East Pakistani Civil War 1971

The bifurcated Pakistan that existed from August 1947 to December 1971 was composed of two parts, or wings, known as East Pakistan and West Pakistan, separated by 1,600 kilometers of Indian territory. Observers pointed out, however, that the people of the two wings were estranged from each other in language and cultural traditions. The East Wing, notable for its Bengali ethnic homogeneity and its collective Bangla cultural and linguistic heritage, contained over half of the population of Pakistan and sharply contrasted with the ethnic and linguistic diversity of the West Wing. The political leaders of Pakistan, however—particularly those of West Pakistan—asserted that the Islamic faith and a shared fear of "Hindu India" provided an indestructible bond joining the two societies into one nation. This assertion proved flawed.

The country's first nationwide direct elections were held in December 1970. The East Pakistan-based Awami League, campaigning on a platform calling for almost total provincial autonomy, won virtually all the seats allotted to the East Wing and was thereby assured a majority in the national legislature. The results of Pakistan's first nationwide experiment in democracy were not honored. Fearing Bengali dominance in the nation's political affairs, West Pakistani politicians, led by Pakistan People's Party (PPP) leader Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and supported by senior army officers, most of whom were Punjabis, pressured Yahya Khan to postpone the convening of the National Assembly. When the Bengalis of East Pakistan revolted openly at this turn of events, the Pakistani military banned the Awami League, arrested its leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and began a massive military crackdown. In the savage civil war that followed, tens of thousands of Bengalis were killed, and an estimated 10 million people took refuge in India.

In the fall of 1970, a powerful opposition movement emerged in East Pakistan. In December 1970 Pakistan held general elections, its first since independence. The Awami League, headed by East Pakistan's popular Bengali leader Mujibur Rahman (also Sheikh Mujib), won a majority of seats in the new assembly, but West Pakistan's chief martial law administrator and president, General Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan, refused to honor the democratic choice of his nation's majority. As the political struggle between East Pakistan and West Pakistan intensified, the Awami League's military arm (ultimately known as the Mukti Bahini -- Liberation Force, or more loosely translated from Bengali, freedom fighters) assumed the character of a conventional, albeit illegal, armed force. At the end of March 1971, after failed negotiations in which Mujib demanded virtual independence for East Pakistan, Yahya Khan ordered military action.

On March 25, 1971, the Pakistan Army launched a terror campaign calculated to intimidate the Bengalis of East Pakistan into submission. Within hours a wholesale slaughter had commenced in Dhaka, with the heaviest attacks concentrated on the University of Dhaka and the Hindu area of the old town. Bangladeshis remember the date as a day of infamy and liberation. The Pakistan Army systematically killed several hundred Bengalis. Mujib was captured and flown to West Pakistan for incarceration; he called upon his followers in the east to rise up and proclaim their independence as Bangladesh ("Land of the Bengalis"). Various informants, including missionaries and foreign journalists who clandestinely returned to East Pakistan during the war, estimated that by March 28 the loss of life reached 15,000.

After the tragic events of March, India became vocal in its condemnation of Pakistan. An immense flood of East Pakistani refugees, between 8 and 10 million according to various estimates, fled across the border into the Indian state of West Bengal. In April 1971 an Indian parliamentary resolution demanded that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi supply aid to the rebels in East Pakistan. She complied but declined to recognize the provisional government of independent Bangladesh.

During April 1971, military operations spread throughout East Pakistan. The East Bengal Regiment, the East Pakistan Rifles, and most of the East Pakistani police and their auxiliaries joined the revolt. They seized West Pakistani officers serving with these units and killed some of them. The wholesale, planned defection of the Bengalis from the Pakistan Army in the early weeks of the war came as a surprise to the Pakistani command and was of supreme importance to the Bangladesh cause. The Bengali units, after fighting numerous actions against West Pakistani regulars, gradually withdrew and merged with the Mukti Bahini, providing the essential core of leadership and organizational basis for the rest of the war.

India granted sanctuary to the Mukti Bahini and provided bases and substantial matériel and training. The initial operations by the Pakistan Army failed to destroy the Mukti Bahini or to prevent its expansion and development, but by late May 1971 Pakistani authority had been widely reasserted in East Pakistan. Rebel forces were largely confined to the areas near the Indian border states of West Bengal, Assam, and Tripura. Pakistani forces received reinforcements and the assistance of an internal security force called Razakars (Keepers of Public Order) and other collaborators that had been raised in East Pakistan by the Pakistani administration. Denounced by the resistance for collaborating with Pakistani authorities, most Razakars were Urdu-speaking Muslims who had emigrated from the Indian state of Bihar at the time of partition. The weary Pakistani regulars, however, were able to contain a July monsoon offensive by the Mukti Bahini.

Despite the setback, the Mukti Bahini had gained valuable experience and shown increased capability. Back in their border base area, they regrouped. By the end of summer as many as 300,000 people were thought to have lost their lives in the civil war raging in East Pakistan. Recruitment was never a serious problem for the Mukti Bahini, and numerical losses were easily replaced. Indian aid and participation materially increased, and the tempo of fighting again picked up by October, when Pakistan had raised its army troop strength to about 80,000. Border clashes between the Indian and Pakistani armies became frequent.

References

Bangladesh - A Country Study; Pakistan - A Country Study; India - A Country Study.

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