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| India-Pakistan |
| A Pakistani reflection on the â71 debacle |
| 2005-12-18 |
| By Sirajuddin Aziz It is always dangerous for soldiers, sailors and airmen to play at politics. They enter a sphere in which the values are quite different from those to which they have hitherto been accustomedâ. (Winston Churchill, The Second World War). During the long silent nights of each cold December, I recall filled with sadness, the scene shown only once on PTV in its six Oâclock English news, our Tiger Gen Niazi, signing the âinstrument of surrenderâ in the packed, Dhaka Stadium, and how he stood de-robed of his military honours, amidst the thunderous applause of the crowd. Our heads hung in shame and shock. Even Hitler had preferred suicide in his bunker, over surrender! I was then in class IX and had grown to be a proud Pakistani teenager, who unflinchingly believed on the propaganda that we had given the âveggieâ Indians a drubbing during the 1965 war and also firmly thought that we would repeat the performance in 1971. But alas, the hoax of having won the â65 war, ended with those glimpses from Dhaka. I remember closeting myself in a room, away from the family and crying my heart out, at this blatant surrender of a âMuslim Armyâ. The mood in the air was one of total dejection. We stood as morally, financially, economically, politically and militarily bankrupt nation. According to Lt Gen Gul Hasan (Page 344) â19 December 1971 was indeed a day that I will never forget it was the worst I had ever experienced in all my long service. The discipline in the army was on the verge of snapping and the repugnant odor of anarchy was in the air. The climate was all the more awesome because there would have been no authority to arrest the rot, should it have set in. The induction of a company of SSG, by no stretch of imagination for a Samaritan role, was a move so reckless that had it materialized, it could have dispatched the country into oblivion. It would also have been a benefiting finale to Mrs. Gandhiâs act to restore âall joy to Pandit Nehruâs heartâ. The misplaced hope of the Seventh Fleet coming to our rescue or the expectations that the Chinese would militarily intervene in Eastern theater of war, emerged as a major hallucination of our Foreign Office. No such thing happened. On the contrary, both our US and Chinese friends, coaxed and goaded the then Government, to instead mend fences with the political forces of East Pakistan. Lt Gen Gul Hasan, in his memoirs says on page 281, âBhutto discussed political issues, wherein Prime Minster Zhou-en-Lai stressed that the turmoil in east Pakistan should be resolved politically. Use of force would exacerbate the environment. I conveyed all that transpired to the COS. What Bhutto told the President, I do not knowâ. Such was the state of mind and distrust at the top. As regards, our brethren Muslim countries, they were a sleeping Ummah then and continue till date to act as descendants of Rip van winkle! I remember how excitedly proud, we were as youngsters, when Mr Bhutto gave an awesomely inspiring speech, at the Security Council, and then stormed out of it tearing to shreds, the proposed resolution calling for cease fire, initiated by Poland. Today on hind sight and with maturity, I feel Mr Bhutto by doing so had put the last nail on the tragedy of East Pakistan! Any possibility of keeping the federation intact, had been thrown into the dustbin of history. In those days of immense grief and vast hollowness, we (youth) heard a call from Mr Bhutto, who appeared as our only hope, who said in his inaugural address on assumption of office of President, âwe will pick up the pieces; we will rebuild, we will create a ânew Pakistanâ; we will steer the ship of the state to waters of safetyâ Rhetoric it was at its best, but; only my generation knows how it lifted our morale from the dungeons of self-pity. Here was a political messiah offering us a better tomorrow. We loved him, adored him and were willing to do anything, he would ask us for. That was the magic of Mr Bhutto. Herbert Feldman, in his analytical study âThe End of the Beginning â Pakistan, 1969-1971, ends his book with, âin the New Pakistan it remained only for Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to enter upon the task of restoring the countryâs shattered fortunesâ. While embarking on a peace journey to Simla, Bhutto spoke of a thousand year war with India; it is another matter that he signed a peace treaty. The enigma he was, Mr Bhutto successfully negotiated with the âvictorsâ the vacation of 5000 sq miles of occupied West Pakistan territory, the release of 90,000 prisoners of wars and got the iron lady, Mrs Gandhi to accept his slogan of âpeace with honourâ. He returned to Lahore and roared to the teeming millions, âwe lost a political war and not a military engagementâ. By this remark and its continued use in his public addresses, Mr Bhutto restored the pride and image of our armed forces, in the eyes of the public. Mr Iqbal Akhund, in his âMemoirs of a Bystanderâ chronicles truly the enigmatic personality of Mr Bhutto, in these words, âA senior army officer once said to me, âa combination of political acumen and military power leads to caesarismâ. We had been talking about Mr Bhutto. Bhutto never directly wielded military power but it was not too fanciful to see points of analogy between Caesar and Bhutto. He was not a military conqueror but a leader who after a defeat without honour, had recovered what had been lost on the battle field and redeemed the countryâs self-respect. Like Julius Caesar, Bhutto was a man caught between his radical ideas and the interest of his own land owner class; his reforms and diplomatic triumphs reunified a country emerging from civil war and dictatorship. His ambition was in conflict with his professed ideals. His rise was meteoric and the fall at the hands of his own people, who were closest to him, sudden and tragicâ. In the book âMy Pakistanâ which was based on a constitutional petition filed in the Lahore High Count against the illegal and improper detention of Mr Bhutto, he remarked by way of a rejoinder to the allegations made in the material placed before the court, âmy foot prints can be seen in the remotest part of Pakistan. My mark will be seen on every brick and mortar that has rebuilt, nay built this countryâ. The history of 1971 debacle has been chronicled through biographies, auto-biographies inquiry commissions etc. but none of these have been able to place responsibility at the door step of the âguiltyâ. Divine retribution and nature has its own way of reckoning. It is sad and tragic that, Mr Bhuttoâs hand picked General sent him to the gallows! In fact, all the architects of the 1971 trauma who were either directly on indirectly involved in the killing of innocent people ended up in bloody death. Mrs. Gandhi was shot by her most trusted personal security guard, Mr Mujeeb-ur-Rehman, the âfather of nationâ was assassinated by the very same crowd about whom he often used to say, âI love my people and my people love meâ. As regards, General Yahya Khan, he lived in isolation and died miserablyâ. The history of East Pakistanâs separation shall remain shrouded in mystery, filled with biased accounts and feelings. |
| Posted by:john |
| #2 The worst mass slaughter of my lifetime (with the possible exception of Cambodia). Estimates as high as 3 million dead. Systematic elimination of the entire middle class. I still remember graphic descriptions of people leaping to their death from the highrise student residences at the main university in Dacca as the Pakistani army worked its way up floor by floor systematically killing and raping everyone. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2005-12-18 16:05 |
| #1 And not a word of regret for the genocide and mass rapes ... how typicaly paki... |
| Posted by: john 2005-12-18 12:53 |