‘Bangladesh War: Report from Ground Zero by Manash Ghosh’, notes from a reporter’s diary

Manash Ghosh

WHAT the Jews were to Hitler, the Hindus were to Niazi. He would ask his troops to keep a count of how many Hindus they had killed every day, so that a grand official tally could be worked out at month’s end. That would give a clear idea of how many Hindus they had been able to wipe out from the face of East Pakistan. Thus were his troops exhorted to ‘… kill whosoever Hindu comes your way. The problem of the Bengali Muslims is that they are Hindu at heart so they are a treacherous lot. Our war is between us (pure) and them (impure Muslims). The Bengali problem requires a military and not a political solution.’ The Pakistan army chief, General Hamid Khan, while inspecting his troops in East Pakistan in 1971, would ask his soldiers: ‘Jawan, tumne aaj tak kitne Hindu maare?’ (Soldier, how many Hindus have you killed till date?) The Bengali women, irrespective of religion and age, were considered by him to be ‘gonimat ka maal’ (public property), which should first be enjoyed and then killed without fail and at will with no questions asked. At one meeting of commanders, Niazi had even openly vowed to change the Bengali nasal (race) altogether. This upset one Bengali Major Mushtaq present at the meeting so much that he went to the toilet and shot himself. This incident finds mention in Lt Gen Khadim Hussain Raja’s book ‘A Stranger in My Own Country’ (2012).

Hindus, thus, accounted for about 75 per cent of the refugees entering India in ever growing numbers; between 55,000 and 60,000 coming in every day at the tail end of April, with women in the majority. There was another category of Bengalis, mostly Muslim youths and peasants, who mingled with the refugees and entered India in large numbers. During my almost daily visits to Boyra, Tehatta and Gede borders to cover the refugee influx, I could see their steadily growing numbers, which convinced me about the positive outcome of the liberation war. Many, whom I met at the border, were college students from faraway places, including Dacca and other towns. On crossing over, they would urgently ask for the location of the nearest Mukti Bahini camp or the BSF outpost. If I asked them why, their reply was that they were here for training in arms to join the Mukti Bahini and rid the country of the Khan Sena (Pak military). Except for the ragged bags and red gamchchas (towels) strung around their neck or head, they carried nothing else.

A vast majority was from the peasant stock, mostly unlettered. I was in awe of their conviction in the cause of liberation of their land from the Pakistani yoke. They said that youths from their neighbouring villages had already crossed over to India in hundreds to take arms training. Broadcasts from the Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendro and All India Radio had spurred them on to join the freedom struggle voluntarily. Their parents actually egged them on to join the Mukti Bahini. Significantly, every volunteer swore by Sheikh Mujib and his call for Independence. On several occasions, I had taken them in my office car and dropped them off at youth camps.

Late April was also when the Opposition leaders in the Indian Parliament demanded the recognition of the government in exile and an Indian military intervention in Bangladesh. Indira Gandhi and her advisers argued that a military intervention would boomerang on India and subvert the process of the liberation war, which had attracted international attention, especially after the swearing in of the provisional government. According to her, any Indian intervention would be construed as part of an Indian conspiracy to dismember Pakistan, a point which Pakistan was trying to sell to the outside world, without much success. India had to tread cautiously because Bangladesh had suddenly become the focus of international diplomacy.

General Yahya’s counter and false narrative, propagated by his personal emissaries in various global capitals, was that the civil-warlike situation had been ‘controlled’ with the arrest of its ‘ring leader’ and the ‘real villain of the piece’— Sheikh Mujib. His story was that ‘normalcy was fast returning because of his positive initiatives’. He assured world leaders that once normalcy was restored, he would begin negotiations with members of the National Assembly for an amicable solution.

An immediate offshoot of the government-in-exile, working out of Calcutta, and the massive refugee influx was that the city became the hub of international news and diplomacy overnight. VVIPs were flying in and out of the city almost daily to see first-hand the enormity of the refugee crisis.

The Indian external affairs ministry had opened its branch secretariat in the city, headed by a seasoned Bengali diplomat, Ashoke Roy. The most active diplomats were those from the American and Soviet consulates, but Gurginov and the KGB head of the Soviet Consulate were the most high profile. Gurginov could converse in fluent and chaste Bengali.

It was he who first tipped me off that diplomats of the American consulate were in touch with some Awami League MNAs and were wooing them to go back to Dacca to work out a settlement with Yahya without Mujib at the negotiating table. Moscow took little notice of Yahya, whose emissary apprised the Kremlin that he was trying his best to restore normalcy and that the Soviets should desist from extending any moral or material support to the provisional government under pressure from India.

Yahya had, of course, scored with the Americans. The MNAs, who had been wooed over with help from the American consulate, belonged to the Khondokar Mushtaq Ahmed camp. Khondokar was the foreign minister of the provisional government. For the time being, a close watch by the RAW sleuths frustrated their efforts to respond positively to Yahya’s game plan. Yahya had, however, been able to identify those in the Awami League-led provisional government who could play the role of a Trojan horse in future and help him derail the ‘so-called liberation war’ with the help of the American consulate in Calcutta.

Although Yahya’s move did not succeed then, it marked the beginning of the process to take Bangladesh in the reverse direction. Four years later, it culminated in the dastardly killing of Sheikh Mujib.

— Excerpted with permission from the publisher.