Day 88 : Book Excerpt : The Military Effectiveness of Post-Colonial States

On April 28, 1971 a crucial meeting took place in New Delhi. The Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her cabinet met with General Sam Manekshaw, the Army Chief of Staff and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. A grim faced Prime Minister informed the general of her decision to order an immediate invasion of East Pakistan. The General refused to initiate the operation immediately. He pointed out that the monsoon rains were about to arrive and that the rains combined with the melting Himalayan snows would turn East Pakistan into a flood zone. This would restrict the Indian army’s movements to roadways. The Indian air force (IAF) would also be hampered by poor weather and be unable to provide close air support. The general then pointed out that the army’s main strike force, the 1st Armored Division, had less than one squadron of tanks operational due to a chronic shortage of spare parts. The general’s bluntness angered the Prime Minister, but she ignored his offer to resign on “health” grounds and acquiesced to his demand for delaying the invasion for several months.

The April meeting in New Delhi was a direct consequence of the sharply deteriorating situation in East Pakistan and the impact it was having on India. In 1970 after more than a decade of pent up frustration at the high handed policies and attitude of the Pakistani government based in Islamabad, the Bengali Muslim population of East Pakistan handed Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the leader of the Bengali Muslim Party, a massive electoral victory. The military dictator of Pakistan General Yahya Khan, bowing to political pressure from West Pakistan, rejected this vote and declared martial law on February 17, 1971. During the early hours of March 25-26, the Pakistani army garrison in East Pakistan under Major General K.H. Raja’s command arrested Sheikh Rahman and his associates, which began “Operation Search Light”, a bloody crackdown against the Bengali opposition. Resistance to the crackdown was sporadic and came mainly from local police units and the East Pakistan Rifles. The Pakistani army’s response was to unleash an orgy of violence and mass killings. With the fighting spreading throughout the country, millions of Bengali Muslims fled into neighboring India. To the Indian government under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s leadership, the situation in East Pakistan represented both a potential economic disaster—represented by the task of indefinitely housing, feeding and caring for millions of refugees and a strategic opportunity—to break up Pakistan by creating the independent state of Bangladesh. In mid May, the Indian army’s Eastern Command formally took charge of aiding and advising the Mukti Bahini against the Pakistani forces. Although the Mukti Bahini’s guerilla campaign caused considerable damage and losses to the Pakistani forces, they were unable to diminish the Pakistani grip on Bangladesh. This failure triggered the Indian decision to invade East Pakistan.

During the months following the April 28th New Delhi meeting, the Indian army steadily built up its presence along the East Pakistan border. As the emboldened Mukti Bahini struck once again at the Pakistani garrison forces, the latter retaliated triggering off the first skirmishes with Indian forces. On October 30-31, Pakistani and Indian forces clashed in the border town of Kamalpur. A month later from November 20th to the 27th, the forces clashed again in the border towns of Bogra and Hilli. Pakistan had hoped that the UN Security Council would protect it from Indian interference in East Pakistan, but the guarantee of a Russian veto essentially gave the Indians a free hand in the east. With diplomatic options out of the window and the prospect of an inevitable Indian attack against East Pakistan looming, the military junta in West Pakistan decided to preempt the Indians and strike first in the west. The Pakistani strategy was to offset any territorial gains that the Indians made in East Pakistan by seizing Indian territory in the west. According to Lieutenant Colonel Siddiq Saliq, “the defense of East Pakistan lay in the west.”

This would not be the first time India and Pakistan had gone to war. The two neighbors had clashed previously in 1947-1948 and again in 1965 over the disputed region of Kashmir. After the 1965 conflict, India had undertaken a substantial expansion and modernization program of its armed forces. The IAF was to see the most improvement among the three services. The air force was well on its way to transitioning from subsonic fighters to supersonic fighters. A program to license manufacture the Soviet Mig-21L fighters was well underway and 7 squadrons of Mig-21 were in service by December 1971. Another 6 squadrons were raised with the newly acquired Soviet Sukhoi Su-7 strike fighter. Three ground attack squadrons were equipped with the Indian designed and built HF-24 Marut fighter. Another 7 squadrons were equipped with the Indian built Gnat air superiority fighter. Still in service were 6 Hunter squadrons, 2 Mystère IV squadrons, and 3 Canberra bomber squadrons. All told the IAF had 625 combat aircraft and 80,000 men. The Indian army underwent a similar if more modest modernization program. It began to induct the license produced British Vickers medium tank (renamed the Vijayanta in Indian service) to replace the Centurion tank. The army also inducted large numbers of Soviet T54/55 tanks to replace its World War Two era Sherman tanks. The Indian 1st Armored Division’s mechanized infantry brigade was equipped with Polish—wheeled (SKOT) and tracked (TOPAS) APCs along with a number of Soviet BTR-60 wheeled APCs. The Indian artillery largely reliant on older British 25pdrs and 5.5in howitzers received a tremendous boost with the acquisition of the accurate and long range (17 miles) Soviet 130mm field gun. The Indian army’s strength stood at 850,000 men in 12 infantry divisions, 1 armored division, 10 mountain divisions, 3 independent infantry brigades, 4 armored brigades and 1 independent parachute brigade with 1,450 tanks and 3,000 artillery pieces Pakistan too had launched a major modernization program after the 1965 War. This was done despite the cutoff of military assistance from its Cold War benefactor the U.S. At the start of the 1971 War, the Pakistani air force (PAF) had 13 combat squadrons and 17,000 personnel. Its inventory of fighters included 40 F-86F Sabres, 90 Sabre MK-6s (ex-Luftwaffe), 20 Mirage IIIE fighters from France, 7 F-104 Starfighters, 70 F-6 (Chinese built Mig-19s), 16 B-57 bombers and 2 RB-57 reconnaissance aircraft. The Pakistani army had 365,000 men deployed in 2 armored divisions, 13 infantry divisions, 2 armored brigades and 1 independent infantry brigade with 850 tanks and 800 artillery pieces.

~~The Military Effectiveness of Post-Colonial States -by- Pradeep P. Barua