(Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of posts - from different perspectives - we will carry on the events of 1971 and their relevance to Pakistan today.)
Today, is November 21.
November 21, 1971, was a day of infamy for Pakistan. On this day that Indian Air Force planes crossed the international borders in East Pakistan and attacked PAF planes flying ground support missions well inside the Pakistani territory. While Indian ground forces had been covertly supporting Mukti Bahini, this was the first act of aggression across international boundaries that was the actual beginning of hostilities between India and Pakistan. On November 21, 1971, what had been an internal conflict within Pakistan territory became an international conflict when India attacked Pakistan.
The saga of East Pakistan Air Force during the 1971 war written by the Air Office Commanding EPAF can be read at the blog Planet Earth. In this post, I wish to look at what we in Pakistan can learn today from the events of 1971. With all the bloodshed and mayhem going on in Pakistan, it may seem inappropriate to talk about the subject of the 1971 war. Still I think there are many lessons that we can take from that part of our history and hopefully not make the same mistakes twice.
First, let me be clear that the root cause of Pakistan’s breakup in 1971 was a lack of implementation of democracy and majority rule. While seeds of dissension had been sown considerably earlier, it was when Mr. Bhutto threatened to “break the legs” of any politician who dared to go to East Pakistan and form alliances with Awami League, that the die was cast of the eventual breakup. Afterall, the Awami League had won the majority in the fairest elections ever held in Pakistan.
When President Gen.Yahya decided not to hand over the power to Mr. Mujibur Rehman, who was the elected leader of the majority of people of Pakistan, the West Pakistani leadership failed to live up to its constitutional obligations. Based on this alone the East Pakistanis had the right to demand that West Pakistan change its name to something else. West Pakistanis had decided not to follow Quaid e Azam’s emphasis on Unity. The problems of FATA today are in many ways are also linked to lack of democracy and civil institutions. We have only belatedly held elections in Gilgit-Baltistan, which is a step in the right direction. It needs to be followed up by similar elections in all the other areas still not enjoying the right to vote.
A second lesson from the 1971 experience is that the use of defense forces to quell civil unrest is excessive, which in the total analysis is far more detrimental to the resolution of root causes. In 1971 the Pakistani government should have used civil defense forces to stop the Mukti Bahini, and not military forces. Use of heavy guns, armor and air power actually played into their hands, as these blunt weapons invariably cause excessive civil casualties. Armies are trained to fight brutal battles where no holds are barred. Even the most precisely dropped bombs by airplanes result in widespread damage to life and property. It appears that we have not learnt this lesson. By not adequately training the civil defense forces and providing them the tools necessary to quell internal aggression, we have ended up using massive force in Swat and now in Waziristan.
There is something uniquely empowering when people who hold powerful offices are held accountable to public. When countries try members of their defense forces for war crimes, it actually strengthens their institutions and rule of law. If there are claims of war crimes alleged by Bangladesh government and conversely allegations of atrocities by Mukti Bahini, let us have joint war crime trials and let justice be served. After all they were all Pakistanis then. In the life of nations, thirty years are just a blink of the eye. The bitter truth is that we in West Pakistan are guilty of the greater fault in the breakup; we should therefore go further in rebuilding genuine relations with Bangladesh.
No country worth anything should ever abandon its citizens. Pakistanis of Bihari origin (’stranded Pakistanis’) were loyal to Pakistan and they bore the brunt of the military loss in East Pakistan. There are still nearly a quarter million Pakistanis who have a refugee status and living in camps in Bangladesh. If Pakistan could essentially assimilate three million Afghan refugees, it is very difficult to justify allowing our most fervently loyal Pakistanis to continue living in squalor in Bangladesh. We must find a way to repatriate our brethren from Bangladesh.
History must never be forgotten, no matter whether it is flattering to you or not. It is well know than each nation tells its people the lies it chooses. We in Pakistan have done this too, including on the events on 1971. And so have the Indians. Recently, for example, the Indian Foreign Minister made the comment on Fareed Zakaria’s television show in USA, that Pakistan started all the wars with India. One hopes the Indian Foreign Minister will eventually make peace with the facts of November 21. And so must we in Pakistan.
This means accepting the mistakes we made - like all the ones I have listed above - but it also means honoring the valour of those who made sacrifices. Maybe it was the trauma of loosing a big part of the country, that we never really celebrated amazing acts of valor by members of our defense forces. Amongst the mistakes made by the defense forces, there were also great acts of heroism. One that stands out like a shining beacon is the heroic stand taken by airmen of PAF. Which country asks its airmen to take one squadron of aged sub sonic planes to fight eleven squadrons of considerable modern and supersonic planes. This is exactly what we asked PAF airmen to do in East Pakistan. They held off IAF for two days before the runway got cratered to an extent that they could not launch any fighters. IAF with over one hundred fighters and bombers at its disposal should have rendered the solitary airbase dysfunctional in a matter of hours. PAF pilots braved taking off when under attack, fighting an enemy with ten to one ratio and landing under attack. The PAF airmen turned the aircrafts around with bombs dropping all around them. I cannot think of anyone more worthy of Nishan e Haiders than the East PAF airmen in general and pilots in particular.
Trio were responsible for East Pakistan break up, Bhutto, Yahya and Mujeeb. But the major role played by world powers and these three were used as puppets. The lessons learned is as long as we are not being used as puppet and we are not traitors, nobody can break up us.
As a regular reader of this blog, I commend the author for examining the sequelae of the 1971 war, fraught as the exercise undoubtedly is. I lived through it as a child, a mere 10 miles from the Hussainiwala border post. I remember it all very clearly, including the later home-team exultation of “winning” a “war of liberation”.
I started reading the post with high hopes, but soon found myself shaking my head at the author’s valorization of the PAF’s role in the ‘71 war. To begin, while I accept as likely that individual acts of heroism occurred among PAF servicemen, similar acts as probably occurred among other agents of the military machine, on either side.
Second, as a force the PAF was ineffective in containing the Indian advances on either the Eastern or the Western fronts. Those interested in non-partisan assessments are invited to check, as examples found high via a Google search, tinyurl.com/1971cf1 or tinyurl.com/1971cf2.
And finally, deification of military acts, however finely the analytic scalpel is drawn, invariably feeds the very same jingoism that I wallowed in as a post-war child. This infantile one-upmanship (”my dad can beat up your dad”) is at the root of today’s poisoned relations between Pakistan and India.
Decent run-up, but the delivery was wide.
I look forward to future posts on the topic. Readers interested in a much more substantive and knowledgeable take on it would do worse than begin with Khurram Hussain’s (highly-controversial-among-Indians) Outlook Magazine piece at tinyurl.com/1971cf3.
So Z.A Bhutto was firstly and chiefly responsible for the breakup?!What a croc of lies! Bhutto was no one in authority compared with the drunken generals (from the euphoria of 1965 war and some wine) who actually called the shots.
If Yahya wanted to he could have Bhutto’s head on a platter.
Truth be told the breakup of E. Pakistan was envitable due to both geographic reasons as well as the nationalistic strains in both wings of Pakistan. As early as 1948 the E. Pakistan defied no less than M.A. Jinnah in opposing Urdu as the national language. Mind you, there were other powerful ethnic/linguistic groups in W.Pakistan but no where there was the resistance to Jinnah’s plan compared with that in the then E. Pakistan.
The author of this article needs to dig up and read what an ex-Jamatia like Jang’s Irshad Ahmad Haqqani says about the tragedy of 1971 who beautifully exposes the simplistic quotes like ‘Idhr Hum, Udhar Tum’ or ‘Tangey ToR Dengein’ which put blame on ONE person (ZAB) squarly for the follies of tens of millions.
And I say ‘tens of millions’ because when the military operation started in late March 1971 in E. Pakistan there were very, very few protests against that in W. Pakistan. Most W. Pakistanis could not be too bothered with E. Pakistan especially after Mujib’s ‘6 Points’ which were a virtual declaration of secession.
But I guess the author wouldn’t want to discuss the 6-Points and its utter rejection in W. Pakistan, would he? Nah, simplistic slogan mongering is better for some people.
Well this article talks about lessons, but messes up with the facts. Let me stick with just wikipedia articles (to ensure an impartial account) .
>> this was the first act of aggression across international boundaries that was the actual beginning of hostilities between India and Pakistan
This is so untrue.
The first military act of war between India-Pakistan started with “Operation Chengiz Khan”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chengiz_Kha n
This was the code name assigned to the pre-emptive strikes carried out by the Pakistani Air Force (PAF) on the forward airbases and radar installations of the Indian Air Force (IAF). The PAF’s strikes were an inspired by Israeli Air Force’s strikes on Egyptian and Arab air forces in the six day war. Needless to say, it turned out to be a bad idea.
>> root cause of Pakistan’s breakup in 1971 was a lack of implementation of democracy and majority rule
Now that’s truth, but only half truth. It was the policy of supremacy of west Pakistan (both political and cultural) and the extreme tortures that led to the uprising in the eastern province. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, won a landslide victory in the national elections in East Pakistan winning 167 of the 169 seats allotted to East Pakistan, and thus a majority of the 300 seats in the national assembly. However, Yahya Khan, the leader of the Pakistan, refused to allow Rahman to become the Prime Minister of Pakistan. Even before there were 3 governments dismissed very quickly because they were led by people from the east.
On 26 March 1971, the day after the military crackdown on civilians in East Pakistan, Mujibur Rahman declared the independence of Bangladesh. But what really stoked the fire and broke apart the east was the “Operation Searchlight” launched by the military. Operation Searchlight was nothing but a planned military extermination carried out by the army and numerous killings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Searchlight
Well, not much literary material exist about 1971 war giving the account from Pakistan side, but a large number of inquiries on the Indian side, suggest the initial intelligence failures in India, the widespread loss of machinery in the initial period of the war. Not a single investigation was ever carried out by Pakistan as to who was accountable.
And finally the biggest surprise, the biggest reason why most strikes later failed, were because India knew beforehand. In the course of war there were numerous defections from PAF which drastically affected Pakistan. In a way, the PAF and the military were not really the heroes, but they actually helped Pakistan recede to a considerable extent.
As per Indian role, it was an opportunity presented on a platter by the Pakistani politicians and military. The thing which really surprises me is even after this great fiasco, there was no accountability. Pakistani military was, and it still is in control of a large part of decision making, and democratic institutions still remain frail in Pakistan.
Well if the readers of the blog really want to learn true lessons, they must know the truth first.
I entirely agree with you that “it was when Mr. Bhutto threatened to “break the legs” of any politician who dared to go to East Pakistan and form alliances with Awami League, that the die was cast of the eventual breakup.” So it was the politicians, not the military that was final straw that broke the camel’s back.
As to the use of military to quell insurgency, the history is full of such instances. It was the union military in America that saved it from break-up in 1860s. It was the Nigerian military that defeated Biafran rebels to maintain national unity. Unlike India’s aggression in East Pakistan, in each of the other cases, there was no external power that intervened to ensure partition. …and there were no threat of nukes involved.
In terms of the PAF performance vs IAF during the war in 1971, here is how the celebrated American pilot Chuck Yeager, who broke the sound barrier assessed it:
“This airforce(the PAF), is second to none”
“The air war lasted two weeks and the Pakistanis scored a
three-to-one kill ratio, knocking out 102 Russian-made Indian jets and losing thirty-four airplanes of their own. I’m certain about the figures because I went out several times a day in a chopper and counted the wrecks below.” “They were really good, aggressive dogfighters and proficient in gunnery and air combat tactics. I was damned impressed. Those guys just lived and breathed flying. ”
http://www.riazhaq.com/2009/07/demolishing-indian- war-myths-about.html
Suicide bombings, death, destruction and carnage on a monumental scale. Murder and mayhem across the length and breadth of the country with no sign of let up or relief. Senior army officers targeted in broad daylight in the heart of the federal capital.The audacity, vicious nature and cruelty of the onslaught increasing with each passing day. Is this the Muslim homeland envisaged by the founding fathers? Certainly not! Jinnah’s vision of his creation was negated and nullified with the adoption of the Objectives Resolution shortly after his death in 1949.
http://ahraza.wordpress.com/2009/11/21/i-want-jinn ah%E2%80%99s-pakistan/
I think the most important point here is about not abandoning your own citizens. What we have done to the stranded Pakistanis (Biharis) still in bangladesh is a great great shame. That must be reversed immediately.
Let me read this more carefully and comment later. But I agree that it is time that we start honestly talking about 1971 and its lessons. It will not be an easy conversation but we must have it.