How Indira Gandhi blunted threats from US & China before Bangladesh liberation

The Lightning Campaign by Major General DK Palit is perhaps the very first book on the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971 written and published as early as January 1972, within less than two months of the culmination of the war which, inarguably, was not only India's greatest military victory ever, but also the one that changed forever the geopolitics of the subcontinent.

Commenting on the campaign the war decorated author writes, ‘The firm and confident handling of the problem by Mrs Gandhi and her government was matched by the sophisticated management, direction and leadership of the Indian armed forces...In spite of the Indian reluctance to be the first to aggress, Mrs Gandhi firmly retained the initiative for military action in the east and played the game of conflict control with consummate skill to gain advantage in the border confrontation in Bangladesh.'

One of the major factors that led to the spectacular success of the Bangladesh Liberation War was the way Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her advisors conducted the country's foreign policy after the crisis erupted.

As Pakistani atrocities, beginning the night of 25/ 26 March 1971, mounted, there was a natural clamour of the Indian people for 'action' which, in other words, meant military intervention the outcry for which intensified as waves of refugees started pouring in.

For the first few months, Mrs Gandhi had to repeatedly calm her people. She gently told Members of Parliament:' A wrong step, or even a wrong word would have an effect different from the desired one.' The Prime Minister was determined 'not to be stampeded into doing anything that might lay India open to the charge of violating international law' or enable Pakistan to discredit the liberation struggle in Bangladesh as a conspiracy by India.

According to one of her best biographers, Inder Malhotra, 'This was the first indication of the superb qualities of leadership Indira was to display, to the joy and pride of most Indians, all through the Bangladesh crisis and the fourteen-day India - Pakistan war. She won admiration for the skill with which she harmonised the military, political and diplomatic strands of the Indian response to the crisis next door. Deftly, she mastered the situation rather than allow it to overwhelm her.'

Addressing Parliament on May 26, exactly two months after the genocide had begun, Mrs. Gandhi stated that' it is a problem that threatens the peace and security of India and, indeed, of Southeast Asia. The world must intervene to see that peace and security are re-established and maintained.'

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But the world was slow to react. Many countries cited the clause of UN charter that forbids member states from interference in the 'internal affairs' of another member country. In July 1971, American President Nixon sent his emissary Henry Kissinger to talk to Indian leaders and let them know the stand of USA.

He left no illusion in Mrs. Gandhi's mind where the sympathies of the Nixon administration lay. He made it clear to the Prime Minister, and her Foreign Minister Swaran Singh, that should China intervene on Pakistan's side in the event of an India - Pakistan war, India should expect no help from the United States.

But very cleverly he hid the fact that he was going to visit China a few days later to pave the way for the visit of Nixon to a country which the Americans had not even recognized for the last two decades and more. Soon it was publicly known that Kissinger had visited China with the help of Pakistan which offered its military airfield for his aircraft to take off from its territory. The American 'tilt' towards Pakistan could not have been more brazen.

Even the Chinese leaders were openly siding with Yahya Khan and accusing India of 'helping secessionist Bangladeshis. It was under these circumstances that Mrs. Gandhi came to the conclusion that India needed some sort of a shield to protect her. That was when she decided to finalise a long pending treaty with Soviet Russia.

The Indo- Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation was signed on behalf of both countries by their foreign ministers, Swaran Singh and Andrei Gromyko, in New Delhi on 9th August and made public the same day at a mass rally in Delhi's Ramlila maidan.

The treaty, first offered by the Soviet Union to India in 1969, had then received only a lukewarm response from New Delhi due to both domestic and foreign policy concerns. But now for the same reasons, the far-sighted Prime Minister felt that the time was ripe for signing the treaty, and her aides like DP Dhar and PN Haksar ensured that it was negotiated with urgency and in total secrecy till made public. This took care of the threat from both America and China.

Having achieved a major deterence and leaving the service chiefs to plan their military strategies for both the eastern and western fronts, Mrs. Gandhi left on a tour to solicit international support for the cause of Bangladesh and trigger action against Pakistan.

She visited the Soviet Union, Austria, Belgium, Britain, France, West Germany and the United States. In all the countries, except USA, she received an extremely encouraging response in the form of financial and moral support for the refugees. Many other countries not on itinerary were covered by the affable Minister for External Affairs Swaran Singh who, with his long innings at the foreign office, made a convincing case for India in the world capitals.

However, it was Mrs. Gandhi's meeting with President Nixon in Washington where she showed that India, the world's largest democracy, won't be cowed down by America, the world's most powerful democracy. As recorded by Kissinger 'the Nixon - Gandhi conversation turned into a classic dialog of the deaf.'

When she found the President of USA totally tilted towards Pakistan, Mrs. Gandhi more than made up for it by appealing directly to the American public and legislators who, like Senator Edward Kennedy and William Saxbe, had visited India and seen for themselves the pitiable plight of refugees, by now 10 million. But the Indo- Soviet Treaty and her faith in the might of Indian military had given Indira Gandhi the confidence to face the challenge before her with supreme courage and poise.

(The writer, an ex-Army officer, is a political analyst. Views are personal)