The Decision to Intervene: First Steps in India’s Grand Strategy in the 1971 War

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Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. For Ray’s recollections of these meetings, see Salam Azad, Contribution of India in the War of Liberation of Bangladesh,, Bookwell, New Delhi, 2006, p. 283. Additional details are available in a personal note jotted down by Asoke Ray on the Bangladesh liberation movement. I am grateful to Ray’s daughter, Smt. Reshmi Dasgupta, for a (translated) copy of these notes. There is a reference to the 1966 Mujib–Ray conversation in the record of a meeting in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on January 6, 1971 (see no. 6 below).

2. Enclosure to note by Deputy Secretary (Pakistan) dated April 25, 1969. MEA Records.

3. D. P. Dhar’s note of his conversation with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on January 29, 1972, P. N. Haksar Papers, IIIrd Instalment, File No. 233, NMML. Dhar records: ‘I reminded the Sheikh that he had made no attempt to keep in touch with us for nearly two years before these tragic events overtook Bangladesh.’ Dhar was referring to direct meetings between Mujib and Indian officials; he showed scant appreciation of Mujib’s difficulties in meeting Indian officials in Dhaka in the wake of the Agartala Conspiracy Case.

4. B. K. Acharya to S. K. Banerji, December 2, 1970, MEA Records.

5. Archer K. Blood, The Cruel Birth of Bangladesh, The University Press, Dhaka, 2002, p. 128.

6. Record of discussions on January 6, 1971. Acharya to Ray, March 15, 1971. MEA Records.

7. Archer K. Blood, no. 5, pp. 146, 147–148, 193–194.

8. Record of discussions on January 6, 1971, no. 6.

9. Kao’s Note to cabinet Secretary, January 14, 1971. PNH Papers, IIIrd Instalment, File No. 220.

10. Haksar’s Note to PM, January 5, 1971. PNH Papers, IIIrd instalment, File No. 163; Haksar’s Note to PM, March 9, 1971, File No. 164.

11. Sankaran Nair’s u.o. dated January 21, 1971. MEA Records.

12. Kao’s u.o. to Foreign Secretary, dated February 5, 1971. MEA Records.

13. Richard Sisson and Leo E. Rose, War and Secession: India, Pakistan and the Creation of Bangladesh, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1990, p. 81.

14. Ibid., p. 90.

15. Note (unsigned) on ‘PM’s Instructions about Assessment of East Pakistan Affairs’, P. N. Haksar Papers, IIIrd Instalment, File No. 220.

16. P. N. Haksar Papers, File No. 220. Unsigned, undated Note.

17. Mayeedul Hasan, Muldhara Ekattar (Main Currents of 1971), Universities Press, Dhaka, 1986, pp. 9–11.

18. Foreign Secretary from Sen Gupta, March 14, 1971. P. N. Haksar Papers, IIIrd Instalment, File No. 90(a), NMML.

19. Mayeedul Hasan, no. 17.

20. Ibid.

21. Maj.-Gen. Khadim Hussain Raja, A Stranger in My Own Country: East Pakistan 1969–1971, Oxford University Press, Karachi, 2002, pp. 70–79.

22. Archer K. Blood, no. 5, pp. 193–194.

23. P. N. Dhar, Indira Gandhi, The Emergency, and Indian Democracy, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2000, p. 151.

24. Haksar’s Note to PM, March 26, 1971. P. N. Haksar Papers, IIIrd Instalment, File No. 164, NMML.

25. For the text of statements by the foreign minister and prime minister as well as the resolution moved by the latter, see Government of India, Bangladesh Documents, Vol. I, pp. 669–672.

26. Mayeedul Hasan, no. 17, pp. 13–14.

27. Maj. Gen. K. M. Safiullah, Bangladesh at War, Academic Publishers, Dhaka, 2nd ed., 1995, p. 71. See also, Mayeedul Hasan, no. 17, p. 15.

28. Haksar’s note on ‘Points Which P.M. Might Consider Making at the Meeting of the Opposition Leaders, to Be Held on Friday, May 7’. P. N. Haksar Papers, IIIrd Instalment, File No. 227, NMML.

29. MEA Records, cited in ‘D.P. Dhar’s Note for PM’, November 13, 1971.

30. Haksar to Dhar, April 7, 1971. P. N. Haksar Papers, IIIrd Instalment, File No. 165, NMML.

31. Haksar to Dhar, April 15, 1971. Ibid.

32. Ibid.

33. T. N. Kaul’s Note to Secretary to PM, PM and Foreign Minister, June 10, 1971. MEA Records.

34. P. N. Haksar’s Note, April 17, 1971. P. N. Haksar Papers, IIIrd Instalment, File No. 165, NMML.