1971: A GLOBAL HISTORY OF THE CREATION OF BANGLADESH

The 1971 war in the history of the Indian subcontinent was the most significant geopolitical event ever since partition in the year 1947. It led to the creation of Bangladesh, and tilted the thrall between India and Pakistan and majorly in India’s favour. The nuclearization of India and Pakistan, The LoC in Kashmir, the conflicts in Kargil and Siachen Glacier, the insurgency in Kashmir, and the political pains of Bangladesh can be traced back to 1971.                                                                                                         

Srinath Raghavan has contended that Bangladesh’s creation was the product of contingency and conjuncture, chance, and choice and was far from being a predestined event. The emergence of Bangladesh and the breakup of Pakistan can be understood in an international context of the period of decolonization, incipient globalization, and the Cold War. In a narrative populated by Nixon, Indira Gandhi, Kissinger, Zhou Enlai, Tariq Ali, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bob Dylan, Raghavan, George Harrison, and Ravi Shankar has vividly portrayed the international cast that has shaped the outcomes and origin of the crisis of Bangladesh.

Author Srinath Raghavan intends to upend the myths and perceived wisdom. Raghavan’s provocative and detailed description of events that have led to Bangladesh’s independence in 1971. In his narrative in the state, India found itself as the army of Pakistan cracked down in East Pakistan. Raghavan’s accounts tend to give credit to Mrs Indira Gandhi with exceptional foresight, assured touch in handling the crisis, and impeccable timing but her response to the crisis was improvisational and tentative than usually is assumed. He went on to tackle “the perceived and conventional wisdom that Madam Prime Minister wanted to take under a military intervention but was dissuaded by General S.H.F.J “Sam” Manekshaw, the army chief. This is the tenacious myths of all about the crisis of 1971.  

According to Raghavan, Indians have continued to insist that they are not alone and that the Pakistani attack triggered the war of 1971. This comforting fiction was only true to the extent that the defenders began the wars and that the 1971 war was begun by India.   

Pakistani and Indian forces have been battling along the Indian-East Pakistan border while Pakistan’s air attacks on 3 Indian airbases on December 3. India supported Bangladeshi forces, both irregular and regular, from the beginning of the crisis. 

Raghavan has written compellingly from the point of view of language and scholarship and objective on the happenstance of Bangladesh, which is such an emotive subject. Raghavan has dissected the many-layered events in India, Pakistan, and in the world powers that emerged together to participate in the birth of the independent country and state of Bangladesh that was formerly known as East Pakistan following the Indian intervention in 1971.  

According to Raghavan the split with West Pakistan was an argument that might not have been sustainable in a longer time frame and not a foregone conclusion. Raghavan has convincingly shown that Sheikh Mujib, the father of the nation of Bangladesh was a convert to independence.

The author has crafted a fascinating case study based on the extensive archive interviews and sources in realpolitik. Raghavan has devoted to the diplomatic dances and the events in East Pakistan had spawned involving the United States, China, and the Soviet Union. Raghavan has depicted Kissinger congratulating Richard Nixon for saving West Pakistan from invasion by India by ordering the carrier of the U.S. aircraft Enterprise battling towards the Bay of Bengal while the Pakistani forces had crumbled in the east.    

Raghavan however has concluded that India didn’t have West Pakistan in its sight after spending days trekking through the Azad Kashmir without finding a war. Raghavan muses in his epilogue, that there was nothing inevitable about the emergence of independent Bangladesh and the breakup of united Pakistan. He went on to discuss factors including Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto the leader in West Pakistan who joined his forces with Sheikh Mujib who was the leader of the biggest party in East Pakistan as several people expected that the breakdown of Pakistan could be averted.   

The subject of another book is what is not examined in 1971. In the world, nobody believed the state of two nations who were linked by religion but were separated by 1,000 miles of India could have stayed united with the wise and delicate leadership that never existed. The creation of independent Bangladesh traced its beginnings to the All-India Muslim League founding and the movement towards the separation at a meeting in Dacca in 1906.

The book 1971: A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh makes for a sobering reading with a human catastrophe with plenty of heroes, villains outside the general public is hard to find and the global fence-sitters in the West and East engaged and withdrew as the personal and national interests were seemingly dictating.

The creation of Bangladesh was not inevitable in 1971 but as Raghavan has outlined the actions of the male and female, leadership that was feckless and confused, greedy and ambitious, clueless and reckless did make the creation of the independent Bangladesh unstoppable.