Soon after the start of the civil war in East Pakistan in March 1971, Indira Gandhi consulted her army chief, Gen. Manekshaw, about a military campaign in East Pakistan. Manekshaw stated that the Indian army was not prepared for an offensive operation in East Pakistan or for the inevitable Pakistani military counterthrust in West Pakistan and that it would take six to seven months to prepare for conflict on both fronts.
New Delhi also considered it essential to have a Bangladeshi force, the Mukti Bahini, deeply involved in any military action in East Pakistan and recognised that it would take some time to organize and train these units for both guerrilla and conventional warfare (Sisson and Rose). The Indian army participated fully in the civil war. It trained the Mukti Bahini (which reached an active strength of 100k by November 1971), and it suffered about 5000 casualties while fighting alongside the Mukti Bahini against Pakistani forces in East Pakistan.
The months from March to October weakened the Pakistan Army a lot, which was facing huge losses, logistical difficulties, and consistent battles all over East Pakistan. Manekshaw decided in March or April that a military campaign against East Pakistan would begin in November or December, after the monsoon. According to Srinath Raghavan, India ramped up its aggression in October and started penetrating and capturing territory inside East Pakistan to a depth of 10 miles.
After capturing East Pakistan territory, the Indian forces retreated and left the Mukti Bahini soldiers in the posts. The idea was to capture important salients in East Pakistan that would assist in the eventual full-fledged military intervention. Finally, on November 22, India launched a full-fledged attack on East Pakistan, and from then on, the Indians started holding the captured territory themselves and deputed the Mukti Bahini to conduct reconnaissance and other behind-the-scenes activities.
On the Pakistani side, there was utter confusion regarding Indian intentions in East Pakistan during the civil war months. Yahya Khan refused to believe that India would attack East Pakistan despite the fact that Pakistani intelligence had procured India’s military plans regarding the campaign against East Pakistan as early as August 1971. Our generals were also perplexed about Indian war objectives. Did India just want to “liberate” a sizable chunk of territory inside East Pakistan and establish an Awami League government there? Or did they want to utterly defeat the Pakistani Army and force them to surrender or withdraw from East Pakistan?
In hindsight, this debate seems a bit odd. Particularly since, by October, India had seized approximately 7,700 square kilometers of East Pakistan territory and turned it over to the Mukti Bahini. Nevertheless, this debate refused to die out until early December 1971. As a result of this uncertainty, Commander Eastern Command Gen. Niazi was not permitted to abandon far-flung border areas in order to redeploy his scant forces for a more robust defense of important areas, especially the vital Dhaka triangle.
In comparison to the western front, the relative strength of forces on the eastern front was significantly lopsided in favor of India. According to Sarbans Singh, “(Lt. General) Aurora [commander of Indian Eastern Command] had at his disposal close to half a million men and women of the army, paramilitary forces, and the Bangladesh forces, including the Mukti Bahini, under his command, more than any lieutenant general had ever commanded before or since.” Indian army divisions and many independent brigades faced three incomplete infantry divisions of the Pakistan army. The Indian army outnumbered the Pakistani army’s 40 000 or so men by a factor of four.
Regarding firepower, the difference was even greater (1:8). Because the heavy weapons of the two divisions sent to East Pakistan after March remained in West Pakistan, a single Pakistani division in the Lahore sector possessed more artillery and armored firepower than the entire Eastern Command. The disparity was even greater in the air, with 14 Pakistani aircraft facing approximately 150 Indian combat aircraft.
The Pakistan Navy was virtually absent from East Pakistan, and the Bay of Bengal was under complete Indian control, with the Indian aircraft carrier Vikrant leading East Pakistan’s naval siege. It had been estimated and accepted within Pakistan\’s military hierarchy that the navy and air force wouldn’t be able to operate after the first 24 hours of the outbreak of a full-scale war. Thus, an outnumbered Pakistan Army had to fight a war without air or naval support in a land where the bulk of the population was alienated and a robust Mukti Bahini was wreaking havoc on the logistics and lines of communication.
The outcome was a foregone conclusion. East Pakistan\’s garrison’s only hope was to hold out for as long as possible in order to provide time for our army in the West to register spectacular victories and force the Indians to the negotiating table before the destruction of East Pakistan by the Indian military.
Interestingly, Eastern Command’s military deployment ran counter to this plan. To fight for an extended period of time, the Pakistani army had to abandon numerous salient border areas that were difficult to defend and focus on more important locations such as urban centers and communication hubs. It was imperative to defend Dhaka and deploy sizable forces there because Dhaka was the center and the heart of East Pakistan.
A sizable Pakistan force in Dhaka could have fought on for several weeks by engrossing the Indians in urban warfare. But Niazi kept his forces strung out and spread along the borders till the very end. He had selected the “fortress strategy” for East Pakistan’s defense. According to this strategy, several important towns were given the status of fortresses. The army was to concentrate in these places (where rations and ammunition were stocked for a period of 30–60 days) and then continue fighting till the bitter end.
But the problem was: how to get to the fortresses (located dozens of miles away from the border) under Indian air supremacy with Mukti Bahini behind our lines? It is important to remember that East Pakistan is a land full of natural obstacles, particularly water obstacles. India had developed the capability to use helicopters and hovercrafts to deal with these obstacles and leapfrog Pakistan\’s defenses. During the war, India used this capability to successfully land large forces behind Pakistani lines in the Brahman-Baria sector and Tangail.
Some Indian writers give the impression that Indians didn’t have a plan to go for Dhaka initially and that they only went for Dhaka when they realized the weakness of Pakistani forces. This is incorrect, and the Chief of Staff of the Indian Eastern Command, General Jacob, clearly stated that Dhaka was the main objective, and the army was instructed to bypass smaller towns in order to quickly reach and capture Dhaka.
On November 22, Indian forces launched an air and armored assault on Pakistani forces. Their aim was to capture important salients and jumping-off points for the main offensive against Dhaka, which was scheduled to begin on December 4, 1971.
On the 3rd of December, Pakistan activated the Western Front. The Napoleons in the West didn’t even bother to inform Niazi about the start of hostilities on the Western Front. According to Kamal Matinuddin, had Niazi been given an advance notice of a few days, he might have been able to bring back some of his forces from the border areas into the designated fortresses. In early December, Niazi had committed almost all his forces on the borders, and there wasn’t even a single battalion of the regular army inside the Dhaka triangle!
Later, Niazi did order many units to retreat towards Dhaka, but almost all of them declared themselves unable to do so and didn’t even try. The sole exception was the 93rd Infantry Brigade (HQ Mymensingh), which was smashed to pieces while trying to reach Dhaka’s rescue. It cannot be denied that the tired and depleted Pakistani forces in East Pakistan fought gallantly, but the overwhelming enemy numerical and material superiority coupled with Niazi’s disastrous leadership left them no chance of any success. Several fortresses (Bogra, Sylhet, Khulna, Chittagong, Rangpur, Dinajpur, Comilla, and Bhairab Bazar, etc.) stayed under Pakistani control up until 16 December, and troops there could have continued fighting for some more days or even weeks.
The Battle of Hilli, where a single battalion of the 4th Frontier Force thwarted a whole Indian division for 20 days before successfully withdrawing to the fortress of Bogra (after the Indians tried to encircle Hilli), was a Pakistani version of the Battle of Thermopylae. Nevertheless, strategically speaking, Dhaka was the key, and by December 14, both Niazi and Yahya were beginning to think that it couldn’t be defended as there were no significant Pakistani forces apart from some paramilitary units in Dhaka.
On December 14, Yahya sent the following unclassified message to Niazi: “You have fought a heroic battle against overwhelming odds. The nation is proud of you, and the world is full of admiration. I have done all that is humanly possible to find an acceptable solution to the problem. You have now reached a stage where further resistance is neither humanly possible nor useful. It will only lead to further loss of life and destruction. You should now take all necessary measures to stop the fighting and preserve the lives of armed forces personnel, all those from West Pakistan, and all loyal elements. Meanwhile, I have asked the U.N. to urge India to stop hostilities in East Pakistan forthwith and to guarantee the safety of the armed forces and all other people who may be the likely target of miscreants.” This message was unclassified and, hence, could and did reach the Indians easily as well. Interestingly, the Indians didn’t know of Pakistan’s weakness in Dhaka, and they were planning to delay their final assault on Dhaka for a few days in order to bring up heavy weapons and massive reinforcements.
However, this message made it clear to them that the Pakistani high command had no intention of fighting in Dhaka. So, on December 15, Indian army chief General Manekshaw urged Niazi to surrender. At 11:50 p.m. on December 15, Gen. Hamid (Pakistan Army COAS) sent a signal to Niazi indicating the approval of Manekshaw’s terms, i.e., surrender.
I’ve been asked several times if the surrender could be avoided. In my humble opinion, yes. Had Niazi and Yahya not lost their nerve, they could have held on in Dhaka for at least 3–4 more days. The bulk of the military was outside Dhaka anyway, where they could have continued resisting for days or even weeks from their fortresses.
By continuing the war even after Dhaka fell, the Pakistani army would have forced India to fight pitched battles in dozens of East Pakistan cities. It must be remembered here that with the victory in East Pakistan and the birth of Bangladesh secured, India would have found it very cumbersome to continue fighting and incurring casualties in places like Bogra and Khulna, etc. India was also facing international pressure to end the war. By mid-December, even the Soviet Union wanted the conflict over quickly.
So, India might well have been amenable to a negotiated agreement that would let the Pakistani forces evacuate and withdraw from East Pakistan instead of insisting on an unconditional surrender. Of course, every action has consequences. Had this course been chosen, many civilians (Biharis and loyal Bengalis) would have suffered horrific massacres in all cities captured after the battle by the Indians. The situation would have been especially horrific in Dhaka.
In the conventional war against India, the Pakistan army suffered approximately 1600 casualties in East Pakistan. That figure might well have reached 8–10,000 in this scenario. But how could Pakistan, an Islamic ideological state, surrender? No matter what the cost, it isn’t befitting for a Muslim army to surrender. Thousands of Biharis and loyal Bengalis were slaughtered after December 16. And by sacrificing thousands of lives while keeping its honour intact, the Pakistan Army would have finally broken free of intellectual slavery to the Western military model.
A new Islamic tradition of honor and sacrifice would have thenceforth defined the Pakistan Army, and the thousands of shaheeds and ghazis of East Pakistan would have kept the flame alive and turned this ethos into the army’s tradition. But expecting officers like Niazi and Yahya to behave like Masood Ghazi and follow in the footsteps of Imam Hussain is probably ludicrous. You reap what you sow. So, an abject surrender by Niazi at Dhaka was the verdict of history. Sadly, we haven’t learned. We are still following the same political and military traditions and committing the same mistakes. If the historical verdict at the next test of strength in the cosmic struggle going on for more than 1000 years in the subcontinent also remains the same, then will it be surprising in the least? No.
This article expands upon the content discussed in the thread initiated by Dr. Hassaan Bokhari (@shbokhari13).
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