15,010 km2 (5,795 sq mi) of territory lost in West Pakistan, primarily in the barren deserts of Sindh,[41] returned to Pakistan following the Simla agreement[42][43][44]
§ indicates events in the internal resistance movement linked to the Indo-Pakistani War. ‡ indicates events in the Indo-Pakistani War linked to the internal resistance movement in Bangladesh.
The Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 was a military confrontation between India and Pakistan that occurred during the Bangladesh Liberation War in East Pakistan from 3 December 1971 until the
Pakistani capitulation in Dhaka on 16 December 1971. Official de-jure war began with Pakistan airforce-affiliated Operation Chengiz Khan, which consisted of preemptive aerial strikes on 11 Indian air stations resulting in minor damages and suspension of counter-air operations for mere few hours.[46] The strikes led to India declaring war on Pakistan, marking their entry into the war for East Pakistan's independence, on the side of Bengali nationalist forces. India's entry expanded the existing conflict with Indian and Pakistani forces engaging on both the eastern and western fronts.[47] Thirteen days into the war, India had achieved total superiority into the East meanwhile it had sufficient superiority in the West, which resulted later in Eastern defence of Pakistan to sign an joint instrument of surrender, the second largest in history of humanity after German surrender in second world war.[48][49] on 16 December 1971 in Dhaka, ending conflict officially and marking the formation of East Pakistan as the new nation of Bangladesh. Approximately 93,000 Pakistani servicemen were taken prisoner by the Indian Army, which included 79,676 to 81,000 uniformed personnel of the Pakistan Armed Forces, including some Bengali soldiers who had remained loyal to Pakistan.[50][51] The remaining 10,324 to 12,500 prisoners were civilians, either family members of the military personnel or collaborators (Razakars).[52][53][54]
It is estimated that members of the Pakistani military and supporting pro-Pakistani Islamist militias killed between 300,000 and 3,000,000 civilians in Bangladesh.[55][56][57][58][59] As a result of the conflict, a further eight to ten million people fled the country to seek refuge in India.[60]
The Indo-Pakistani conflict was sparked by the Bangladesh Liberation War, a conflict between the traditionally dominant West Pakistanis and the majority East Pakistanis.[citation needed] The political tensions between East Bengal and West Pakistan had its origin in the creation of Pakistan as a result of the partition of India by the United Kingdom in 1947; the popular language movement in 1950; mass riots in East Bengal in 1964; and the mass protests in 1969. These led to the resignation of PresidentAyub Khan, who invited army chief General Yahya Khan to take over the central government.[65]: xxx The geographical distance between the eastern and western wings of Pakistan was vast; East Pakistan lay over 1,600 kilometres (1,000 mi) away, which greatly hampered any attempt to integrate the Bengali and the Pakistani cultures.[66]: 13–14 [67]
To overcome the Bengali domination and prevent formation of the central government in Islamabad, the controversial One Unit programme established the two wings of East and West Pakistan. West Pakistanis' opposition to these efforts made it difficult to effectively govern both wings.[65]: xxx In 1969, President Yahya Khan announced the first general elections and disestablished the status of West Pakistan as a single province in 1970, in order to restore it to its original heterogeneous status comprising four provinces, as defined at the time of establishment of Pakistan in 1947.[68] In addition, there were religious and racial tensions between Bengalis and the multi-ethnic West Pakistanis, as Bengalis looked different from the dominant West Pakistanis.[69]
To resolve the crisis, the Admiral Ahsan Mission was formed to provide recommendations. Its findings were met with favourable reviews from the political leaders of West Pakistan, with the exception of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party.[72]: 109–110
However, the military top brass vetoed the mission's proposal.[72]: 110 Zulfikar Ali Bhutto endorsed the veto,[72]: 110 and subsequently refused to yield the premiership of Pakistan to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The Awami League called for general strikes in the country. President Yahya Khan postponed the inauguration of the National Assembly, causing a disillusionment to the Awami League and their supporters throughout East Pakistan.[73] In reaction, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman called for general strikes that eventually shutdown the government, and dissidents in the East began targeting the ethnic Bihari community, which largely supported West Pakistan.[74]
In early March 1971, approximately 300 Biharis were slaughtered in riots by Bengali mobs in Chittagong alone.[74] The Government of Pakistan used the "Bihari massacre" to justify its deployment of the military in East Pakistan on 25 March, when it initiated its military crackdown.[74] President Yahya Khan called on the military – which was overwhelmingly led by West Pakistanis – to suppress dissent in the East, after accepting the resignation of Lieutenant-GeneralYaqub Ali Khan, the chief of staff of the East-Pakistani military.[75][76]
Mass arrests of dissidents began and, after several days of strikes and non-cooperation, the Pakistani military, led by Lieutenant-General Tikka Khan, cracked down on Dhaka on the night of 25 March 1971. The government outlawed the Awami League, which forced many of its members and sympathisers into refuge in Eastern India. Mujib was arrested on the night of 25/26 March 1971 at about 1:30 am (as per Radio Pakistan's news on 29 March 1971) and taken to West Pakistan. Operation Searchlight, followed by Operation Barisal, attempted to kill the intellectual elite of the east.[77]
On 26 March 1971, Major Ziaur Rahman of Pakistan Army declared the independence of Bangladesh on behalf of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.[78][79][80]
In April, the exiled Awami League leaders formed a government-in-exile in Baidyanathtala of Meherpur. The East Pakistan Rifles and Bengali officers in Pakistan's army, navy, and marines, defected to the rebellion after taking refuge in different parts of India. The Bangladesh Force, namely the Mukti Bahini, consisting of Niyomito Bahini (Regular Force) and Oniyomito Bahini (Guerilla Force), was formed under the retired colonel Mohammad Ataul Gani Osmani.[81]
There was also a meeting between Prime Minister Gandhi and President Nixon in November 1971, where she rejected the US advice against intervening in the conflict.[82]
Indian authorities also attempted to carry on psychological warfare and keep up the morale of comrades in East Pakistan. The Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra (Free Bangladesh Radio Centre), which had broadcast Major Rahman's independence declaration, was relocated from Kalurghat in East Pakistan to India after the transmission building was shelled by Pakistani Sabre jets on 30 March 1971. It resumed broadcasts on 3 April from Tripura, aided by the Indian Border Security Force. The clandestine station was finally shifted to Kolkata, where it was joined by a large number of Bangladeshi radio programmers, newscasters, poets, singers and journalists. Its jurisdiction was transferred to the provisional Bangladesh government-in-exile, and made its first broadcast on 25 May, the birth anniversary of poet Kazi Nazrul Islam (who would later be named Bangladesh's national poet). Among the Indian contributors to the radio station's nationalistic programmes was Salil Chowdhury. Akashvani Kolkata also actively took part in this effort.[94][95]
India's official engagement with Pakistan
Objective
An illustration showing military units and troop movements during operations in the Eastern sector of the war.
By the end of April 1971, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had asked the Indian Army chief General Sam Manekshaw if he was ready to go to war with Pakistan.[96][97] According to Manekshaw's own personal account, he refused, citing the onset of monsoon season in East Pakistan and also the fact that the army tanks were being refitted.[97] He offered his resignation, which Gandhi declined.[97] He then said he could guarantee victory if she would allow him to prepare for the conflict on his terms, and set a date for it; Gandhi accepted his conditions.[97][98] In reality, Gandhi was well aware of the difficulties of a hasty military action, but she needed to get the military's views to satisfy her hawkish colleagues and the public opinion, which were critical of India's restraint.[91]
The news media's mood in Pakistan had also turned increasingly jingoistic and militaristic against East Pakistan and India when the Pakistani news media reported the complexity of the situation in the East, though the reactions from Pakistan's news media pundits were mixed.[99][100] By the end of September 1971, a propaganda campaign, possibly orchestrated by elements within the Government of Pakistan, resulted in stickers endorsing "Crush India" becoming a standard feature on the rear windows of vehicles in Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Lahore; this soon spread to the rest of West Pakistan.[101] By October, other stickers proclaimed Hang the Traitor in an apparent reference to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.[102] By the first week of December, the conservative print media outlets in the country had published jihad related materials to boost the recruitment in the military.[101] By November 1971, an Indian-Pakistani war seemed inevitable. The Soviet Union reportedly warned Pakistan against the war, which they termed as "suicidal course for Pakistan's unity."[103]: part-3 Despite this warning, in November 1971, thousands of people led by conservative Pakistani politicians marched in Lahore and across Pakistan, calling for Pakistan to "crush India".[104][105] India responded by starting a massive buildup of the Indian Army on the western borders; the army waited until December, when the drier ground in the East made for easier operations and the Himalayan passes were closed by snow, preventing any Chinese intervention.[106]: 174–175 On 23 November, President Yahya Khan declared a national state of emergency and told the country to prepare for war.[107]
On the evening of 3 December, at about 17:40,[citation needed] the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) launched surprise pre-emptive strikes on eleven airfields in north-western India, including Agra, which was 480 kilometres (300 mi) from the border.[108]: 82–83 At the time of the attack, the Taj Mahal had been camouflaged with lots of twigs and leaves and draped with burlap, because its marble glowed like a white beacon in the moonlight.[109]
The attacks carried out by Pakistan were inspired by Israel's air-attacks during Yom Kippur war which saw Israel gaining aerial superiority over Arab states, however the attacks carried out by Pakistan left minimal damages[46] to Indian aerospace, Originally the purpose of Pakistan was to paralyze Indian Airforce in the west so Pakistan could advance into western India however lack of fighter planes deployed during the operation were low as compared to ones by Israel during Yom-Kippur which saw massive amounts of planes deployed.[46] These pre-emptive strikes, known as Operation Chengiz Khan, were inspired by the success of Israeli Operation Focus in the Arab–Israeli Six-Day War. Unlike the Israeli attack on Arab airbases in 1967, which involved a large number of Israeli planes, Pakistan flew no more than 50 planes to India.[108]: 82 [110]
In an address to the nation on radio that same evening, Prime Minister Gandhi held that the air strikes were a declaration of war against India[111][112] and the Indian Air Force (IAF) responded with initial air strikes the same night.[citation needed] These expanded to massive retaliatory air strikes the next morning.[citation needed]
This air action marked the start of all-out war; Gandhi ordered the mobilisation of troops and launched a full-scale invasion of East Pakistan. This involved Indian forces in coordinated air, sea and land assaults. The main Indian objective on the eastern front was to capture Dacca, and on the western front to contain Pakistani forces.[113]
Pakistan's PNS Ghazi sank off the fairway buoy of Visakhapatnam near the eastern coast of India, making it the first submarine casualty in the waters around the Indian subcontinent.
Navy NHQ staffers and commanders of the Pakistan Navy knew very well that unlike the 1965 war, the Navy was ill-prepared for the naval conflict with India.[114]: 65 The Pakistan Navy was in no condition of fighting an offensive war in deep sea against the Indian Navy, and neither was it in a condition to mount serious defence against Indian Navy's seaborne encroachment.[115]: 75–76
In the western theatre of the war, the Indian Navy's Western Naval Command under Vice admiralS.N. Kohli, successfully launched a surprise attack on Karachi port on the night of 4/5 December 1971 under the codename Trident.[citation needed] The naval attack involving the Soviet-built Osa missile boats sank the Pakistan Navy's destroyerPNS Khaibar and minesweeperPNS Muhafiz while PNS Shah Jahan was also badly damaged.[citation needed] Pakistani naval sources reported that about 720 Pakistani sailors were killed or wounded, and Pakistan lost reserve fuel and many commercial ships, thus crippling the Pakistan Navy's further involvement in the conflict.[115]: 85–87 In retaliation, the Pakistan Navy submarines, Hangor, Mangro, and Shushuk, began their operations to seek out the major Indian warships.[115]: 86–95 [116] On 9 December 1971, Hangor sank INS Khukri, inflicting 194 Indian casualties, and this attack was the first submarine kill since World War II.[117]: 229 [118]
The sinking of INS Khukri was followed by another Indian attack on Karachi port on the night of 8/9 December 1971 under the codename Python.[citation needed] A squadron of Indian Navy's Osa missile boats approached the Karachi port and launched a series of Soviet-acquired Styx missiles, that resulted in further destruction of reserve fuel tanks and the sinking of three Pakistani merchant ships, as well as foreign ships docked in Karachi.[119] The Pakistan Air Force did not attack the Indian Navy ships, and confusion remained the next day when the civilian pilots of Pakistan International, acting as reconnaissance war pilots, misidentified PNS Zulfiqar and the air force attacked its own warship, inflicting major damages and killing several officers on board.[120]
In the eastern theatre of the war, the Indian Eastern Naval Command, under Vice Admiral Nilakanta Krishnan, completely isolated East Pakistan by a naval blockade in the Bay of Bengal, trapping the Eastern Pakistan Navy and eight foreign merchant ships in their ports.[115]: 82–83 From 4 December onwards, the aircraft carrier INS Vikrant was deployed, and its Sea Hawk fighter-bombers attacked many coastal towns in East Pakistan, including Chittagong and Cox's Bazar.[121] Pakistan countered the threat by sending the submarine PNS Ghazi, which sank off Visakhapatnam's coast, due to an internal explosion, though whether this was triggered by Indian depth charges, diving to avoid them or some other reason has never been established.[122][123]
The damage inflicted on the Pakistan Navy stood at 7 gunboats, 1 minesweeper, 1 submarine, 2 destroyers, 3 patrol crafts belonging to the Pakistan Coast Guard, 18 cargo, supply and communication vessels; and large-scale damage inflicted on the naval base and docks in the coastal town of Karachi. Three merchant navy ships – Anwar Baksh, Pasni and Madhumathi –[124] and ten smaller vessels were captured.[125] Around 1900 personnel were lost, while 1413 servicemen were captured by Indian forces in Dacca.[126] According to one Pakistani scholar, Tariq Ali, Pakistan lost half its navy in the war.[127]
After the attempted pre-emptive attack, the PAF adopted a defensive stance in response to the Indian retaliation. As the war progressed, the IAF continued to battle the PAF over conflict zones, but the number of sorties flown by the PAF decreased day–by–day.[128][129] The IAF flew 4,000 sorties while the PAF offered little in retaliation, partly because of the paucity of non-Bengali technical personnel.[citation needed]
This lack of retaliation has also been attributed to the deliberate decision of the PAF's AHQ to cut its losses, as it had already incurred huge losses in the conflict in the liberation war in the East.[130] The PAF avoided making contacts with the Indian Navy after the latter raided the port of Karachi twice, but the PAF did retaliate by bombing Okha harbour, destroying the fuel tanks used by the boats that had attacked.[131]
At the end of the war, PAF pilots made successful escapes from East Pakistan to neighbouring Burma; many PAF personnel had already left the East for Burma on their own before Dacca was overrun by the Indian military in December 1971.[132]
Indian attacks on Pakistan
A destroyed aircraft hangar at Dacca airfield after an Indian air attack.
As the Indian Army tightened its grip in East Pakistan, the Indian Air Force continued with its attacks against Pakistan as the campaign developed into a series of daylight anti-airfield, anti-radar, and close-support attacks by fighter jets, with night attacks against airfields and strategic targets by Canberras and An-12s, while Pakistan responded with similar night attacks with its B-57s and C-130s.[13]: 107–108
The PAF deployed its F-6s mainly on defensive combat air patrol missions over their own bases, leaving the PAF unable to conduct effective offensive operations.[13]: 107 The IAF's raids damaged one USAF and one UN aircraft in Dacca, while a RCAFDHC-4 Caribou was destroyed in Islamabad, along with the USAF's Beech U-8 owned by the US military's liaison chief Brigadier-GeneralChuck Yeager.[13]: 107 [133] Sporadic raids by the IAF continued against PAF forward air bases in Pakistan until the end of the war, and interdiction and close-support operations were maintained.[13]: 107–108
One of the most successful air raids by India into West Pakistan happened on 8 December 1971, when Indian Hunter aircraft from the Pathankot-based 20 Squadron, attacked the Pakistani base in Murid and destroyed 5 F-86 aircraft on the ground. This was confirmed by Pakistan's military historian, Air Commodore M Kaiser Tufail, in his book In The Ring and on Its Feet: Pakistan Air Force in the 1971 Indo-Pak War.[134]
The PAF played a more limited role in the operations. They were reinforced by Mirages from an unidentified Middle Eastern ally (whose identity remains unknown).[13]: 107 According to author Martin Bowman, "LibyanF-5s were reportedly deployed to Sargodha AFB, perhaps as a potential training unit to prepare Pakistani pilots for an influx of more F-5s from Saudi Arabia."[13]: 112 The IAF was able to conduct a wide range of missions – troop support; air combat; deep penetration strikes; para-dropping behind enemy lines; feints to draw enemy fighters away from the actual target; bombing and reconnaissance.[13]: 107 The PAF, which was solely focused on air combat, was blown out of the subcontinent's skies within the first week of the war.[13]: 107 Those PAF aircraft that survived took refuge at Iranian air bases or in concrete bunkers, refusing to offer a fight.[135]
India flew 1,978 sorties in the East and about 4,000 in Pakistan, while the PAF flew about 30 and 2,840 at the respective fronts.[13]: 107 More than 80 percent of IAF sorties were close-support and interdiction and about 45 IAF aircraft were lost.[22]
Pakistan lost 60 to 75 aircraft,[22] not including any F-6s, Mirage IIIs, or the six Jordanian F-104s which failed to return to their donors.[22] The imbalance in air losses was explained by the IAF's considerably higher sortie rate and its emphasis on ground-attack missions.[22]
The map shows Pakistan and East Pakistan; between them was 1,600 km (1,000 mi) of Indian territory.
Before the start of the war, the Indian Army was well organised on both fronts and enjoyed significant numerical superiority over the Pakistan Army.[82] The Indian Army's extraordinary war performance at both fronts restored the prestige, confidence, and dignity that it had lost during the Sino-Indian War in 1962.[136]
When the conflict started, the war immediately took a decisive turn in favour of India and their Bengali rebel allies militarily and diplomatically.[82] On both fronts, Pakistan launched several ground offensives, but the Indian Army held its ground and initiated well-coordinated ground operations on both fronts.[82] Major ground attacks were concentrated on the western border by the Pakistan Army, fighting together with the Pakistan Marines in the southern border, but the Indian Army was successful in penetrating into Pakistani soil. It eventually made some quick and initial gains, including the capture of around 15,010 km2 (5,795 sq mi)[42][43] of Pakistani territory; this land gained by India in Azad Kashmir, Punjab and Sindh sectors was later ceded in the Simla Agreement of 1972, as a gesture of goodwill[44] Casualties inflicted to Pakistan Army's I Corps, II Corps, and Pakistan Marines' Punjab detachment were very high, and many soldiers and marines perished due to lack of operational planning and lack of coordination within the marine-army formations against Indian Army's Southern and Western Commands.[137]: 82–93 By the time the war came to end, the army soldiers and marines were highly demoralised– both emotionally and psychologically– on the western front and had no will to put up a defensive fight against the approaching Indian Army soldiers.[138]: 1–2
The War Enquiry Commission later exposed the fact that for the Pakistan Army and Pakistan Marines, the arms and training of marines, soldiers and officers were needed at every level, and every level of command.[139]
On 23 November 1971, the Indian Army conventionally penetrated to the eastern fronts and crossed East Pakistan's borders to join their Bengali nationalist allies.[140]: 156 Contrary to the 1965 war, which had emphasised set-piece battles and slow advances, this time the strategy adopted was a swift, three-pronged assault of nine infantry divisions with attached armoured units and close air support that rapidly converged on Dacca, the capital of East Pakistan.[140]: 156 Lieutenant General Jagjit Singh Aurora, the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Indian Army's Eastern Command, led the full Indian thrust into East Pakistan. As the Indian Eastern Command attacked the Pakistan Eastern Command, the Indian Air Force rapidly destroyed the small air contingent in East Pakistan and put the Dacca airfield out of commission.[140]: 156 In the meantime, the Indian Navy effectively blockaded East Pakistan.[140]: 156
The Indian campaign's "blitzkrieg" techniques exploited weaknesses in the Pakistani positions and bypassed opposition; this resulted in a swift victory.[141]: 802 Faced with insurmountable losses, the Pakistani military capitulated in less than a fortnight and psychological panic spread in the Eastern Command's military leadership.[141]: 802 Subsequently, the Indian Army encircled Dacca and issued an ultimatum to surrender in "30-minutes" time window on 16 December 1971.[142] Upon hearing the ultimatum, the East-Pakistan government collapsed when the Lt-Gen. A.A.K. Niazi (Cdr. of Eastern Command) and his deputy, V-Adm. M.S. Khan, surrendered without offering any resistance.[140] On 16 December 1971, Pakistan ultimately called for unilateral ceasefire and surrendered its entire four-tier military to the Indian Army– hence ending the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971.[140]
On the ground, Pakistan suffered the most, with 8,000 killed and 25,000 wounded, while India only had 3,000 dead and 12,000 wounded.[25] The loss of armoured vehicles was similarly imbalanced and this finally represented a major defeat for Pakistan.[25]
Surrender of Pakistan Eastern Command in East Pakistan
Officially, the Instrument of Surrender of Pakistan Eastern Command stationed in East Pakistan, was signed between the Lieutenant General Jagjit Singh Aurora, the GOC-in-C of Indian Eastern Command and Lieutenant-General A.A.K. Niazi, the Commander of the Pakistan Eastern Command, at the Ramna Race Course in Dacca at 16:31Hrs IST on 16 December 1971.[citation needed] There was a problem over who would represent the Bangladesh government, as the three Bangladeshi battalion commanders - Lt ColsShafiullah, Khaled Musharraf and Ziaur Rahman - were located too far away to be airlifted on time. The responsibility fell on the only armed forces officer available, Gp Capt AK Khondkar, chief of the newly formed BAF.[143] As the surrender was accepted silently by Lieutenant-General Aurora, the surrounding crowds on the race course started shouting anti-Pakistan slogans, and there were reports of abuses aimed at the surrendering commanders of Pakistani military.[144] Indian officers and an Indian diplomat, MEAjoint secretary for Pakistan AK Ray, had to form a human chain around Lt Gen Niazi to protect him from being lynched.[143]
Hostilities officially ended at 14:30 GMT on 17 December, after the surrender on 16 December, and India claimed large gains of territory in Pakistan (although pre-war boundaries were recognised after the war). The war confirmed the independence of Bangladesh.[13]: 107
Following the surrender, the Indian Army took approximately 90,000 Pakistani servicemen and their Bengali supporters as POWs, making it the largest surrender since World War II.[145] Initial counts recorded that approximately 79,676 war prisoners were uniformed personnel, and the overwhelming majority of the war prisoners were officers – most of them from the army and navy, while relatively small numbers were from the air force and marines; others in larger number were serving in paramilitary units.[146]
The remaining prisoners were civilians who were either family members of the military personnel or collaborators (razakars). The Hamoodur Rahman Commission and the POW Investigation Commission reports instituted by Pakistan lists the Pakistani POWs as given in the table below. Apart from soldiers, it was estimated that 15,000 Bengali civilians were also made prisoners of war.[147]
The Soviet Union sympathised with the East Pakistanis, and supported the Indian Army and Mukti Bahini's incursion against Pakistan during the war, in a broader view of recognising that the secession of East Pakistan as Independent Bangladesh would weaken the position of its rivals— the United States and China. The Soviet Union gave assurances to India that if a confrontation with the United States or China developed, it would take counter-measures. This assurance was enshrined in the Indo-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation signed in August 1971.[1]
The Soviet Union accepted the Indian position that any resolution to the crisis in East Pakistan would have to be on terms acceptable to India and the Awami League, but the Indo-Soviet treaty did not mean a total commitment to the Indian stance, according to author Robert Jackson. The Soviet Union continued economic aid to Pakistan and made sympathetic gestures to Pakistan until mid-October 1971.[148] By November 1971, the Soviet ambassador to Pakistan Alexei Rodionov directed a secretive message (Rodionov message) that ultimately warned Pakistan that "it will be embarking on a suicidal course if it escalates tensions in the subcontinent".[103]: part-3
The United States stood with Pakistan by supporting it morally, politically, economically and materially when U.S. PresidentRichard Nixon and his Secretary of StateHenry Kissinger refused to use rhetoric in a hopeless attempt to intervene in a large civil war. The U.S. establishment had the impression that the Soviets were in an informal alliance with India, and the US therefore needed Pakistan to help to limit Soviet influence in South Asia.[5]: 281 During the Cold War, Pakistan was a close formal ally of the United States and also had close relations with the People's Republic of China, with whom Nixon had been negotiating a rapprochement and where he intended to visit in February 1972.[149] Nixon feared that an Indian invasion of Pakistan would mean total Soviet domination of the region, and that it would seriously undermine the global position of the United States and the regional position of America's new tactical ally, China.[5]: 281–282 Nixon encouraged Iran to send military supplies to Pakistan.[7] The Nixon administration also ignored reports it received of the "genocidal" activities of the Pakistani military in East Pakistan, most notably the Blood telegram, and this prompted widespread criticism and condemnation – both by the United States Congress and in the international press.[83][150][151]
Then U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, George H. W. Bush, introduced a resolution in the UN Security Council calling for a cease-fire and the withdrawal of armed forces by India and Pakistan.[152] However, it was vetoed by the Soviet Union, and the following days witnessed the use of great pressure on the Soviets from the Nixon-Kissinger duo to get India to withdraw, but to no avail.[153]
On 6 and 13 December, the Soviet Navy dispatched two groups of cruisers and destroyers from Vladivostok;[1] they trailed US Task Force 74 into the Indian Ocean from 18 December 1971 until 7 January 1972. The Soviets also had a nuclear submarine to help ward off the threat posed by the USS Enterprise task force in the Indian Ocean.[2][3]
As the war progressed, it became apparent to the United States that India was going to invade and disintegrate Pakistan in a matter of weeks, therefore President Nixon spoke with the USSR General SecretaryLeonid Brezhnev on a hotline on 10 December, where Nixon reportedly urged Brezhnev to restrain India as he quoted: "in the strongest possible terms to restrain India with which ... you [Brezhnev] have great influence and for whose actions you must share responsibility."[155]
After the war, the United States accepted the new balance of power and recognised India as a dominant player in South Asia; the US immediately engaged in strengthening bilateral relations between the two countries in the successive years.[156] The Soviet Union, while being sympathetic to Pakistan's loss, decided to engage with Pakistan after sending an invitation through Rodionov to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who paid a state visit to the Soviet Union in 1972 to strengthen bilateral relations that continued over the years.[157]: 16
A 2019 study argues "that Nixon and Kissinger routinely demonstrated psychological biases that led them to overestimate the likelihood of West Pakistani victory" in the war, and that they overestimated "the importance of the crisis to broader U.S. policy. The evidence fails to support Nixon and Kissinger's own framing of the 1971 crisis as a contest between cool-headed realpolitik and idealistic humanitarianism, and instead shows that Kissinger and Nixon's policy decisions harmed their stated goals because of repeated decision-making errors."[158]
China
During the course of the war, China harshly criticised India for its involvement in the East Pakistan crises, and accused India of having imperialistic designs in South Asia.[159]: 19 Before the war started, Chinese leaders and officials had long been philosophically advising the Pakistan government to make peaceful political settlements with the East Pakistani leaders, as China feared that India was secretly supporting, infiltrating, and arming the Bengali rebels against the East Pakistani government.[160][161] China was also critical of the Government of East Pakistan, led by its Governor Lieutenant-General Tikka Khan, which used ruthless measures to deal with the Bengali opposition, and did not endorse the Pakistani position on that issue.[161]
When the war started, China reproached India for its direct involvement and infiltration in East Pakistan.[161] It disagreed with Pakistani President Yahya Khan's consideration of military options, and criticised East Pakistan Awami League politicians' ties with India.[161] China reacted with great alarm when the prospects of Indian invasion of Pakistan and integration of Pakistan-administered Kashmir into their side of Kashmir, became imminent.[111] US President Nixon encouraged China to mobilise its armed forces along its border with India to discourage the Indian assault, but the Chinese did not respond to this encouragement since the Indian Army's Northern Command was well prepared to guard the Line of Actual Control, and was already engaging and making advances against the Pakistan Army's X Corps in the Line of Control.[citation needed]
China did not welcome the break-up of Pakistan's unity by the East Pakistani politicians, and effectively vetoed the membership of Bangladesh when it applied to the United Nations in 1972.[162] China objected to admitting Bangladesh on the grounds that two UN resolutions concerning Bangladesh, requiring the repatriation of Pakistani POWs and civilians, had not yet been implemented.[163] Furthermore, China was also among the last countries to recognise the independence of Bangladesh, refusing to do so until 31 August 1975.[164][162][165] To this date, its relations with Bangladesh are determined by the Pakistan factor.[166]
Sri Lanka saw the partition of Pakistan as an example for themselves and feared India might use its enhanced power against them in the future.[9] Despite the left wing government of Sirimavo Bandaranaike following a neutral non-aligned foreign policy, Sri Lanka decided to help Pakistan in the war.[10][11] As Pakistani aircraft could not fly over Indian territory, they would have to take a longer route around India and so they stopped at Bandaranaike Airport in Sri Lanka where they were refuelled before flying to East Pakistan.[12]
Arab World
As many Arab countries were allied with both the United States and Pakistan, it was easy for Kissinger to encourage them to participate. He sent letters to both, the King of Jordan and the King of Saudi Arabia. President Nixon gave permission for Jordan to send ten F-104s and promised to provide replacements.[167]F-86s from Saudi Arabia helped camouflage the extent of PAF losses, and some LibyanF-5s were reportedly deployed to Sargodha AFB, perhaps as a potential training unit to prepare Pakistani pilots for an influx of more F-5s from Saudi Arabia.[13]: 112 In addition to these three countries, an unidentified Middle Eastern ally also supplied Pakistan with Mirage IIIs. However, other countries such as Syria and Tunisia were against interfering describing it as an internal matter of Pakistan.[168]
Aftermath
India
The war stripped Pakistan of more than half of its population, and with nearly one-third of its army in captivity, clearly established India's military and political dominance of the subcontinent.[47] India successfully led a diplomatic campaign to isolate Pakistan.[82] In addition, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's state visit to United Kingdom and France further helped break ice with the United States, and blocked any pro-Pakistan resolution in the United Nations.[82]
The victory also defined India's much broader role in foreign politics, as many countries in the world had come to realise – including the United States – that the balance of power had shifted to India as a major player in the region.[8]: 80 [169]: 57 In the wake of changing geopolitical realities, India sought to establish closer relations with regional countries such as Iran, which was a traditional ally of Pakistan.[169]: 57 The United States itself accepted a new balance of power, and when India conducted a surprise nuclear test in 1974, the US notified India that it had no "interest in actions designed to achieve new balance of power."[156]
In spite of the magnitude of the victory, India was surprisingly restrained in its reaction.[47] Mostly, Indian leaders seemed pleased by the relative ease with which they had accomplished their goals—the establishment of Bangladesh and the prospect of an early return to their homeland of the 10 million Bengali refugees who were the cause of the war.[47] In announcing the Pakistani surrender, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared in the Indian Parliament:
Dacca is now the free capital of a free country. We hail the people of Bangladesh in their hour of triumph. All nations who value the human spirit will recognise it as a significant milestone in man's quest for liberty.[47]
Colonel John Gill of National Defense University, US, remarks that, while India achieved a military victory, it was not able to reap the political fruits it might have hoped for in Bangladesh. After a brief 'honeymoon' phase between India and Bangladesh, their relationship began to sour.[170][171] The perceived Indian overstay revived Bangladeshi anxieties of Hindu control.[172] Many were concerned that Mujib was permitting Indian interference in the country's internal matters[173] and many in the Bangladeshi army resented his attachment with India.[174] Whilst India enjoys excellent relations with Bangladesh during the Awami League tenures, relations deteriorated when the Bangladesh Nationalist Party assumed power. A 2014 Pew Research Center opinion poll found that 27% of Bangladeshis were wary of India. However, 70% of Bangladeshis held a positive view of India: while 50% of Bangladeshis held a positive view of Pakistan.[175]
Pakistan
For Pakistan, the war was a complete and humiliating defeat,[47] a psychological setback that came from a defeat at the hands of rival India.[53] Pakistan lost half its population and a significant portion of its economy, and suffered setbacks to its geopolitical role in South Asia.[47][53] In the post-war era, Pakistan struggled to absorb the lessons learned from the military interventions in the democratic system and the impact of the Pakistani military's failure was grave and long-lasting.[176][177]
The Pakistani people were not mentally prepared to accept the magnitude of this kind of defeat, as the state media had been projecting imaginary victories.[182] When the ceasefire that came from the surrender of East Pakistan was finally announced, the people could not come to terms with the magnitude of defeat; spontaneous demonstrations and massive protests erupted on the streets of major metropolitan cities in Pakistan. According to Pakistani historians, the trauma was extremely severe, and the cost of the war for Pakistan in monetary terms and in human resources was very high.[183]: xxx [184] Demoralized and finding itself unable to control the situation, the Yahya administration fell when President Yahya Khan turned over his presidency to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was sworn in on 20 December 1971 as Presidentwith the control of the military.[185]
The loss of East Pakistan shattered the prestige of the Pakistani military.[53] Pakistan lost half its navy, a quarter of its air force, and a third of its army.[127] The war also exposed the shortcomings of Pakistan's declared strategic doctrine that the "defence of East Pakistan lay in West Pakistan".[186]Hussain Haqqani, in his book Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military notes,
Moreover, the army had failed to fulfill its promises of fighting until the last man. The eastern command had laid down arms after losing only thirteen hundred men in battle. In West Pakistan, too, twelve hundred military deaths had accompanied lackluster military performance.[53]
In his book The 1971 Indo-Pak War: A Soldier's Narrative, Pakistan Army's Major General Hakeem Arshad Qureshi, a veteran of this conflict, noted:
We must accept the fact that, as a people, we had also contributed to the bifurcation of our own country. It was not a Niazi, or a Yahya, even a Mujib, or a Bhutto, or their key assistants, who alone were the cause of our break-up, but a corrupted system and a flawed social order that our own apathy had allowed to remain in place for years. At the most critical moment in our history we failed to check the limitless ambitions of individuals with dubious antecedents and to thwart their selfish and irresponsible behaviour. It was our collective 'conduct' that had provided the enemy an opportunity to dismember us.
After the war, the Pakistan Army's generals in the East held each other responsible for the atrocities committed, but most of the burden was laid on Lieutenant-General Tikka Khan, who earned notoriety from his actions as governor of the East; he was called the "Butcher of Bengal" because of the widespread atrocities committed within the areas of his responsibility.[188] Unlike his contemporary Yaqub who was a pacifist and knew well of the limits of force, Tikka was a "soldier known for his eager use of force" to settle his differences.[189]: 100 [190][191][192]
Lieutenant-General A. A. K. Niazi commented on Tikka's actions: "On the night between 25/26 March 1971, General Tikka struck. Peaceful night was turned into a time of wailing, crying and burning. General Tikka let loose everything at his disposal as if raiding an enemy, not dealing with his own misguided and misled people. The military action was a display of stark cruelty more merciless than the massacres at Bukhara and Baghdad by Chengiz Khan and Halaku Khan ... General Tikka ... resorted to the killing of civilians and a scorched earth policy. His orders to his troops were: 'I want the land and not the people'".[193] Major-General Rao Farman wrote in his table diary: "Green land of East Pakistan will be painted red," which has been interpreted to mean that he planned to massacre Bengalis.[194] Farman said the entry was not expressing a thirst for blood, but concern that East Pakistan's future could be the red flag of Communism.[195]
Major reforms were carried out by successive governments in Pakistan after the war in the light of many recommendations made in the Hamoodur Rahman Commission Report.[196]: 254 To address the economic disparity, the National Finance Commission system was established to equally distribute the taxation revenue among the four provinces, the large-scale nationalisation of industries and nationwide census were carried out in 1972.[197] The Constitution was promulgated in 1973 that reflected this equal balance and a compromise between Islamism and Humanism, and provided guaranteed equal human rights to all.[198] The military was heavily reconstructed and heavily reorganised, with President Bhutto appointing chiefs of staff in each inter-service, contrary to C-in-Cs, and making instruction on human rights compulsory in the military syllabus in each branch of inter-services.[199]: 62–100 Major investments were directed towards modernising the navy.[115]: 100 The military's chain of command was centralized in Joint Staff Headquarters (JS HQ) led by an appointed Chairman Joint Chiefs Committee to coordinars military efforts to safeguard the nation's defence and unity.[199]: 62–63 In addition, Pakistan sought to have a diversified foreign policy, as Pakistani geostrategists had been shocked that both China and the United States provided limited support to Pakistan during the course of the war, with the US displaying an inability to supply weapons that Pakistan needed the most.[200]: xxxiii
As a result of the war, East Pakistan became an independent country, Bangladesh, as the world's fourth most populous Muslim state on 16 December 1971.[citation needed] West Pakistan, now just Pakistan, secured the release of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from the Headquarter Prison and allowed him to return to Dacca. On 19 January 1972, Mujib was inaugurated as the first President of Bangladesh, later becoming the Prime Minister of Bangladesh in 1974.[citation needed]
On the brink of defeat in around 14 December 1971, the media reports indicated that the Pakistan Army soldiers, the local East Pakistan Police they controlled, razakars and the Shanti Committee carried out systematic killings of professionals such as physicians, teachers, and other intellectuals,[202][203] as part of a pogrom against the Bengali Hindu minorities who constituted the majority of urban educated intellectuals.[204][205]
Young men, especially students, who were seen as possible rebels and recruiters were also targeted by the stationed military, but the extent of casualties in East Pakistan is not known, and the issue is itself controversial and contradictory among the authors who wrote books on the pogrom;[206][207] the Pakistani government denied the charges of involvement in 2015.[208]R.J. Rummel cites estimates ranging from one to three million people killed.[209] Other estimates place the death toll lower, at 300,000. Bangladesh government figures state that Pakistani forces aided by collaborators killed three million people, raped 200,000 women and displaced millions of others.[210][211]
According to authors Kenton Worcester, Sally Bermanzohn and Mark Ungar, Bengalis themselves killed about 150,000 non-Bengalis living in the East.[212] There had been reports of Bengali insurgents indiscriminately killing non-Bengalis throughout the East; however, neither side provided substantial proofs for their claims and both Bangladeshi and Pakistani figures contradict each other over this issue.[213][214] Bihari representatives in June 1971 claimed a higher figure of 500,000 killed by Bengalis.[215]
According to John H. Gill, there was widespread polarisation between pro-Pakistan Bengalis and pro-liberation Bengalis during the war, and those internal battles are still playing out in the domestic politics of modern-day Bangladesh.[218] To this day, the issue of committed atrocities and pogroms is an influential factor in the Bangladesh–Pakistan relations.[219]
Impact
Pakistan: War Enquiry Commission and War prisoners
The War Commission also looked into Pakistan's political and military involvement in the history of East Pakistan that encompasses 1947–71.[citation needed] The First War Report was submitted in July 1972, but it was very critically opined and penned on political misconducts of politicians and the military interference in national politics.[221]: 22–197 Written in moral and philosophical perspective, the First Report was lengthy and provided accounts that were unpalatable to be released to the public. Initially, there were 12 copies that were all destroyed, except for the one that was kept and marked as "Top Secret" to prevent the backlash effects on the demoralised military.[222] In 1976, the Supplementary Report was submitted, which was the comprehensive report compiled together with the First Report; this report was also marked as classified.[223]
In 2000, the excerpts of the Supplementary Report were leaked to a political correspondent of Pakistan's Dawn, which the Dawn published together with India Today.[224][225] The First Report is still marked as classified, while the Supplementary Report's excerpts were suppressed by the news correspondents.[226] The War Report's supplementary section was published by the Pakistan Government, but it did not officially hand over the report to Bangladesh despite its requests.[225]
The War Report exposed many military failures, from the strategic to the tactical–intelligence levels, while it confirmed the looting, rapes and the unnecessary killings by the Pakistan military and their local agents.[227] It laid the blame squarely on Pakistan Army generals, accusing them of debauchery, smuggling, war crimes and neglect of duty.[228] The War Commission had recommended public trial of Pakistan Army generals on the charges that they had been responsible for the situation in the first place and that they had succumbed without a fight,[229] but no actions were ever taken against those responsible, except the dismissal of chiefs of the Pakistan Army, Pakistan Air Force, Pakistan Navy, and decommissioning of the Pakistan Marines.[224][229]
The War Commission, however, rejected the charge that 200,000 Bengali girls were raped by the Pakistan Army, remarking, "It is clear that the figures mentioned by the Dacca authorities are altogether fantastic and fanciful," and cited the evidence of a British abortion team that had carried out the termination of "only a hundred or more pregnancies".[220][230][231] The Commission also claimed that "approximately 26,000 persons (were) killed during the action by the Pakistan military"[230][232]Bina D'Costa states that the War Commission was aware of the military's brutality in East Pakistan, but "chose to downplay the scale of the atrocities committed."[233]
The second commission was known as Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 Prisoners of War Investigation, conducted solely by the Pakistani government, that was to determine the numbers of Pakistani military personnel who surrendered, including the number of civilian POWs.[234] The official number of the surrendered military personnel was soon released by the Government of Pakistan after the war was over.[234]
On 2 July 1972, the Indo-Pakistani summit was held in Simla, Himachal Pradesh, India where the Simla Agreement was reached and signed between PresidentZulfikar Ali Bhutto and Prime MinisterIndira Gandhi.[235] The treaty provided insurance to Bangladesh that Pakistan recognised Bangladesh's sovereignty, in exchange for the return of the Pakistani POWs.[109] Over the next five months, India released more than 90,000 war prisoners, with Lieutenant-General A.A.K. Niazi being the last war prisoner to be handed over to Pakistan.[109]
The treaty also gave back more than 13,000 km2 of land that the Indian Army had seized in Pakistan during the war, though India retained a few strategic areas, including Turtuk, Dhothang, Tyakshi (earlier called Tiaqsi) and Chalunka of Chorbat Valley,[236][237] which was more than 804 km2.[238][239][240] The Indian hardliners, however, felt that the treaty had been too lenient to President Bhutto, who had pleaded for leniency, arguing that the fragile stability in Pakistan would crumble if the accord was perceived as being overly harsh by Pakistanis and that he would be accused of losing Kashmir in addition to the loss of East Pakistan.[241] As a result, Prime Minister Gandhi was criticised by a section in India for believing Bhutto's "sweet talk and false vows", while the other section claimed the agreement to be successful, for not letting it to fall into "Versailles Syndrome” trap.[242]
In 1973, India and Pakistan reached another compromise when both countries signed a trilateral agreement with Bangladesh that actually brought the war prisoners, non-Bengali and Pakistan-loyal Bengali bureaucrats and civilian servants to Pakistan.[243] The Delhi Agreement witnessed the largest mass population transfer since the Partition of India in 1947.[244]
Bangladesh: International Crimes Tribunal
In 2009, the issue of establishing the International Crimes Tribunal began to take public support. The tribunal was formally established in 2010 to investigate and prosecute suspects for the genocide committed in 1971 by the Pakistan Army and their local collaborators, Razakars, Al-Badr and Al-Shams during the Bangladesh Liberation War.[245]: 169
Long-term consequences
Steve Coll, in his book Ghost Wars, argues that the Pakistan military's experience with India, including Pervez Musharraf's experience in 1971, influenced the Pakistani government to support jihadist groups in Afghanistan even after the Soviets left, because the jihadists were a tool to use against India, including bogging down the Indian Army in Kashmir.[246][247]
Writing about the war in Foreign Affairs magazine, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto stated "There is no parallel in contemporary history to the cataclysm which engulfed Pakistan in 1971. A tragic civil war, which rent asunder the people of the two parts of Pakistan, was seized by India as an opportunity for armed intervention. The country was dismembered, its economy shattered and the nation's self-confidence totally undermined."[248] This statement of Bhutto has given rise to the myth of betrayal prevalent in modern Pakistan. This view was contradicted by the post-War Hamoodur Rahman Commission, ordered by Bhutto himself, which in its 1974 report indicted generals of the Pakistan Army for creating conditions which led to the eventual loss of East Pakistan and for inept handling of military operations in the East.[224]
For bravery, a number of soldiers and officers on both sides were awarded the highest gallantry award of their respective countries. Following is a list of the recipients of the Indian award Param Vir Chakra, Bangladeshi award Bir Sreshtho and the Pakistani award Nishan-E-Haider:
On 25 July 2011, Bangladesh Swadhinata Sammanona, the Bangladesh Freedom Honour, was posthumously conferred on former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.[256]
R. M. Muzumdar - IOFS officer. Second Indian Director General of the Indian Ordnance Factories. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India, in 1973, in the Civil service category, for his contributions during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.
O. P. Bahl, an IOFS officer. Former Additional Director General Ordnance Factories and Member of the Ordnance Factory Board. Received Padma Shri, in 1972 in the civil-service category for his efforts during the war.[257][258][259]
The list of foreign friends of Bangladesh has since been extended to 568 people. It includes 257 Indians, 88 Americans, 41 Pakistanis, 39 Britons, 9 Russians, 18 Nepalese, 16 French and 18 Japanese.[260][261]
1971 – Prisoners of War, a 2007 Bollywood war film directed by Amrit Sagar. Set against the backdrop of a prisoner-of-war camp in Pakistan, it follows six Indian prisoners awaiting release after their capture in the 1971 India-Pakistan war.[262]
^ abcdGill, John H. (2003). An Atlas of the 1971 India - Pakistan War: The Creation of Bangladesh. National Defense University, Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies. The forces available to the two sides to execute their strategies were among the largest in the world at the time. India's Army of 833,800 men could field fourteen infantry divisions, ten mountain divisions, and two parachute brigades as well as an armored division and four independent armored brigades. Key items of combat equipment included more than 1,450 tanks and 3,000 artillery pieces. Beyond first-line troops, India enjoyed a considerable advantage in reserves of personnel and equipment over Pakistan; it thus had a substantial ability to endure losses and to continue a conflict longer than its adversary. At 365,000 men, the Pakistan Army was about half the size of its Indian counterpart, but was nonetheless a formidable force with two armored divisions, thirteen infantry divisions and three independent armored brigades with approximately 850 tanks and 800 guns. Two of these infantry divisions (17 and 33), however, were still being organized and suffered from the numerous difficulties attendant upon construction of military formations
^Rashiduzzaman, M. (March 1972). "Leadership, Organization, Strategies and Tactics of the Bangla Desh Movement". Asian Survey. 12 (3): 191. doi:10.2307/2642872. JSTOR2642872. The Pakistan Government, however, claimed [in June 1971] that the combined fighting strength of the 'secessionists' amounted to about 180,000 armed personnel.
^Dixit, J.N. (2 September 2003). India-Pakistan in War and Peace. Routledge. ISBN1134407572. while the size of the Indian armed forces remained static at one million men and Pakistan's at around 350,000.
^ ab"This Vijay Diwas, remember the sacrifices and do good by our disabled soldiers". The Times of India. 16 December 2018. Archived from the original on 17 December 2018. About 3,843 Indian soldiers died in this war that resulted in the unilateral surrender of the Pakistan Army and led to the creation of Bangladesh. Among the soldiers who returned home triumphant were also 9,851 injured; many of them disabled.
^ abcdThe Encyclopedia of 20th Century Air Warfare, edited by Chris Bishop (Amber publishing 1997, republished 2004 pages 384–387 ISBN1-904687-26-1)
^Gill, John H. (2003). An Atlas of the 1971 India - Pakistan War: The Creation of Bangladesh. National Defense University, Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies. The Indian Army and associated paramilitary forces lost approximately 3,300 to 3,600 men killed, 8,000 to 10,000 wounded, and 900 missing or captured
^Dr. He Hemant Kumar Pandey & Manish Raj Singh (1 August 2017). INDIA'S MAJOR MILITARY & RESCUE OPERATIONS. Horizon Books ( A Division of Ignited Minds Edutech P Ltd), 2017. p. 117.
^Col Y Udaya Chandar (Retd) (2 January 2018). Independent India's All the Seven Wars. Notion Press, 2018.
^"INDIA TALKS END, PACT IS AFFIRMED". The New York Times. 30 August 1972. ISSN0362-4331. Retrieved 11 December 2021. The Simla accord provided that India give up 5,000 square miles of Pakistani territory in the states of Sind and the Punjab in exchange for the return by Pakistan of 70 square miles of Indian territory
^Leonard, Thomas M. (2006). Encyclopedia of the developing world, Volume 1. Taylor & Francis. p. 806. ISBN978-0-415-97662-6.
^Gill, John H. (2003). An Atlas of the 1971 India - Pakistan War: The Creation of Bangladesh. National Defense University, Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies. Using the lower figure for combat deaths, Pakistan personnel losses for the period from March to December 1971 come to at least 9,100 killed, wounded, and missing in addition to approximately 79,700 military and paramilitary prisoners of war as well as 12,500 civilian internees captured in the east
^Gill, John H. (2003). An Atlas of the 1971 India - Pakistan War: The Creation of Bangladesh. National Defense University, Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies. In the west, the two armies sparred indecisively, each side's small advances being balanced by the other side's gains. The only exception was the dramatic drive by India's 11th Division into the sandy wastes of Pakistan's Sindh Province which netted India approximately 4,500 square kilometers of Pakistani territory, albeit barren desert.18
^ abNawaz, Shuja (2008). Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army, and the Wars Within. Oxford University Press. p. 329. ISBN978-0-19-547697-2.
^Azhar, M. u. R., Masood, S., & Malek, N. M. (2018). Conflict and Development: A case study of East Pakistan Crisis, 1971. International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, 2(9).
^Kennedy, Senator Edward, "Crisis in South Asia – A report to the Subcommittee investigating the Problem of Refugees and Their Settlement, Submitted to U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee", 1 November 1971, U.S. Govt. Press, page 66. Sen. Kennedy wrote, "Field reports to the U.S. Government, countless eye-witness journalistic accounts, reports of International agencies such as World Bank and additional information available to the subcommittee document the reign of terror which grips East Bengal (East Pakistan). Hardest hit have been members of the Hindu community who have been robbed of their lands and shops, systematically slaughtered, and in some places, painted with yellow patches marked 'H'. All of this has been officially sanctioned, ordered and implemented under martial law from Islamabad."
^Sharlach, Lisa (2000). "Rape as Genocide: Bangladesh, the Former Yugoslavia, and Rwanda". New Political Science. 22 (1): 92–93. doi:10.1080/713687893. S2CID144966485.
^Sharlach, Lisa (2002). "State Rape: Sexual Violence as Genocide". In Kent Worcester; Sally A. Bermanzohn; Mark Ungar (eds.). Violence and Politics: Globalization's Paradox. Routledge. p. 111. ISBN978-0-415-93111-3.
^Sajjad, Tazreena (2012) [First published 2009]. "The Post-Genocidal Period and its Impact on Women". In Tottne, Samuel (ed.). Plight and Fate of Women During and Following Genocide. Transaction Publishers. p. 225. ISBN978-1-4128-4759-9.
^Mookherjee, Nayanika (2012). "Mass rape and the inscription of gendered and racial domination during the Bangladesh War of 1971". In Raphaëlle Branche; Fabrice Virgili (eds.). Rape in Wartime. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 68. ISBN978-0-230-36399-1.
^"Legal Framework Order 1970". Story of Pakistan. Nazaria-e-Pakistan Trust, 2003. 1 June 2003. Archived from the original on 3 December 2016. Retrieved 23 December 2016.
^Qureshi, Hakeem Arshad (2003). Through the 1971 Crisis: An Eyewitness Account by a Soldier. Oxford University Press. p. 33. ISBN978-0-19-579778-7.
^Raja, Dewan Mohammad Tasawwar (2010). O General My General – Life and Works of General M A G Osmany. Osmany Memorial Trust. pp. 35–109. ISBN978-984-8866-18-4.
^Manekshaw, SHFJ. (11 November 1998). "Lecture at Defence Services Staff College on Leadership and Discipline" (Appendix V) in Singh (2002)Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, M.C. – Soldiering with Dignity.
^ abSummary of World Broadcasts: Far East. London, UK: Monitoring Service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. 1971. Archived from the original on 16 October 2020. Retrieved 22 December 2016.
^"Trying to catch the Indian Air Force napping, Yahya Khan, launched a Pakistani version of Israel's 1967 air blitz in hopes that one rapid attack would cripple India's far superior air power. But India was alert, Pakistani pilots were inept, and Yahya's strategy of scattering his thin air force over a dozen air fields was a bust!", p. 34, Newsweek, 20 December 1971
^Goldrick, James (1997). No Easy Answers. New Delhi: Lancer's Publications and Distributors. ISBN978-1-897829-02-8. Archived from the original on 18 October 2020. Retrieved 15 September 2020.
^ abcdeGoldrick, James (1997). No Easy Answers(PDF). New Delhi, India: Sona Printers, India. ISBN1-897829-02-7. Archived(PDF) from the original on 24 December 2016. Retrieved 24 December 2016.
^Seapower: A Guide for the Twenty-first Century By Geoffrey Till page 179
^ abTariq Ali (1983). Can Pakistan Survive? The Death of a State. Penguin Books. p. 95. ISBN978-0-14-022401-6. In a two-week war, Pakistan lost half its navy, a quarter of its air force and a third of its army.
^Jon Lake, "Air Power Analysis: Indian Airpower", World Air Power Journal, Volume 12
^Group Captain M. Kaiser Tufail, "Great Battles of the Pakistan Airforce" and "Pakistan Air Force Combat Heritage" (pafcombat) et al., Feroze sons, ISBN969-0-01892-2
^"Indo-Pakistani conflict". Library of Congress Country Studies. Archived from the original on 19 October 2015. Retrieved 20 October 2009.
^Lewis, John P. (9 December 1971). "Mr. Nixon and South Asia". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 23 July 2018. Retrieved 23 July 2018. The Nixon Administration's South Asia policy... is beyond redemption
^Clary, Christopher (2019). "Tilting at windmills: The flawed U.S. policy toward the 1971 Indo-Pakistani war". Journal of Strategic Studies. 42 (5): 677–700. doi:10.1080/01402390.2019.1570143. S2CID159267611.
^ ab"China Recognizes Bangladesh". Oxnard, California, USA. Associated Press. 1 September 1975. Archived from the original on 28 October 2020. Retrieved 15 September 2020.
^Craig Baxter (2002). Government and politics in South Asia (5th ed.). Westview Press. p. 269.
^David Lewis (31 October 2011). Bangladesh: Politics, Economy and Civil Society. Cambridge University Press. p. 81. ISBN978-1-139-50257-3. Archived from the original on 6 January 2017. Retrieved 18 February 2019. There were high levels of corruption and cronyism within the administration and widespread concerns that he [Mujib] was allowing India to interfere in Bangladesh's domestic affairs existed.
^Willem van Schendel (12 February 2009). A History of Bangladesh. Cambridge University Press. p. 182. ISBN978-1-316-26497-3. Archived from the original on 26 May 2019. Retrieved 18 February 2019. Another, far more dangerous group felt deeply affronted: the army ... Their resentment originated in the final days of the war of 1971. According to them, the Indian army had robbed the Bangladeshi fighters of the glory of liberating Bangladesh, walking in when the freedom fighters had already finished the job, and had taken away to India all sophisticated weaponry and vehicles captured from the Pakistanis ... they also felt bitter about Mujib's closeness to India, which, they thought, undermined the sovereignty of Bangladesh. By 1973, many in the army were both anti-Indian and anti-Mujib; in the elections that year the garrisons voted solidly for opposition candidates.
^Baixas, Lionel (21 June 2008). "Khan (1917–2002), General Tikka". Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence. Archived from the original on 13 December 2013. Retrieved 17 July 2013.
^Mamoon, Muntassir (2000). The Vanquished Generals and the Liberation War of Bangladesh. Translated by Ibrahim, Kushal. Somoy Prokashan. pp. 88, 148–149. ISBN984-458-210-5.
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^"125 Slain in Dacca Area, Believed Elite of Bengal". The New York Times. New York. 19 December 1971. p. 1. Archived from the original on 28 March 2014. Retrieved 4 January 2008. At least 125 persons, believed to be physicians, professors, writers and teachers, were found murdered today in a field outside Dacca. All the victims' hands were tied behind their backs and they had been bayoneted, garroted or shot. These victims were among an estimated 300 Bengali intellectuals who had been seized by West Pakistani soldiers and locally recruited supporters.
^Murshid, Tazeen M. (1997). "State, Nation, Identity: The Quest for Legitimacy in Bangladesh". South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies. 20 (2): 1–34. doi:10.1080/00856409708723294. ISSN1479-0270.
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^Wierda, Marieke; Anthony Triolo (31 May 2012). Luc Reydams; Jan Wouters; Cedric Ryngaert, eds. International Prosecutors. Oxford University Press. p. 169. ISBN978-0199554294.
^Coll, Steve (2005). Ghost Wars. The Penguin Press. ISBN978-1-59420-007-6. Archived from the original on 8 January 2016. Retrieved 15 September 2020. pg 221, 475.
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^Khan, Sanjida. "National Awards". Banglapedia. Archived from the original on 24 December 2021. Retrieved 8 July 2018. Through a gazette notification of the government issued on 15 December 1973, the insignia of Bir Srestha was conferred upon seven martyr freedom fighters (posthumously)
^Rahman, Rifaat (4 December 2015). "Swadhinata Chattar built as memorial to seven Liberation War heroes ruined by encroachers". bdnews24.com. Archived from the original on 9 July 2018. Retrieved 8 July 2018. Inside, there are separate plaques for Bir Shrestha Captain Mohiuddin Jahangir, Bir Shrestha Flight Lt Motiur Rahman, Bir Shrestha Sepoy Mostofa Kamal, Bir Shrestha Sepoy Hamidur Rahman, Bir Shrestha Lance Naik Munshi Abdur Rouf, Bir Shrestha Ruhul Amin, and Bir Shrestha Lance Naik Nur Mohammad Sheikh.
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