan were all educated in Urdu including the educated Muhajirs from India while Bengali bureaucrats were educated in Bengali languages, let alone the public. Few nawabs existed who preferred Urdu but they were just some feudalistic power mongers who did not care for the mass public. Your saying Urdu is neutral language is incorrect as it was the language of the few people(5-7% at that time) who migrated into west pakistan and held important power in the government there. I believe I have been able to explain you how Urdu was not understood or spoken or written in Bengal. I know many highly educated Bengalis who had elementary and secondary schooling during East Pakistan period and can't speak a single grammatically correct Urdu sentence. Even the new Bengali generation can understand hindi/urdu better, thanks to Bollywood. The educated and uneducated Bengalis would have been deprived of their basic rights of language if they were forced to speak an alien language like Urdu. Forcing Urdu on Bengalis would be similar to forcing Italian on the English. Finally, you are absolutely right. Language issue was unnecessary and the west pakistani leaders should have been better visionaries to make Bengali the national language in 1947, without waiting to be forced to do that in 1956. I do not know about the West Pakistanis, but from that point onward, antipathy started to grow among Bengalis against the West Pakistanis.

East Pakistan could have easily be defended. Few battalions East Bengal regiment defended Lahore for you guys, why couldnt millions of Bengalis defend themselves from Indian invasion?! We are defending ourselves now! Why could we not defend ourselves then? India was smart enough to see that during 1965. They had strategic plans. While the west pakistanis were still sunk in some dubious racial theories that were formulated by an angry British diplomat after the wide spread Bengali resistance in the 1857 Indian rebellion. The geographic distance wasnt the cause of Pakistan army's failure. The cause was Pakistan army was seen as the enemy by 1971.

Six points was the only way a united pakistan could have survived and none of the points was non-negotiable. Sheikh Mujib was unfortunate to have lived in Pakistan where his enormous talent as a unifying leader was ignored by the hopeless people in bureaucratic departments and in a self destructing army. Bhutto and the pakistan army were just too racist to let Mujib rule the country. Yahya was not planning to hold the power, but he was reluctant to give the power to Mujib, a Bengali and Bhutto was promised the Prime Ministership by Yahya. General Tikka Khan infamously addressed Bhutto "Mr. Prime Minister" before Bhutto left for West Pakistan on the eve of Operation Searchlight. The whole game played by Pakistan Army and Bhutto was just too nakedly ugly and the people of Bangladesh had to pay the price for their hideous game with blood.

 

[sadiqams]

I will tell you a small LATIFA. When a very poor father in a village family died, among others he left behind also a milk cow and a blanket for his two sons. Elder brother is very simple and the younger one is very smart.

So, the younger brother insisted that they should divide the milk cow and blanket in such a way that it benefits both. How? The younger brother suggested the milk cow be divided in a way that the front half is taken by the older brother, and the back half by the younger one.
Blanket also was divided in a similar way. Elder brother will keep it during day time, and the younger during the night.

Now, the older brother feeds the cow because the front is his, and the younger one milks the cow because the back side is his. Similarly, since the younger brother has the right to possess the blanket at night, he sleeps in comfort. But, the elder brother cannot sleep at night because of cold.

I do not have to say any more to make people including all your Sherwani clad politicians to understand how you had been cheating us in the name of Islamic BROTHERHOOD. It was NAJAIZ in the eyes of Allah. But, you still do not understand that you had been cheating us for long 23 years. This is sad.

Very true all the basmati rice was used to be sent to East Pakistan whilst you sent Jute to west Pakistan. We used the Jute (made into sacks) to send you the rice to East Pakistan. Its seems you had bothe the front and the back of the Cow.

 

[eastwatch]

I suppose you are happy under indian hegemony. The majority of the insurgents were hindus disguised as mukti bhani according to your own sources. A lot of human rights violations were carried out by these so called 'mukti Bhani'. Bangladesh is no power at the moment but has a government which is compliant to Indian demands. The fact it is sinking into the bay of bengal and due its size it will not become a military or economic power anytime soon. I can see a future where it will eventually be absorbed into the Indian Union by hook or crook as RAW is working overtime on it.

I hope you are not a Hindu yourself. Because only a qafir can give credit to another qafir. Read the history well, then come with a Hindu link. While most of the victims were Hindus, all of the freedom fighters were muslims. Only we know how to fight brutes like you. you got a good slap at the hands of hindus in december, 1971, therefore, probably you have learned to respect them, isn't it?

 

[eastwatch]

If there was no Pakistan there would never have been a Bangladesh.

Yes, you are right. But, the Bangali muslims formed the Muslim League in 1912 in Dhaka, Bangali Sher-e-Bangal proposed Lahore Resolution, and Muslim League won the Provincial election of 1946 and formed the only ML govt in Calcutta. Your contribution to the formation of Pakistan is almost nil.

 

[eastwatch]

Very true all the basmati rice was used to be sent to East Pakistan whilst you sent Jute to west Pakistan. We used the Jute (made into sacks) to send you the rice to East Pakistan. Its seems you had bothe the front and the back of the Cow.

What are you talking about Basmati i do not know. But, you had three federal Capitals, all the military HQs and almost all the military presence in the west. Central govt gave us 35% of the total national budget.

 

[Skies]

You may choose to disagree with me, but allow me to say that East Pakistan’s demand of Bengali as the second national language was not correct (at least at that time). Lots of politics was played on this unnecessary issue. There is no doubt that Bengali was the single most spoken language in the united Pakistan (owing to the largest population of the East Pakistani Bengalis), but Bengali was not widely spoken or understood in the West Pakistan. Contrary to which, Urdu was spoken and understood in both, East as well as West Pakistan. Additionally, Urdu was a neutral language, as it was not the language of any ethnic population of the United Pakistan except for those who migrated from the Muslim majority areas of British India. To this day, I am failed to understand why East Pakistanis took the language issue so seriously. There is no doubt that Bengalis (both on the East and the West Bengal) love their culture and admire Bangla Bhasha more than any language.

Contrary to this, in West Pakistan, the Urdu was readily accepted in particularly by the Punjabis. No province played more important a role in the development of Urdu language in West Pakistan than Punjab. Most notable literary work was undoubtedly done by the people from Punjab albeit of the fact that Urdu was not their mother tongue. I heard from many older folks that in Karachi (where Urdu speaking mohajirs are in majority), a barbershop would have a signboard in English such as “Hair cutting salon”, while in Punjab (where fewer Urdu speaking mohajirs lived), it would have a signboard in true Urdu language “Zulf Tarash”.

Anyway, all I am trying to say is, the language issue unnecessarily stirred up the pot, and caused lots of misunderstanding between the East and the West Pakistan. The issue of language and so early in the life of Pakistan did lots of damage. It was from that point onwards, an antipathy developed against the East Pakistanis in the West Pakistan.

Thank you indeed, I agree with your this post#113 but I'm not agree with u in Language point.

Well, u have tried to explain the language issue so logically. But, personally, I believe that Bangladeshis do not think so rationally and logically but most of times emotionally.
That's why BD people took the language issue so emotionally as they used to believe that it is discrimination (also discrimination indeed by W. Pak) and not rightful to enforce Urdu to them. So their language movement was not wrong and logical (cos discrimination by W. Pak) and also emotional. And it was so silly by W. Pak to force to use Urdu instead of our native Bangla in E. Pak which was the beginning of problems.

 

[TopCat]

If there was no Pakistan there would never have been a Bangladesh.

Pakistan was made by Bengalis, so they did Bangladesh. If there were no Bengalis there were no Pakistan.

 

[TopCat]

What are you talking about Basmati i do not know. But, you had three federal Capitals, all the military HQs and almost all the military presence in the west. Central govt gave us 35% of the total national budget.

35% on the development budget not on the whole budget.

 

[Khajur]

It's all convinent for chest beating but remember the superpowers America and Russia in Vietnam and Afghanistan lost out because they were fighting away from home against an unseen enemy. There are other examples like India in Sri Lanka and again US in Somalia.
Pakistan Army was fighting a war 1000 miles away against a full fledge Indian attack and the local population. More over it was totally deprived of any reinforcements, logistics and supplies. A single PAF squadron equipped with 50s era F-86 Sabre aircraft faced ten Indian squadrons, three of them of modern MIG-21s, more over the defecting PAF Bengali personal, took with them war plans and loops in radar corridors. The rest is history, hence, give credit where it's due.

Windjammer,

in the 71 war, india confronted pakistan not just in east pakistan,but also on the west side,infact when PAF attcked our forward bases in the indian Punjab and Gujarat the war started.So u see ,india didnt invaded in east pakistan until u broke the war.

Anyways, while u may crib about the lack of pakistani troops in East pakistan,how was its performance in the western front ??

Pakistan wasnt able grab to even an inch of indian territory though pakistan army attcked with its full might on the western border of india.The most audacious push of Pakistani armour brigade at the Longewala post ,Rajastan came to an bloody end as Pakistani tanks were decimated as they met combined assult of IA and IAF.And after that pakistan army didtnt make any another further attempt to push into india.

Battle of Longewala - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[toxic_pus]

The moment of reckoning in the words of J.N.Dixit

Mrs Gandhi completed her engagements in Calcutta late in the evening of 3 December. She and her party, which included D.P.Dhar, some West Bengal politicians, and middle-level officials dealing with Bangladesh like Peter Sinai and me boarded a special plane around 7 p.m. for Delhi. As the plane reached the airspace a little east of Lucknow, the pilot asked D.P. Dhar to come to the cockpit and speak on the communication system as there was an urgent message from New Delhi. Mr Dhar spent three or four minutes in the cockpit, came out and spoke to Mrs Gandhi, walked back to his seat and turned to us who were sitting behind him and said: “The fool has done exactly what one had expected.” General Yahya Khan had carried out pre-emptive air strikes on Indian air bases in northwestern India in Jammu, Punjab and in Rajasthan and had also launched ground attacks on Indian territory. General Manekshaw, chief of army staff, had already commenced retaliatory action. Most of northern and northcentral India was under a blackout in anticipation of further strikes.

Instead of flying to New Delhi, Mrs Gandhi’s plane was diverted to Lucknow airport. We remained at the airport for nearly two hours and took off again around 10 p.m., landing at Palam around 10.45 p.m. Defence Minister Jagjivan Ram was at the airport to receive Mrs Gandhi. All of us drove directly to the Army Headquarters in South Block. Mrs Gandhi, Jagjivan Ram, Swaran Singh and senior officials went straight into the Operations Room. We were asked to wait outside. General Manekshaw proceeded to brief Mrs Gandhi and her cabinet colleagues about the counteroffensive which India had launched in the western sector. He also asked Mrs Gandhi’s permission to commence operations in the eastern sector, which was immediately given. Mrs Gandhi proceeded to the Cabinet Room in the western wing of South Block to preside over an emergency meeting she had summoned while flying into Delhi. The cabinet took the decision to declare a state of war with Pakistan, to recognise Bangladesh and to allow the opening of a Bangladesh diplomatic mission in New Delhi immediately.

India-Pakistan In War & Peace, pg 202-203