South Asian Crisis: India — Pakistan — Bangla Desh

241 Pages·1975·24.714 MB·English

by  Robert Jackson (auth.)

STUDIES IN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
*
I. Nato in the 1960s, by Alastair Buchan
II. The Control of the Arms Race, by Hedley Bull
III. Men in Uniform, by M. R. D. Foot
IV. World Order and New States, by Peter Calvocoressi
V. The Spread of Nuclear Weapons,
by Leonard Beaton and John Maddox
VI. Arms and Stability in Europe,
by Alastair Buchan and Philip Windsor
VII. Strategic Mobility, by Neville Brown
VIII. The Security of Southern Asia, by D. E. Kennedy
IX. China and the Peace of Asia, ed. Alastair Buchan
X. Defeating Communist Insurgency, by Robert Thompson
XI. The Sea in Modern Strategy, by L. W. Martin
XII. The Politics of Peace-keeping, by Alan James
XIII. Mrican Armies and Civil Order, by J. M. Lee
XIV. Problems of Modern Strategy, foreword by Alastair Buchan
XV. Germany and the Management of Detente, by Philip Windsor
XVI. Gunboat Diplomacy, by James Cable
XVII. South Asian Crisis: India, Pakistan, Bangia Desh
by Robert Jackson
of
Unmanifest are the beainmnas continaent [thinas], manifest
their middle course, unmanifest aaain their ends: what cause for
mournin9 here?
By a rare privilege may someone behold it, and by a rare privileae
of
indeed mo/ another tell it, and by a rare privileae may such
another hear it, yet even havin9 heard it there is none that
knows it.
Bhagavad Giti, 2. 28-9
STUDIES IN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY: 17
SOUTH ASIAN
CRISIS
India-Pakistan-Bangia Desh
---ll&iiiiii-·~·------
Robert Jackson
Fellow '!fAll Souls College, Oxford
1975
CHATTO & WINDUS, LONDON
for
THE INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE
FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES
Published by
Chatto & Windus Ltd
42 William IV Street,
London WC2
*
Clarke, Irwin & Co. Ltd
Toronto
ISBN 978-1-349-04165-7 ISBN 978-1-349-04163-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-04163-3
©The International Institute for Strategic Studies 1975
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1975
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted, in any form, or by any means,
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or otherwise, without the prior permission
of Chatto & Windu s Ltd
CONTENTS
Preface page 7
Chapter
1 The Division in Pakistan 9
2 March-June: Action and Reaction 33
3 July-August: the Indo-Soviet Treaty 55
4 September-November: the Approach of War 75
5 December: 'The Fourteen Days' War' 106
6 Conclusion 146
Bibliography 162
Appendixes 166
(see list overleaf)
Index 234
APPENDIXES
page
The Awami League's Six Points 166
2 President Yahya Khan's Broadcast of 26 March 1971 168
3 Resolution of the Indian Parliament, 31 March 1971 171
4 President Nikolai Podgorny's Letter to President Yahya
Khan of 2 April 1971 172
5 Mr Chou En-lai's Letter to President Yahya Khan of
13 April 1971 173
6 President Yahya Khan's Broadcast of 28 June 1971 174
7 U Thant's Memorandum to the President of the Security
Council, 19 July 1971 184
8 The Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Co-
operation, 9 August 1971 188
9 Joint Statement by Mr Andrei Gromyko and Mr Swaran
Singh in New Delhi, 12 August 1971 192
10 Joint Statement on the Occasion of Mrs Indira Gandhi's
Visit to Moscow, 29 September 1971 194
11 President Yahya Khan's Broadcast of 12 October 1971 199
12 Mr Chi Peng-fei's Statement of 7 November 1971 205
13 Dr Henry Kissinger's Press Briefing of 7 December 1971
and Ambassador Kenneth Keating's Comments 207
14 Minutes of the Washington Special Action Group Meet-
ings of December 1971 and Mr Jack Anderson's Article
of 10 January 1972 212
15 Diplomatic Cables showing American Attitudes to India
as revealed by Mr Jack Anderson, 12 January 1972 232
16 The Instrument of Surrender of Pakistan Eastern Com-
mand, 16 December 1971 233
MAPS
l The Eastern Front 109-10
2 The Western Front 117-18
PREFACE
THIS book is, of course, primarily intended to tell the story of a nine
month episode in the recent history of South Asia. As such it must
inevitably have a restricted interest. On the other hand, the events
about which I have written coincided with a major shift in the struc
ture of world politics-a reconstruction which both influenced and
was in turn influenced by the events described in this book. What
ever wider interest this study may have must lie in what it tells us
about this crucial passage in the international politics of our time;
and perhaps also in the view which is implicit throughout, that we
cannot understand the problems of modern politics without a firm
grasp of their historical dimension.
The final chapter, misleadingly called Conclusion, is an attempt
both to interpret and to summarize the story told in the preceding
narrative chapters. Some readers may prefer to read it first, or to
read it alone, or not to read it at all.
I would like to thank the Nuffield Foundation for making me a
grant to visit India, Pakistan and Bangladesh in March-April 1972;
and to thank Fran<;ois Duchene and the International Institute for
Strategic Studies for inviting me to undertake the work and for
tolerating its growth beyond the limits which we originally contem
plated. Sir Penderel Moon, Peter Lyon, Neville Maxwell and
Kenneth Hunt very kindly read the manuscript at an early stage. I
am grateful to them, and also to my colleagues of The Round Table,
who kindled my interest in this subject-especially Sir Olaf Caroe,
Michael Howard and Alastair Buchan.
Many people in Britain and in the sub-continent were very helpful
to me in my enquiries, most of them in confidence. I should like to
thank them all: I hope that each will find in the text a fair reflection
of his point of view.
I wish to dedicate this book to the Warden and Fellows of All Souls
College, as a first token of my gratitude for what the College has
given me-among many other things, the opportunity to undertake
this study.
I must also thank Miss Patricia Kerr and Miss Janet Bowling, who
7
SOUTH ASIAN CRISIS
turned a wilderness into a typescript, and the publishers, who have
turned a typescript into an attractive book.
RoBERT jACKSON
All Souls
1 May 1974
8
Chapter I
The Division in Pakistan
THE state of Pakistan that came into existence in 1947 was the ex
pression of a particular historical experience-that of the Indian
Muslims. Its disintegration in 1971 was also a product of that experi
ence. Elsewhere in India Islam remained a conqueror's religion. But
in the delta lands of eastern Bengal, where Brahminical Hindu culture
had never struck deep root, the native inhabitants were peacefully
converted to the faith of their Muslim rulers during the first three
centuries after the Afghan-Turkish conquerors entered Bengal at
the beginning of the thirteenth century. This popular conversion to
Islam under a Muslim aristocracy whose origins and affinities lay
outside Bengal established the necessary condition of the Muslim civil
war in Pakistan in 1971, out of which has now emerged the new state
of Bangladesh.1
At the end of the period of peaceful religious transformation
between the thirteenth and the fifteenth centuries, the Muslim sultan
ate of Bengal was absorbed during the sixteenth century into the
newly established north Indian Mughal empire. Its non-Bengali Mus
lim rulers were drawn into the ascendant Mughal culture, based on
the synthesis of Arabic and Persian influences out of which had sprung
the Urdu language. The division already fixed within Muslim Bengal
was then consolidated into a division between a native Bengali
peasantry, whose version of the Islamic faith was steeped in their
local traditions, and a Persianized, Urdu-speaking ruling class which
owed its primary allegiance to the wider world of Muslim north
India. The higher Bengali culture which had been developing since
the tenth century became a mainly Hindu possession, alienated from
the Persian civilization of the Muslim ascendancy which in the
twentieth century was to provide the cultural basis for the nationality
of Pakistan.
In 1764 the English East India Company succeeded the Mughals
in the government of Bengal. With the introduction of British
1 S. S. Pirzada (ed.) The Foundations of Pakistan; Kamruddin Ahmad,
A Social History of Bengal. For publication details, see the Bibliography
on pp. 162-5.
9