Field Marshall Sam Manekshaw’s death robs Indians of a vital source of information on one of recent Indian history’s unanswered questions.
Did Delhi have secret plans to dismember Pakistan in the west after comprehensively defeating it in the east?
LONDON: Field Marshall Sam Manekshaw’s death robs Indians of a vital source of information on one of recent Indian history’s unanswered questions: Did Delhi have secret plans to dismember Pakistan in the west after comprehensively defeating it in the east?
India’s plans in the western sector toward the end of the 1971 war over Bangladesh have long been a matter of controversy and speculation.
American declassified documents say president Richard Nixon and secretary of state Henry Kissinger believed prime minister Indira Gandhi wanted to dismember West Pakistan.
Some Russian commentators have said they dissuaded her from doing so.
But some leading Indian - as well as Pakistani - diplomats and experts say if Gandhi had wanted to march into Pakistan, she could have done so. They attribute the American and Russian claims to interventionist zeal.
The hero of the 1971 war, Manekshaw, was a garrulous man. But he never spoke publicly about the issue.
“Mrs Gandhi never had a territorial ambition, but she did want to finish off Pakistan’s military capability,” former Pakistan foreign secretary Tanvir Ahmad Khan said.
“But that would have ultimately led to the break-up of Pakistan. There would have been chaos,” he added.
Khan’s assessment is similar to that of the late Nixon and Kissinger. Declassified US documents claim that details of a briefing given by Gandhi to members of her cabinet in early December 1971 were leaked to the US intelligence.
A summary of the documents by the state department says: “Gandhi outlined her war aims: she would not accept a settlement until Bangladesh was liberated, the ‘southern area of Azad Kashmir’ was liberated, and the Pakistani armoured and air force strength was destroyed to prevent any future challenge to India.
“Nixon and Kissinger took this as proof that India planned not only to foster the independence of East Pakistan, but to use the opportunity of the crisis to inflict a crushing military defeat on Pakistan, which would lead to the break-up of West Pakistan.”
But former Pakistan spy chief Lt Gen Assad Durrani and finance and foreign minister Sartaj Azeez are not sure. “There was neither the intention, nor the capability. The relative strength of Pakistan on the western front would not have encouraged a major Indian invasion,” Durrani said.
Sartaj Azeez said both the US and the Soviet Union “overstated the case” to give the impression that it was their intervention that had stopped the Bangladesh war from spiralling out of control. “In any case, Pakistan would have been ready for such an invasion as the bulk of our troops – some 6,00,000 men - was in West Pakistan,” he said.
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