48th Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Kashi
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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by Kashi »

ranjan.rao wrote::rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
Must be a shocker for the aam abdul to see the creation of bangladesh after 4 days!
Off topic, I miss the 90s or early 2000s when PTV was available on cable and we did not have to bear such rubbish from our own media.
Must be why many of them still do not accept that they lost in 1971. They believe that their army was on the brink of assaulting Delhi and had it not been for Niazi (called Ahmadi Niazi in some accounts), the Hindus would have been vanquished from Karachi to Calcutta.

It was pretty much the same during Kargil war. They simply refused to accept the reports of arse-kicking being received by their faujis all the while proclaiming itadaakimaas.
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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

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shiv
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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by shiv »

Reality begins to "Dawn" on Pakis - but the lies continue 15 Dec 1971

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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

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Happy Paki surrender day everyone!

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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by deejay »

Waah! Waah. Kya scene hai. Super. Kashi saar, Shiv ji, thanks for this blast from the past thread. I hope we do it again and this time in North, South, East, West and Central Pakistan.

Jai Ho.
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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by shiv »

VINASHA KAALE VIPAREETA BUDDHI!

On the day the surrender was signed
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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by shiv »

The sahibs are crying inside

The end was as duplicitous as the beginning. When General Yahya Khan ordered his air force to strike India on the western front on 3 December 1971, he was only repeating history. He was taking whole leaves out of the books written earlier by Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Field Marshal Ayub Khan. In autumn 1947, Pakistan’s irascible founder had sent in Pakistani soldiers, camouflaged as tribals, into Kashmir. In 1965, the adventuristic Ayub Khan did a similar act. In both instances, there was disaster for Pakistan. All that was achieved was a loss of face. Jinnah’s ambitions prevented any chance of a plebiscite in Kashmir. Ayub’s overweening self-confidence made him eat humble pie in Tashkent.

Of course Yahya Khan did not despatch his soldiers in the guise of tribesmen to the western front with India. But that he hoped to pin the Indians down in the west, in the expectation that they would stop in their tracks to Dhaka in the company of the Mukti Bahini, was the thought that drove him in those final hours of a country on its way to losing its eastern half to Bengali nationalists. The desperation did not pay. And yet in those final days, the state of Pakistan played out a tragicomedy of its own making. Politics, never a serious proposition in the country, turned into a definitive farce in those December days.

Observe. On the very day that Yahya ordered those air strikes on Indian air bases, not knowing that Indira Gandhi had judiciously had her jet fighters relocated days earlier, he decreed a quasi-civilian government for Pakistan. He called it, in what was clearly a moment of dark comedy, a transfer of power to the elected representatives of the people. No, he was not giving up his job. No, he would not tell his country that the real elected representatives of the people were at that point well on their way to assuming charge of a new nation called Bangladesh, about to emerge from the ashes of East Pakistan. For him, the elected representatives were Nurul Amin, a leading Bengali collaborator of the army then trapped in (West) Pakistan, and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the man whose refusal to play the role of leader of the opposition in the aborted national assembly had precipitated the crisis. Nurul Amin was named prime minister. Bhutto assumed the twin roles of deputy prime minister and foreign minister. He was swiftly sent off to New York to argue Pakistan’s case at the UN Security Council.

Away in Dhaka, Pakistan was coming apart. The centre was not being able to hold. General Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi vowed to fight to the end. The Indians, he roared, would have to take Dhaka over his dead body. Only days later, Dhaka would be taken and Niazi would still be alive. But between the boast and the surrender, bucketfuls of tears would flow. Intercepted army radio conversations were revealing of the plight of soldiers who had over the preceding nine months bravely murdered Bengalis in the towns and villages and raped their women in the tens of thousands. These soldiers, dishevelled and bedraggled, were all on their way to Dhaka, having progressively lost the towns they had terrorised since March-April of the year. It was a terrible spectacle of a putatively disciplined army declining into the state of a ragtag band of demoralised, fearful men desperate to save themselves from the wrath of a nation they had humiliated for months.

Rao Farman Ali, the cool, sinister, calculative general who ticked off the names of the Bengalis to be abducted and killed, was suddenly a frightened man in December. Fright often gives way to last-ditch measures to secure one’s safety. For Farman Ali, it was a simple matter of ordering the al-Badr and al-Shams, the razakar goon squads the army had built as a bulwark against Bengali aspirations to freedom, to pick up and then pick off as many of the best of Bengali minds they could lay their hands on. The assassins lost not a moment in heeding the instructions. Over a period of three days between 13 and 15 December, even as Pakistan was gasping for breath in an ever-shrinking East Pakistan, they went on an orgy of murder. No fewer than a hundred and fifty leading Bengalis — journalists, academics, doctors, writers, poets — were murdered. The point was simple: Pakistan was dying, but let that not hamper the job of leaving a soon-to-be born Bangladesh intellectually crippled at birth.

At the United Nations, Pakistan’s friends went frantic with calls for a ceasefire, for good reason. On the one hand, they sought to prevent a collapse of West Pakistan, where Indian soldiers were making steady inroads. On the other, they were anxious about a political settlement being reached in East Pakistan. In the event, none of the measures worked, for two very good reasons. The first was the desire of the Indian army and the Mukti Bahini not to accept any ceasefire until Dhaka had been liberated. The second was the clear intention of the Soviet Union to veto every resolution calling for a ceasefire as long as the whole of Bangladesh did not stand liberated. Pakistan stood no chance, not even with US President Richard Nixon despatching the Seventh Fleet to the Bay of Bengal, the palpable aim being to intimidate Delhi and Mujibnagar into calling a halt to their march.

Two days before Dhaka fell, Khan Abdus Sabur, the notoriously prominent collaborator of the Pakistan army, would tell the dwindling, frightened band of collaborationist Bengalis that a free Bangladesh would be an illegitimate child of India. He was blissfully unaware of the travails the quisling cabinet of Abdul Mutalib Malek was going through and, with it, the pains the leading officers of the Pakistan army were going through. The puppet governor, quite unaware of the ground realities relating to the war, had till that point of time been endlessly reassured by Niazi that Pakistan’s soldiers were having a field day vanquishing the enemy. But then came Rao Farman Ali’s communications with the UN representative in Dhaka, exchanges that clearly had the Pakistani officer ask for a ceasefire and guarantees of safety for his soldiers.

As an inebriated Yahya Khan, a thousand miles away in Rawalpindi, persisted in asking the army to fight on, Malek summoned Niazi for a full picture on the ground. The ‘tiger’, for that was how he wished to be known, broke down. It was then for Malek to comfort Niazi. Everyone in the room — officers, civilians, the governor’s staff — wept. And into that funereal scene stepped a Bengali servant at Governor’s House, with tea and biscuits for everyone. He was immediately howled out of the room. Once outside, he could not resist the temptation of telling his curious colleagues what he had just witnessed. ‘The sahibs are crying inside’, he whispered in a state of obvious glee.

Every one of the defenders of Pakistan — military officers, Bengali collaborators, civil and police officials despatched from (West) Pakistan to man the administration in occupied Bangladesh — was in a state of fear, indeed in tears. As Indian jets bombed the governor’s residence, Malek took refuge in an air raid shelter. On a thin piece of paper attached to the foil of a cigarette packet, he wrote out his resignation to be sent to Yahya Khan. And then he and all the puppet ministers, along with their Pakistani civilian officers, were lodged in the safe confines of the Intercontinental, which by then had been turned into a Red Cross neutral zone.

The skies over Dhaka were a free run for Indian jets and helicopters, for the Pakistan air force had been destroyed on the ground by the Indians within minutes of Yahya’s declaration of war. And from those helicopters now floated down tens of thousands of leaflets from General S.H.F.J. Manekshaw, instructing Pakistan’s army to surrender peacefully. On the move, the Mukti Bahini and the Indian army killed the miles on the road to Dhaka. At the United Nations, Bhutto screamed his heart out, promising a thousand-year war with India, refusing to acknowledge his country’s defeat at the hands of Bangladesh. He stormed out of the Security Council as a bemused audience watched.

The end came swiftly. On the afternoon of 16 December, Pakistan, in the person of A.A.K. Niazi, bit the dust in what had been its eastern province. As many as 93,000 soldiers of the Pakistan army, having turned into a marauding, rampaging band of murderers and rapists over the preceding nine months, capitulated at the Race Course.

And here is the irony. Born through blood and gore, with tens of thousands of Hindus and Muslims dying in the sinister shadow of the Muslim League’s spurious two-nation theory in 1947, Pakistan collapsed in Bangladesh, under the weight of the three million corpses of Bengalis it had put to death in 1971. That was comeuppance.
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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by shiv »

http://www.thedailystar.net/op-ed/it-im ... 971-187654
Julian Francis

I appreciated Sushmita Preetha's article, Do You Really Remember? (TDS, November 26, 2015). It is encouraging to read the writing of a member of the younger generation on the Liberation War.

Recently I attended a Planning Commission seminar about "Extreme Poverty" and in the address by one of the officials, I learnt that 76 percent of the current population is less than 40 years old and may not know the accurate history regarding the formation of this country. I am regularly asked to write about my memories of 1971 and when I express that I find it difficult to write the same things year after year, Bangladeshis my age, and older, tell me that I must keep on writing as it is important that the people of this country are reminded again and again about the true history of the period before, during and after the Liberation War.

For someone who witnessed the birth of Bangladesh, it is painful and difficult to understand that some Bangladeshis do not support the war crimes trials. Surely justice must be done! There are also those in Pakistan who deny that any genocide took place. Whenever someone tells me this or I read this, I become very angry and also incredulous. I remember families of Bangladeshis – Hindus and Muslims – coming in a traumatised state across the border to access some of the over 900 refugee camps. Men, women and children of all ages, struck dumb by the horror of seeing some of their loved ones murdered before they managed to escape. I remember being in a hospital in Krishnanagar, West Bengal, in June 1971 at the same time as an international reporter from, I believe, Newsweek. I remember this young girl in a colourful dress and this is how the reporter recorded our meeting with this girl who was about 10 years old:

The story of one shy little girl in a torn pink dress with red and green bows has a peculiar horror. She could not have been a danger to anyone. Yet I met her in a hospital in Krishnanagar, hanging nervously back among the other patients, her hand covering the livid scar on her neck where a Pakistani soldier had cut her throat with his bayonet. “I am Ismatar, the daughter of the late Ishaque Ali,” she said formally. “My father was a businessman in Kushtia. About two months ago he left our house and went to his shop and I never saw him again. That same night after I went to bed, I heard shouts and screaming, and when I went to see what was happening, the Punjabi soldiers were there. My four sisters were lying dead on the floor, and I saw that they had killed my mother. While I was there they shot my brother – he was a Bachelor of Science. Then a soldier saw me and stabbed me with his knife. I fell to the floor and played dead. When the soldiers left I ran and a man picked me up on his bicycle and I was brought here.” Suddenly, as if she could no longer bear to think about her ordeal, the girl left the room. The hospital doctor was explaining to me that she was brought to the hospital literally soaked in her own blood, when she pushed her way back through the patients and stood directly in front of me. “What am I to do?” she asked. “Once I had five sisters and a brother and a father and mother. Now I have no family. I am an orphan. Where can I go? What will happen to me?”

Perhaps it is necessary to remind people about what happened in 1971 and it is important to accurately inform members of the younger generations of the genocide unleashed by the Pakistani army and their collaborators. Because of 'Operation Searchlight', 10 million refugees came to India, most of them living in appalling conditions in the refugee camps. I cannot forget seeing 10 children fight for one chapatti. I cannot forget the child queuing for milk, vomitting, collapsing and dying of cholera. I cannot forget the woman lying in the mud, groaning and giving birth.

We had heard of the genocide from the night of March 25. Thousands upon thousands were rounded up and shot, machine-gunned or bayoneted. From March 25 to 31, it was estimated that about 200,000 Bangalees had been killed. An Italian priest living in Jessore at the time told me that in Jessore, around 10,000 people had been killed in 10 days after March 25.

It is most unfortunate that the details of mass graves (and the number of bodies) all over the country have not been properly recorded. Only last year, in Kaliganj, Gazipur, I heard of hundreds of Bangladeshi male Christians being machine-gunned into a mass grave nearby a church in 1971.
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However, what about the actual numbers? By the end of May 1971, I remember a Dhaka University professor, Samir Paul, who was, as a refugee, helping us to organise camp activities, telling me that till then it was estimated that one million Bangalees had been killed inside Bangladesh until that time (May 1971).

It is clear to me that many Bangladeshis died on their way to India and many more died after coming to the refugee camps, as a result of the injuries incurred on the way. I saw people with bullet wounds and bayonet wounds and some of them did not manage to survive.

During the cholera epidemic, I remember that in one refugee camp of 15,000 people, over 750 died in one month - about 5 percent. People should also remember that many of the refugee camps were severely flooded during the heavy monsoon of 1971. Sanitation could not be maintained and many died of gastroenteritis as well as cholera. By September 1971, hundreds of children were dying every day from malnutrition and doctors, who had also earlier worked in Biafra, were of the opinion that the malnutrition in the Indian refugee camps was worse than that of Biafra. Many more children died as a result of the severe winter. In mid-November, an accepted figure of the number of children dying was 4,300 per day in the refugee camps alone. I remember attending a coordination meeting at that time where it was estimated that by the end of December 1971 up to 500,000 children would have died largely from malnutrition.

Aid officials of the time estimated that between 20 and 30 million Bangladeshis had been internally displaced inside Bangladesh, and there would have been significant deaths from those numbers.

The US government archives may suggest that a total of only 300,000 died and the Pakistan archives say that only 2 million refugees came to India. Everyone should know that both these figures are complete nonsense!

Personally, I consider all the deaths of the people who left their homes as a result of the actions of the Pakistan authorities and their collaborators as genocidal deaths. Perhaps we will never know the accurate figure; it could easily be over three million.

I hope Sushmita Preetha and others continue to remind us of the true history of the formation of Bangladesh.



The writer was the Coordinator of OXFAM's relief programme for the refugees from Bangladesh and has lived and worked in Bangladesh for many years. In March 2012, he received the Friends of Liberation War Honour from the Government of Bangladesh.
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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by Paul »

Tiget Niazi chatting with Gen Jacob and a Brit journalist before a lunch party arranged b Niazi for Indian army,

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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by Paul »

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Pashtuns RTing this picture
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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by Amber G. »

Pakis are still mad, because of these tweets...from Bangladesh..

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and ..

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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by Amber G. »

I still have copies of NY Times of 1971 saved.
Remember a few fun tidbits from news reports here in US..

- India had complete air control (after just a few days) -- per one reporter -- the number of paki civilians who died due to blackouts (cars being driven without lights) were more than those killed by air-strikes. Near Dhaka airport, in the last few days, reporters were freely filming raids from hotel-roof tops -- confident that IAF was only bombing runways and military targets.

- Surrender "ceremony" was broadcasted live..(with someone claiming that wife of Gen Arora was was in Dhaka then too, to be with her husband).. reporters claiming that they had more freedom from Indian army ..than they had in Vietnam.

- One CBS reporter was amazed at the number of strikes IAF did at Karachi - he said some thing like "they say IAF has only 500 planes..but I have seen more planes in last 24 hour period..something like 100 raids in a single day each consisting of 4-5 planes. There simply was NO resistance.. no Paki planes.

(Though the Nixon & co was anti-India they kept hidden it from aam US janata.. which was not really anti-india)
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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by Amber G. »

Some photos from that time ... (sorry if they have been posted)

Dhaka - Vijay Divas 1971
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Addressing aam admi .
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Many were watching it live:
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And talking-heads were showing maps:
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American reporters favorite pictures .. (T55 on the way to Dhaka)
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And also in news were horrible pictures of the Bravery of Pakis..
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Meanwhile in West Bangladesh..
Peshavar - Roof of a Hotel (Pakistan at that time - just before war was popular place - they called it



- West called it "swinging 70's".. with pubs, and hippie places to hangout..
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While Bhutoji promised he will eat grass .. (the picture is 1972)
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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by shiv »

17 December 1971 Paki denial and anger
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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by shiv »

And in the glorious traditions of the Paki army - this is what Yahya Khan was doing
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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by member_29247 »

On a slightly lighter note but still a tribute to the leadership of Indian Armed forces

After the 1971 war victory
President Nixon telephoned to IG complimenting the victory ( grudgingly) and asked for a favor

Nixon said that due to imminent defeat by Vietcong in Vietnam war wanted IG to give three generals on secondment to US.

he wanted three Generals

General Manekshaw
General Jagijit Singh
General Jacobs

IG replied I believe that's no problem, I too need three Generals from you Mr. President

Eager to get rid of General Wetmooreland types Nixon jumped at the proposal

So the president eagerly said not to let go the opportunity who are those three Generals?

Mrs IG replied General Motors, General Mills , General Electric

Immediately the shaking of Nixon Henry Kissinher said jumped all our and said No Mr. president No

:mrgreen:
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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by Abhay_S »

Lt Gen H S Panag(R) ‏@rwac48 Dec 16

How I captured future PAF Chief!

https://rwac48.wordpress.com/2012/11/

1. I was the Adjutant of 4 SIKH(Saragarhi 1897) in 1971.We had commenced operations on 11 Nov 71.We advanced North from the Boyra Salient and secured an area around Village Makapur 6km inside East Pak.

2. We had some patrol clashes but no worthwhile engagement took place.We were strafed by Sabres flying from Dacca but no damage took place.Some probing attacks were launched by Pak troops who thought we were Mukti Bahini.The main defences of Pak 107 Inf Brigade were in a compact arc around Jessore 30 km to the East.There was a large upheld area between us and them.Since Pak troops were not offering battle it was decided to advance deep into East Pak on 20 Nov.On 19 Nov a Sqn of brand new T55 tanks of 63 CAV joined us.There was excitement in the air.On 20 Nov 4 Sikh led by Sqn Armr of 63 CAV commenced a classic Xcountry advance.One coy was mounted on the tanks and other Coys moved behind them on the trot.We were engaged by forward elements of Pak 107 Inf Bde.These were quickly scattered by tank and artillery fire.Our boys were full of Josh and cheered by the locals who shouted Joi Bangla.Cries of Jo Bole So Nihal the battle cry of 4 Sikh also rant the air.Dust plumes were going high up in the air due to tank movement.The scene was reminiscent of the 2WW movies like the Battle of the Bulge!

3. By evening we had advanced 20 km in NE direction and hit the Kabadak River at a place called Chaugacha.


Our tanks and D Coy tried to rush the bridge but it was blown up by Pakis in our face.One of our tanks got struck in the loose mud at West end of the bridge.Heavy fire was coming from entrenched enemy positions located on the high ground East of the River.We firmed in on the West Bank and planning commenced for attacking across the River.

4. The same night 14 Punjab along with a Sqn of PT76 tanks had crossed the Kabadak River to the East of Boyra Salient and taken up defences around Garibpur village.This position was 10km SW of us.At night artillery and mortar duels continued.Pak 107 Inf Bde got very alarmed and attacked 14 Punjab early in the morning on 21 Nov71.A fierce battle ensued.Pakis used 6 Punjab and a Sqn of Chaffee tanks.We were hearing the noises of the battle which lasted approximately 2 hours.Paki attack failed.8 Chaffee tanks lay smouldering at loss of our 3.3 Tanks were abandoned by Pakis.Maj Narang our Sqn Cdr of 45 CAV was martyred.His 2IC Capt Teji Sidhu had a tank shell pass through his legs.Badly injured but lived.These Offrs along with those of 14 Punjab led from the front.As soon as the winter fog lifted the PAF was on us.During the day of 21 Nov about 16 Sorties were flown primarily against the positions of 4 Sikh.The visible target for the Sabres was our stranded tank on the demolished bridge.We repeatedly requested for own air cover but no clearance was given as the war had not been declared.

5. On 22 Nov strafing by enemy Sabres continued.About 12 sorties were utilised.Since IAF was not allowed to operate we engaged the aircraft with LMG and MG fire.At mid day I had gone 4 Km to the rear to check on our B Echlon.I was coming back in a jeep at about 1530 hours when I saw 3 Sabres coming for the last sortie before sunset.The Sabres homed on to our positions and were doing high dive attacks like the Stukas one saw in the 2WW movies.Suddenly I saw a mission of 4 aircraft fly over me at tree top level.My jeep swayed due low flying of the air craft.First I thought that the PAF had thrown its entire 14 Sqn into battle to deter our impending attack on Chaugacha.I was also hearing the chatter of our MG/LMG fire engaging the aircraft.Suddenly I saw the 4 fighters peel out of formation and head for the Sabres which were oblivious to their presence and continuing with the dive attacks.I realised and recognised that our Gnats have joined battle.I stopped the jeep and stood watching wonder struck.Three Gnats chose one aircraft each and closed in.There was the chatter of cannons of the Gnats and I saw flames erupting from all(3) Sabres and they plunged towards the ground.Having done their job the Gnats gave wing salute to us on the ground and headed back to Klaikunda.

6. Now to the most interesting part of the story.As we saw the aircraft smoking and flaming before hitting the ground,two parachutes opened up.One drifted back to Paki held area and one came towards our defences.Our boys rushed out of the trenches towards the descending parachutes.Sensing that in the heat of the moment our Jawans might kill the pilot,I also ran as fast as I could.When I was 50 yards away two our Jawans had knocked the pilot down and were hitting him with rifle butts.I shouted at them to stop.In the mean time more Jawans joined the fray.I had physically move them away and shielded the pilot by standing in front of him.I calmed down the Jawans and told the pilot that he was safe.A tall fit man,shaken up but put up a brave face.We walked to the Bn HQ and we dressed a small cut he had sustained on his forehead.I ordered a cup of tea for him and commenced his interrogation.His name was Flt Lt Pervez Quereshi Mehdi and he was the Sqn Cdr of 14 Sqn PAF located at Dacca.He was a Sword of Honour from the PAF Academy.His wife’s photo was in his pocket.I made a list of all his items which included his watch,9 MM pistol,20-30 rounds of ammunition and his survival kit.By this time he was relaxed as he realised that he was safe.I told him that he was now a POW and will be treated as per Geneva Conventions.Surprisingly he had not seen the Gnats and neither had our troops or other officers as they had all ducked into trenches.Flt Lt P Q Mehdi said that some fire hit him from below.Actually he was climbing for the dive when the Gnat got him.Our officers and Jawans claimed that our MG fire had brought the Sabre down.I was told to prepare an immediate citation for an award to the Machine Gunner.I whispered in my CO’s ear that It was our Gnats and that I had seen the dog fight or the Gnat Pounce!He was taken aback but insisted on the citation.I packed away Flt Lt P Q Mehdi to our Bde HQs.He did not say anything before going but looked at me and his eyes said ” thank you”!His conduct despite the shock of being shot down and taken POW was dignified!

7. Our Machine Gunner got a SM!Our Gnat pilots were deservedly decorated!Flt Lt Pervez Querishi Mehdi was POW for one year and had a illustrious subsequent career to become an Air Chief Martial and Chief of PAF 1997-2000.His cockpit seat,his parachute and some parts of his Sabre are still held by 4 SIkh!Capt HS Panag then a month short of 23 rose to become an Army Commander!Incidentally Flt Lt P Q Mehdi was the first POW
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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by Kashi »

It's infuriating that so many of these murderers and war criminals were let go scot-free by the then GoI. We should have handed them over to the new Bangladeshi government to be tried for war crimes.
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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by shiv »

On 18th Dec 1971 Pakis were told that "Settlement" was reached with India and East Pakistan. Surrender was called "cease fire"
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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by member_19686 »

Muslim Press in India and the Bangladesh Crisis /*/

The crisis in Bangladesh lasted roughly the entire year of 1971. The various events related to it went through a progression that culminated in a brief war and a resolution of the crisis in favour of the people of that land. Our purpose in this article is to examine how Muslim public opinion responded to those events, how those responses compare with the reactions in Pakistan, and whether that crisis left any lasting effect on the thinking of Indian Muslims...

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/prit ... press.html
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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by Amber G. »

Joan Baez is one of my most favorite singer. (She comes from a family of famous physicists :) and she chose to become a singer instead of attending MIT)

This is from 1972 Album. If you have not, it is a must watch..
(I was in US then, and we did play her album then too)

"When the sun sinks in the west. Die a million people of the Bangladesh ."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyPzu34MhXs
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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by Amber G. »

^^^ Lyrics of the above:
(Words and Music by Joan Baez)

Bangladesh, Bangladesh
Bangladesh, Bangladesh
When the sun sinks in the west
Die a million people of the Bangladesh

The story of Bangladesh
Is an ancient one again made fresh
By blind men who carry out commmands
Which flow out of the laws upon which nation stands
Which is to sacrifice a people for a land

Bangladesh, Bangladesh
Bangladesh, Bangladesh
When the sun sinks in the west
Die a million people of the Bangladesh

Once again we stand aside
And watch the families crucified
See a teenage mother's vacant eyes
As she watches her feeble baby try
To fight the monsoon rains and the cholera flies

And the students at the university
Asleep at night quite peacefully
The soldiers came and shot them in their beds
And terror took the dorm awakening shrieks of dread
And silent frozen forms and pillows drenched in red

Bangladesh, Bangladesh
Bangladesh, Bangladesh
When the sun sinks in the west
Die a million people of the Bangladesh

Did you read about the army officer's plea
For donor's blood? It was given willingly
By boys who took the needles in their veins
And from their bodies every drop of blood was drained
No time to comprehend and there was little pain

And so the story of Bangladesh
Is an ancient one again made fresh
By all who carry out commands
Which flow out of the laws upon which nations stand
Which say to sacrifice a people for a land

Bangladesh, Bangladesh
Bangladesh, Bangladesh
When the sun sinks in the west
Die a million people of the Bangladesh
shiv
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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by shiv »

Surasena wrote:Muslim Press in India and the Bangladesh Crisis /*/

The crisis in Bangladesh lasted roughly the entire year of 1971. The various events related to it went through a progression that culminated in a brief war and a resolution of the crisis in favour of the people of that land. Our purpose in this article is to examine how Muslim public opinion responded to those events, how those responses compare with the reactions in Pakistan, and whether that crisis left any lasting effect on the thinking of Indian Muslims...

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/prit ... press.html
Many thanks for posting this. I am reading this info 44 years after the war.

It shows the truth of the statement by someone that many Muslims in India considered Pakistan as long term fixed deposit and India as current account. The way Indian Muslim opinions paralleled West Pakistani opinions is an indicator to me of why Pakistanis have been so cocky about using Indian Muslims to further their goals.
Philip
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Re: Russian weapons and military technology

Post by Philip »

One airfield alone had 42 MIG-21s,not a large enough number when we're buying 36 Rafales?
But enjoy the US (Nixon and Kissinger) discomfiture from these official transcripts on the '71 war.Hilarious.IG is called a "b*tch" by Nixon in one.

http://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus ... /45607.htm
Dr. Kissinger: These aren't significant fields. That's a helluva way to start a war.
Adm. Moorer: One field had only 12 helos and 16 Gnats.
Mr. Packard: They had no fighter aircraft.
Mr. Irwin: Would these aircraft be important if the Pakistanis were planning to attack in the morning?
Adm. Moorer: If they were going to attack in the morning, they would have hit the airfields in the morning. There was a field not too far away with 82 aircraft on it including 42 MIG-21s. They didn't go for them.
http://www.fighterpilotuniversity.com/a ... -squadron/
Operations in 1971....1 Squadron
When the 1971 Indo-Pak War , The squadron was under the command of Wg Cdr Upkar Singh and based at Adampur. The squadron was tasked with the Air Defence of Punjab sector and providing air cover to our own attacking formations deep inside enemy territory.

Operating from Adampur, the Tigers defended the air space assigned to them so well that but for one unsuccessful pre-emptive strike on Dec 3rd, not a single enemy aircraft could penetrate into our territory. On that day two MiG-21s were scrambled to intercept PAF Mirages attacking Amritsar's Rajasansi airport, but the enemy aircraft scurried back without giving a fight.

In addition all strike missions escorted by the Tigers achieved their objectives and returned safely. Wg Cdr Upkar Singh led a strike against Chander and Rahwali which went unopposed. On December 6th, The MiG-21s escorted Su-7s on a strike in Sialkot. The PAF was not encountered in any of these missions. The first encounter happened on December 8th. Two MiG-21s escorting Su-7s were bounced by Mirage IIIs. The MiGs broke into the attackers and were getting onto the tails of the attackers when a confused call resulted in the Mirages going into escape maneuvers and going out of the fight.

The next day on December 9th, four Mirage IIIs attacked Pathankot and as they were exiting the area were bounced by the Tigers. Two K-13s were launched and one proximity hit was recorded. The enemy aircraft dissappearing over the horizon and off the radar scope. The Squadron was given a 'probable' kill.

Several night sorties were flown. The only loss occurred on one of these sorties on 11th Dec 71, when Flt Lt Ashok Balwant Dhavle was lost to friendly fire in a case of mistaken identity. The Squadron also operated a detachment of two aircraft that were sent regularly to Pathankot.

The sorties put out by the Tigers was phenomenal, a grand total of 513 sorties! Wg Cdr Upkar Singh was awarded the AVSM. In addition one Vr C was awarded to Sqn Ldr S Subburamu. 3 VMs and 9 Mention-in-Despatches were awarded to the Squadron.
That was just the Western front.In the East,the famous MIG-21 rocket strikes forced the Pakis to capitulate!
However, the last straw that broke the camel’s back, as it were, was the pinpoint rocket attack on the Government House in the East Pakistani capital by MiG-21s of No. 28 Squadron on Dec 14.

That led to the resignation of the Governor, Dr Abdul Motaleb Malik, the surrender of the entire 93,000- strong East Pakistani garrison, and the creation of Bangladesh.
Now for a personal accolade of the MIG_21 in '71.
'In the 1971 war, as Flying Officer I flew MiG-21 in 31 missions'Pranav Kulkarni , Pranav Kulkarni : Pune, Thu Dec 12 2013,
IAF's MiG-21 FL fighter jet flies into sunset after serving nation with honour

On Wednesday, four MiG-21 FL aircraft flown by pilots from the Operational Conversion Unit (OCU), flew in a box formation as Chief of the Air Staff N A K Browne took salute at the ceremonial parade at Kalaikunda. After 50 years of service since their induction in 1963, the MiG- 21 FLs (type 77), the first supersonic aircraft of the IAF, took the last flight into history on Wednesday.

It was in December, 1971, that the aircraft first proved its mettle against Pakistan's F- 104s. Air Marshal (retd) Subhash Bhojwani was a young flying officer then. On December 3, 1971, he was on the Operational Readiness Platform of the Adampur Air Force Station. Just 15 minutes before the sunset, he was given the "scramble" order.

The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) had already raided Halwara and Pathankot. "I flew the first sortie in the 1971 operations in MiG-21 FL, the type 77, and flew 31 missions in those 14 days of war. On December 17, the ceasefire was announced at 4 pm, and at 3.30 pm, I was providing Air Defence (AD) to Sukhoi- 7s, which were to strike Lahore," Bhojwani said about his early association with the supersonic jet, which was to become the backbone of the IAF.

Acquired by India to counter PAF's US-made F- 104 aircraft after being denied the same by the US, MiG- 21 proved to be a better platform than the F- 104s. "While the F- 104s were phased out within 30 years of their induction, the MiG- 21 platforms continue to serve the IAF even till date since their induction in 1963," said Bhojwani. The MiG-21 type 74 was inducted in 1963 followed by type 76 in 1964-65. But Bhojwani said it is type- 77 that provided the strong platform for future variants . He said the Russians had designed the aircraft to be a "high-altitude spot interceptor". "But we used it for all roles besides the specified roles, from normal air defence to Combat Air Patrol (CAP) to high-level ground attack".
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Re: Russian weapons and military technology

Post by Philip »

Russian diplomatic and mil support during the '71 war,from US sources/de-classifierd docs.Enjoy yourselves!

Guys,pl read the entire US xeclassified docs on the '71 war.A literal "bullet by bullet" story of the war and our great victory.It aslo shows that there WAS a CIA mole inside the IG cabinet,or at very least a babu or mil man who had direct access to cabinet meetings or transcripts of those meetings.It is least likely that the mole was a military man as some of the info leajed to the US were of a political nature.Wherever the mole/info is mentioned,it still hasn't been declassified.

That IG also wanted to liberate the southern part of POK is a revelation! This has to my knowledge never been seen before.

http://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus ... /45607.htm
According to a CIA report (Document 246) Prime Minister Gandhi told her Cabinet on December 6 that before accepting a UN call for a cease-fire there were three objectives that would have to be achieved: to guarantee the establishment of Bangladesh; to liberate the southern part of Azad Kashmir; and to destroy Pakistan's armor and air forces.
Henry K:
Let's now turn to the key issue. If India turns on West Pakistan, takes Azad Kashmir and smashes the Pak air and tank forces, a number of things seems inevitable. Should we, in full conscience, allow the liberation of the same disintegrating forces in West Pakistan as in the East? Baluchistan and other comparable issues are bound to come to the fore, as Mrs. Gandhi indicated to the President and as she told a Columbia University seminar in New York, I understand. Pakistan would be left defenseless and West Pakistan would be turned into a vassal state. We have to decide some questions-the military supply question, for example. I have reviewed the cables to Jordan which enthusiastically tell Hussein he can't furnish planes to the Paks. We shouldn't decide this on such doctrinaire grounds. The question is, when an American ally is being raped, whether or not the U.S. should participate in enforcing a blockade of our ally, when the other side is getting Soviet aid. :rotfl: I don't know what the decision will be, but we have to consider this in broader terms. That's why I'm holding up your cables. In any event, they should be toned down.
Nixon said they had to "cold-bloodedly make the decision." Kissinger added: "We've got to make it within 36 hours." Nixon said that he did not want another meeting: "No more goddamn meetings to decide this." Kissinger noted that he had a WSAG meeting scheduled for the next day. He said that after the meeting he would present the choices confronting the administration to Nixon. Nixon said that one of his choices was to do relatively little to intervene further in the crisis, which he noted was "basically the State line." "If we let it go," he observed to Kissinger, "your fear is that it will certainly screw up the South Asian area. . . . Your greater fear, however, is that it may get . . . the Chinese stirred up so that they do something else. . . . And it will encourage the Russians to do the same thing someplace else." Kissinger concurred and pointed to the possible implications of the crisis for the Middle East. Nixon said: "I am for doing anything . . ." The tape is difficult to understand at this point but the essence of his remarks is that he favored an interventionist approach. Kissinger worried that the United States did not have the requisite "punch to make it [an intervention] effective." Nixon agreed: "We can't do this without the Chinese helping us." He added: "As I look at this thing, the Chinese have got to move to that damn border. The Indians have got to get a little scared." He instructed Kissinger to get a message to that effect to the Chinese.
Philip
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Re: Russian weapons and military technology

Post by Philip »

These xcpts shpw how the US threatened to side with China militarily if the Soviets attacked China in response to a Chinese mil attack upon India to relieve Pak.High stakes.
The Soviets show no sign of slackening their support for India. There are unconfirmed reports that a Soviet military team will soon be visiting New Delhi. Potentially more significant is a current trip to Moscow by D.P. Dhar, the negotiator of the friendship treaty and former Indian Ambassador to Moscow who is known to be very close to Mrs. Gandhi. Dhar could be going to sound out the Soviets on India's intentions toward West Pakistan. Finally there is an unconfirmed Indian report that units of the Soviet Mediterranean Fleet have been ordered to move to the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal, although even if true it would take some time for them to sail around the tip of Africa.

[Omitted here are summary reports on foreign policy issues unrelated to South Asia.]

Soviet Combatants Possibly En Route to Indian Ocean: Soviet ships equipped with surface-to-surface missiles may be en route to augment the Indian Ocean Squadron. A guided-missile light cruiser, a diesel-powered cruise-missile submarine, and a naval oiler left the Sea of Japan via Tsushima Strait yesterday and may be bound for the Indian Ocean. The cruiser and submarine together carry a total of 20 SS-N-s cruise missiles./5/

/5/ The President added another marginal note here that reads: "K-a reaction to our move?"

Sixteen Soviet naval units are now in the Indian Ocean area, including three space support ships. Communications intelligence indicates that most of the ships are near Ceylon and Socotra, although one space-related unit may be monitoring British naval units in the Arabian Sea. However, of the sixteen ships less than half are combatants.
Ths is right out of Dr.Strangelove!And these jokers ran the most powerful nation on the planet?
Nixon continued: "The point is, the fact of the matter is when I put it in more Armageddon terms than reserves, when I say the Chinese move and the Soviets threaten and we start lobbing nuclear weapons, that isn't what happens. That isn't what happens. What happens is that we then do have a hot line to the Soviets, and we finally just say now what goes on here?" Kissinger said: "We don't have to lob nuclear weapons. We have to go on alert." Nixon agreed. Kissinger continued: "We have to put forces in. We may have to give them bombing assistance." Nixon added: "One thing we can do which you forgot. We clean up Vietnam at about that point." Kissinger concurred: "We clean up Vietnam. I mean at that point we give an ultimatum to Hanoi, blockade Haiphong." Nixon said: "That's right." Kissinger continued: "Now that will hurt China too but we can't worry about that at that point." Nixon interjected: "Well, we'll say it was for the purpose of protecting Americans." Kissinger said: "And above all, we have to give the Chinese the sense that if the Russians threaten them, the worst thing, we cannot desert them then move against Haiphong, because that would then say that the U.S. and China. . . . We'll pick up North Vietnam in the process of that. I mean, North Vietnam will be finished then. If Russia and China are at war, we can pick it up at any time."
"I got the answer from the Russians. They are giving us a full reply later. The interim reply is that they have an assurance from Mrs. Gandhi that she will not attack West Pakistan. And that they will work out-they are working with her now to work out a cease-fire." Nixon commented: "We must not be in a position where the Russians and we settle the son-of-a-bitch and leave the Chinese out."

Turning to the decision made earlier in the morning to confront the Soviet Union with military force if necessary in support of China, Kissinger said: "What you did this morning Mr. President was a heroic act." Nixon responded: "I had to do it."
US Plan for direct mil intervention.
Kissinger: The President wants all our officers to emphasize how important and serious this is, and edge toward calling it aggression.
The Fleet is to go.
Moorer: The plan is to move through the Straits/4/ and then into the Indian Ocean. In 45 hours they can move where we want them. It's a carrier, 4 destroyers, an oiler and amphibious force (the Tripoli) with three destroyers-all set to go at daylight Monday, their time.

/4/ Reference is to the Malacca Straits separating Malaysia and Indonesia which the carrier force that had been stationed off Vietnam was expected to traverse the evening of December 12, Washington time. The force was anticipated to arrive off East Pakistan by the morning of December 16. (Note on information concerning U.S. Naval forces; National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 642, Country Files, Middle East, India/Pakistan)

Kissinger: Send it where there are Americans-say, Karachi. Defense can comment that they're sent to help in a possible evacuation.
US threat of direct military intervention.
Transcript of Telephone Conversation Between the President's Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) and the Minister of the Soviet Embassy (Vorontsov)/1/
Washington, December 12, 1971, 11:45 a.m.

HAK: The steps we had started are no longer reversible. I want you to understand that. I want us to understand each other. We are calling a Security Council meeting to ask for implementation of the General Assembly resolution. Then when we are still prepared we are sending a hot line message to Brezhnev/2/ to tell him that we still are prepared to do what we told you on the 10th. This will give you a chance to send instructions to your people and we will be working with the Pakistanis. We had no choice. We had to make our position clear.
Last edited by Philip on 26 Jan 2016 18:52, edited 1 time in total.
wig
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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by wig »

http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/himach ... 22739.html
a book by Brig B S Mehta (Retd), "The Burning Chaffees"
The Bangladesh Government is planning to honour veterans of the 1971 India-Pakistan war on its Independence Day on December 16 next month. Brig Balram Singh Mehta (retd), who stays in Dharamsala and was part of the 1971 war, said it was for the first time that the Bangladesh Government was planning to honour Indian soldiers who played a crucial role in the independence of the country. Brig Mehta has penned a book ‘The Burning Chaffees’ on the role of Other Indian Classes (OIC) in the war. While talking to The Tribune, he said the OIC were labelled as non-martial and debarred from enrolling as combatants in the Indian Army till 1947.
However, the Squadron 45 Cavalry that comprised the Other Indian Classes played a major role in the 1971 war. “The squadron which comprised about 60 per cent South Indians and rest OICs of India waged a tank battle with the Pakistan Army on November 21, 1971, that laid the foundation for the war,” said Brig Mehta.
He said the Bangladesh Army and the Indian Army formed an alliance on November 21, 1971. The same day the tank battle of Garibpur took place and the Bangladesh Government for the first time was going to honour the soldiers who participated in Garibpur battle and shed blood for the freedom of Bangladesh.
Brig Mehta said though officially the 1971 war started on December 3, on November 21, the Squardon 45 Cavalry equipped with PT-76 tanks crossed about 7 km into Bangladesh territory across the river Kabodak to counter the threat from the Pakistan Army. The cream of Pakistan Army which used to boast that one Pakistan soldier was equal to three Indian soldiers clashed in tank versus tank battle at Garibpur on November 21, 1971, with the Squadron 45.
The Squadron 45 Cavalry of Indian Army in one swoop completely destroyed the 3 (independent) armoured Squadron of Pakistan consisting of 14 American made M-24 Chaffee tanks and mauled two infantary battalion of Pakistan. In the battle, three Sabre F-86 jets of Pakistan were also destroyed. The Indian Army lost just two PT-76 tanks in the battle. With this battle, the plan of General AAK Niaze to attack the Indian Army and Mukti Bahini went up in smoke
and the 45 Cavalry that comprised mostly of non-martial races of India wrote a chapter in the history.
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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by Rishi Verma »

Congratulations to Mukti-Bahini + Indian Army for the Victory. Congratulations to 90,000 surrendered Pakjabis To help end the war sooner. Hope you liked the biriyani.

Job isn't done yet!

Right now we have pakistan0.4 (60% was East Bakistan), we need Pakistan0.2, Pakistan0.1, then poof gone...

If after the end of Yugoslavia there still came a car called Yugo. Will there be a hybrid car called "Baki" after the end of Pakistan?
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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by Sanju »

Kashi wrote:It's infuriating that so many of these murderers and war criminals were let go scot-free by the then GoI. We should have handed them over to the new Bangladeshi government to be tried for war crimes.
Kashi, there are two parts as answer to your post.

a) As per the agreement prior to and as part of the Instrument of Surrender, we promised the Pakis that we wouldn't hand them over to Bangladeshis.

b) After the war ended on the Western Front, my Father was posted to a place in UP and his role was to be part of the Army there to manage the POW camps. Suffice it to say that there are valid reasons that are best not disclosed on an open fora.
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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by ramana »

Thanks to Philip for this one. I am X-posting here and in Deterrence thread with my comments in the latter thread....
Philip wrote:https://in.rbth.com/blogs/stranger_than ... ent_657434
Gunboat diplomacy: Revisiting the Enterprise incident
14 December 2016 RAKESH KRISHNAN SIMHA
Exactly 45 years ago the US despatched a powerful naval task force into the Bay of Bengal to prevent India from overrunning Pakistan. While a military threat was implied, there is some evidence that the American political leadership contemplated a nuclear strike on India. This is an analysis of that incident, which led to a dangerous standoff with a nuclear armed Russian fleet.

Sweeping mines, salvaging looted gold after the 1971 War
1971 War: How Russia sank Nixon’s gunboat diplomacy
Toasting legacy of 1971 Indo-Soviet Friendship Treaty

During the 1971 War, as the Indian Army launched its blitzkrieg into East Pakistan – present day Bangladesh – US President Richard Nixon had a terrible idea. Under the pretext of evacuating American citizens from the warzone, Nixon ordered the US Seventh Fleet’s Task Force 74, led by the nuclear powered aircraft carrier Enterprise, to proceed towards the Bay of Bengal. He was spurred on by Henry Kissinger, his National Security Advisor.

Nixon’s rash move – which became America’s greatest PR disaster in India – was dictated by the condition of the Pakistani military, which was taking a hammering in East Pakistan. More than 100,000 Pakistani soldiers were trapped between the Bay of Bengal and the rampaging Indian Army. Of these 97,000 would soon surrender, making it the largest capitulation since World War II.

The Indian Army had not yet made any major attacks in the western sector, but a CIA mole in Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s cabinet had leaked her plan to bomb Pakistani military capability into the Stone Age. Hassan Abbas writes in ‘Pakistan's Drift into Extremism’ that “India's plans possibly included the final destruction of the country, as a CIA report had indicated".

Nixon – who was working to achieve a diplomatic breakthrough in China, with Pakistan acting as the middleman – asked Beijing to mobilise troops on the Indian border. He even contemplated “lobbing nuclear weapons” at the Russians if they retaliated by going to war with China. But as Moscow had moved its crack army divisions to the Chinese border, Beijing decided it was not going to sacrifice itself at Nixon’s bidding. At any rate China considered East Pakistan a lost cause.

Veto No.100: How Russia blocked the West on Kashmir
A livid Nixon stressed he would not allow India to break up Pakistan’s core territories in the west. He warned the Indian ambassador L.K. Jha in Washington: “If the Indians continue their military operations (against West Pakistan), we must inevitably look toward a confrontation between the USSR and the US. The Soviet Union has a treaty with India; we have one with Pakistan.”

Not satisfied with the envoy’s reply, Nixon ordered the USS Enterprise into the Bay of Bengal.

Enterprise steams towards India
Former Indian Navy Commander Raghavendra Mishra, a research fellow at the New Delhi-based National Maritime Foundation writes in a paper titled ‘Revisiting the 1971 USS Enterprise Incident’ that the nuclear powered, nuclear capable carrier’s entry was an instance of gunboat diplomacy.

In the paper, published by the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, he writes: “A broad plan of action emerged which included cutting off economic aid to India, and transfer of military equipment from other US regional allies to West Pakistan. These were to be supported by a possible naval deployment and a simultaneous move by the Chinese military along the border. The aim was to put pressure on the Soviet Union which, in turn, would prevail upon India from expanding the conflict. Nixon directed Kissinger to explore the option of US naval deployment with Chinese representatives before taking a final decision.”

The first mention of an aircraft carrier deployment comes up in Kissinger’s memorandum to Nixon on December 8, 1971. That was the night when the Indian Navy had made a bonfire of Karachi, with its second successive missile strike on coastal installations. The Pakistani port had been burning since December 4 after being hit by the Indian Navy’s Russian missile boats. These strikes in the west plus news about the collapse of the Pakistan Army in the east had greatly upset the Nixon-Kissinger duo.

Kissinger suggested that Nixon should direct the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – the highest-ranking and senior most military officer in the United States armed forces – to move naval Task Force 74, then deployed in the South East Asian theatre, to the Bay of Bengal immediately via the Singapore Straits under the pretext of “prudent contingency measures”.

On December 9, Nixon wanted the US and China to jointly move against India. That same day, during his meeting with the Chinese delegation led by Huang Hua, China’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Ambassador to Canada (as the US did not have diplomatic relations with China), Kissinger apprised his counterpart about the US naval task force move through a map showing the deployment of the US and Soviet forces.

Mishra writes: “Kissinger agreed the Pakistani military had collapsed in the East and the same was anticipated within two weeks in the West. Emphasising the importance of West Pakistan’s continued existence for regional dynamics, Kissinger sought military moves by China along the border to restrain India and the Soviet Union. Huang Hua, while expressing solidarity for the common cause, made no formal commitment, stating that he would convey the US proposal for consideration of Beijing.”

By December 11 the carrier Task Force 74 led by the Enterprise was moving as scheduled and the first media reports about its possible deployment in the Bay of Bengal had started circulating in India.

On the same day, a major development took place. Around 4.00pm, an Indian parachute brigade was dropped at Tangail and the race for Dhaka had begun. With the Pakistani military and political leadership in panic mode, Kissinger informed Pakistani Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto that Task Force 74 would be crossing the Straits of Malacca by December 12-13.

War in the east
A week into the war, it was clear the Pakistan Army in the East was about to capitulate. The Americans also realised to their dismay that China was not prepared to move even a column of trucks on the Himalayan border.

Overcame by his hatred, the reckless Nixon was even prepared to sacrifice the concept of détente that would soon be the cornerstone of US-Russia ties. He asked Kissinger to inform the Russians about the increasing probability of a major war involving both the superpowers. Moscow was told that its continued backing of New Delhi would endanger the planned strategic arms reduction talks.

It is unclear if Nixon’s threat worked or whether the Russian leadership was unduly sensitive about global opinion, but soon Russian ambassadorial staff informed Kissinger that a delegation from Moscow had arrived in New Delhi for consultations, and that India had agreed not to expand its military operations in the Western theatre.

During his meeting with Chou En-Lai in Beiing in February 1972, Nixon had said that in the early stages of the conflict the Russians “were doing nothing to discourage India in its actions against Pakistan. It was only after we made a very strong stand – I personally intervened with (Russian President Leonid) Brezhnev, and Dr Kissinger made a statement that was widely quoted in this respect – they took a more reasonable attitude and a more moderate position in the United Nations.”

Commander Mishra adds: “At this stage, the US administration possessed reasonable proof that West Pakistan would not be attacked by India. However, in a meeting attended by senior state and defence department officials, Kissinger decided to go ahead with the naval deployment, which was expected to traverse the Straits of Malacca in the evening and could arrive off East Bangladesh on the morning of December 16.”

On December 13, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US, General Raza, requested the US Seventh Fleet deployment in the Bay of Bengal as well as in the North Arabian Sea to deter further attacks by the Indian Navy. This proposal was repeated by the President of Pakistan to Nixon, stating: “The Seventh Fleet does not only have to come to our shores but also to relieve certain pressures which (we are) not in a position to cope with. (We) have sent a specific proposal…about the role the Seventh Fleet could play at Karachi which, I hope, is receiving your attention.”

(This excerpt from the conversation between Nixon and his assistants is from December 15, 1971, 8:45-11:30 am.)

Kissinger: The Russians came in yesterday giving us their own guarantee that there would be no attack on West Pakistan.

Nixon: A letter from Brezhnev.

Kissinger: An addition – an explanation of the letter to – of Brezhnev saying, they, the Soviet Union, "guarantees there will be no military action against West Pakistan". So we are home, now it’s done. It’s just a question what legal way we choose.

Nixon: Well, what the UN does is really irrelevant.

Kissinger: Well, it’d be, the ******** (he’s referring to the Indians), of course, have broken promises before. It’d be better to have it on public record. We might be able to do it in an exchange of letters between Brezhnev and you. That is made public, in which you say you express your concern, and he says he wants to assure you.

Nixon: Well, what does that do now to the Chinese?

Kissinger: Oh, the Chinese would be thrilled if West Pakistan were guaranteed.

Nuclear standoff: Enter the Russian Navy
Based on an Indian intercept of US communications, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) prepared a six-page note, which said: “The assessment of our embassy reveals that the decision to brand India as an 'aggressor' and to send the 7th Fleet to the Bay of Bengal was taken personally by Nixon.”

1971 War: How Russia sank Nixon’s gunboat diplomacy
The MEA felt that “the bomber force aboard the Enterprise had the US President's authority to undertake bombing of Indian Army's communications, if necessary”.

Following this assessment, India secretly activated a provision in the Indo-Soviet Friendship Treaty, according to which either party would come to the defence of the other. A Russian naval task force from the Pacific Fleet based in Vladivostok, consisting of a cruiser, a destroyer and two attack submarines under the command of Admiral Vladimir Kruglyakov intercepted Task Force 74.

Sebastien Roblin writes in War is Boring that Kruglyakov revealed in a Russian TV interview about “encircling” the task force, surfacing his submarines in front of the Enterprise, opening the missile tubes and “blocking” the American ships.

Mishra notes: “The Soviet Indian Ocean naval component also got a lucky break with three of their ships near the Straits of Malacca, on their return passage to their Pacific homeport when the information about the possible US naval deployment to the Indian Ocean became general knowledge. These were retained and reinforced by two further task groups that arrived in the Indian Ocean on December 18 and 26. These Soviet naval assets continued to shadow the TF 74 off Sri Lanka until its return passage to the Pacific theatre on January 8, 1972.”

In addition, 12 other Soviet naval ships were present in the Indian Ocean. However, none of these Russian vessels were in the vicinity or heading for the Bay of Bengal or North Arabian Sea, where the Indian Navy was continuing with its operations.

It is an indication of how serious the Russians were about defending India that Moscow started despatching naval detachments from across the globe to Indian waters. Kissinger referred to unconfirmed reports about Soviet Mediterranean Fleet units being directed to the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal, but these warships were unlikely to arrive in time.

The reason Russia was able to quickly direct all this heavy naval firepower into the warzone was the Soviet Navy had rapidly grown into an impressive blue water force under Admiral of the Fleet Sergei Gorshkov.

John B. Hattendorf writes in ‘US Naval Strategy in the 1970s’ that the year 1970 was a seminal one as the Soviet Navy carried out the first of its OKEAN global war games that involved combined and joint forces for defensive, offensive and expeditionary operations. “The 200-ship exercise covered the four major theatres of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans as well as the Mediterranean Sea. This was also period that the majority of the US Navy was approaching en masse obsolescence. The increase in Soviet naval presence was especially notable in the Indian Ocean which far outstripped the US Navy deployments, although it is qualified that most of these deployments were in the North and South-West Indian Oceans.”

With such massive forces at its disposal, the Russian military forces were confident of repelling any American adventurism. Mishra says the Russian ambassador to India had dismissed the possibilities of the US or China intervening by emphasising that the Russian fleet was also in the Indian Ocean and would not allow the Seventh Fleet to interfere; and if China moved in Ladakh, Russia would respond in Xinjiang. As Nixon raged in the White House, a million Russian troops were stationed on the Chinese border.

At this point, Task Force 74 was east off Sri Lanka and this naval deployment had generated considerable anti-US feeling in India. Indian Foreign Minister Swaran Singh said that if the US invaded, the Indians would trap the Americans in a disaster greater than Vietnam.

Meanwhile, the Pakistani media was still publishing speculative reports about a possible naval intervention.

Nuclear threat: Real or imagined?
Ties with Pakistan not against India
There are military experts – both Indian and foreign – who deny the US had plans to launch military attacks, let alone a nuclear strike, on India. However, before second guessing Nixon’s intentions, let’s look at the components of Task Force 74.

Commander Mishra lists the following:

1 Nuclear powered strike carrier – USS Enterprise, 90 aircraft

4 Gearing class destroyers

3 Missile destroyers

2 Amphibious assault ships with 2000 Marines

1 Nitro class ammunition ship

1. Replenishment oiler

1 Nuclear attack submarine (SSN)

There are several reasons pointing to the seriousness of the threat. One, the availability of such potent assets was itself a temptation for the use of force by proto-neocons like Nixon and Kissinger.

Secondly, both Kissinger and Nixon were consumed by an intolerable hatred of India. Ironically, while Nixon was personally fond of Pakistani President Yahya Khan, who had massacred 3 million of his own Bengali citizens, the US President referred to Indians as “slippery, treacherous people”. Of Indira Gandhi, he was recorded as saying, “The old bitch. I don’t know why the hell anybody would reproduce in that damn country, but they do.”

Kissinger liked Yahya as he had been the intermediary who had helped the Americans reach out to China. It was clearly a role the Pakistani dictator relished. “Yahya hasn’t had such fun since the last Hindu massacre!” Kissinger remarked.

Thirdly, Nixon and Kissinger were mired in the Vietnam War which was proving to be a meat grinder for Americans troops. Massive US strategic bombing hadn’t broken the spirit of the Vietnamese but had in fact steeled their resolve to hit back harder. Because of this, Nixon’s popularity had plummeted at home. India had backed a number of UN resolutions condemning the US bombing of Vietnam, and Nixon was looking for a way to pay New Delhi back.

However, the biggest factor was China. Nixon knew that only a breakthrough in Beijing would salvage his presidency and rescue him from the proverbial dustbin. He was, therefore, prepared to bet the farm on this one factor. Besides, in his view, the humiliation of an American ally by a Russian ally would send the wrong signals to the rest of the world.

To get an idea of Nixon’s intent in despatching the Enterprise, see this still partly censored excerpt from the Nixon-Chou meeting.

Nixon: "In December when the situation was getting very sensitive in the subcontinent – I'm using understatement – I was prepared..... (Sanitised)."

Since Nixon was by all standards a crook and a braggart, he may have well said he was prepared to nuke India.

(During their December 15 conversation in Washington DC, Nixon and Kissinger had given plenty of indication of their desperate intent. Having received a guarantee from Brezhnev that the Indian Army won’t advance into West Pakistan, the US duo is in a triumphant mood.)

Nixon: How do you do it?

Kissinger: It’s a miracle.

Nixon: How do you get the formalisation of letters between Brezhnev and me [unclear].

Kissinger: It’s an absolute miracle, Mr President.

Nixon: Did you try to work that out? That we – I’d like to do it in a certain way that pisses on the Indians without, you know what I mean? I mean, we can’t [unclear] we have an understanding, an understanding with West Pakistan. Well, I don’t know. If you think it’s a good idea. I – don’t ask me.

Kissinger: No, I think it’s a good idea. But we have – I have this whole file of intelligence reports, which makes it unmistakably clear that the Indian strategy was –

Nixon: To knock – oh, sure.

Kissinger: – to knock over West Pakistan.

Nixon: Over the line of control here. Most people were ready to stand by and let her do it, bombing Calcutta [sic] and all.

Kissinger: They really are ********.

Nixon: The son-of-a-bitch [unclear] –

Kissinger: Now, after this is over we ought to do something about that goddamned Indian Ambassador here going on television every day –

Nixon: He’s really something.

Kissinger: – attacking American policy. And –

Nixon: Why haven’t we done something already?

Kissinger: And I – I’d like to call State (Department) to call him in. He says he has unmistakable proof that we are planning a landing on the Bay of Bengal. Well, that’s okay with me.

Nixon: Yeah, that scares them.

Kissinger: That carrier move is good. That –

Nixon: Why, hell yes. That never bothers me. I mean it’s a, the point about the carrier move, we just say fine, we had a majority. And we’ve got to be there for the purpose of their moving there. Look, these people are savages.

Kissinger: Mr President, an aggregate –

Nixon: ….we cannot, the United Nations cannot survive and we cannot have a stable world if we allow one member of the United Nations to cannibalise another. Cannibalise, that’s the word. I should have thought of it earlier. You see, that really puts it to the Indians. It has, the connotation is savages. To cannibalise –

Gunboat diplomacy
The Enterprise incident reinforced the image of the “Ugly American” in Indian minds. The political leadership became intensely anti-US too. The incident is reminiscent of the behaviour of former colonial powers.

War of attrition: How the outgunned IAF beat the PAF
Commander Mishra wonders whether the US could have gained much more by doing nothing. “Considering the international milieu where its stock was low by the Vietnam overhang, the emergence of a technologically improved and numerically robust Soviet Navy under Admiral Gorshkov, and the necessity of sending a reassuring signal to its allies, mandated some visible proof. The naval deployment was a gesture of solidarity for a formal ally (Pakistan) and an indicator to a future partner (China), that the US could be relied upon to abide by its formal commitments.”

At the same time, the incident highlights the impotence of US sea power against the gains made by a determined India on the ground. “Another takeaway from 1971 is that ‘strategic punditry is no substitute for tactical aggressiveness’ and, hence the importance of professional skill sets,” Mishra notes. “The importance of a cogent national/military strategy is paramount; nevertheless, it needs to be complemented in equal measure by decisive force application at operational and tactical levels.”

Strategic spinoffs
The 1971 War had several strategic lessons – especially in the area of sea power – for India. The brilliant performance of the Indian Navy in setting ablaze Karachi led to a sea change in the political leadership’s thinking regarding sea power. The navy had hit Karachi not once but twice. A third strike to completely obliterate the port didn’t happen as the war ended too quickly.

Task Force 74’s menacing move convinced India about the need to have assets at sea to counter a threat of this nature. Observing how effectively the Russian subs had enforced a naval blockade and stopped the American fleet, India’s political leadership quietly gave the green light to the nuclear submarine project.

There were other valuable spinoffs from the war. Not only did it change the political geography of South Asia with the creation of Bangladesh, but according to Mishra, it gave a jolt to the supremacist psyche harboured by the Pakistan military vis-à-vis the Indian armed forces.
Rishi Verma
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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by Rishi Verma »

India should nudge or pay Bangladesh to name their Dhaka cricket stadium's pavillion as Sam Manekshaw Pavillion. Then forever the pakis will hear the commentary... "Gandoo X bowling from Manekshaw End... "
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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by Rakesh »

ramana
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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by ramana »

Rishi Verma wrote:India should nudge or pay Bangladesh to name their Dhaka cricket stadium's pavillion as Sam Manekshaw Pavillion. Then forever the pakis will hear the commentary... "Gandoo X bowling from Manekshaw End... "
I want a statue of FM Sam Manekshaw in Delhi near India Gate. Another of FM Cariappa. The third statue should bt Marshal of Air Force Arjan Singh.

This covers three of the four roads converging there. I leave the other for a future naval visionary warrior who will be an Admiral of the Fleet.
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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by Rakesh »

Admiral Ronald (Ronnie) Lynsdale Pereira comes close. The man was a legend...

Remembering Ronnie
http://www.salute.co.in/remembering-ronnie/

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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by SBajwa »

Image

I remember walking over to Post Office till 1985 to pay for License of a Radio.
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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by Amber G. »

I still have copies of New York Times which I saved. The events were covered pretty well in USA and press and aam janta was generally not aware of how much Nixon/Kissinger were supporting the Paki regime. Most of the press in US were surprised and were amazed at the efficiency and brilliance of Indian forces. Complete air superiority (specially after first few days) was reported here and US reporters felt safe reporting destruction of air-strips in Dhaka convinced by accuracy of Indian Air Force that they will be safe in their hotel which was fairly close to the air-strip.

But let me just use this opportunity to remember Wing Commander P Gautam. He was awarded MVC in 71 (also in 65). He came from a family of physicists (his brother was professor/ post-doc in physics in US at that time, and I came to hear some stories then and later from himself). One thing he told us that in 65 there was 'some resistance' from Pak but in 71, specially after first day or so, the Paki air-force had NO fighting desire and he joked that "the mission then looked as if he is taking then on a training mission".
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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by disha »

Amber G., can you please capture the images of NYTimes from 1971 and post it?
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Re: 41st Anniversary of decisive Indian victory in 1971

Post by komal »

I remember seeing this poem published in the NYT back in 1971.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/04/08/s ... ssore.html
Border trucks flooded, food can't get past,
American Angel machine please come fast!
Where is Ambassador Bunker today?
Are his Helios machinegunning children at play?

Where are the helicopters of U.S. AID?
Smuggling dope in Bangkok's green shade.
Where is America's Air Force of Light?
Bombing North Laos all day and all night?

Where are the President's Armies of Gold?
Billionaire Navies merciful Bold?
Bringing us medicine food and relief?
Napalming North Viet Nam and causing more grief?

Where are our tears? Who weeps for this pain?
Where can these families go in the rain?
Jessore Road's children close their big eyes
Where will we sleep when Our Father dies?
Locked