By Rana Danish Nisar
The poles apart pundits argued that not only June’s 1947 “Red-Cliff Award ” but all efforts of British “high-Brows’ ‘ were only genuinely designed in the favor of independent India and for the Hindus leaders.
After the long historical juxtaposition, cultural affix, social intermingling and political wear and tear, the Sub-continent was purely knapped into two independent states in the year of 1947 and the month was August. Since the M.B. Qasim arrived in the sub-continent in the year of 712 AD with the aim to provide shelter to the acquitted people of the region from the aggressive Hindus rulers. The history literature has witnessed that the rule of Muslims over the sub-continent after the M.B Qasim is the glorious period of the entire region. From M.B. Qasim to Mughal rule, the sub-continent can be defined as a pure welfare state, where all including minorities were enjoying the independent life full of freedom, happiness, prosperity, affluence, opulence and full of richness of the colors of life. The cunning establishment of British based “East India Company”, vixen defeat of Siraj-ud-Daulah in War of Plassey 1757, the yelp cold assassination of Tipu Sultan” in 1799 by the new rulers of sub-continent push the entire edifice of Indian Sub-continent into the hands of British “East India Company”.
The direct rule was finally in the hands of the British after the “War of Independence” of 1857. Formally, this rule of British over subcontinent was reciprocally for the favor of Hindus owing to Hindus placements in high government ranks. After British rule, the sculpture of Indian Sub-continent was now designed by British hands with the Hindu leaders totally against the Muslims. The inauguration of ALL INDIAN CONGRESS by A.O. HUME in 1885 was really for the empowerment of Hindus and gave the extra exceptional favor to them. The Hindu’s ghoul was thoroughly against the Muslims of India and provoke the offensive motives of Hindus. The establishment of Aligarh educational institutions under the indulgent umbrella of Aligarh Movement, the Shimla Deputation, formation of All Indian Muslim League 1906 and all others were the ephemeral efforts of Muslims to get their rights but all in vain. With the passage of time, Hindus got more power and use it to deteriorate the Muslims. Shortly, the lively example of Hindus aggressiveness against Muslim is “CONGRESS MINISTRIES 1937-39”. During this period, the Hindu’s government tried its best to demolish/Crash the Muslims of India. Afterwards, “the Cripps mission, Shimla conference, Cabinet Mission Plan and 3rd June Plan” were the main efforts in the 1940s decade which were done by the British government for the favor of Hindus Leaders.
After independence, the unequal distribution of assets among two independent states sown the seed of hatred. As compared to Pakistan, India got more privileges, assets, munitions factories, industrial units, military equipment and paper currencies. This left with endemic hatred among two neighbors. The Indian military-march on Kashmir, the Indian military offensive against Pakistan came with the result of Indo-Pak war of 1948. Subsequently, the ceasefire among them got closer two nations shortly. With the arrival of the Indira regime in India, the anti-Pakistan’s policies, strategies and course of actions became the top priority of Indira Gandhi and her team. Rameshwar Nath Kao was appointed by Indian Premier Indira Gandhi as head of Indian intelligence agency “RAW” in the year of 1968 and the day was 21st September. Soon after the Indian army defeat in Indo-China war 1962 and Indo-Pak war 1965, the Indian intelligence services were purely against Pakistan or undo Pakistan.
One can say that Rameshwar Nath Kao was the founder of “Kao Plan ” which was designed by Indian intelligence against Pakistan. Initially, there were two main task assigned by Indira Gandhi to Mr. Kao:
– 1st was to collect intelligence information about China and Pakistan
– 2nd was to take covert offensive action against Pakistan with the aim to dissolve Pakistan’s eastern wing.
Actually, since independence Pakistan was not in the good books of India and Indian military & civil establishment and took Pakistan as the main hurdle in the way of Indian hegemonic designs in South Asian ward. As compared to other states of South Asia, Pakistan can be an alarming state for India according to Indian high-brows. So the ultimate goal of RAW, Indira Gandhi and Mr. Kao was to break down/undo Pakistan and this time in the year of 1971, India had a good chance to do this. Owing to geographical vulnerability, economic weakness, social estrangement, political instability, Chaos among Pakistan’s two wings and mistrust gave India a chance to get advantage of this situation and breakdown Pakistan. India created an in-depth political instability with the help of “Mukti Bahini”, which was highly supported by RAW. It could be said that it was the “Psychological Warfare” strategy which was used by Koa and his colleagues in the favor of Bengalis against the west wing of Pakistan.
The result was reciprocally in the favor of India and against Pakistan and eventually Pakistan lost his eastern wing. In fact, the RAW had an in-depth crucial role in the Indo-Pak war 1971 and afterwards. The RAW role in East Pakistan could be defined in basic five perspectives.
– 1st: Necessities of deep and secret intelligence to the policy makers, military and civil establishments;
– 2nd: Train the Bengalis freedom fighters in Clandestine, Stealthy, Surreptitious, Secret and Furtive camps against Pakistan. RAW not only trained the fighters but also provided the illegal munitions, guns and other weapons to them. In fact, the all freedom fighters were highly equipped with weapons;
– 3rd: Shape the Psychological warfare against Pakistan and manipulate the minds of people of East Pakistan and create mistrust, misguidance, hatred against the western wing;
– 4th: RAW Special Forces mounted the special offensive operation against asylums and the training camps of NAGA & MIZO;
– 5th: Create a network of eastern wing (East Pakistan) or Bengali civil servants and bureaucrats which were giving their services in west wing (West Pakistan) and collect information from them. They were sharing all information to RAW. With psychological war, they demoralized Pakistan’s nation.
Moreover, With the aim to accomplish these five goals, India deploy multiple military forces in East Pakistan i.e. RAW and Indian Military forces 800,000, Mukhti Bahini forces 150,000 and Mujib Bahini (Mujib Ur Rehman, Head of Awami League) forces 13000. As compare to this almost 1 million (1000000) military forces, Pakistan’s 40,000 hardcore force was quiet very limited to do fight with enemy in Indo-Pak War 1971. The result was eventually the surrender of Pakistan’s forces. Moreover, the huge distance of almost 1500 km between East and West Pakistan made a prominent reason behind the fall of the East Wing of Pakistan. There was no direct transportation route between them and India also blocked the Air Traffic route among East and West Pakistan. The only way of connection between East and West Pakistan was a naval/maritime route almost 5500 km and that was too large to facilitate each other urgently in the time of hour particular for naval assistance. The following pictures show reality.
Figure 1:
Figure 2:
This natural distance reciprocally gave an ultimately favorable situation for India to do an offensive march against Pakistan. The 1971s commission report inked that Indian infiltrators/secret agents along with reprobates of “Mukti Bahini” which was sponsored by Awami league and RAW both did killing of innocent people of East Pakistan. They created not only panic but also disruption in the eastern wing. With the sponsorship of RAW, the estimation of alleged killing done by “Mukti Bahini” were enormous in numbers. But on the contrary, Sheikh Majib and India did false allegations on West Pakistan but being an Author of the Book “Dead Reckoning: Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War”, Sarmila Bose inked that the all allegations which were set by Bangladesh and India were only and purely exaggeration, hyperbole, embroidery, overestimation and overstatement. Javed Jabbar also gives worthy remarks on “Separation of East Pakistan the Untold Story” and in-depth condemns all allegations which are made by Indian and Bengalis against Pakistan’s forces.
Moving ahead, Indira Gandhi said that fall of East Pakistan is equivalent to “Drowned the TWO NATION THEORY in the Bay of Bengal”. The “Kao Plan” was successfully accomplished regarding the dissolution of East Pakistan. In fact, this brutal incident of 1971 left with endemic hatred among the people of East and West Pakistan and India-Pakistan as well. After fifty years, till now, every year the month of December is be like the call, commemoration, recollection, nostalgia and reiterative of Tragedy of 1971, dissolution of East Pakistan and role of India’s RAW in this massacre event.
Rana Danish Nisar – The author is a PhD (International Relations) Student at the School of Politics and International Studies (SPIS). He holds Mphil in (International Relations), Masters in (Pakistan Studies), and Masters in (International Relations) degrees. He won acceptance Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations HPAIR (USA), 2017. His research interests are broadly in South Asian Affairs, South Asia Geo-Politics, India-Pakistan Relations, South Asian Nuclear Politics, US and South Asia, Indian Ocean, Security studies, South Asian developments studies.
(The views expressed in this article belong only to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of World Geostrategic Insights).