1971 Operations: Some Lessons and Other Musings By Lieutenant General (Dr) Kamal Davar (Retd)
Lt Gen Niazi signing the Instrument of Surrender under the gaze of Lt Gen Aurora . Standing immediately behind from L to R: Vice Admiral Krishnan, Air Marshal Dewan, Lt Gen Sagat Singh, Maj Gen JFR Jacob (with Flt Lt Krishnamurthy peering over his shoulder). Veteran newscaster, Surojit Sen of All India Radio, is seen holding a microphone on the right. (Photo: commons.wikimedia)
Abstract
On 16 December 1971, with the fall of Dacca, the 1971 war came to an end. One of the shortest wars in history led to the creation of what is now the eighth most populous country in the world, after the largest surrender of troops after World War II to date. This article takes a strategic view of the events leading to, during, and after the war and brings out lessons of that war which should be kept in mind today and in the future.
Introduction
As India and her Armed Forces celebrate the 50th anniversary of the nation’s glorious victory in the 1971 operations against Pakistan which led to the birth of a new nation — Bangladesh — it is also an opportune time to introspect regarding our military preparedness for the impending future. That India, under the indomitable political leadership of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi combined with the uncommon professionalism, matchless valour and dogged determination of its men in uniform and its enlightened military leadership won for India, perhaps, its finest victory ever in its long history, cannot be debated. As India, rightfully and joyously, relives those rare moments, the current challenges confronting the nation and those likely to emerge in the foreseeable future necessitate deliberate analyses for India’s security and well-being. It is not always that history displays a propensity for repeating itself but inadequacies in military preparedness — rather not addressing and synergising various constituents of Comprehensive National Power (CNP) — can lead to serious consequences for any nation.
Fathoming Strategic Geopolitical Situation
Though national interests and objectives are normally of a semi-permanent nature which may not undergo major changes frequently, a careful watch by a nation of the prevalent strategic geo-political realities must always be borne in mind — especially as obtaining in nations inimical to one’s interest. The changing geo-political dynamics in undivided Pakistan in 1970-71 and the resultant fratricidal conflict thereafter between its two wings was a classic example of changing ground realities. No country in the world, including India or even the US, could imagine a sudden deterioration which would lead to the dismemberment of a country so speedily.
As is commonly known, there was always simmering discontent in Pakistan’s eastern wing vis-à-vis its western wing owing to the Pakistan Army being dominated by West Pakistani Punjabi and Pathan officers and the traditional arrogance displayed by them towards their dark-skinned Bengali fellow citizens. Additionally, the bulk of Pakistani investments and expenditure was unfairly reserved for their western provinces at the cost of the East Pakistan province which had a larger population (about 65 million) than in West Pakistan (around 58 million)1. Imposition of Urdu on the Bengali populace in East Pakistan, an indifferent response by the central government to natural calamities in its eastern wing and clear-cut favouritism by the Centre towards its western based citizens were all contributory factors towards serious differences aggravating between the two wings of Pakistan. The final nail in the coffin was the Pakistan Government disregarding the results of the Pak general elections. Held in December 1970, they gave an overall majority in the nation to East Pakistan’s charismatic leader Sheikh Mujibur Rehman’s party, the nationalist Awami League (AL) over Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party. Bhutto and many other political leaders in West Pakistan refused to accept the results which would have made Mujibur Rehman Pakistan’s prime minister. Bhutto even forced Pakistan’s dictator, Gen Yahya Khan, to not accept these results. Consequently, major political and violent disturbances commenced in East Pakistan prompting Yahya Khan to dispatch additional Pakistan Army troops to its now turbulent eastern wing. Yahya Khan even replaced in East Pakistan the well-respected Corps Commander, Lt Gen Sahibzada Yakub Khan, by the notorious ‘Butcher of Balochistan’, Lt Gen Tikka Khan. Realising that West Pakistani politicians will not allow him to be sworn in as Pakistan’s prime minister despite his electoral win, Sheikh Mujibur Rehman called for a “full struggle” in East Pakistan on 7 March 1971. The same evening, Gen Tikka Khan launched Operation Searchlight in which hundreds of thousands of innocent Bengalis were slaughtered and lakhs of Bengali women were raped. This genocide on hapless Bengalis forced the hugely suffering East Pakistanis to finally make up their mind to secede from their parent nation. Meanwhile, nearly a million of Bengali refugees crossed over to India over the next few months to escape from the monstrous atrocities of the Pakistani army in East Pakistan. India made many attempts to bring to the notice of an uncaring world about the carnage of Pakistanis on their fellow citizens. PM Indira Gandhi herself visited many European capitals and thence paid an official visit to Washington. She brought to the notice of the US administration the atrocities heaped by its protégé Pakistan on its innocent Bengali citizenry. However, Mrs Gandhi’s entreaties fell on an insensitive, then US President Richard Nixon’s, deaf ears. India, by then had made up its mind to fully support the beleaguered Bengalis in East Pakistan including militarily. The rest is history. By early 1971, India had commenced its preparations for a military offensive into East Pakistan in the coming months. By this time, India had fully comprehended the changing geo-political realities of the region — something which the Americans had failed to do so notwithstanding their long-term mentorship of errant Pakistan. The lesson to be imbibed as regards the geo-political and internal churnings from this period is that a careful watch must be ensured by the nation’s foreign policy and security establishments including its intelligence agencies and appropriate prophylactic and counter measures put into place well in time. Gazing back 50 years from now clearly reveals that the Americans do display, time and again, a propensity of misreading or calculatedly ignoring geopolitical realities in the nations of interest to them. Their intervention in Iraq in 2003, the shoddy exit from Afghanistan in August 2021 and mollycoddling terror sponsoring states like Pakistan for decades are suitable examples of the US failings, among others, in comprehending geo-political truths.
(Photo: newindianexpress.com)
Synergy between Political and Military Leadership
Desired levels of synergy between various organs of the state especially its political and military leadership is sine qua non for success in the achievement of national objectives. Though military leadership takes its final instructions from the elected government before prosecuting military operations against the enemy, yet the many complexities of macro-level decisions can only be made after thorough and frank analyses between the top echelons of the government and its military professionals. They must have faith in each other and by a consensual approach arrive at sound decisions in larger national interest. As is well known, PM Indira Gandhi, conscious of the fact that the nation was overburdened by nearly a million refugees, desired that the Indian Armed Forces should commence their offensive into East Pakistan as early as possible and latest by mid-1971 so that the refugees could be sent back to their own country. These refugees would become not only a financial drain on India, but later, a major security problem as Hindu Bengalis would have preferred to stay back in India. However, she deferred to then Army Chief Gen Sam Manekshaw’s advice that the Army’s operations could greatly be hampered by the onset of monsoons in East Pakistan and thus it was advisable to postpone our operations to the coming winters. In addition, a few more months for the Armed Forces would also enable them to replenish their depleting stocks of arms, ammunition and equipment including from abroad. Furthermore, the Indian Army and the R&AW could train and equip the Mukti Bahini (East Pakistani freedom fighters and Bengali deserters from the Pak Army) better, and in greater numbers, for carrying out hit and run operations against the Pakistan Army in East Pakistan. By all standards, the Mukti Bahini imbued with the spirit of freedom, proved to be effective and of great assistance to India before and during the war. The synergy between the government and its armed forces was indeed a fine example of civil-military cooperation in the supreme interest of the nation. It must be mentioned here that Mrs Indira Gandhi, apart from her own political acumen, also had wise politicians in her Cabinet like Defence Minister Jagjivan Ram, Minister for External Affairs Swaran Singh, Special Adviser DP Dhar and efficient bureaucrats like PN Haksar, TN Kaul among others. The Indian government’s handling of the East Pakistan crisis was a splendid example of a ‘whole of government approach’ which needs emulation by Indian governments in the future whenever the nation faces formidable challenges.
(Photo: dnaindia.com)
Proactive Foreign Policy
Despite the world in full knowledge of Pakistan unleashing monumental genocide in its eastern wing, the UN and hardly any nation, under the influence of US, came to the fore to condemn Pakistan. However, notwithstanding US President Richard Nixon’s intransigence and, equally, his wily Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s machinations towards India, PM Indira Gandhi ensured that India remains in the driving seat as regards sensitivity towards the hapless East Pakistanis. She sent top Opposition leaders like Atal Behari Vajpayee, Jayaprakash Narain, Jyoti Basu, among others, to various countries to explain India’s case and acquaint the global community as regards Pakistan’s grave atrocities on its own people. India, in addition to being largely proactive in its foreign policy, also executed a masterstroke by signing the Soviet-India Defence Treaty in Oct 1971 which would enable much needed defence cooperation with the then second super-power of the world. Despite warming of relations between India and the Soviet Union, it is a matter of gratification that India all throughout maintained its strategic autonomy orientation during this period and even later. As regards Pakistan, despite its close relations with China and the US, it had misread both nations intent in coming out openly to support Pakistan militarily. China made some noises by movement of a few troops in the northern sector whilst the US did threaten India by moving some assets of its Seventh Fleet into the Bay of Bengal — more to dissuade India than commit them operationally. The US bluster had failed to intimidate PM Indira Gandhi’s resolve.
(Photo: unitingearth.com)
Flexibility and Contingency Planning in Military Strategy
Despite India’s efforts and the advice to Pakistan of some powers, to arrive at a political settlement with its eastern wing, having failed, by August 1971 it was clear that India was left with no alternative but to go to war. Overall, the Indian Army had a clear quantitative edge over Pakistani forces in East Pakistan (to be referred as the Eastern theatre) and a rather small edge in the Western theatre. However, both the Indian Air Force (IAF) and the Indian Navy (IN) had a reasonable qualitative and quantitative advantage over their Pakistani counterparts. The Indian Armed Forces after the 1965 war and in the period preceding the 1971 operations had built up their arsenals to satisfactory levels. Overall, India’s military planners synthesised a joint strategy to achieve their military objectives by undertaking a swift offensive in the Eastern theatre, offensive defence in the Western theatre and totally defensive along the Northern borders opposite China. It was, in reality, fighting a two-front war though less challenging as the threat India now faces with collusive military cooperation between China and Pakistan. In the Eastern Theatre, though an offensive was to be launched, the military objectives were not as ambitious as it turned out later— it was primarily to assist the Mukti Bahini in liberating some portions of East Pakistan territory, establish their own government and hasten the return of the refugees back to their own country. In the Western Theatre, the Indian Armed forces were to carry out limited offensives and ensure no territory in J&K, Punjab and Rajasthan was lost. Along the Northern borders it was limited to preventing China from attacking/ capturing Indian Territory. As operations unfolded subsequently, India managed to achieve its mission objectives in its overall military strategy in all the three theatres. In the Eastern theatre where Dacca was not the objective initially, the rapid three-pronged military offensive by our Armed Forces into East Pakistan achieved spectacular gains and ultimately Dacca became the terminal objective. Dacca subsequently fell into Indian hands and overall operations were halted by India on 16 December 1971 in both the theatres. Flexibility and contingency planning in military strategy are essential attributes as amply displayed during these operations.
Dissuasion, Compellence and Deterrence in National Strategy
Dissuasion, Compellence and Deterrence are a nation’s subsets of its overall military strategy, be it for war-avoidance or strategic coercion before operations are physically launched. Understanding the nuances of these principles during the 1971 operations and extrapolating them now to our current challenges will be a useful exercise. It is pertinent to note that with the march of time and advent of additional technologies and increase in the domains of warfare, these subsets also do undergo change. Space capabilities, hypersonic weapons, cyber threats, artificial intelligence and indeed hybrid or Grey Zone warfare play an important transformational role in the complexities of these doctrines. Briefly, Dissuasion is influencing an adversary to stop/alter a course without use of force. Deterrence is the prevention of action by the adversary owing to the possibility of a credible threat of unacceptable counteraction and/or belief that the cost of action by the adversary far outweighs the perceived benefits. Additionally, the threat of force (deterrence by denial) but not the actual use of force (deterrence by punishment) against an adversary is conveyed successfully to maintain the status quo. Compellence, on the other hand, may involve the actual use of force to change the adversary’s behaviour. During the Bangladesh operations, these principles were all in play nearly a year before the actual conduct of the offensive into Pakistan by India. With Pakistan not listening to India’s entreaties to stop its genocide on its Bengali population, gradually Deterrence by Denial graduated into Deterrence by Punishment! However, Pakistan’s strategy of defending its Eastern theatre (separated by 1600 kms) by threatening India with a limited offensive in the Western theatre, though theoretically sound, did not successfully materialise for Pakistan. Its launching a pre-emptive air strike on 3 December 1971 on some Indian airfields gave India the opportunity to retaliate in full measure and commence its Offensive-Defence operations in the Western theatre! Fast forwarding to the current times and Pakistan’s traditional perfidious behaviour towards India, it will be worthwhile for the Indian security establishment to draw up various contingency plans incorporating Compellence as its cardinal vector to keep Pakistan’s mischief in check. As regards China, India needs to step up its politicodiplomatic cum military responses in a synergetic endeavour to convince the Chinese of the futility of its current designs, for the India of today is far better militarily prepared than in 1962. Effective Dissuasion as a first step towards the Chinese should be thus exercised with all the emphasis at our command — the Indian Army’s determination and steadfastness in Eastern Ladakh since the last year or so may dissuade the overly hegemonistic Chinese to an extent. Operational Art and Centre of Gravity In the 1971 War, the Indian Armed Forces exhibited a high degree of competence in the desired application of the Operational Art and identification of the centre of gravity in the prosecution of military operations. Though there are diverse interpretations of these terms among the world militaries, American Field Manual 100.5 (Operations) 1996 defines Operational Art as “the skillful employment of military forces to attain strategic and/or operational objectives within a theatre through the design, organisation, integration, and conduct of theatre strategies”. (2) It further expounds that “The essence of operational art lies in being able to mass effects against the enemy’s main source of power—his centre of gravity” (3) and thereafter develop a campaign plan to achieve decisive success. In the 1971 operations, as stated above, the Indian Armed Forces had correctly identified Dacca as the centre of gravity of our operations and our military objectives were modified accordingly. It is worth remembering that in today’s context it is not only a ground objective which should be identified as the centre of gravity of an enemy nation but there could also be many other significant features like a major water supply source, its population, trade dependencies, food producing areas, nuclear infrastructure, power generation centres etc. the loss or destruction of which will be calamitous for a nation.
(Photo: edtimes.in)
Intelligence: A Force Multiplier
The truism is that the availability of credible and timely intelligence for a nation’s statecraft and military planning is unquestionable. However, the significant aspect of intelligence acquisition prior to and during the 1971 operations was not of the desired standards. There were thus avoidable gaps in Indian military planning and execution during actual operations. By the end of 1970/early 1971, there was distinct resentment among Bengaliorigin soldiers of the Pakistan Army and some diplomats in Pakistan owing to continual and increasing West Pakistani arrogance, and later, atrocities being committed on the hapless East Pakistani population. The latter, as the weeks went by, had more or less made up their mind of severing all ties from the parent nation. Indian intelligence agencies could have made far better use of this dissent among the Bengali population for gathering vital inside information. Matters, of course, improved when India commenced in right earnest, the training, equipping and employment of the Mukti Bahini. Disgruntled elements in a nation are always vulnerable to enemy nations and intelligence agencies thus must remain ever watchful — this simple fact applies to India also. Details of Pakistan’s military support from the USA (despite an official American embargo/ sanction on them after their violation of human rights in East Pakistan) and from China were hardly known to India prior to the 1971 operations. In addition, there was inadequate information/ surveillance on Pakistan Army’s reinforcements moving to East Pakistan via Sri Lanka. In the Western Theatre, there was inadequate hard intelligence on major Pak build-up opposite the Chhamb- Jaurian sector and in the Longewala area which could have indicated Pak Army’s likely offensive designs in advance. In addition, concrete information was missing as regards Pakistan Army deployments in the Ravi-Chenab corridor or regarding Pakistan Army created terrain obstacles in this sector, which was of interest for Indian Army’s plans in this area. The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) pre-emptive strike on our airfields on 3 November 1971 evening took the Indian Air Force (IAF) by surprise, though, fortunately, hardly any IAF assets were destroyed/damaged. Even today the requisite availability of hard intelligence remains unquestionable, and measures must be regularly taken to re-energise the intelligence edifice of the nation by according it adequate resources to sharpen its diverse capabilities.
A PT 76 tank of 45 Cavalry in action in Bangladesh in the 1971 war. (Photo: indianexpress.com)
The Verdict of Democracy and Internal Social Cohesion
Apart from many strategic and military lessons thrown up by the 1971 War, a few brutal political truths also are more than apparent. Firstly, from electoral verdicts, whichever political dispensation is successful, the result must be respected by the entire nation. More importantly, governments in multi-cultural, multilingual, and multi-religious nations must accord respect to all its people otherwise not maintaining internal social cohesion can prove fatal to a nation’s unity. The break-up of Pakistan is a telling example for all nations which are diverse in their characteristics. Translating Military Victories into Political Gains A splendid and incomparable military victory as India achieved in 1971 should have resulted into some major political gains for India. With over 93,000 Pakistani prisoners of war having surrendered to the Indian Army, we could have extracted some concessions from the Pakistanis at the Simla Summit in March 1972. Attempts were reportedly made by India which included the return of our prisoners from them, converting the Cease Fire Line (CFL) to an international border (as was the Indian stance those days) and to make them drop all references to J&K. However, it appears that the Pakistani premier ZA Bhutto did manage to outwit the Indian leadership gathered in Simla by his tales of woe and helplessness. However, in Simla (now called Shimla) the CFL was converted to a Line of Control (LoC) and Pakistan also agreed to settle all disputes with India in a peaceful manner. It also agreed to making J&K a bilateral issue not to be raised in international forums. That Pakistan has reneged on the Simla Agreement many times is also a fact of recent history!
Conclusion
It is always militarily prudent to carry out in-depth analyses of military campaigns conducted by the Armed forces — whatever been their result. Their lessons, off course, must be then adapted to the current environment incorporating contemporary geo-political realities, challenges from new domains of warfare and the latest breakthroughs in technologies. The 1971 India-Pakistan War remains unique and incomparable in the annals of warfare where in a matter of a mere 13 days, India and the Mukhti Bahini created a new nation. Much can be learnt by all militaries in the world regards the nuances of this magnificent and matchless victory. India will do well to salute all the architects of this historic event, political and military leaders and the soldiers, sailors and airmen from both India and Bangladesh.
Endnotes
1 Parvez Tahir, When East overtakes West, The Express Tribune, Sep 22, 2017. https://tribune.com.pk/story/1512636/ east-overtakes-west 2 US Department of the Army, FM 100(5) Operations 1993. https://www.bits.de/ NRANEU/others/amd-us-archive/fm100- 5%2893%29.pdf. 3 Ibid. This article first appeared in and courtesy: Journal of the United Service Institution of India, Vol. CLI, No. 626, October- December 2021.