1971: How Pak lost the plot, war and its eastern half

On 29 November, Yahya Khan decided to launch an all-out attack on India on the western front. He had scant hope of success, but he felt that the reputation of the Pakistan army would suffer irreparable damage if it were to lose East Pakistan without a full-scale war. He later admitted that the army could not have lived down the ignominy of surrendering East Pakistan without fighting an all-out war with India.

The date of the attack was set for 2 December, but it was later postponed by a day. New Delhi was hoping for just such a decision. It hoped that Pakistan itself would initiate a full-fledged war, conceding to India the legal and political advantage.

When Pakistan finally launched its attack on Indian forward airbases on the western front on the evening of 3 December 1971, the Indians were fully prepared. Early warning radars had been suitably positioned, and aircraft had been dispersed and camouflaged. The attack turned out to be a fiasco. The air strikes were followed up with assaults on Indian ground positions in the Chhamb and Ferozepur areas.

With these attacks across India’s western borders, Pakistan started the war that India had been preparing to fight since April 1971. By the end of November, India had completed its military and diplomatic preparations for a short and decisive military campaign leading to the liberation of Bangladesh. Its armed forces were in position. It had ensured that the Soviet Union would veto a hostile US or Chinese resolution in the Security Council, and signals had also been received from two other permanent members of the Security Council – France and the UK – indicating differences with their US ally. The war launched by Pakistan gave India the justification it was seeking for according formal recognition to the People’s Republic of Bangladesh.

The next day, India and Bangladesh entered into an agreement to create a Joint Command for the liberation war under Lt Gen Jagjit Singh Aurora. The general was explicitly instructed to report to both the Indian and Bangladesh governments.

The US ‘tilt’

Nixon’s ‘tilt’ towards Pakistan posed the most formidable challenge to the attainment of India’s aims. On 1 December, even before the outbreak of war, Nixon suspended military sales to India. This, in itself, was a matter of little practical consequence, since India’s arms imports from the US were negligible. Indeed, the State Department had earlier pointed out the futility of the move.

More serious were three other manifestations of the White House “tilt”. First, immediately upon the outbreak of war, the United States raised the issue in the United Nations. It spared no effort to impose an immediate ceasefire and troop withdrawals through a Security Council resolution, before the liberation war could be brought to a successful conclusion.

An early ceasefire imposed by the Security Council was precisely the contingency that India had feared and anticipated in drawing up its strategic plans. India relied on a Soviet veto to thwart such initiatives until military operations had reached a successful conclusion.

Second, Nixon and Kissinger attempted to ‘scare off’ or intimidate India by sending a nuclear carrier task force into the Indian Ocean while also encouraging China to exert military pressure on India’s borders. While New Delhi had anticipated the UN move, a menacing US naval presence in the Indian Ocean had previously been dismissed by Indian policymakers as inconceivable.

Finally, the White House tried to undercut Soviet support for India by linking this issue with the prospects of detente. The Bangladesh crisis erupted at a time when the United States and the Soviet Union were engaged in exploring the possibility of detente. A major breakthrough was expected during Nixon’s planned visit to Moscow in May 1972.

A ceasefire appeal and its repudiation

The Indian army raced towards Dhaka from three directions – west, north and north-east. It received an enthusiastic welcome everywhere from the local population. The freedom fighters spread out all over the countryside. On 6 December, CIA Director Richard Helms reported that on a conservative estimate, it would take ten days for India to compel Pakistani forces to surrender on the eastern front.

On 8 December, the day after the adoption of the General Assembly resolution, Yahya Khan confided to the American ambassador that the situation in East Pakistan was “beyond hope”. Thus, within the first week of the war, the Pakistani collapse in the eastern theatre was clear to all informed observers. Yahya authorised the governor to make an alternative offer limited to a ceasefire in East Pakistan, guarantees of the safety of Pakistani ar