The French President, Emmanuel Macron, was the chief guest at India’s Republic Day, making it his third visit to India, after his 2018 State Visit and last year for the G-20 summit hosted by India. Coming within six months of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit last year as the Chief Guest at France’s Bastille Day, it is clear that the two countries do share a ‘Strategic Partnership’ that is special. It is no secret that United States President Joseph Biden had been invited initially and his visit was to be followed by a Quad summit that had been accepted by the Australian and Japanese leaders when Mr. Biden declared his inability to travel. The fact that Mr. Macron stepped in readily speaks for the personal ties that he and Mr. Modi have established and the importance they attribute to the relationship.
Origins of strategic convergence
President Jacques Chirac was the Chief Guest at the Republic Day in 1998 when India established its first Strategic Partnership. In a significant statement, Mr. Chirac declared that India’s exclusion from the global nuclear order was an anomaly that needed to be rectified. The ‘Strategic Partnership’ was tested when India undertook its series of nuclear tests in May 1998 and declared itself a nuclear weapon state. France was the first country to open a dialogue with India and displayed a greater understanding of India’s security compulsions compared to other countries. It was the first P-5 country to support India’s claim for a permanent seat in an expanded and reformed UN Security Council.
India and France have valued strategic autonomy, in their own fashion. India adopted non-alignment. After the Second World War, France was one of the founding members of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in 1949 and hosted the NATO headquarters; it withdrew from its Integrated Military Command in 1966 due to reservations over U.S. insistence on subordinating French nuclear deterrent to NATO and accepting any collective control that Gen Charles de Gaulle felt would dilute French sovereignty, forcing NATO to shift its headquarters to Brussels.
After the Cold War ended, both countries were quick to espouse the virtues of multipolarity. French discomfort with a unipolar system was clear when French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine described USA as a hyperpuissance and openly spoke out in favour of multipolarity, forming a natural convergence with India’s ambitions of seeking strategic autonomy. As a resident power in the Indian Ocean, France was quick to realise the geopolitical focus shifting from the Euro-Atlantic to Asia-Pacific and decided on India as its preferred partner in the region.
Both France and India share a common trait of ‘civilisation exceptionalism’ and pride themselves on their ‘argumentative intellectualism’ but have wisely refrained from preaching to each other. Though part of the western world, France, as a non-Anglo-Saxon nation, found it easier and more natural to engage with India on equal terms.
Building the Partnership
The nuclear dialogue established in May 1998 grew into a broader strategic dialogue elevated to the level to the National Security Advisers. From the original three pillars of nuclear, space and defence, the agenda gradually expanded to include counter-terrorism, intelligence sharing and cyber-security issues. Convergence has also evolved on global challenges like climate change, reform of multilateral development institutions, a globally beneficial Artificial Intelligence, and as the Joint Statement indicates, ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.
On the defence side, six Scorpene submarines have been built by Mazagaon Docks Shipbuilders Limited with transfer of technology from the Naval Group. Technology sharing memoranda of understanding and acquisitions of short-range missiles and radar equipment were concluded. Joint exercises between the navies, air forces and the armies were instituted in 2001, 2004 and 2011 respectively. The government-to-government agreement for 36 Rafale aircraft, salvaged out of the prolonged negotiations for the original 126 which were at an impasse, has been concluded. Its offset target of 50 percent (nearly Rs 25000 crores), has helped in building up India’s budding aerospace industry.
During Mr. Modi’s visit last year, an announcement regarding a further acquisition of three more Scorpenes with enhanced features of air-independent-propulsion and 26 Rafale M aircraft for India’s new aircraft carrier was made, with negotiations to be concluded by the end of 2024.
Mr. Macron’s visit saw the conclusion of an India-France for Defence Industrial Roadmap that fits in with the goal of atmanirbharta. Tata Advanced Systems Ltd and Airbus concluded an agreement to set up a final assembly line by 2026 for H125 civilian helicopters. A final assembly line for C-295 military transport aircraft has already been set up in Vadodara by the two partners. Collaboration between Safran, DRDO and its Gas Turbine Research Establishment is being stepped up for designing, developing, and producing an aircraft engine for India’s fifth generation aircraft (Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft) with 100 % transfer of technology. This is a major step forward from the agreement concluded with the U.S. to permit technology transfer to HAL to produce General Electric F-414 engine to power Tejas Mk2 fighter aircraft. However, the GE engine is a 1990s design while the Safran project will entail defining parameters, co-designing, engineering, certification, in addition to production. Akasa Air has signed a $5 billion agreement for 300 LEAP-1B engines to power its fleet acquisition of 170 Boeing MAX aircraft. This engine is a Safran-GE JV product and together with Safran’s Snecma engines powering Rafale and Rafale M, sets the stage for it to set up a maintenance, repair, and operations in India.
Cooperation in the space domain began in the 1960s with French assistance to set up the Indian launch facility at Sriharikota but languished in later years because of export controls. The strategic dialogue helped restart this cooperation and Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and French Space Agency (CNES) now work on joint missions. The visit saw a new MoU being signed between New Space India Ltd, a Government of India company under the Department of Space and the commercial arm of ISRO, and French satellite launch company Arianespace for collaboration on space launches. In addition, with France converting its air-force into the French Air and Space Force and India setting up Defence Space Agency, the two ministries of defence are looking to work together in optimising space domain awareness.
Broadening and deepening the partnership
The challenge for both countries has been to take the partnership out of the government domains into the commercial and civilian spaces. As a result, Joint Working Groups on a range of subjects covering agriculture, environment, civil aviation, IT and telecom, urban development, transportation, culture, and tourism have been set up over the years.
One of the success stories has been the growing number of Indian students now going to France for higher education. A decade ago, it was less than 3000 and today it is upwards of 10000. The target is now 30000 by 2030. The visa issue is being addressed with a five-year Schengen visa for Indians who pursue a post-graduate course in France. The operationalisation of the Young Professional Scheme under the Migration and Mobility Partnership Agreement will help. Last year the University Grants Commission revised rules regarding foreign universities setting up campuses in India. Sorbonne University, established in the 13th century, is globally renowned, and has had a campus in the United Arab Emirates since 2006. A campus in India should be identified as a priority objective.
There are nearly 1000 French companies present in India including 39 of the CAC 40 (the most influential benchmark of performance in the French economy) while nearly 150 Indian businesses have established a presence in France. In the past, Indian companies saw the United Kingdom as the entry point for Europe; post-Brexit, France is an entry point for Europe and Francophonie!
‘Strategic Partnership’ does not require convergence on all issues but sensitivity so that differences, where these exist, are expressed in private and not publicly. This is where India-France ties, nurtured over the last quarter century, reflect maturity and resilience.
The economic shock of COVID-19 in 2020-21 and subsequent escalating debt burdens, the ongoing Ukraine war now in its third year, and, in 2023, the eruption of the Gaza conflict, repeatedly jolted the economies of all countries in South Asia. The smaller and more vulnerable economies of all of India’s neighbours have been hit hard, leading to countrywide protests and, in some instances, even street violence in 2023. Maldives just had its election in September and in 2024, all South Asian countries (except Afghanistan and Nepal) are scheduled to go to the polls, adding a degree of political uncertainty to the mix.
Of all the forthcoming elections, perhaps the Indian election is the most predictable. Most political pundits concur that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is headed for a historic third term though opinions differ on how many seats the BJP will win in the Lok Sabha and whether it will need coalition partners. In January, Bhutan is heading for a change of government; Sheikh Hasina is likely to stay put in Bangladesh though polarisation has risen significantly; Pakistan’s outcome in February is more uncertain given the role that the courts and the military may play; and in Sri Lanka, elections will only take place in September or later.
This churn in the region is occurring when there are fundamental structural shifts underway. Three relationships will be observed carefully by the neighbours: first, the US-China rivalry at the global level; second, the India-US emerging partnership; and finally, India-China relations that have not recovered since the nosedive it took in 2020 following Galwan. How these evolve and how India’s neighbours respond will influence India’s neighbourhood policies.
Legacy of British India
Historically, India has had difficult relations with its neighbours, in large part because of the legacy of the multiple partitions that it went through. Following three Anglo-Burmese wars over a span of nearly sixty years, from 1886 to 1937 Burma became a province of British India and thereafter a separate colony till its independence in 1948. The British East India Company’s conquest of Sri Lanka began during the last decade of the 18th century with the coastal areas and in 1802, it became a Crown colony, administered from Madras. Over the next two decades, the British gained control over the entire island introducing plantation crops like tea, coffee, and rubber for which large numbers of indentured Indian labour were brought in. Eventually, Sri Lanka became an independent country in 1948. The most traumatic partition was in 1947 that led to the creation of Pakistan in the name of a separate homeland for the Muslims of the sub-continent. Even after East Pakistan seceded in 1971 to become Bangladesh, Pakistan remains the second largest country in the region and remains locked in a hostile relationship with India. Lasting hostility has in turn cast a shadow on any developments at a regional level.
Afghanistan, Bhutan, and Nepal were always independent and had a long tradition of trade relations and people-to-people exchanges with the neighbouring Indian states over the centuries. However, all three kingdoms had run-ins leading to wars with British India during the 18th and early 19th centuries. These conflicts ended with the establishment of boundaries between the three kingdoms and British India and in the process, the three relinquished sovereignty over their ‘defence and foreign affairs’ by accepting British ‘guidance’ through the appointment of plenipotentiary Political Agents, who in turn reported to the Viceroy in India.
This is the legacy that India inherited in 1947 as all the newly independent states struggled to consolidate their new found sovereignty.
Independent India’s challenges
As a buffer state between India and Afghanistan, Pakistan inherited the borderlands with Afghanistan and the problems of the Durand Line that divided the Pashtun homelands. The treatment of Hindu, Madhesi, and Tamil minorities with Pakistan (and post-1971 Bangladesh), Nepal, and Sri Lanka respectively, often became a domestic preoccupation for India. In the northeast, the restive tribes often sought to set up camps across the border in Myanmar as the Indian state sought to integrate these into the national mainstream, an unfinished exercise as recent developments in Manipur have shown. What this means is that India’s neighbourhood policies were, and remain, more intimately connected with our domestic policy than is often appreciated. On the flip side, societal and identity conflicts in India’s border states aroused interests in these countries that caused resentment in Delhi. Merely drawing lines on maps does not create sovereignties. British India was the paramount military power in the region and could enforce its will; a fragmented independent India, preoccupied with consolidating its own sovereignty over the 500 plus princely states and a war with Pakistan in 1947, has never enjoyed that unquestioned authority.
The partitions also divided the economic space for a newly independent India. The creation of East Pakistan made India’s north-eastern states more distant and remote while the jute-based economy of the region was shattered. In the west, the sources of all the rivers flowing through Pakistan lie in India (and for the Kabul River, in Afghanistan) creating dependencies. India’s northern rivers basins of the Ganges and Yamuna are almost entirely fed by the rivers originating in the Nepal Himalayan ranges flowing southwards and then eastwards into the Bay of Bengal.
This legacy meant that Indian diplomacy in the neighbourhood lacked both the economic and the military resources to deliver on its policy objectives that it inherited as the successor state to British India. As these countries struggled with their own sovereignty issues, their internal political squabbles often attracted Indian involvement. These involvements also left long term scars on the relationships. The creation of Bangladesh in 1971 would not have happened without Indian political and material support and yet, less than five years after, there was a growing anti-India sentiment that was exploited by the military regimes that succeeded Sheikh Mujibur Rehman.
The struggle by the Tamils for their rights in Sri Lanka led to a violent insurgency, and the ill-advised deployment of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in Sri Lanka (from 1987-90 following the signing of the Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord) still rankles deeply. In Nepal, every political movement towards democracy has somehow involved India because it was the natural refuge for the asylum seekers, from King Tribhuvan in 1950 to the Nepali Congress leaders seeking democratic reform. None of the Maoists who waged a decade-long insurgency from the mid-1990s onwards ever sought refuge in China but took advantage of the open border with India. And yet, there remains an anti-India sentiment that surfaces repeatedly, stoked, and exploited by local politicians to demonstrate their nationalist credentials. Events like the 2015 economic squeeze by India (Nepalis call it a blockade) after Nepal adopted its new constitution leading to protests by the Madhesis in the Terai will remain a lasting pain point. Indian diplomats are often accused of arrogance and lacking empathy, earning them the unflattering sobriquet of a Viceroy or Pro-Consul.
The near-permanent hostility with Pakistan has meant that proposals for regional cooperation that are floated by India’s neighbours (SAARC was proposed by Bangladesh Gen Ziaur Rehman) often arouse Indian apprehensions. Even when India has overcome its reservations (especially under the Gujral Doctrine of “non-reciprocity”) and offered constructive proposals, these have often floundered, leaving India to come up with sub-regional initiatives. It is a good reminder of Tulsidas’s line from Ramcharitmanas when Lord Ram realises and declares: Bhay bin hoye nahin preet (there cannot be love/respect without a modicum of fear).
Modi’s India and ‘neighbourhood first’
On taking over as Prime Minister a decade ago, Modi declared a “neighbourhood first” foreign policy. He followed it up with his first two foreign visits to Bhutan and Nepal. These visits were successful but follow-up and economic delivery was lacking. Modi’s personalised diplomacy with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Pakistan and President Xi Jinping soon ran aground and since then, India’s neighbourhood policy has been episodic. The sole definitive action with respect to the neighbourhood from the Modi government has been the repeated postponements of the SAARC summit since 2016 after the Uri attack. However, the sub-regional initiatives like BIMSTEC (The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) and BBIN The Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal Initiative) promoted by India have been neither particularly noteworthy nor majorly successful.
One key reason is that India has not put forward a coherent policy for South Asia in any consistent fashion, preferring instead to deal with each neighbour bilaterally as this put India at an advantage. For the neighbours too, there were not many options. India was wary of any superpower presence in the region though Pakistan had joined SEATO and CENTO, two U.S. led military alliances. Development projects funded by India proceeded at the same leisurely pace as in India. The situation began to change with the growth of regionalisation, followed by globalisation. More significantly, China began to emerge as a global economic power and its footprint expanded, including in South Asia.
China had enjoyed close strategic ties with Pakistan since the 1960s but it also began to emerge as an economic investor. Now the other neighbours had a choice. A decade ago, China launched the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to fund strategic infrastructure like roads, railways, ports and power stations and transmission networks. Its deeper pockets and more efficient implementation made it an attractive partner. The economic presence was soon followed by political influence. During the Cold War, India had practised its own variant of the Monroe doctrine in the region but it becomes more difficult when its own neighbour that shared land borders with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, and Myanmar emerges as an economic superpower. Further, China did not have the complicated legacy of British India in the region and the intertwined minority ties with South Asia. This enables it to have a less emotive and a more transactional approach towards the region. In the last three years, there is a noticeable backlash against BRI in South Asia and elsewhere but Chinese presence in the region is now a reality.
During the last decade, Modi has been changing India’s image and how it is perceived. From kinetic retaliation for terrorist attacks originating from Pakistani territory to the alleged targeted assassinations of Khalistani terrorists on foreign soil, from doing away with Article 370 to an open espousal of majoritarianism and Hindutva, Modi wants to be the architect of transforming a soft, indecisive India into a more self-confident, assertive, and muscular Bharat. A third Modi term will sharpen and strengthen these trends. India’s neighbours are sensitive to the changes, as these are filtered through our neighbourhood policies.
Election season in 2024
The Maldives election last September brought in for President Mohamed Muizzu who had fought on an “India out” platform to distinguish him from his predecessor Ibrahim Solih, who had governed with an “India first” policy. Muizzu’s first announcement was to seek removal of the 70-odd Indian military personnel deployed there to maintain and operate two helicopters and a Dornier aircraft gifted by India. In December, he decided to pull out of the 2019 bilateral agreement for cooperation in hydrology, following it up by skipping the Colombo Security Conclave that includes India, Sri Lanka and Mauritius. Since the introduction of multiparty democracy in Maldives nearly two decades ago, every elected President’s first foreign visit has been to Delhi; Muizzu has already visited Turkey and Dubai and is now scheduled to visit China. Parliamentary elections due in 2024 might offer India some comfort, but it is too soon to predict.
Sheikh Hasina is poised to win a historic fourth term in Bangladesh in the elections scheduled on January 7. The main opposition party BNP is boycotting the polls and has mounted street protests. A harsh government crackdown has provoked criticism in the West. India has three key demands – protection of minorities’, no support to anti-India elements, and connectivity. Sheikh Hasina has been responsive, in varying degrees, on all three. At the same time, she has maintained close ties with China. As India-China rivalry sharpens, her challenge will be to avoid too close an embrace with either while not crossing India’s red lines.
The final round of Bhutan’s parliamentary elections is due on January 9 and the options will be between former PM Tshering Tobgay (2013-18) or former civil servant-turned-politician Dasho Pema Chewang. The question here is the progress in boundary talks with China that resumed last year after being frozen since the Doklam crisis. October also saw the first ever visit by the Bhutanese Foreign Minister to China. Meanwhile, Bhutan is also strengthening economic ties with India by planning a 1,000 sq km international city on the Assam border, connected by road and rail links. Gelephu is expected to be a green township with zero-emission industries. Bhutan’s opening to the world has so far been calibrated but there appears to a slight quickening of the pace to create economic opportunities for its youth who have been migrating out in recent years.
Pakistan has been grappling with multiple challenges that have forced it to turn inwards. Imran Khan remains behind bars and his party has seen many departures. Conventional wisdom indicates that Nawaz Sharif, who returned from exile with the blessings of the Army should get his fourth term. His earlier terms were cut short each time because of deteriorating relations with the Army. Has he mellowed and will the Army trust him are questions that will be clearer after the elections on February 8. Mr. Sharif will be keen to improve relations with India but the Modi government’s interest is limited to managing relations rather than moving towards resolution of historical issues.
Sri Lanka’s elections, in the last quarter of 2024, will take place in a polarised atmosphere. President Ranil Wickremesinghe, sworn in last year after President Gotabaya Rajapakse was forced to quit after a historic aragalaya (struggle) that galvanised the country, is his party’s sole MP and continues only with the support of the Rajapakse’s SLPP (Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna). SLPP is adept at whipping up nationalist sentiment among the majority Sinhala middle class but the current preoccupation for the people is the economic challenges. Mr. Wickremesinghe is pushing for reforms and favours talks with minorities to bring about devolution that makes SLPP uncomfortable. The other two mainstream parties SJB (Samagi Jana Balawegaya) and SLFP (Sri Lanka Freedom Party) are mired in internal disarray.
Relations with the Taliban regime in Kabul are limited after India reopened its embassy in 2022, calling it a technical mission to coordinate Indian humanitarian assistance. The Afghan embassy in Delhi is shuttered and so far, India has not agreed to let Taliban post people to man it. Visas remain suspended. In Nepal, elections are due in 2027. The Maoist-UML coalition that took power in end-2022 proved short-lived. Within three months, Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) or the UML, had quit and Maoist Prime Minister Prachanda found a new coalition partner in the NC. Under the constitution, there cannot be a vote of confidence for the first two years and any political jockeying is likely to begin only towards end-2024.
Myanmar is caught up in its internal struggles after the military takeover in February 2021. The pushback this time has been much stronger in the past, possibly because even the limited political, economic, and social freedoms that had existed for a decade prior enabled the emergence of a middle class. The resistance this time cuts across ethnicities and in the north, has support from China. India has continued to work with the junta to promote its connectivity projects.
Regional elections are not the only source of uncertainty for South Block. On January 13, Taiwan elects a new president and another DPP (Democratic Progressive Party) victory will sharpen tensions with Beijing, impacting US-China relations. In Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be struggling to win a third term in June and towards the year end, the UK will have a new Prime Minister. The US election on November 5 remains the most anticipated, especially if Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination. Election forecasters have their hands full in 2024, as do Indian diplomats.
To gain legitimacy, any global order needs to fulfil two conditions. First, a convergence among the major powers of the day; and, second, successfully presenting the outcome as a global public good to the rest of the world. The global nuclear order (GNO) was no exception but, today, it is under strain.
Lessons of the Cold War
The GNO was created in the shadow of the Cold War, with the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., leading the Western and the Socialist blocs, respectively. Following the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the two came perilously close to launching a nuclear war, both President John F. Kennedy and General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev understood two political realities. First, as the two nuclear super-powers, they needed bilateral mechanisms to prevent tensions from escalating to the nuclear level. And, second, nuclear weapons were dangerous and, therefore, their spread should be curbed. This convergence created the GNO.
During the Cuban crisis, a secret back-channel between President Kennedy’s brother Robert Kennedy and Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin, helped resolve the crisis. The first bilateral measure was the Hot Line, established in 1963, to enable the leaders to communicate directly. The Hot Line (later upgraded into Nuclear Risk Reduction Centres) was followed by arms control negotiations as the two nuclear superpowers sought to manage their nuclear arms race and maintain strategic stability.
To control proliferation, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. initiated multilateral negotiations in Geneva in 1965 on a treaty to curb the spread of nuclear weapons. Three years later, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), opened for signature. It began modestly with less than sixty parties but today, it is widely described as the cornerstone of the global nuclear order with 191 adherents.
The third element of the global nuclear order came into existence in 1975. India had chosen not to sign the NPT, and in 1974, stunned the world by conducting an underground nuclear explosion, or PNE. Seven countries (the U.S., U.S.S.R., U.K., Canada, France, Japan, and West Germany) held a series of meetings in London and concluded that ad-hoc export controls were urgently needed to ensure that nuclear technology, transferred for peaceful purposes, not be used for PNEs. London Club (as it was originally known) sounded inappropriate and later transformed into the Nuclear Suppliers Group, consisting of 48 countries today, which observe common guidelines for exporting nuclear and related dual-use materials, equipment, and technologies. Though Soviet Union and India enjoyed close relations, having signed the Indo-Soviet Friendship Treaty in 1971, U.S.S.R. was committed to upholding the GNO, and a founding member of the London Club.
Sustaining the nuclear order
The GNO has held reasonably well, particularly on two fronts. First, the taboo against nuclear weapons has held since 1945. It is a matter of debate how far the U.S.-U.S.S.R. arms control process helped preserve the taboo or whether it was just plain luck but the fact is that humanity has survived 75 years of the nuclear age without blowing itself up.
Second, non-proliferation has been a success. Despite dire predictions of more than twenty countries possessing nuclear weapons by the 1970s, (there were five in 1968 – the U.S., U.S.S.R., U.K., France, and China) only four countries have since gone nuclear, i.e., India, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan. Even after the Cold War ended, non-proliferation remained a shared objective and Moscow and Washington cooperated to ensure that Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan that hosted Soviet nuclear weapons and possessed some capabilities, were denuclearised. In 1995, the NPT, originally concluded for 25 years, was extended into perpetuity.
On other counts, the record is mixed. Arms control did not end the U.S.-U.S.S.R. nuclear race; in fact, their arsenals grew from 28,000 bombs in 1962 to over 65,000 bombs in the early 1980s but the dialogue and some agreements provided a semblance of managing the arms race. Agreements like SALT I and II, ABM treaty, INF Treaty, START I and the New START were concluded. Since the late 1980s, the U.S. and Soviet arsenals have declined sharply, to below 12,000 bombs today, though much of this can be attributed to the end of the Cold War rivalry and the breakup of the U.S.S.R.
The two nuclear hegemons shared a notion of ‘strategic stability’ based on assured second strike capability, guaranteed by the enormous arsenals that both had built up. This eliminated any incentive to strike first ensuring deterrence stability. Arms control negotiations led to parity in strategic capacities creating a sense of arms race stability, and fail-safe communication links provided crisis management stability. These understandings of nuclear deterrence in a bipolar world outlasted the Cold War but are under question.
Changing geopolitics
Today’s nuclear world is no longer a bipolar world. The U.S. faces a more assertive China, determined to regain influence, regionally and globally. This rivalry is different from the Cold War because both economies are closely intertwined and further, China is an economic and technological peer rival. China has resented the U.S.’s naval presence in the South China and East China Seas and since the last Taiwan Strait crisis in 1996, has steadily built up its naval and missile capabilities. These were on display in August last year to demonstrate changing power equations following Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.
Changing geopolitics has taken its toll on the treaties between the U.S. and Russia. In 2002, the U.S. withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and in 2019, from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty on grounds that Russia was violating it. The only remaining agreement, New START, will lapse in 2026; its verification meetings were suspended during the COVID-19 outbreak and never resumed. Strategic stability talks began in 2021 following the Geneva meeting between Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin, but collapsed with the Ukraine war. Last month, Russia de-ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) to bring it on a par with the U.S., raising concerns about the resumption of nuclear testing. As U.S. relations with Russia went into a nosedive, the U.S. is facing a new situation of two nuclear peer rivals who are exploring new roles for more usable weapons. Moreover, Russian nuclear sabre rattling to warn North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the U.S. against escalation in Ukraine has revived nuclear concerns. The old definitions of strategic stability no longer hold.
The Cold War convergence on non-proliferation has run its course; also, nuclear weapons technology is a 75-year-old technology. The U.S. has always had a pragmatic streak shaping its policy approaches. It turned a blind eye when Israel went nuclear in the 1960s-70s and again, when China helped Pakistan with its nuclear programme in the 1980s. More recently, the nuclear submarine AUKUS deal (Australia, U.K., U.S.) with Australia, a non-nuclear weapon state, is raising concerns in the NPT community.
During the 1970s, South Korea began to actively consider a nuclear weapons programme, spurred by the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam. However, France withdrew its offer to supply a reprocessing plant to South Korea under U.S. pressure in 1975-76 and South Korea was persuaded to join the NPT. Recent opinion polls indicate a 70% support for developing a national nuclear deterrent and 40% for reintroducing U.S. nuclear weapons (withdrawn in 1991) on its territory.
From 1977 to 1988, the U.S. actively subverted Taiwan’s nuclear weapons programme as it stepped up a normalisation of ties with China. As a nuclear victim, the Japanese public retains a strong anti-nuclear sentiment but there is a shift, visible in Japan’s decision to double its defence spending over next five years.
During the Cold War, the U.S.’s nuclear umbrella tied its European allies closer. Today, domestic compulsions are turning the U.S. inwards, raising questions in the minds of its allies about its ‘extended deterrence’ guarantees, especially in East Asia. Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan have the technical capabilities to develop their independent nuclear deterrents within a short time, given political will. It is only a matter of time before U.S. pragmatism reaches the inevitable conclusion that more independent nuclear deterrent capabilities may be the best way to handle the rivalry with China.
1971 is widely remembered as a liberation war, a war that led to the creation of a new country. It was not the first of the India-Pakistan wars; the two countries had been to war twice earlier, in 1947-48 and again in 1965. It was also not to be the last one, as Kargil war showed us in 1999. Yet, of all four, the 1971 war is remembered as the decisive one. All wars and battles lead to outcomes, invariably interpreted as victory or defeat by the protagonists and the India-Pakistan wars are no different. None of the four wars succeeded in ending the hostile relationship between the two because they remained inconclusive but the 1971 war is still accepted as a decisive victory for India. That is how history remembers it fifty years later; for it achieved an outcome that changed the map of the region forever.
Battles are fought on land, in the air and in the seas and oceans but outcomes of wars are also determined in meeting rooms and conference halls. 1971 is seen as a decisive victory for India because it reflected an Indian victory in shaping the narrative, domestically, regionally and globally. Yet, like in all wars, there were uncertainties and India had to cater for the unexpected. There were unanticipated developments that forced Indian leaders to adapt and modify goalposts but without losing control of the historical narrative. This article seeks to explore the dimensions of the 1971 war not on the battlefield but around conference tables and tension filled meeting rooms.
Seeds of the conflict
The war began in 1971 but the root causes go further back into history. A short appreciation illustrates how it helped Indian leaders shape the political narrative and take certain decisions. The seeds of differences between the leaders of East Pakistan and West Pakistan had been sown even before 1947. The ill-conceived partition of Bengal by Lord Curzon in 1905 provoked widespread resentment and agitations and had to be revoked in 1911. However, it heightened a sense of political awareness among the Muslims of Bengal. It is worth recalling that the Muslim League was founded in 1906 in Dhaka by the Nawab of Dhaka and included many prominent Bengali Muslims like Shaheed Suhrawardy, Khwaja Nazimuddin and Fazlul Haq. In subsequent years, the Muslim League leadership began to be dominated by Muslims from the north and west and very often, these leaders came from more elitist backgrounds.
In 1946, distance between the Bengali leaders of the League and Jinnah were surfacing and find mention in Suhrawardy’s letter to Chowdhary Khaliquzzaman. By this time, partition of India was emerging as a likely outcome, and while in the west, there were contiguous Muslim majority areas, the same was not the case in Bengal and Bihar. Suhrawardy reflected concerns about Muslims where they were in minority provinces and questioned Jinnah’s obsession with partition.
A key reason was that the Bengali Muslim identity was deeply rooted in the culture and linguistic traditions of Bengal. Bengali Muslims did not take to adoption of Urdu, Arabic or Persian instruments to emphasise their religious identity. In this sense, they were akin to the Muslim communities of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. They were influenced more by Bhakti and Sufi traditions than by Hanafi or Wahabi influences. However, the political tides took their toll and Pakistan emerged with two units – East and West Pakistan separated by 1500 miles of India in the middle.
After Liaqat Ali’s assassination in 1952, though both Shaheed Suhrawardy and Khwaja Nazimuddin served briefly as Prime Ministers, the power centre was shifting westwards. The erosion of East Pakistan’s autonomy began soon after 1947. Bengali Muslim League leaders were often given short shrift. Discussions on the constitution came to an impasse because West Pakistan was unwilling to accept a legislature that would have greater Bengali representation based on populations of the two wings. Jinnah’s fiat in 1951 about Urdu as the national language led to riots in Dhaka.
By 1954, the Awami faction of the Pakistan Muslim League had dropped the first two words and emerged as the Awami League. The growing marginalisation of the Muslim League at the hands of the Awami League led Gen Ayub Khan to overthrow the civilian government and declare martial law in 1958. A similar electoral outcome in 1970 eventually led Awami League to spearhead the call for independence in 1971.
Along with political discrimination, East Pakistan also suffered growing economic discrimination. The Planning Commission of Pakistan provided the most conclusive data in its reports. In 1949-50, the per capita income in East Pakistan was Rs 288 compared to Rs 351 in West Pakistan. By 1969-70, the disparity had widened and East Pakistan’s figure had risen to Rs 331, while West Pakistan’s per capita income had grown to Rs 533. Similar discrepancies were visible in terms of infrastructure, health and educational facilities. East Pakistan received 25 percent of investment despite being home to over half the population. Its share of Pakistan’s export earnings was between 50 and 70 percent during this period but its share of imports ranged between 25 and 30 percent. According to the Planning Commission, the net transfer of resources during these two decades from East to West was $ 2.6 billion.
The economic domination was made easier by the military rule that reinforced the West Pakistani domination in the military forces and the civil services. By 1970, 84 percent of the civil service and 85 percent of the diplomatic service was West Pakistani as was 95 percent of the army. Among the air force pilots, 89 percent were from the West. It is this frustration that led Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as President of the Awami League to announce the 6-point demand in 1966 for restructuring of the Pakistani state in a manner that would provide autonomy to the East.
The points included a federal parliamentary government; devolution of power with federal government authority restricted to defence and foreign affairs; effective measures to prevent flight of capital from East to West or two separate and freely convertible currencies; revenue and taxation powers with federating units and a percentage of the revenue to be given to the centre; separate accounts for foreign exchange earnings of the two wings; and, the setting up a separate para-military force for East Pakistan. As the 6 points gained greater traction, the groundswell of protests grew and Gen Ayub Khan was forced to resign in 1969.
His successor Gen Yahya Khan initially declared martial law but was then forced to convene general elections in December 1970. In a National Assembly of 313 members, Awami League made a clean sweep in the east, winning 167 seats; Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s PPP was a distant second with 88 seats. It was clear that Sheikh Mujib would be the next PM while his party would also provide the Chief Minister for East Pakistan. Bhutto began to raise questions about Sheikh Mujib’s authority to change the constitution in keeping with the 6-point agenda and demanded equal authority as a representative of the West though his party had not won any seat in NWFP or Balochistan. The election outcome was a perfect reflection of the polarisation of the political structures.
Till this point, India had made no comments on the situation except to welcome the holding of the general elections so that a democratically elected government would take over from the military rulers. However, the National Assembly was never convened. Protests broke out in march against the delays, leading to firing and casualties in East Pakistan. As protests spread, martial law provisions were implemented ruthlessly. Sheikh Mujib refused to enter into a power sharing arrangement at the centre that Bhutto proposed or dilute his demands for autonomy. The last round of talks ended on 25 March and Bhutto returned to Karachi even as the National Assembly was to convene the following day. That night Operation Searchlight was launched, a brutal, genocidal crackdown, across the board aimed at crushing any dissent. Sheikh Mujib was arrested and flown out to Rawalpindi.
India gets involved
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi addressed the issue in parliament, criticising the military repression, expressing concern and urging restoration of democratic processes. Supportive resolutions were adopted by consensus. Overflights of Pakistani aircraft were suspended. After Sheikh Mujib’s arrest, the other members of the Awami leadership escaped entering border districts of West Bengal. In early April, an independent government of Bangla Desh was established on the border, its location was named Mujibnagar. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was declared President in absentia; Syed Nazrul Islam and Tajuddin Ahmed were appointed Vice President and Prime Minister respectively. Further, India gave refuge to the East Pakistani military and para-military elements who were escaping the brutal crackdown overseen by Lt Gen Tikka Khan.
The few East Pakistani army officers deployed in the east defected; the two senior most were Col M A G Osmani and Major Ziaur Rahman and the others in West Pakistan were put under house arrest. An underground resistance took shape under the leadership of Major Rahman. The youth wing of the Awami League reconstituted themselves as the Mukti Bahini under the leadership of Sheikh Fazlul Haq Moni (Sheikh Mujib’s nephew), Tofail Ahmed and ‘Tiger’ Kader Siddiqui. Together, they formed the core of the resistance. In some of the sub-districts, they captured treasuries and acquired some weapons. With these resources, they turned to India for help and Indian intelligence agencies, led by the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) got involved.
The outflow of refugees that had been a trickle soon turned into a torrent. By mid-May, neighbouring states of Assam, Tripura and West Bengal were hosting over five million refugees stretching the local resources. India began to agitate the East Pakistan issue as a humanitarian and refugee crisis in the relevant United Nations bodies in New York and Geneva. Internally, a Core Group was set up under Principal Secretary to PM P N Haksar, including Chairman of the Policy Planning Committee D P Dhar, Foreign Secretary T N Kaul, R&AW chief R N Kao and PN Dhar, Secretary to PM. At the cabinet level, Mrs Indira Gandhi consulted Defence Minister Jagjivan Ram, Finance Minister Y B Chavan and Foreign Minister Swaran Singh.
Initially, Mrs Gandhi favoured the idea of giving immediate recognition to Bangla Desh as a free country with a government in exile but others including Swaran Singh felt that India needed time to prepare the ground for gaining broad international acceptance; otherwise, India ran the risk of being blamed for interfering in the internal affairs of a neighbouring country and encouraging secession. It was also clear that immediate recognition would very likely lead to military operations in East Pakistan and Jagjivan Ram and Army chief Gen S H F J Manekshaw both sought time for adequate planning and resourcing as the conflict could also escalate into the western theatre, leading to a two-front situation.
Accordingly, an evolutionary policy approach was adopted with the necessary preparations to exercise the military option at a later date. The political understanding was that the Pakistan regime needed to respect the outcome of the December election and for this, the first step is the release of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and commencement of a political dialogue. The second decision was to demand an end to the military crackdown in East Pakistan and a return of the troops to their barracks so that conditions for the return of the refugees could begin to be created. While the international community, especially key major powers needed to be approached to use their influence with Pakistan for the above two points, UN and its agencies would be sensitised to the refugee crisis to generate relief and rehabilitation assistance. Finally, resources for the military option were cleared so that necessary procurement could be fast tracked. Gen Manekshaw had the lessons of 1962 war with China and the 1965 war with Pakistan in mind and needed a better trained and better equipped force. Further, he also needed far greater coordination with the Air Force and Navy than had been in evidence earlier.
From June to December, the Ministry of External Affairs became the instrument for the campaign on the first two points, even as senior political leaders led by Mrs Gandhi visited selected capitals. Following closure of Indian air space, Pakistani aircraft had been using Colombo as a transit point. After some reluctance, Sri Lanka was finally persuaded in end-July to withdraw this facility. By this time the number of refugees had crossed eight million. Pakistan refused to release Sheikh Mujib, accused India of seeking a break-up of Pakistan, called the refugees as ‘rebels and secessionists’ and continued its crackdown.
The first fortnight of July unveiled a new surprise. On 6 July, US National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger landed in Delhi for talks. His message was to urge India to be patient even as news were breaking about US having resumed military supplies to Pakistan. After two days of bruising meetings in Delhi he took off for Islamabad. After a day, he feigned illness, ostensibly went to Nathiagali to recover, while he took off for his secret visit to Beijing that had been in the making and for which, Gen Yahya Khan had played the go-between. After returning to Islamabad, having recovered from his illness and returned to the US. On 15 July, US president Richard Nixon announced to a stunned world that he had accepted an invitation to visit China. As the details of Pakistan’s role emerged, Indian leaders were forced to review their options.
As we now know, Washington was fully aware of the developments in East Pakistan. The US Consul General in Dhaka Archer Blood sent a telegram to Washington in end-March, days after the beginning of Operation Searchlight, titled ‘Selective Genocide’. When it did not elicit a response, it was followed up in subsequent weeks with more details of the killings and then finally he and twenty of his colleagues sent the now famous ‘Dissent Telegram’, conveying disagreement with US policy on Pakistan and describing it as ‘moral bankruptcy’. By end-April, he was sacked from the post and returned to the US where he was assigned to the Personnel Department. US never asked for the release of Sheikh Mujib or criticised Gen Yahya Khan for the military crackdown; it merely asked him to seek a political solution.
Even when US Ambassador in Islamabad Joseph Farland reported that Pakistan could not hold on to its eastern wing, Kissinger’s response was that the US needed six months to pull off the China visit. The US effort therefore was to prevent India from going for the military option. The last straw was the message conveyed by Kissinger to Indian Ambassador L K Jha on 17 July that in case a war broke out between India and Pakistan and China got involved on Pakistan’s side, US would be unable to help India.
The Indo-Soviet Treaty for Peace, Friendship and Co-operation had been under discussion for a couple of years. There was already movement to fast track it and D P Dhar had been following it up. It was now finalised and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko flew to Delhi for the signing on 7 August. It included a significant clause calling for mutual consultations in the event of a threat to either party. Indian military planners had to factor in not just a two-front war with Pakistan but also the possibility of China upping the ante in the north-east. This was not an exaggerated notion. After the 1965 war, Bhutto had visualised that in the next conflict, coordination with China would be essential, in the north-east and particularly close to Sikkim down to the ‘chicken’s neck’. Bhutto was an influential leader and his own political ambitions had contributed to the East Pakistan crisis. From India’s point of view, a non-hostile Bangla Desh was strategically preferable to a hostile East Pakistan. Further, it was a negation of the two-nation theory that had formed the basis of the creation of Pakistan in the first place. The die was cast.
Setting the stage
Swaran Singh resumed his travels to key European capitals and US and Canada. K C Pant visited a number of Asian and Latin American capitals. Mohammed Yunus took on the responsibility of covering the Arab countries. The response was disappointing. Even where there was sympathy, there was a reluctance to get drawn into an issue that had larger ramifications. Territorial break-up of a state was difficult to accept and Pakistan was a member of Western military alliances, SEATO and CENTO. China and the US were openly supporting Pakistan and the Islamic world displayed a clear sympathy for Pakistan. NAM was moribund.
However, international public opinion was getting energised. Media had begun to carry harrowing stories and pictures of the refugee camps. Joan Baez took up the cause in a series of concerts called Song for Bangla Desh. Pandit Ravi Shankar and George Harrison organised the Concert for Bangla Desh bringing together the Beatles, Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan, among others. In October-November, visits to the refugee camps by people like Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, Senator Edward Kennedy and prominent French intellectual Andre Malraux kept the world opinion sensitised to the humanitarian tragedy.
Meanwhile, at home, arrangements were made to enable the government in exile to establish contact with East Pakistani diaspora in other countries. The entire Bengali component of the Pakistani consulate in Calcutta had resigned and had joined the establishment in Mujibnagar. A Branch Secretariat of the MEA to coordinate the different needs and requirements of the growing refugee camps as well as the government in exile, was established in Calcutta, with representation from other branches of the government. Indian missions abroad were receiving requests for asylum from East Pakistani diplomats and officials that needed vetting. Gen Yahya Khan was threatening to charge Sheikh Mujib with treason and subject him to a court martial.
A last-ditch diplomatic exercise was set to unfold at the UN General Assembly in the third week of September. It was vital to ensure that India’s options not be constrained by any move by Pakistan, in concert with the US, through the Security Council. Even delaying tactics were to be blocked. Pakistan’s appeal was for preserving the territorial integrity of a member state. It was mooted that Pakistan may be receptive to taking back only the Muslim refugees provided the international community paid for their resettlement. The 1970 election was forgotten. Awami League was declared a secessionist party and therefore to be disbanded. Once West Pakistan’s authority was restored, a civilian government would be put in place. In the UN, the majority of the countries only addressed the humanitarian aspect and shied away from addressing the political issues. Some suggested that India and Pakistan should settle it bilaterally. Less than half a dozen countries supported the idea of respecting the will of the people reflected in the electoral outcome. The idea of a liberation struggle found no takers.
Even as India explored the possibility of a delegation of the Bangla Desh government in exile to visit New York to address the UN and engage directly with people, US Consulate in Calcutta was seeking to establish its own links with some members of the government in exile in order to explore if they were open to direct talks with the Yahya regime and create an embarrassing split. Meanwhile the Mukti Bahini had stepped up its activities in East Pakistan. Domestic public opinion in India was urging Mrs Gandhi to be more forthcoming in supporting the Mukti Bahini and recognising the government in exile. By mid-November it was clear that operational support for the freedom fighters needed to be stepped up, the liberation war could not be a prolonged affair and, Indian military action was inevitable.
In October-November, Mrs Gandhi undertook a series of foreign visits covering Moscow, Bonn, Paris, London and concluding with Washington on 4-5 November. The responses were along predictable lines. US had opened links to the Soviet Union suggesting that détente could be jeopardised if they encouraged India to declare war on Pakistan. In Moscow, Soviet leaders supported the calls for an end to the military crackdown and the killings as also release of Sheikh Mujib to enable a political settlement; in private talks, Premier Kosygin cautioned that a war might worsen the situation for India. She got a sympathetic hearing in Paris and Bonn from President Pompidou and Chancellor Willy Brandt respectively but a lukewarm reception in London. By this time, a Pakistani military build up on the western front had raised the prospects of war. After a frosty meeting with President Nixon in White House on 4 November, Mrs Gandhi decided to use the second meeting the following day on other global issues, completely bypassing the East Pakistan crisis.
The last of the doubts in Mrs Gandhi’s mind about avoiding war had vanished. She realised that that the international community could not support a return of the refugees. Moreover, the Mukti Bahini was becoming resentful at the restraints imposed on them by India. Pakistan adopted a policy of hot pursuit into India in the eastern sector, including using its airplanes. India responded in kind. Conflict broke out at Boyra on 22 November. The western sector was put on high alert. After some reservations on the part of Eastern Command the political decision was taken to set up a joint command with Col Osmani leading the freedom fighters. Mrs Gandhi was flying back from Calcutta to Delhi on 3 December when she learnt that Pakistani airplanes had undertaken pre-emptive strikes against Indian airfields in the western sector.
After landing in Delhi, an emergency meeting of the Cabinet was convened. A state of war with Pakistan was declared. Formal recognition was given to the state of Bangla Desh and they were invited to open a diplomatic mission in Delhi.
The 14-day war of 1971
The objectives of the military campaign were clear. In the east, it had to be the decisive defeat of the Pakistan army ensuring the transformation of East Pakistan into a free republic of Bangla Desh; in the west, it was to ensure that Pakistan was unable to make any gains in Jammu and Kashmir while exploring any possibilities for capturing territory in Rajasthan and Sindh that could be politically useful at the negotiating table. The force levels were deployed accordingly. Eastern Army Commander Lt Gen J S Aurora had a little over three corps assisted by two divisions of Mukti Bahini and the irregulars. This enabled the opening up of four fronts – from the west, north, north-east and east, simultaneously. The aircraft carrier INS Vikrant along with two frigates and other supporting vessels was deployed on the eastern front. A significant force multiplier was the nearly 12 squadrons of the Indian Air Force deployed along the nine airfields in the east for supporting each of the four ground attack lines whose strategy was to bypass the major the major urban centres thereby cutting off the Pakistani forces and surround Dhaka. The Mukti Bahini played a key role in providing intelligence and undertaking sabotage for shaping the battlefield. In contrast, force levels in the west were more evenly balanced.
On the diplomatic front, the action shifted in the UN from the General Assembly to the Security Council. Pakistan accused India of creating and supporting a separatist movement in East Pakistan and now giving it open military support. India emphasised the socio-economic and political reasons for the growth of the liberation movement, the influx of the refugees and Pakistan’s aggression with air strikes on 3 December. Most states urged an immediate ceasefire and opening of a political dialogue without addressing the deeper political causes.
More than twenty resolutions were introduced in the Security Council. The US resolution called for an immediate ceasefire, withdrawal of the forces to their own borders to create an environment conducive to the return of the refugees with the help of the UN Secretary General. Many western country resolutions were similar to the US resolution. The USSR resolution called for a political settlement in East Pakistan that could end the hostilities and urged Pakistani forces from violence against its citizens. A Polish resolution urged that power be transferred to the elected representatives. China’s resolution condemned Indian aggression and demanded the withdrawal of Indian forces. Between December 4-16, USSR exercised a veto in support of India on seven occasions. The result was that the Security Council was prevented from taking any punitive actions against India that could have interfered with the liberation struggle and been a strategic setback for India.
Foreign Minister Swaran Singh arrived in New York on 10 December to present India’s case to the Security Council. Pakistan was represented by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Swaran Singh delivered his speech over two days as he sought consecutive translation instead of simultaneous translation, in view of the gravity of the situation. By 14 December, that the conflict in the east would end within the next 48 hours. Even USSR was urging India to move towards an end to the conflict. On 16 December, Swaran Singh informed the Security Council about the surrender of Dhaka and the following day at 2000 hrs (IST), India declared a unilateral ceasefire on the western front. Swaran Singh urged the Security Council to ensure that Pakistan reciprocated the unilateral ceasefire. After a dramatic tearing up of the draft resolutions, Bhutto blamed the Security Council for its inaction and staged a walk out. On his return to Pakistan, he took over as President and Civilian Martial Law Administrator from Gen Yahya Khan on 20 December. The following day, the Security Council adopted the resolution (UNSCR 307 of 1971) noting the ceasefire and urging both sides to ensure its durability.
While the fighting was on, US pulled out all the stops to put pressure on India. Chinese leadership was informed by Kissinger that US would support China if China were to take measures to neutralise any threat perceptions from India. On 12 December, China conveyed that having considered the options, it would be best to get a ceasefire through the Security Council. US also told USSR that détente process could be jeopardised if USSR did not use its influence on India to de-escalate the situation. To add to it, an 11-warship group, including the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise from the Seventh Fleet entered the Bay of Bengal on 13 December in an exercise in coercive diplomacy. The justification used that it was needed to safeguard the foreigners and evacuate them from Chittagong if necessary. Soviet Deputy Foreign Ministers Firyubin and Kuznetsov visited Delhi for consultations. The message was that USSR would deal with the Seventh Fleet incursion, India should wrap up its operations in East Pakistan and immediately thereafter, announce a ceasefire on the western front. A Soviet naval task force including at least one nuclear submarine was directed to the area, with appropriate signalling. Eventually, the USS Enterprise departed just as Dhaka surrendered.
Such was the extent of self-delusion in the White House that immediately after the ceasefire, Kissinger congratulated Nixon for having saved West Pakistan. There had been no evidence that India had the resources or plans to dismember West Pakistan. However, flawed intelligence assessments were employed by the White House to deceive US friends and convince China that it was credible US military threats that had thwarted Indian plans.
The return to politics
In many ways wars become more interesting when the fighting stops. Negotiations begin. The spoils of war have to be legitimised. Negotiations are critical even though media attention moves on in search of new headlines. The 1971 war was no different. Keeping 93000 prisoners of war in safe custody while managing the post-war situation in terms of ensuring Sheikh Mujib’s return to Dhaka and keeping the logistics chains moving was a challenge. Pakistani prisoners were vulnerable to the Mukti Bahini, some of whom wanted to exact revenge, and they knew it.
In Pakistan, Bhutto was negotiating with Sheikh Mujib, asking him to intercede with India for the return of the POWs and give an assurance that no war crimes trials were conducted. Sheikh Mujib was flown to Ankara and then to London on January 8, 1972. He conveyed a message that he would fly back on a British airways special flight to Dhaka but would like to stop in Delhi to thank Mrs Gandhi and the people of India personally. On 9 January, he landed at Palam and after being received by Mrs Gandhi and the entire cabinet, the two leaders proceeded to the Parade Ground where a hundred thousand people had assembled to felicitate him. A couple of hours later, he left for Dhaka, landing in his own free country in the afternoon, to a tumultuous welcome by millions of his citizens.
India established its diplomatic presence in Bangla Desh when J N Dixit (later to become Foreign Secretary and NSA) presented his Letter of Commission as Minister in-charge of the Indian diplomatic mission, on 17 January to President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in Dhaka. Bangla Desh was facing acute shortages of food supplies and health facilities; there was a breakdown in administrative structures and elements of Pakistan army had escaped and assembled into groups in the Chittagong hill tracts. Sheikh Mujib made three requests to Mrs Gandhi, for deputing Indian civil servants to run the district administrations for six months till Bangla Desh officials could take over, a continuing presence of Indian military to mop up the remnants of the Pakistan army, and across the board economic assistance for rebuilding the destroyed infrastructure and setting up a national airline and shipping line. All these were accepted. The Indian Navy helped clear the mines at Chittagong port. A brigade was deployed at Cox’s Bazaar. In February, Sheikh Mujib visited Calcutta to thank the people and in March, Mrs Gandhi became the first leader to visit Dhaka. Both visits were resoundingly successful.
Bhutto had set about repairing ties with the Islamic world by undertaking visits to Iran, Turkey, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Syria in January 1972. He also swallowed his disappointment with US and China and set about strengthening his diplomatic position for the negotiations with India. He withdrew from the Commonwealth but maintained cordial relations with UK. Two rounds of bilateral talks were held in Murree in February and April and the Simla summit was convened in July 1972. Bhutto’s objectives were – to secure the release of POWs, to prevent any war crimes trials, to maintain Pakistan’s stand on Jammu and Kashmir undiluted, and manage the optics to appear as an equal and not a vanquished party. On the Indian side, there were two views on whether to drive through a final settlement on Kashmir or set a process in motion. The negotiations were often on the verge of a breakdown. It is known that on 2 July Bhutto sought a long private meeting with Mrs Gandhi where some of the outstanding issues were ironed out. The Simla Agreement was signed late that night. There has been considerable speculation about whether there was a secret text or verbal assurances but so far, there is no conclusive evidence. The POWs were released. Kashmir was to be settled bilaterally and a Line of Control came into being.
Bhutto also was moving to normalise relations with Sheikh Mujib. OIC countries linked Bangla Desh’s admission to this and Sheikh Mujib visited Lahore in February 1974 to participate in the OIC summit. Pakistan recognised Bangla Desh and in July 1974, Bhutto paid an official visit to Dhaka. It was clear that Bhutto was seeking to play on the Islamic sentiments to reduce the extent of the Indian influence. It also opened an option for Bangla Desh to navigate between India and Pakistan when needed.
Later in 1974, India conducted a Peaceful Nuclear Explosion creating ripples across the globe and in the region. Sikkim was integrated into India in 1975. Later that year, political imperatives led Mrs Gandhi to declare a state of national emergency that lasted 21 months. In the elections held in 1977, she lost power. In Bangla Desh, Sheikh Mujib was assassinated in August 1975 and by the end of the year, military rule had been established in Bangla Desh by Gen Ziaur Rahman, earlier a key leader of the Mukti Bahini. In Pakistan, Bhutto won the elections in 1977 but allegations of rigging led to a military coup and later that year, he was deposed by Gen Zia ul Haq and executed two years later.
History had moved on.
Conclusion
Looking back, it is only fair to judge that 1971 reflected a combination of strategic decisiveness among the political leadership, a responsiveness to the changing ground reality, unity across the party lines, a setting out of clear political objectives and a relationship of trust in the advice rendered by the military leadership. An objective assessment of military strength was made as also its application in the different zones of war, the diplomatic, military and political actors worked on a common script, that enabled India to claim that it was on the right side of history.
The best laid plans are often the first casualty when conflict begins. However, in 1971, the military plans had been backed by training and where necessary, the local commanders exercised initiative. Covert operations by the committed Mukti Bahini in the east provided valuable insights to the Indian army as it progressed without getting bogged down in attrition warfare. The Indian Air Force had understood the lessons from the 1965 war and was able to integrate much more closely with the army operations in both sectors. The psychological impact of strikes on the Governor’s House in Dhaka, oil refineries in Karachi and Sui gas fields in Balochistan was considerable. The navy’s strategy of keeping INS Vikrant in the Andamans while the PNS Ghazi was prowling the Bay of Bengal was a clever tactic that yielded rich dividends once PNS Ghazi was neutralised.
Taking on an adversarial US and understanding the limits of Soviet political support also demanded taking political calls at appropriate times.
Finally, the 1971 war provided an important chapter in shaping India’s strategic culture.
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Selected Background Readings:
Srinath Raghavan, A Global History of the Creation of Bangla Desh (Harvard University Press, 2013)
J N Dixit, India-Pakistan in War and Peace (Books Today, India Today Group, 2002)
Arjun Subramaniam, India’s Wars – A Military History 1947-1971 (Harper Collins, 2016)
John Gill, An Atlas of the 1971 India-Pakistan War (National Defence University Press, 2003)
Husain Haqqani, Magnificent Delusions: Pakistan, the United States and an Epic History of Misunderstanding (Public Affairs, 2015)
Gary J Bass, The Blood Telegram (Random House, 2013)
While these provide a broad perspective, there are, in addition, numerous accounts and memoirs of the personalities directly involved in the political and military decision making.
RAKESH SOOD 