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A Revisit to the Indian Role in the Bangladesh Liberation War

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A Revisit to the Indian Role in the Bangladesh Liberation War

Zaglul Haider
Journal of Asian and African Studies 2009 44: 537
DOI: 10.1177/0021909609340062

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A Revisit to Journal of Asian and African Studies
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the Indian Role www.sagepublications.com

(Los Angeles, London, New Delhi,
J
Singapore and Washington DC)
in the Bangladesh
A
Vol 44(5): 537–551
DOI: 10.1177/0021909609340062

Liberation War
A
S
Zaglul Haider
University Of Rajshahi, Bangladesh

Abstract
The Liberation War of Bangladesh was seen by the Indian policy makers as a
prime time to dismember Pakistan. By the creation of Bangladesh, they pondered:
(a) the political enemy on both its borders would be replaced by a far weaker
enemy on one side and a friend on the other; (b) secularism would be regarded
as a dominant ideology for the developing countries; (c) India would emerge
as an Asian superpower; (d) India would establish a subservient government in
Bangladesh; (e) Bangladesh would be an extension of the Indian market; (f) India
would materialize the Nehruvian vision of the Greater Indian Union.

Keywords Bangladesh • humanitarian assistance • India • Liberation War •

strategic interests

Introduction
Even after the 36th anniversary of independent Bangladesh, an intellectual
debate over the role of India in the Bangladesh Liberation War has not yet been
resolved. There are clearly two dichotomous schools of thought over the issue.
One group of intellectuals holds the thesis that the Indian role was the mani-
festation of its humanitarian assistance and friendly gesture toward the people
of Bangladesh. Others hold diametrically opposed views and postulate that the
Indian policy toward Bangladesh stemmed out of its politico-economic and
strategic considerations. Without arguing for or against Indian humanitarian con-
cerns or politico-economic and strategic considerations, Wilcox (1973) pointed
out that Pakistan’s defeat by India in 1971 was a replay of the 1965 war and the
only exception was that East Pakistan was brought into the battle and taken
by the Indian forces. Wilcox gave us an unambiguous impression of the Indian
role, but it requires further analysis to comprehend the Indian actual plans of
action. This article, however, seeks to debunk the argument that the Indian

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538 Journal of Asian and African Studies 44(5)

role was the symbol of its humanitarian aid and friendship toward the people
of Bangladesh and to establish the hypothesis that the Indian role originated
out of its politico-economic and strategic considerations. Toward this end, in
this article we will explore the roots of the Bangladesh crisis and the Indian role
in the Bangladesh Liberation War.

The Roots of the Bangladesh Crisis

‘Pakistan’s twenty-fifth anniversary’, as Tepper (1972: 357) pointed out, ‘was
marked by disintegration of the state.’ The birth of Bangladesh in 1971 was the
product of the break-up of Pakistan. Bangladesh had the bitter experience of
about a quarter-century of union with Pakistan. The geographical boundary
of Pakistan was illogical – East Pakistan was separated from West Pakistan by
one thousand miles of Indian Territory – and ethnic, linguistic and cultural dif-
ferences between the two wings were compounded by economic exploitation
and political domination of the West Pakistani ruling elites, which impregnated
Bengali nationalism and ultimately, led to the break-up of Pakistan. The Bengali
people were always unlikely partners in the union of Pakistan – a geographical
and cultural monstrosity (New York Times, 1971). During the formative phase
of Pakistan, the ruling elites’ attempt to introduce Arabic script and Persian
words in the Bengali language was the reflection of West Pakistani’s cultural
hegemony (Anisuzzaman, 2002). The Pakistan government’s perilous attempt
to impose Urdu – a language of only 3.5 percent of the population – as the only
national language of the country was first opposed and later resisted during
the bloody language movement of the Bengalis in 1952, which sparked the
beginning of a nationalist movement (Ahmed, 2002). On the one hand, the
Bengalis who constituted the majority of Pakistan’s population were denied
their democratic rights to govern the country; on the other hand, the West
Pakistani ruling elites continued to exploit the Bengalis economically. All this
political exploitation and economic deprivation ultimately led to the nationalist
movement of ‘grave magnitude’ (Ahmed, 2002: 49). A violent mass upsurge
orchestrated by the Bengalis brought the fall of military dictator General Ayub
Khan in 1969. The Bengalis finally said farewell to the ruling elites of West
Pakistan in the general elections of 1970, when Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s
(Mujib) political party the Awami league (AL) emerged as the single majority
party and Z.A. Bhutto’s (Bhutto) the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) appeared
as the second largest party.1 Notwithstanding, none of them had national
character.2 The election results clearly determined the polarization between
East and West Pakistan. In the aftermath of the landslide victory of the AL
under the leadership of Mujib, the West Pakistani civil–military elites refused
to transfer power to the democratically elected Bengali national leaders who
earned the right to represent the cause of the Bengalis and instead, President

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 Haider: A Revisit to the Indian Role in the Bangladesh Liberation War 539

General Yahya Khan opted for a military solution, responding with bullets. The
Pakistan military followed a systematic campaign of indiscriminate slaughter
(Chowdhury, 1974),3 and the military actions destroyed the last hope of keeping
the unity of Pakistan. On 26 March 1971, Bangladesh was formally declared as
an independent and sovereign state. Regarding the birth of Bangladesh, Peter
Lyon (1972: 350–1) candidly argued:
The widening political and economic cleavages between East and West
Pakistan; the mounting aspirations and frustrations of the East Bengalis; the
crushing electoral victory of the Awami-league throughout East Pakistan and
the conclusive if less complete electoral victory of Mr. Bhutto’s party in the
West Punjab and Sind; the mindless brutality, rape and murder of the Bengalis
by the Pakistan army; the rapid – though temporary – exodus of 7–10 million
refugees from East Pakistan into India; the activities of the Mukti Bahini;
President Yahya Khan’s desperately inept last months of nominal rule; and
finally after the creeping involvement, the decisive intervention of Indian forces
in to East Pakistan, after air strikes from West Pakistan against Indian targets;
all these acted and reacted and combusted together eventually to produce an
independent Bangladesh.

In the aftermath of the military government’s startling brutality and merciless

genocide, Indian intervention finally led to the defeat of the Pakistan army and
caused the emergence of Bangladesh on 16 December 1971 (Embree, 1997). The
birth of Bangladesh as a state in South Asia was unique in nature and different
from other South Asian countries. The nationalist movements in the remaining
South Asian countries were largely based on non-violent civil disobedience and
negotiated settlement, while in the case of Bangladesh, the nationalist movement
finally turned into an armed struggle to achieve independence (Jahan, 2002).

The Bangladesh Liberation War and the Role of India

India started to get engaged in the liberation struggle of Bangladesh following
the military crackdown in East Pakistan. Indian Prime minister Mrs Indira
Gandhi expressed her views in Loksabha on 27 March 1971:
It is not merely a suppression of a movement but it is meeting an unarmed
people with tanks. We are fully alive to the situation and we shall keep
constantly in touch with what is happening and what we need to do. We must
not take merely theoretical view. At the same time we have to follow proper
international norms.4

From the outset of the brutal atrocities of the Pakistan army, Bengali leaders
and the Bengali resistance forces crossed the Indian border followed by millions
of innocent Bengali people. India granted refuge to the East Bengal people

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540 Journal of Asian and African Studies 44(5)

as it had followed this policy in similar situations in other neighboring states,

that is, the 1959 rebellion in Tibet and the December 1960 royal coup in Nepal
(Sisson and Rose, 1990). In the aftermath of the refugee exodus, the Indian
parliament took a resolution on East Bengal which called upon the governments
and people of the world to take urgent and constructive steps to make an end
of the organized genocide in East Bengal (Gandhi, 1972). New Delhi’s policy
toward East Pakistani political refugees took a noble form in early April 1971
and the Indian government permitted the establishment of AL headquarters on
Indian soil. Eventually this was in Calcutta (Sisson and Rose, 1990), which was
formally established on 17 April 1971 at Badyanatt Tala (now Mujibnagar, under
Meherpur district) just across the border of East Bengal. The AL leaders issued
a declaration of independence and established a Government of Bangladesh in
exile. At this point, training camps for the Bangladesh Liberation Forces were
built with Indian assistance at a number of places in Indian territory close to the
East Pakistani border. India was equally careful in its establishment of training
camps for the Bangladesh Liberation Forces (BLF). India wanted to make sure
that these were under the control of the reliable AL leaders, officers from the
East Pakistan Rifles or police, rather than the more radical political elements in
the resistance (Sisson and Rose, 1990).
However, the continued army repression and fighting caused a tidal wave of
refugees from East Pakistan. During the nine-month Liberation War about 10
million5 Bengali refugees fled into India, which caused serious concern for India
(Table 1). According to an authoritative source, by the end of May 1971, nine
million refugees had arrived in small hilly state of Tripura while the indigenous
population of that state was only 1.5 million (Haider, 2006). Against this back-
drop, the Indian authority was very much worried about the permanent settle-
ment of the Bengalis in India. In order to make a political settlement that would
enable the refugees to return to their homes, the Indian government repeatedly

Table 1
Distribution of Bengali refugees in refugee camps
(refugee population as on 15 December 1971)

State No. of camps In camps Outside camps Total

West Bengal 492 4,849,786 2,386,130 7,235,916

Tripura 276 843,098 557,551 1,400,649
Meghalaya 17 591,520 76,466 667,986
Assam 28 225,642 91,913 317,555
Bihar 8 36,732 0 36,732
Madhya Pradesh 3 219,298 0 219,298
Uttar Pradesh 1 10,169 0 10,169
Total 825 6,776,245 3,112,060 9,888,305

Source: Bangladesh Documents, Vol. 2. New Delhi: Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, p. 81.

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 Haider: A Revisit to the Indian Role in the Bangladesh Liberation War 541

emphasized an agreement between the central government of Pakistan and

the AL leader Mujib. On 24 May 1971, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi
publicly threatened Pakistan in the Parliament:
Conditions must be created to stop any further influx of refugees and to ensure
their early return under credible guarantees for their safety and well-being. I say
with all sense of responsibility that unless this happens, there can be no lasting
stability or peace on this subcontinent. We have pleaded with other powers to
recognize this. If the world does not take heed, we shall be constrained to take all
measures as may be necessary to ensure our own security and the preservation
and development of the structure of our social and economic life.6

Mrs Gandhi also emphasized a political, rather than a military, solution to

Pakistan’s crisis in its eastern province, where she thought the great powers
had a special role to play in reaching a solution (Sisson and Rose, 1990). Under-
standing the gravity of the situation, Mrs Gandhi made two decisions through
which the refugees were accommodated and later returned home. First, during
a series of public meetings, Mrs Gandhi stated clearly that the 1971 refugees
would not be allowed to stay in India as permanent residents. Second, Mrs
Gandhi founded a special organization with the Union Ministry of Relief and
Rehabilitation charged with the task of establishing and maintaining temp-
orary camps for these refugees (Franda, 1982). With the continuous influx of
refugees, India appealed to the international community for relief assistance.
The refugee problem was so serious a burden on the central government
of India and the Provincial government of West Bengal (where most of the
refugees were situated) that it was impossible to provide minimal necessities
for the vast number of refugees without international assistance. Replying to a
question in the Rajya Sabha (the upper house of Parliament) on 15 June 1971,
Mrs Gandhi (1972: 16) predicted, ‘we will have to go through hell to meet this
situation (the refugee problem)’.
Against this backdrop, the Indian government called upon the world com-
munity to see the reality of the situation and to press Pakistan for a political
settlement (Gandhi, 1972). Initially, India adopted a cautious policy of limited
help and also ruled out the possibilities of direct military intervention as the
Bangladesh government in exile was preparing for such an action. Still, like the
USA or USSR, India apparently appeared to have favored the continuation of
a United Pakistan (Hasan, 1986; Kabir, 1988). Indian intervention was limited
to propaganda and diplomatic activities mainly in support of the AL leadership.
India encountered the Pakistani propaganda that the struggle in East Bengal
was Indian engineered and the Pakistan army was engaged in fighting with the
‘Indian infiltrators’. The Indian strategy at this phase, as explained by Hamza
Alavi (1971), was to establish an Awami League government in Dhaka (the
Capital of East Bengal) through international pressure and to secure the

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542 Journal of Asian and African Studies 44(5)

withdrawal of the Pakistan army. Such a government under the auspices of the
western powers was beneficial to India and would reduce Chinese influence in
the region.
India started to have its total involvement with the Bangladesh Liberation War
in June–July 1971 when the recruitment of the Mukti Bahini (freedom fighters)
was intensified and India started giving them training and providing them with
arms and ammunitions to fight against the strong regular army of Pakistan.7
Nevertheless, all politicians and decision-making elites of India did not equally
support the Indian government’s desperate attempt against Pakistan. Many
prominent Indian leaders publicly opposed any form of Indian engagement
in East Pakistan. ‘Indian ruling classes’, as Hamza Alavi (1971: 294) pointed
out, ‘could hardly relish the prospects of a revolutionary struggle developing
next door to Indian West Bengal which is itself in turmoil.’ Prominent among
those who opposed were C. Raja Gopal Chari, Governor-General of India
from 1947–50 and a chief minister of Tamil Nadu; General Carippa, the former
Commanding General of Indian army; and M.Karunanididhi, the chief minister
of Tamil Nadu in 1971, who cited the developments of East Pakistan as a warn-
ing to India to avoid creating conditions that would encourage secessionist
movements in its own territory (The Hindu, 30 March 1971). Bangladesh,
they noted, meant a country of the Bengalis, and India had a large number of
Bengalis in its population who might be attracted by the ‘amra Bangali’ (we are
Bengalis) concept of united Bengal (Ziring, 1978: 80). Some were concerned
with international reaction, particularly from several Islamic states with whom
India had important ties. From the security perspective, some officials argued
that Indian interests were better served by an East Pakistan that was virtually
captive to India (and thus a complication to decision making in Islamabad) than
they would be by an independent Islamic state that would be the second largest in
the subcontinent (Sisson and Rose, 1990). Some lawmakers even expressed their
dissatisfaction when both houses of the parliament were adopting resolutions
supporting the Bangladesh movement (Brown, 1972). The decision-making
elites of India could not completely ignore the dissenting views on the East
Pakistan issue but they assessed all suggestions and criticisms quietly and
considered the Indian long-range national interests. The Indian government
eventually took a decision favoring a military intervention. India rendered aid
and assistance to Bangladesh’s war of independence in two ways: (1) arming
and training of the guerrilla force known as the Mukti Bahini and; (2) invasion
of East Bengal by the Indian Army (Mukharjee, 1971).
The Indian government’s two-tier policy explicitly made it clear that India’s
real intention behind the active support to the Bangladesh struggle was not only
to support the just cause of the Bengalis but also to weaken its rival: Pakistan.
This was clearly expressed by K. Subrahmanyam, director of the Indian Institute
of Defense Studies, on 31 March 1971 (within six days of the outbreak of the

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 Haider: A Revisit to the Indian Role in the Bangladesh Liberation War 543

revolt in East Pakistan): ‘What India must realize is the fact that the break up
of Pakistan is in our own interest, an opportunity, the like of which will never
come again’ (Hindustan Times, 1 April 1971). The [London]Times (13 July
1971) published an article by Subrahmanyam, which further advocated the
seizure of sections of East Pakistan and the re-establishment of a provisional
government of Bangladesh under the Indian Army protection. Maniruzzaman
(1999), a leading political scientist of Bangladesh, further revealed that the
Indian government wanted to annex Bangladesh soon after 26 March 1971, but
the Indian generals, who had suffered humiliating defeat at the hands of the
Chinese in 1962 because of their overreaction, advised caution and asked the
Indian government to invade Bangladesh after sufficient preparation.8 Other
political analysts also confirmed India’s ultimate plans of action. One analyst
uncovered the major Indian gains from the emergence of Bangladesh in the
following way:
1. Political enemies on both its borders will be replaced by a far weaker enemy
on one side and a friend on the other.
2. The Kashmir question will be rid of what remains of its sting, domestically
as well as international.
3. The claim of secular democracy to be the best government system for the
multiracial developing countries will be strengthened and the myth of an
enduring nationhood based on religion will be destroyed. The two-nation
theory, which indoctrinated the religious nationalism and created Pakistan
in 1947, was severely ignored by Mrs Gandhi. After the dismemberment of
Pakistan in 1971, she asserted, ‘We have avenged a thousand years history
and thrown the two-nation theory into the Indian Ocean’.9 Indeed, in the
wake of independence, the Bangladesh government declared secularism as
a founding principle in its first constitution and banned all religious political
parties (Riaz, 2005).
4. The cynical role of China, which has come out in support of the military
regime in Islamabad in the region, will be exposed and countered
(Bhattacharya, 1971).
Furthermore, India’s politico-strategic consideration was hardly a secret.
India and Pakistan fought two wars (1948 and 1965) since independence. The
East Pakistan Crisis of 1971, therefore, brought a golden opportunity to dis-
member its enemy. Indian military intervention on behalf of the Bangladeshi
freedom fighters was indeed motivated by this resolve. The presence of ten
million East Pakistani refugees on its soil and the establishment of an exile
Bangladesh government in Calcutta merely provided the necessary justification
for its action (Ghosh, 1989). Besides, the hidden agenda was to integrate the
economy of Bangladesh with the economy of eastern India and to translate the
dream of Indian economists into reality (Hasan and Khan, 1989; Haider, 1997).

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544 Journal of Asian and African Studies 44(5)

These arguments can be validated by the explanation of Mrs Indira Gandhi

following the victory in 1971, ‘the war with Pakistan and the emergence of
independent Bangladesh had falsified the two nation theory and validated our
principle of secularism’ (Indian Foreign Review, 1 February 1972, quoted in
Wilcox, 1973: 27).
Although some scholars seek to prove the hypothesis that India supported
the Bangladesh revolution purely on humanitarian grounds, or to uphold the
democratic tradition in the region, these arguments cannot be rationalized if the
counterargument is put forward: What role did India play to crush the freedom
movement in Kashmir or Punjab? The answer obviously is not enough to sup-
port the hypothesis.
India’s ultimate expectation was that Bangladesh, together with Nepal and
Bhutan, would go under the security system of India. It will thus realize the
Nehruvian vision of the Indian Union (Iftekharuzzaman, 1989). Immediately
after independence, the signing of a 25-year treaty of peace, friendship and
cooperation was denounced by many people of Bangladesh because of its
debated nature. Articles 9 and 10 of the treaty were especially controversial.
Article 9 stipulated that each party ‘shall refrain from giving assistance to any
third party taking part in an armed conflict against the other party’. In case
either party is attacked or threatened with attack, the parties ‘shall immediately
enter into mutual consultations in order to take appropriate effective measures
to eliminate the threat and thus ensure the peace security of the countries’.
Article 10 stipulated that ‘no party shall undertake any commitment, secret or
open towards one or more states which may be incompatible with the present
treaty’. Many observers speculated that it would establish Indian hegemony
in Bangladesh (Ahmed, 1983). This treaty followed the Indo Soviet model
of 1971. The detractors of the treaty feared that India would use the treaty
as an excuse for intervention in Bangladesh. After the Indian annexation of
Sikkim in 1974, the fear of Indian expansionism flourished among the small
neighboring countries like Bangladesh (Haider, 2006). Lok Raj Baral (1985: 63)
nicely depicted Indian relations with its neighbors as ‘strained while punctuated
by periods of friendship and cooperation’.
Following the independence of Bangladesh, rampant smuggling to India and
the Indian government’s slackened anti-smuggling operation deteriorated the
economy of the new nation. Capture of the huge quantity of arms and ammu-
nitions by the Indian army left by 93,000 surrendering Pakistan army;10 Indian
patronage to the outlawed Shanti Bahini (Rebels) of the Chittagong Hill tracts
in order to destabilize the internal situation of Bangladesh; the Indian Border
Security Force’s frequent crossing of Bangladesh territory and killing of inno-
cent civilians and plundering of their resources, destroying their properties
and ignoring the international law; construction of barbed wire fencing on the
no-man’s-land of the common international border; Indian withdrawal of the

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 Haider: A Revisit to the Indian Role in the Bangladesh Liberation War 545

Ganges water through the operation of the Farakkah barrage and its disastrous
effect on Bangladesh; and India’s decision to undertake the river link project
are all clear indications of Indian hegemony.11 Moudud Ahmed (2002: 151)
argued:
The transfer of country’s assets by the Indian army, the influence of the Indian
bureaucrats in the Bangladesh administration, large scale smuggling across the
border, the removal of the ban on exporting raw jutes and jute goods to India,
the printing of currency notes in India, the raising of the Rakkhi Bahini, the
devaluation of currency and the presence of Indian army – all these combined
to increase the distrust of Bangladesh people.

India’s unfriendly, unilateral and aggressive actions in the post-independence

period established the fact that the real intention behind Indian involvement
in the Bangladesh revolution was its politico-economic and strategic interests
(Ahmed, 1982). Indeed, India’s desire to weaken her enemy coincided with the
aspiration of Bengali nationalist forces, and it suited both sides (Ahmed, 2002).
Furthermore, in his analysis of the Indian role, Badruddin Umar (1973) argued
that the interests of the AL and those of the Indian government converged at
several points. India had four principal objectives in mind within the overall
strategic consideration. First, India wanted to see that Pakistan lost its eastern
province. Second, it wanted refugees returned to Bangladesh. Third, it wanted
to prevent the communists, particularly the pro-Chinese elements, from gaining
political strength through the Liberation War. Fourth, India wanted the new
nation to accept India’s pre-eminence in the region as a fact of life. All these
factors were clearly endorsed by the AL.
Apart from material support, India also undertook serious diplomatic ef-
forts and tried to sway world opinion in favor of the Bangladesh revolution. It
played a very crucial role in saving the life of Mujib: President Yahya Khan was
going to arrange a secret military trial to execute him, and Prime Minister Mrs
Gandhi sent a message to the Heads of Government requesting them to exert
their influence over president Yahya Khan from May 1971 so that the life of
Mujib could be saved (Gandhi, 1972). India unleashed a campaign throughout
the world directed at persuading other governments to pressure Pakistan to
revise its policy in East Pakistan by suspending their economic and military aids
to Pakistan (Gandhi, 1972). At this time, Indian leaders worked relentlessly
to build up world opinion against Pakistan’s atrocities and thereby isolated
Pakistan diplomatically (Rizvi, 1986). By the months of September and October
1971, Indo-Pakistan border tension was gradually rising and India and Pakistan
made repeated allegations against each other. In light of this predicament, the
United Nations (UN) Secretary General U Thant, in a letter of 20 October 1971
to the Heads of States of both India and Pakistan, offered the use of his good
offices in the potentially dangerous situation between the two rival countries.

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546 Journal of Asian and African Studies 44(5)

President Yahya Khan welcomed U Thant’s offer but Mrs Gandhi emphasized
the Indian view that only a political settlement in East Pakistan could solve the
problem (Gandhi, 1972). Aside from this, Sino-American détente through the
mediation of Pakistan prompted the Soviet Union to sign the defense pact of
8 August 1971, which promised Soviet military assistance to India in case of
any attack or threat by a third party. It provided India with greater strength.
When Mrs Gandhi visited Moscow in September 1971, Moscow approved
Indian military intervention if necessary. Although the Soviet Union wanted
the negotiated settlement of the problem with Pakistan, Mrs Gandhi did suc-
cessfully convince the Soviet authority and got the approval for the invasion
of East Bengal by the Indian army (Budhraj, 1973; Gupta, 1975; Haider,
2006). As part of India’s broadly-based international campaign Mrs Gandhi
visited Washington in early November 1971 against the backdrop of latent and
manifest US support to Pakistan. In Washington, President Nixon offered Mrs
Gandhi several proposals. First, he assured her that the USA would take full
financial responsibility to support the refugees. Second, he referred to Yahya’s
agreement to unilaterally withdraw Pakistani forces from the East Pakistani–
Indian frontier with only the understanding that India would respond in some
way in the near future, but Mrs Gandhi was unresponsive to the proposal. At
that point, India was unwilling to give Pakistan any chance to gain control over
East Pakistan. Some analysts were convinced that the Indian government had
decided to destroy Pakistan by force before Mrs Gandhi came to Washington
and that the discussion there had been an exercise in futility (Sisson and Rose,
1990). India also sent its diplomatic mission to the Muslim World to explain that
the East Pakistani civil war was not another Indo-Pakistani dispute (i.e. Hindu
vs Muslims), but rather a conflict between two hostile Muslim communities (i.e.
East and West Pakistan). This was an effort to diminish support for Pakistan
among the Islamic states, and India was partially successful (Sisson and Rose,
1990). Finally abandoning the devices of political and diplomatic settlements,
India started a war with Pakistan for the third time on 3 December 1971. All
efforts of the United Nations, the United States and other members of the inter-
national community to avert the war proved ineffective for the rigid stance taken
by India. By eventually defeating the Pakistan army, the Indian forces entered
into East Pakistan by the first week of December 1971 and on 16 December, the
Pakistan army surrendered to the joint command of Bangladesh and India and
Bangladesh achieved her final victory.12 The birth of Bangladesh was the product
of the brutal treatment of the Bengali population by the Pakistan army (Tahir-
kheli, 1997). Though the Indian intervention ended the independence war of
Bangladesh within a very short time, it was not welcomed by all the freedom
fighters and common people equally. Different segments of the freedom fighters,
especially the leftists, claimed that the Bangladesh Liberation War was stopped
by the AL with the help of India just as it was about to become a people’s war.

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 Haider: A Revisit to the Indian Role in the Bangladesh Liberation War 547

They branded the Bangladesh Liberation War as an unfinished revolution.13

The western press also labeled the Indian intervention as an irresponsible task
aimed at dismembering Pakistan.14 Above all, with the liberation of Bangladesh
and the break-up of Pakistan, India proved itself as a regional hegemonic power
as well as a mini-superpower in the world. Through the military victory over
Pakistan, India prepared for a nuclear test and conducted its first test in 1974,
which began to tip the power balance in South Asia (Nayar, 1975).

Conclusion
Analysis reveals that India supported the Bangladesh Liberation War with men
and materials, arms and ammunitions and finally, during the Indo-Pakistan
War of 1971, the Bengali freedom fighters liberated Bangladesh with the overt
and covert support of the Indian army. The Indian role in the Bangladesh
Liberation War can hardly be considered a gesture of humanitarian assistance
or an endorsement to the just cause of the Bangladeshi people. The Indian sup-
portive role stemmed out of its real politik, or politico-economic and strategic
considerations: (1) the Bangladesh revolution was seen by the Indian policy
makers as prime time to dismember her archrival Pakistan – otherwise, for mis-
sing such an opportunity India would pay dearly; (2) it would replace Pakistan
with a far weaker enemy on the one side and Bangladesh – a friend – on the other
side; (3) with the emergence of a secular Bangladesh, the futility of religious
nationalism and nationhood would be established and secularism would be
regarded as a dominant ideology for the developing countries; (4) Indian desire
to become an Asian superpower would be translated into reality; (5) by exert-
ing her hegemonic influence India would establish a weak and subservient
government in Bangladesh; and (6) India would easily use Bangladesh as an
extension of its own market. Even today, across Bangladesh there is a general
perception of Indian commercial imperialism. India is the biggest beneficiary of
Bangladesh’s trade liberalization policy, but India is following a short-sighted
and overcautious incremental approach toward opening up its market to import
from Bangladesh (Rashid, 2003). Finally Bangladesh, together with Nepal and
Bhutan, would go under the security system of India and it would thus realize
the Nehruvian vision of the greater Indian Union with a common defense
system. All these factors propelled India to dedicate its total support toward
the Bangladesh Liberation War despite the fact that many Indian leaders and
policy makers were opposed to it. With the emergence of Bangladesh, the newly
formed Mujib government pursued a tilt policy toward India as recognition of
India’s role in the Liberation War and post-liberation support for rehabilitation
and re-construction, which was later formalized through the 1972 treaty. As
Nicole Ball (1974: 48) nicely pointed out:
The similarity between the Awami league and the Congress party, both in
outlook and in composition were of undeniable importance to the spirit of

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548 Journal of Asian and African Studies 44(5)

friendship, which existed between the two governments. At the same time
Mujib had no alternative to the establishment of good relations with India.
The hostility of Pakistan to the new state and Bangladesh’s need for economic
and diplomatic aid made it inevitable that Dhaka would turn to the Indian
Government for support.

Notes
1. The results of the National Assembly election of 1970 were as follows: AL – 160 seats;
PPP – 81 seats; Muslim League (ML) – nine seats; ML-Council – seven seats; Jamat-ul-Ulema-
i-Islam – seven seats; National Awami Party (NAP) – six seats; Pakistan Democratic Party
(PDP) – one seat; Markazi-Jamait-ul-Ulema-I-Islam – seven seats; Independent – 16 seats.
For details, see Baxter (1989).
2. Neither AL nor PPP could win a single seat in both east and West Pakistan, AL won all of
their seats in East Pakistan and PPP won all their seats in West Pakistan. As a consequence,
none of them could emerge as a national party, as a rather regional or provincial party.
3. Regarding the Pakistan army’s brutality, Gowher Rizvi (1986: 115) used the term as ‘acts of
wanton genocide’.
4. Bangladesh Documents, Vol. 1. New Delhi: Publication Division, Ministry of Information and
Broadcasting, p. 669.
5. Bangladesh Documents, Vols 1 & 2. New Delhi: Publication Division, Ministry of Information
and Broadcasting, p. 81.
6. Loksabha Debates, 24 May 1971, p. 187.
7. General Aurora’s (the chief of the Indian Eastern Command in 1971) interview, published in
the Weekly Bichittra, 13 December 1991, p. 31.
8. J.N. Dixit (1999: 50–1) also offered this kind of analysis.
9. India: The Speeches and Reminiscences of Indira Gandhi (1975). London: Hodder & Stoughton,
p. 35. Quoted in Hussain (2001: 59).
10. Moulana Bhasani, the veteran nationalist leader, claimed that smuggling and confiscation of
goods transferred to India by the Indian army accounted to a total of approximately TK 6000
crores (US$2000m) (see Ahmed, 2002).
11. A $2000 billion mega project to interlink rivers involving construction of hundreds of water
reservoirs, and digging of more than 600 miles of link canals was undertaken by the Indian
national water development agency (NWDA). The purpose was to divert waters from the
trans-boundary rivers, the Ganges, the Brahmaputtra, the Teesta and other eastern rivers to
meet the water shortage in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Harayana, Rajstan,
Maharastra Gujrat, Orissa Andra Pradesh, Karnatak and Tamil Nadu. If implemented, this
project would affect thousands of hectares of arable land in Bangladesh and affect the lives of
millions of people living on agriculture. It would also affect the largest Mangrove forest – the
Sunder ban. It would also divert enough water to irrigate 135,000 square miles of farm land
and to produce 34,000 megawatt of hydro electricity (see Ahsan, 2003; Nurul Haq, 2003).
12. On 16 December 1971, Lt. General A.K. Niazi on behalf of Pakistan Eastern Command
signed the instrument of surrender in Dhaka at 16.31 hours. General Jagjit Singh Aurora, the
General Officer Commander in charge of the Indian and Bangladesh forces in the eastern
front accepted the surrender. For details, see Gandhi (1972).
13. The radical leftist parties in Bangladesh viewed that the Bangladesh revolution was not even
a nationalist revolution, because the bourgeoisie leadership of the AL could not be truly

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 Haider: A Revisit to the Indian Role in the Bangladesh Liberation War 549

nationalist as they drew their support from imperialist power and semi-feudal countries, only
a party of proletariat could pursue the revolution correctly (see Maniruzzaman, 1975).
14. The Washington Post and the Guardian – two western newspapers criticized India for pro-
voking a war. According to the Washington Post, ‘India has been rough, irresponsible, they
have encouraged and directly taken part in the dismemberment of a sovereign state’ (see
Washington Post, 14 December 1971).

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Zaglul Haider is a professor of Political Science, University of Rajshahi,

Bangladesh. He earned his PhD degree from Clark Atlanta University, U.S.A.
Currently Dr. Haider is working as a visiting scholar at York Centre for
International and Security Studies (YCISS). His areas of interest include: Foreign
Policy, Security, Foreign Aid, Electoral Democracy, Ethnicity Governance and
development. He published articles in: Security Dialogue, Asian Survey, The
Round Table, Asian Profile, South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Regional
Studies and serious academic journals in Bangladesh. Dr. Haider wrote a book
entitled: The Changing Pattern of Bangladesh Foreign Policy: A comparative
Study of the Mujib and Zia Regimes, published by the University Press Limited,
Dhaka, 2006. He is now working on another book: The Clash of Ideologies in
Bangladesh.
Address: Department of Political Science, University Of Rajshahi, Rajshahi
6205, Bangladesh. (Email: zaglul61@yahoo.com)

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