Father sent me to the post office to purchase some postal stationery – postcards, inland-letters, and postal envelop – as, in those days, snail mail was the only medium we could communicate through, with our relatives and friends in other places. As usual, there was a long queue at the counter. I noticed that people who were leaving the counter were coming back not only with the stationary they required but also a stamp of red color. I stopped a gentleman and asked him why everyone was purchasing the red colored stamp. He looked on me – a child in the seventh standard – with a rather proud smile and asked me to read, showing me the stamp. It read Shranarthi Sahaita in Hindi and Refugee Relief in English; the value was 5 P.
I do preserve one of those historical stamps in my personal collection, a look on which still pumps some extra dose of adrenaline into my bloodstream with a feeling of national pride, which for me still means helping poor and wronged people, irrespective of their religious affiliations, ethnicity or gender against their oppressors.
The Beginning Of Bangladesh
Refugees were pouring into the country; Bengalis by ethnicity, Muslims by religion, from what was then called East Pakistan, in thousands, the same people who, it is said once had opted for partition of Bengal in the British period and then the partition of India on religious lines, going along Mr. Jinna’s creation called Pakistan, in quest of a promised “Muslim Homeland”. This homeland was centred in Panjabi, Sindhi dominated West Pakistan, which was 2,208 km away even for a bird to fly through the shortest route, having no point of territorial contiguity; and had a distinctly different culture, language and script.
Now, when the majority of Pakistan returned a Bengali Mujibur Rahman to head the national government, the people in the West not only denied him the democratic right but the Pakistani army launched a massive genocide in the East starting with its infamous “Operation Searchlight” of March 25, 1971. Many hundred thousand or many million, ordinary people, men, women, and children were killed, and many hundred thousand women were raped, by their co-religionists.
India kept its borders open for the refugees who could flee the pogrom, but the financial burden soon started to become too cumbersome. Pakistan, under its military dictator Yahya Khan, was making two kills with one stone, suppressing the Bengali morale and shaking the Indian economy with the flood of refugees.
Earlier, Pakistan in its complete audacity had, under its earlier military dictator Ayub Khan, launched a massive full-scale offensive against India which had resulted into the biggest tank battle since the second World War, and had miserably failed.
Now, for India, no option was left but to strike.
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi Wanted Immediate Action
On April 25, 1971, Indira Gandhi summoned a cabinet meeting in which Chief of the Indian Army Staff, Field Marshal Manekshaw was also called. According to what Manekshaw shared with Pupul Jayakar, who authored the book “Indira Gandhi: A Biography,” a few decades after the Bangladesh war; Indira Gandhi asked him whether he was aware of Pakistan army’s killings and the resulting influx of refugees into India, and on his affirmation she said:
“You must stop them. If necessary, move into East Pakistan but stop them.”
“You know that means war!” Manekshaw exclaimed.
“I don’t mind if it’s war,” Indira said.
Manekshaw said, “If India wages a war now, I guarantee you 100% defeat.”
He explained the danger that due to the outbreak of monsoon, troop movements would be confined to roads, the rest of the land would be marshy, and the rivers would become like oceans. He pointed about other reasons to postpone, like drawing of troops from positions where they were posted to counter the Naxalites, their retraining for the new task, and the onset of harvesting season in Punjab.
“The Air Force will not be able to operate. I will be tied down,” he added.
He, recalled a red-faced Prime Minister postponing the meeting till 4 PM and asking him to stay back with her. When alone he asked her if she wanted his resignation? Adding, but he had to tell her the truth.
“All right, Sam; go ahead – I trust you,” said Indira with an approving smile.
Rigorous preparations were undertaken since then. No space was given to hasty decisions. The result was a historic victory for India, unparalleled by any other military intervention in the post-world-war era till then.
On December 16, 1971, Lt. General AAK Niazi, of Pakistan surrendered to Lt. General Jagjit Singh Aurora of India with his 90,000 men strong army, and Bangladesh was liberated. The war itself remained only a 14-day affair. This victory was achieved even though America had sent its flotilla to the region, which was seen as a possible nuclear threat to India in support of its old-time ally, Pakistan. The threat was however neutralized as the then USSR sent its nuclear-armed submarine on the trail of the flotilla and thus it did not take an active role in the conflict (till that time neither India nor Pakistan was a nuclear power).
India Gets Nuclear
A little after 8:05 am on May 18, 1974, Raja Ramanna the brilliant scientist, made his way through the deserts of Rajasthan to a village from where he on an unsecured phone line called Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who was anxiously waiting for the call and gave her a succinct message “The Buddha,” he reportedly told her, “has finally smiled.”
Ramanna had to come to the village from Pokhran, where an exclusive phone line set for the purpose, unfortunately, did not work. This message was the coded news of India’s first successful nuclear blast. The test was the first confirmed nuclear test by a nation that was not a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. India had become an atomic power. Now, Pakistan dare not wage another regular war against India and resorted to proxy war instead, under another of its military dictators, Ziaul Haque, first through insurgents in Kashmir, later also through militants brainwashed for terrorist acts in the name of Khalistan movement in Punjab, and finally finding recruits among disgruntled youths throughout India, hurt and alienated, as many of them have claimed, because of the mosque demolition at Ayodhya at the hands of Karsevaks, motivated and mobilized mainly by the BJP.
Religious bigotry and xenophobia came handy for proponents of “free market,” in order to mask the real socioeconomic issues, and tilting the economy away from its socialist orientation at both sides of the LOC, which fructified in the so-called economic reforms.
Pulwama, Balakot And A Cloudy Weather Again
Fast forward 2019.
Terror struck in Pulwama of Kashmir again, when the Indian democracy was gearing up to perform its most sacred duty of choosing the central government for the coming five years, as the previously elected government was about to complete its term. Forty people, soldiers, were martyred in the attack. JeM, a terrorist outfit operating from Pakistan claimed responsibility. The entire nation across party affiliations, social strata, and religious denominations burned with rage asking the government to teach the perpetrators a lesson.
The Indian Air Force in a bold action struck at a facility of the JeM terror training at Balakot in Pakistan, with a calculated, limited, and precise force; killing only the inmates of that facility, not harming any Pakistani civilian or even a military person. The entire action was jubilantly backed by the nation when the news broke in the morning. Pakistanis tried to retaliate in a goofed-up action and were chased right back into their homeland.
Only a few days later, the Hon’ble PM of India Mr. Modi came out in public, that on the night of the strike when review meetings were going on, the Air Force experts said that the weather had become cloudy and suggested that the operation be called off for some later date, but the Hon’ble PM told them that the cloudy weather, in fact, gave an advantage to our jets of remaining concealed behind the clouds from the enemy radars, and thus, the strike be carried out on that night itself, and so was it done.
Leaving the uproar at the social media about the ability of radars to see through clouds that followed aside, I found that perhaps the cloudy weather does not affect radar, but it does affect weapons. Perhaps it was the weather which prevented the Air Force from taking footage of the hit target on that night. The PM though might be justified in his hurry on account of concerns of secrecy compromise in case of a delay.
This news, however, compels one to wonder about the way the two prime ministers of India took expert military advice; one in 1971 and the other in 2019, respectively.
One also wonders what was the hurry to disclose the details, claiming a personal boldness and sagacity within a few days?
Was the Hon’ble PM trying to benefit in the elections from the excitement of public sentiments, much like the Pakistani rulers do?
Interestingly, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan thinks there may be a better chance of peace talks with India if Prime Minister Narendra Modi wins the general election.