Our finest example of inter-service synergy

December 2021 marks the golden jubilee of India’s military victory in East Pakistan, what is now Bangladesh. India’s triumph was achieved for a variety of reasons: one, the Pakistan army was ill-equipped and ill-prepared — with three overstretched divisions against India’s three Army corps — to face the blitzkrieg of the Indian Army across the riverine terrain in East Pakistan. Two, equal credit for the Army’s success in India’s operations must be attributed to the IAF’s air domination over East Pakistan and the blockade of its coastline by the Indian Navy. Three, the Pakistan army was a victim of wrong strategic calculations by the Generals in Rawalpindi, who felt that Pakistan would bring to bear overwhelming military force on India’s western front, thus an Indian military response in the east would be limited or negligible, as was the case in 1965. Thus, Pakistan had only enough troop levels — which were also increased in March 1971 — not to fight a war, but to inflict a genocide on the Bengali population in the east. Those calculations were their undoing. Finally, the support of the Mukti Bahini guerrillas was most useful for the advance to Dacca.

The genocide unleashed by the Pakistan army in East Pakistan, to subdue the locals with fear, had burdened India — by the end of May 1971 — with 10 million Bengali refugees. Its estimated cost of about $700 million in a full year — was then roughly half of India’s defence budget in 1970 — and so, Indira Gandhi, then Prime Minister, first chose to seek global humanitarian assistance; and when there was little response, she wanted a quick military intervention into East Pakistan, to liberate parts of it and to push the refugees back at the first instance. The capture of Dacca was then, not her aim. It was to liberate parts of East Pakistan to give safe areas for the refugees to go back, and to announce a free Bangladesh. But even for that, India’s military commanders suggested a more calibrated approach. General (SHFJ) Sam Manekshaw, the Indian Army chief, having conferred with his two counterparts, the naval chief, Admiral SM Nanda and Air Chief Marshal PC Lal, and after much deliberation at the Military Operations (MO) Directorate, cautioned against haste. They all wanted time to prepare for a war, make up equipment shortages, and launch a post-monsoon war in the winter.

The rise in rebel forces was the outcome of Pakistan army’s severe clampdown on the Bengali population — as part of Op Searchlight — and their massacres across East Pakistan. It gave rise to a humanitarian and refugee crisis — that led to India’s involvement — followed by an Indian government decision to plan for a war. India thus assisted the Bengali guerillas to fight against the Pakistan army’s repression. They were eventually a great asset for the Indian Army — with their knowledge of the lay of the ground — when the war started. Indian military operations with attacks along the borders of East Pakistan, had in fact started in the last week of November 1971. The battles of Garibpur on November 20-21, and the pitched battles around Hilli (or Bogura), began on November 22. A few leading observers — R Sisson and LE Rose — had stated that while earlier on, “India’s forces did hit objectives in East Pakistan and then withdrew back into Indian territory — after the night of November 21, 1971, Indian tactics changed in a significant way.” Prior to that, the Mukti Bahini and other Bengali guerrilla groups trained by India, were carrying out hit-and-run operations, while the IAF had begun to carry out aerial reconnaissance missions in October and November 1971.

And when the war officially started, after Pakistan’s air force bombed several Indian air bases in the north and west of India on the night of December 3-4, the Indian Navy responded with the bombing of Karachi harbour on December 4. It had a significant impact on Pakistan’s maritime capability. And even as Pakistan chose to launch its mechanised combat groups towards Jaisalmer, the legendary defence put up by India’s ground and air forces at Longewala (on December 4-5), created a graveyard of Pakistani tanks, which is still there to see. Thus, initially much of the attention was on India’s western front. The war in East Pakistan essentially gathered momentum after the Indian Army undertook bold operations to cross the mighty Meghna river and the first airborne operations (December 9-11) were launched. The fall of Dacca — the crowning moment of the war — had come about due to the remarkable synergy between India’s three services.

And though everyone associates the fall of Dacca (as Dhaka was then known) with then Army chief, General Sam Manekshaw, who had no doubt a larger-than-life presence in South Block, a closer reading of one of the few accounts of how it all happened — since official records in Calcutta were shredded at Gen Aurora’s orders — shows that credit must also go to a few others such as Maj Gen (later Lt Gen) JFR Jacob, who was the chief of staff at HQ Eastern Command in Calcutta, and was involved in the planning and meticulous implementation of the operations in East Pakistan along with Major General Inder Gill, who was the Director of Military Operations (there was no DGMO then), and Lt Gen Sagat Singh, who led the race to Dacca with his IV Corps from Assam and Tripura, as also to Air Marshal HC Dewan and Vice Admiral N Krishnan (they are all standing behind in the signing ceremony in that famous photograph at the Dacca racecourse). That war was the finest example of inter-service cooperation, and much credit must also go to the naval chief, Admiral Nanda, who had the foresight to move India’s only aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant — despite resistance from the naval brass hats — to the Bay of Bengal, and Air Chief Marshal PC Lal, who had set up an advance HQ in Calcutta to coordinate the efforts of the two air commands in the eastern sector.