The independence movement under the leadership of Congress was for establishing independent undivided India through the eviction of British rulers from the soil of India, but the degeneration of Hindu-Muslim relation into hostility and the demand of Muslim league for a separate state for the Muslims of the region thwarted the dream of an independent undivided India and made the partition of subcontinent inevitable. While the initial proposal for the partition met with steep resistance as most of the senior leaders of Congress namely, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawharlal Nehru, and Moulana Abul Kalam Azad vehemently protested such proposal and termed it as British conspiracy to divide India, the Congress finally gave its nod of approval in the fear that outright rejection of the partition proposal might be used by the British colonial rulers against the independence movement to perpetuate their political domination over the country, and in the hope that with a small resource base, peculiar geographic reality that separates both the wings of the country by one thousand miles and paucity of leaders with political experience, Pakistan would not survive too long and would return to India in the end.
There is no surprise that partition of India came as a shock to Congress leaders and that they could never reconcile themselves to the idea of an independent Pakistan because their freedom struggle was for undivided India, and therefore, they wanted to roll back the geographical changes made to Indian subcontinent through partition and their intention was clearly demonstrated to Pakistan from the very beginning, which gave rise to a plethora of problem and a paucity of trust between the two nations.
What Pakistan needed in those formative years was national unity and balanced development in the two wings to ensure security and progress to consolidate its position as a powerful nation in the subcontinent to thwart Indian attempt to undo the partition. But the then Pakistani leaders' myopic failure to recognize Bengalis as equal partners and give them due share of political power and economic resource caused widespread resentment among the East Pakistanis, which was cunningly used by India against Pakistan in the subsequent years. The Indian political leaders in later years used their diplomatic channels and intelligence agencies to cultivate close relations with East Pakistani political establishment in order to involve themselves in almost all political movements in East Pakistan to use the prevailing sense of deprivation among East Pakistanis to their own political advantage and instigate East Pakistanis against West Pakistanis to accelerate the process of disintegration of Pakistan firstly, to weaken it and then to bring it back to India's lap through various political machinations to realize the dream of undivided India.
No amount of political negotiations between the two wings could improve the situation in Pakistan due, mainly, to the stubbornness of West Pakistanis, which gave rise to increasing sense of alienation and deprivation among the people of East Pakistan and finally when Sheikh Mujib was denied the premiership in 1970, Bengalis decided to get out of the relationship once and for all. So, for the first time and certainly for the last time in history, the disintegration of Pakistan became a common goal for both India and the Bengalis as the former wanted to break Pakistan to realize its vision of undivided India and the latter wanted to establish a separate independent nation to rid themselves of an insensitive and repressive political regime.
As soon as the Pakistani army cracked down on the unarmed East Pakistanis, India, under the leadership of Indira Gandhi, took bold steps to help the Bengalis in their just struggle for independence against the fascist regime of Yahya Khan. The Indira government set their objectives to do the following things to ensure a desired outcome in the war for both Indians and East Pakistanis:
1. To give safe passage to top Awami League leaders to India and help form Mujibnagar government
2. To help form Mukti Bahini and provide necessary training and weapons
3. To form Mujib Bahini as an alternative force and use them in special operations
4. To provide asylum to ten million refugees from East Pakistan
5. To launch a vigorous diplomatic campaign worldwide through its foreign services to garner support for East Pakistan's just struggle for freedom
6. To use its military and intelligence resources to the extent possible to help freedom fighters sustain a prolonged war against the powerful Pakistan army
India never lost sight of its strategic goal
Some people may argue that India's decision to help in 1971 was based purely on humanitarian grounds, but the reality is that India's decision to extend its wholehearted support to Bangladesh's liberation war was a premeditated one and was primarily based on its own strategic goal of disintegrating Pakistan to undo the changes made through partition. Former Indian foreign secretary Mr. Dixit said, "We helped in the liberation of Bangladesh in mutual interest, it was not a favor," and a senior RAW intelligence officer said, "Bangladesh was the result of a 10 year long promotion of dissatisfaction against the rulers of Pakistan" (RAW: Top-Secret Failures, p: 5 ). These statements from two top former Indian government officials are testament to the fact that Indian help for Bangladesh was not an altruistic one, rather it was for implementing India's own strategic goal of disintegrating Pakistan and that the intelligence agencies of India were also engaged in fomenting unrest in East Pakistan. With their strategic goals in mind, India concluded a seven point agreement with the Mujibnagar government to seal the fate of a negotiated settlement between East and West Pakistan, and to cripple Bangladesh by depriving it of its sovereign right to raise a standing army and to independently formulate foreign policy. Now, for the benefit of the readers let me briefly describe the points of 'seven point agreement':
1. Bangladesh government will select only those people for administrative posts who have actively participated in the liberation war and any shortfall therein will be filled by the Indian government officials.
2. A joint force will be formed comprising of the Indian army and the Mukti Bahini and this force will be placed under the command of the chief of staff of the Indian army who will lead the liberation war.
3. Bangladesh will have no standing army
4. India will help raise a paramilitary force to protect the internal law and order of the country.
5. Open market will be the basis for trade relation between the two nations and this arrangement will be subject to periodical review.
6. The Indian army will be stationed in Bangladesh for an indefinite period of time but the time frame for their gradual withdrawal will be determined through annual meetings between the two governments.
7. Bangladesh will formulate its foreign policy only in consultation with India.
The conclusion of the seven point agreement only ensured that the Mujibnagar government would continue the war until Bangladesh gained full independence from Pakistan, but it did not give the guarantee that China and America would not intervene in the event the Indian army directly involved itself in the war. So, the Indira government approached to former Soviet Union to extract security guarantee against impending Chinese and American threats and it was made available to them in the shape of '25 year friendship treaty' by the erstwhile Soviet Union, which was also seeking to play greater role in the subcontinent to expand its own sphere of influence.
The signing of the seven point treaty with Mujib Government and the 25 year friendship treaty with the Soviets removed all obstacles for the Indian forces to directly intervene in East Pakistan and it took them less than two weeks to overrun the defensive positions of the Pakistan army, which was already exhausted by a nine month long guerrilla war against Mukti Bahini and was at the final stages of disintegration and collapse. At the end of the war, Bangladesh got its much cherished independence and India could break Pakistan into two pieces for which it had been scheming since 1947.
Bangladesh steps into a strategic trap
While the public of Bangladesh, in general, and the Mujib government, in particular, was extremely grateful to India for her help and support in the war of liberation and wanted to maintain the best possible relationship with the Indian people, the political and military establishment of India had already done their strategic planning in line with the seven point agreement to reduce Bangladesh's relevance as an independent nation through limiting her power to formulate national policies. The strategic trap was set for Bangladesh in the form of '25 year friendship treaty' which took away most, if not all, options for Bangladesh to independently establish foreign, defense, and economic relations with other nations in the world. I would like to briefly mention a few clauses of the '25 year friendship treaty' that had a deleterious effect on our foreign, defense, and economic interests:
• Article 4: Both the nations will hold regular meetings with each other at all levels to discuss major international issues for mutual benefit.
• Article 5: Both the nations will cooperate with each other in the fields of trade, transport and communications on the basis of equality, mutual benefit and the most favored nation principle.
• Article 8: None of the nations will ever enter into a military alliance against each other and will refrain from allowing a third party from using their soil for military purposes that could constitute a threat to national security of either nations.
• Article 9: Both the nations will refrain from providing any assistance to a third party taking part in an armed conflict against either of the nations to ensure regional peace and security.
• Article 10: Neither of the party will undertake any commitment, secret or open, toward one or more states, which may violate the spirit of the treaty.
Article 4 practically eliminated Bangladesh's power to devise an independent foreign policy and made it compulsory for Bangladesh to consult India about any major foreign policy matter.
Article 5 forced Bangladesh to confer most favored nation status on India to clear the way for India to capture Bangladesh's economic market without any restrictions, but Bangladesh being a smaller economy was unable to avail itself of the opportunities of most favored nation status.
Article 8 ensured that if there was a military conflict between Bangladesh and India, Bangladesh, as a weaker power, could not seek help from outside world to protect its territorial integrity.
Article 9 was included to protect India's strategic interest in its insurgency infested North Eastern states by imposing restrictions on Bangladesh to provide help and support to the insurgents, but India itself broke the sanctity of this clause by providing military and political assistance to Shanti Bahini in Chittagong Hill Tracts.
Article 10 restricted Bangladesh's power to sign a defense deal with a third party to improve its armed forces.
By dint of this treaty India was able to diminish Bangladesh's power to protect herself and the right to establish political and economic relations with other nations independently and consequently became the de-facto power over Bangladesh to whom the new born country had to depend for her security and economic development only to lose her relevance as a sovereign nation. Thus the entrapment of Bangladesh was complete.
Political change in 1975 and new equation in Indo-Bangla relationship
After the independence, the war ravaged country needed solid leadership with political maturity to overcome the seemingly insurmountable problems created by nine month long war of liberation and steer the nation to build a society free from corruption, deprivation and exploitation through creating national unity, establishing rule of law, strengthening democratic institutions, and creating economic opportunities for the people. Unfortunately, within three years of its rule, the new government banned all but four state owned national newspapers, dissolved the parliament to create one party rule, put incompetent party men in different state owned industrial establishments, neglected and humiliated the military, raised an alternative security agency to suppress oppositions that destroyed all hopes for the new born country to establish democracy and attain economic self sufficiency. This created widespread discontent throughout the country which resulted in a military coup in 1975 to end the rule of this unpopular regime.
The new government was installed and gradually undertook plethora of measures to restore law and order of the country, to bring back discipline in economic sector, to lift ban on national newspapers and political parties, to increase budgetary allocation for the defense forces, and to change foreign policy direction to establish close and productive relationships with China, the U.S.A., Europe, and the Middle Eastern countries so as to diminish Indian influence over the nation created through signing of the controversial 25 year friendship treaty. The inevitable result of such a drastic measure by the new government of Bangladesh was confrontation with India which saw it as an attempt to challenge its supremacy in the region and considered it a security, political, and strategic threat from a country which it helped gain independence from Pakistan. Strategically Bangladesh was too important for India to let it slip off her radar so they adopted a new set of strategies to keep Bangladesh within her sphere of influence in light of new political reality. The next section of this article will discuss the strategic importance of Bangladesh and elaborate the strategies India had undertaken to get a firm hold on Bangladesh.
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