© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi: 10.1163/15685314-04305007

Asian Journal ofSocial Science 43 (2015) 635–647

brill.com/ajss

Review Essay

∵

BangladeshHistory, Culture and Global Diplomacy

Habibul Haque KhondkerZayed University

habib.khondker@gmail.com

…This time the struggle is for our freedom! This time the struggle is forindependence!

sheikh mujibur rahman, 7 March 1971

…The Bangladesh crisis may have occurred during a watershed momentin the Cold War, but it was a harbinger of the post-Cold War world. […][H]istory of the 1971 crisis is not merely a narrative of the past but a tractof our times.

srinath raghavan, 2013

∵

Meghna Guhatkakurta and Willem van Schendel (eds.) (2013) The BangladeshReader: History, Culture, Politics. Durham and London: Duke University Press.550 pages. isbn: 978-0-8223-5318-8.

Srinath Raghavan (2013) 1971: A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh.Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 358 pages. isbn: 978-0-674-72864-6.

636 review essay

Asian Journal of Social Science 43 (2015) 635–647

Bangladesh turned 44 years old on 26March 2015. The independence of Ban-gladesh was declared on 26 March 1971 when the Pakistan military launcheda crackdown and rampaged through the University of Dhaka and sections ofDhaka city unleashing a genocidal war on the armed police and border guards,as well as the unarmed people of Bangladesh. In the four-plus decades since,Bangladesh graduated from the poster-boy image of “an international basketcase” to “theNext Eleven”, as declared byGoldman Sachs’ JimO’Neil (Euromon-itor, 2008), recognising the economic potential and the steady growth rate of6%and over for the past six years (World Bank, 2015) in a row, togetherwith ris-ing export revenues. Bangladesh is now the second largest exporter of apparelin the world, trailing only China. The image of basket case was an Americaninvention, created by us diplomat Ambassador Johnson in the White Housesituation room before Bangladesh was born, during the War of Liberation thatlasted for nine months in 1971, starting inMarch and ending in mid-December.The United States administration, then headed by President Richard Nixon,was adamantly against the creation of Bangladesh and stood by Pakistan upto the last minute.

The first quote above is from the historic speech of Sheik Mujibur Rahman,the founding leader of Bangladesh, delivered to a tumultuous crowd at theDhaka Race Course on 7 March 1971 who were hungry for the direction ofthe movement. Bangabandu, literally, the “Friend of Bengal”, as Shiekh Mujibwas called by the people of Bangladesh, was narrating the events that led toa political impasse and gave them instructions as to what was to be done. Anon-cooperation movement followed, leading up to the military crackdown,codenamed Operation Search Light, which began shortly before the midnight.An eyewitness to that deadly operation, Pakistani leader and future PrimeMinister Zulfiqqar Ali Bhutto who was staying at the Hotel Intercontinental,overlooking the Race Course and not too far from Dhaka University, one of thetargets of attack of the military, wrote years later that he saw Pakistan, withall its promises, burning to ashes. Conversely, in March 1971, he appreciatedthe operation carried out by the Army and remarked to Brigadier Arbab whoescorted him to the airport for his passage toKarachi, “ThankGod, Pakistan hasbeen saved.” An officer of the Pakistan army turnedhistorian narrated the eventof Bhutto’s appreciation of themilitary officers responsible for saving Pakistan.The narrative finds a place in The Bangladesh Reader: History, Culture, Politics,edited by Meghna Guhathakurta andWillem van Schendel (2013).

The secondquote is taken fromSrinathRaghavan’s remarkablehistory, a tourde force, 1971: AGlobalHistory of the Creation of Bangladesh (2013). Both publica-tions aremajor contributions to Bangladesh studies as they are complimentary.Anumber of scholarly publications have just surfaced in the last couple of years

review essay 637

Asian Journal of Social Science 43 (2015) 635–647

that includes the two above. This review essay is based on these works, bothscholarly with immense pedagogical value, and touch on a number of otherrecent works.

Bangladesh, a new country in South Asia, was born with the active helpof India in 1971 in a world riven by the full force of the Cold War. IndiraGandhi, a remarkable woman who stood her course with undaunted courageand unflinching resolve, navigated the murky water of diplomacy and geo-politics and helped deliver Bangladeshwhere tens of thousands of people werebutchered and unnumbered women were raped by the marauding Pakistanisoldiers and their quislings. Rape was used as weapon of repression. The storyof rape and its resistance by women, who used “weapons of the weak”, pow-dered pepper, in this case, also finds a place in The Bangladesh Reader: History,Culture, Politics. The Reader is exceptional because of the eyes of the editors fordetails of everyday life and the pot-pourri nature of the entries.

William van Schendel has been a foremost scholar of Bangladesh covering awide terrain of fields. Guhathakurta, a social scientist trained in internationalrelations has ventured into a wide range of scholarly works spanning severalfields of Bangladesh studies. The two distinguished scholars compile the richnarratives with an eye for the ordinary. It is this subaltern view that gives theReader its distinctive character. While other compilers look for the contribu-tions of the most scholarly and the well-known writers, the Reader providesvoices to the voiceless, it gives them a rightful place, and they remain not in themargin, but in themainstream. Theweaving of the illustrations, reports, storiesand scholarly pieces produce a compendium that should be amandatory read-ing for anyone interested in understanding where and how Bangladesh camefrom. The innovative style of this compendium is of great value and the Readersets a standard for inclusivity.

Bangladesh has been able to shake off its poverty and famine-stricken imageand is now a poster boy image of a comeback country, receiving accolades forher achievements in reducing infant mortality, maternal mortality and femaleilliteracy. The economic growth of Bangladesh and its achievements in vari-ous social sectors even drew the praise of renowned economist / philosopherAmartya Sen. Yet, scholarship on Bangladesh lagged behind for a considerabletime. As is often the case, popular and impressionistic journalistic snapshotsfilled the vacuum left by the lack of scholarly works, but the poverty of scholar-ship has been on the mend in recent years.

While political squabbling tarnishes the achievements of Bangladesh andviolence remains an integral part of this eighth most populous country in theworld. Bangladesh is also, according toRichardEaton, a leading scholar of Islamin Bangladesh, the second largest Muslim ethnic community in the world. In

638 review essay

Asian Journal of Social Science 43 (2015) 635–647

the rankof the countrieswithMuslimpopulations, Bangladesh follows Indone-sia and Pakistan but as a country with a homogenous ethnic community, itranks next to the Arab world as a place of large swath of Muslim population.

The Reader beginswith snapshots of contemporary Bangladesh that includethe opening entry of a female photographer in an ostensibly male-dominatedsociety. The entries in this section, titled “Voices from Bangladesh”, capturenot only the voices of the ordinary, but also hint at all the contradictions thatcharacterise Bangladesh society today, ranging from the role of women in thegrowing ready-made garments industry, women exiting from poverty throughentrepreneurship using mobile phones as a source of livelihood, and to thethreat of “fundamentalism” to the construction of Bengali New Year, a sort ofsecularist response to Islamic extremism. These entries substitute for a formalintroduction hinting at what is to follow.

Thehistory of theBengalDelta ofwhichBangladesh is themost recent incar-nation goes back to the Buddhist period, recorded in archaeological findingsand travelogues of unknown Greeks. One of the known records traces this his-tory to the writings of a Chinese Buddhist traveller, Xuanzang, who visited thisland around 640ce and was impressed by the image of Buddha in jade. Forthe Buddhist traveller, it was a pilgrimage of sorts, yet his narratives includedclimate and fruits, such as jack fruit. Xuanzang was impressed with themonas-teries and the pluralism. He described the inhabitants as “hardy by nature,small of stature, and of black complexion” and praised their love of learningand the diligence in acquiring knowledge (Reader: 39). The Hindu period inBengal followed the Buddhist period, which came to an end in the beginningof the 13th century with the onset of the Muslim rule, which lasted in Bengalfor nearly five centuries.

One of the famous visitors in the 14th century was Ibn Batuta who visitedChittagong and Sylhet in 1346ce apparently to meet a Sufi holy man. Thisnarrative provides readers with clues to pre-modern globalisation surround-ing the region. People from faraway lands were attracted to this land for itsvarious resources. Traders and preachers from the Arabian Peninsula reachedthe shores of Bengal spreading the religion of Islam. A selection from RichardEaton’s important works on the history of Islam not only chronicles the originof Islam in Bengal, but also provides an explanation as towhy the rulers of Ben-gal maintained a high degree of autonomy from the rulers in Delhi. An entry bya famous historian Tapan Roychaudhuri discusses class inequality during theMughal period.

Alongside the histories of class structure, religion andmysticism, the Readerincludespoems, art andhistories ofwomen’s emancipation, not in a revolution-ary sweep, but in an imperceptible way through their own agencies. All these

review essay 639

Asian Journal of Social Science 43 (2015) 635–647

developments unfold during the colonial encounters with the British. The his-tory of colonialism is presented with all its complexities and contradictionsthrough entries of rebellions caused by the enforced indigo plantation and theconstruction of the new identities of the hill people. The English began theirgradual encroachment of Bengal since 1757. Following the Muslims, came thePortuguese, Dutch, French and the English with religion in one hand, businessin other. The Hindu society embraced the English education and reformmove-ments initiated by the Brahmo Samaj, as an extract from David Kopf’s workpresents. The Muslim community was not impervious to changes either; how-ever, their reforms followed a different tack: that of Islamisation influenced byvarious currents within Islam, such as the Wahhabi movement of Arabia. Anextract from Rafiuddin Ahmed, a leading historian of Islam and Bengali iden-tity, narrates the process of external city-based puritan movements in Islamthat eventually flattened and normalised the syncretic rural religious tradi-tions. Bengal culture also had a deep spiritual root manifested in its religionsandmysticisms, represented in its music and poetry. A hallmark of Bengali cul-ture has been religious pluralism, heterogeneity and syncretism. In the 19thcentury, in the heyday of British colonialism, the champions of puritan Islamvisited villages to educate the Muslims who were not true Muslims accordingto them.

Prior to the puritanical movements, waves of Islamic movements visitedBangladesh in the 18th century. Some of these movements overlaid with thefrustrations and oppression of the poor peasantry whose lives were ravaged byexploitation, especially under newly-introduced cash crops, such as indigo cul-tivation. This was a classic case of double exploitation. By forcing the peasantsto grow indigo, they weremade vulnerable andwere at the same time forced towean away from rice cropping, which led them into subsistence lifestyles. Theenforced market economy made them helpless victims of famine that startedvisiting with unprecedented ferocity.

The British Empire was not homogenous either. While the merchants andplanters of indigo and other cash crops were looking for quick returns on theirinvestments at the expense of the hapless peasantry of Bengal, there wereyoung colonial administrators, many of them highly educated, who resisted orwhen possible tampered with the regime of oppression. One selection refersto such an episode: The reflections of the colonial ruler, official memos andreports of colonial officials, someofwhomobserved theplayfulness of everydaylife as the absurdities of some of the colonial policies.

Bengal was also the locus of the reform movements; some progressive andsome retrogressive. Some movements took the society forward by questioningthe entrenched beliefs and prejudices, by the bringing of Western education.

640 review essay

Asian Journal of Social Science 43 (2015) 635–647

The reform movements were not always welcomed by all. Conservative Hin-dus resisted them tooth and nail. An excerpt from David Kopf, a historian of“oriental renaissance” deals with such an episode. The progressive and enlight-enedHindus whowere imbibedwithmodern consciousness, resisted the castesystem sometimes by renouncing their ownprivileged castes and advanced thecause ofwidow remarriage,whereas the conservativeHindus excommunicatedthem and persecuted and hounded them. The duality and continued strugglebetween of the forces of progress and conservatism continue to be a definingfeature of Bangladeshi society today.

Along with other European communities, Armenian businessmen came totrade during the colonial period and settled in Dhaka and left a legacy of placesnamed after them in the 400-year old city. Such diversities were not included inthe Reader, however, but this is understandable because the Reader is alreadyvoluminous stretching 550 pages.

Alongside the narratives of colonial encroachment and other socio-politicaltales, samples of the rich literary traditions are woven into the Reader. The folksongs, baul, and the spiritual songs along with a short story of Nobel laureateRabindranath Tagore, and a satirical story of Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, popu-larly known as Begum Rokeya (1880–1932), a self-taught middle-class Muslimwoman, find their places in this section. As the Tagore’s short story, throughthe beautiful plot of a complex emotional story, depicts the tension betweenthe newmetropolis that was Calcutta (present, Kolkata) and its hinterland, therural, eastern part of Bengal, BegumRokeya’s satirical story reverses the genderroles to expose the bondage and subjugation ofMuslimwomen at a timewhenthe call for women’s emancipation was yet to be heard in many parts of theworld, including South Asia. The cosmopolitan character of Bengali languagereflects the input ofmultiple traditions and cultures, which surely added to therichness of Bangladeshi culture.

The selections, drawn from a variety of sources, historical tracts and ver-sions of ordinary people, speeches and declarations, narrate the stories of themovement of Pakistan, the creation and demise of Pakistan and the birth ofBangladesh, carved out of former East Pakistan. The entries are annotated.The editors did a fine job in summarising and introducing the texts. The edi-tors also wrote some of the important sections since they have been impor-tant contributors to the anthropological, sociological, political and historicaldebates themselves. A number of entries—little known—on the history ofBangladesh’s nationalist struggle stand out. One such narrative was the recol-lection of a restaurant owner at the heart of Dhaka University, which was thefulcrum of political activism of the university students. His son, seven yearsold in 1971, narrated how the Pakistani soldiers at the onset of the military

review essay 641

Asian Journal of Social Science 43 (2015) 635–647

crackdown butchered his parents and other family members. Another storycomes from the recollections of a widow who came face-to-face with a torturechamber used by the Pakistani forces and their local collaborators during theLiberationWar. The widow, the mother of one of the editors, lost her husband,a professor of Dhaka University, at the hands of the Pakistani military.

The last section of the Reader includes various alternative interpretations ofthe development dilemmas in Bangladesh. A critical assessment of the main-stream development initiatives and the very problematising of developmentparadigm in the vein of Foucault andArturo Escobar provide an important per-spective.

While the Bangladesh Reader is an ideal pedagogical tool for college stu-dents, as well as scholars and peoplewith an interest in Bangladesh’s evolution,the diplomatic history by Raghavan is perhaps the most scholarly work everundertaken on Bangladesh covering little-known behind-the-scenes diplomat-ic stories and events thatwere crucial to the emergence of Bangladesh. The seri-ous research,meticulously carried out by a leading historian reveals knowledgethat was non-existent, as most analysts and lay-persons lived in their comfort-able veil of ignorance and assumptions (largely, false) that India was waitingfor an opportunity to “dismember” (a pet phrase of the Pakistanis) Pakistanand as the Awami League-led nationalist movement led to the beginning ofthe civil war in March 1971, which Bangladeshis portray (rightly, I might add)as the War of Liberation, India did not waste any opportunity to break asun-der its so-called historic rival. The research of Raghavan, like any other brilliantpiece of research, demystifies and dispelsmyths and popular assumptions. Thestate’s behaviour is not always amirror of humanbehaviour. The logic of a state,despite such ideas as “group think” is complicated and is bound to take somanyfactors into account that it would be difficult to make assumptions that areeven close to the facts. Diplomatic events, intrigues and stories unfold behindthe closed doors without the glare of media. A researcher has to wait for thedeclassification of information, and not many countries are fortunate enoughto have the equivalents of the “Freedom of Information” Act as in the us and asmall number of other countries. Also, scholars are not always asmeticulous asRaghavan to undertake careful scrutiny of the facts, official memos, diplomaticnotes and occasional interviews with key officials and only then dowe begin totaste a rich narrative of events. The book is based on largely primary sources forthe main arguments. Additional facts are vetted by reference to the publishedsecondary sources that include memoirs of the participants of the war of 1971.

A popular belief shared by many is that India and the Soviet Union weretogether right from the beginning of the war and jumped in to assist the free-dom fighters. The surprising truth is that India was unsure, even reluctant

642 review essay

Asian Journal of Social Science 43 (2015) 635–647

sometimes to support the muktis (freedom fighters) and when they were per-suaded to do that, they were lukewarm, providing covert support with suchrickety resources that amounted to very little. In the first few months of thewar, the then-Soviet Union had no sympathy for Bangladesh and remained asupplier of weapons to Pakistan (yes, Pakistan). Why? The Soviet Union didnot want Pakistan to fall into the laps of the us or China. The Cold War andthe attendant Sino-Soviet discord loomed large at the backdrop of Bangladesh’swar for independence that remained a little known and meagrely understoodphenomenon for the writers of Bangladesh’s history. The challenge for Indiawas huge. First Indian leadership needed to be persuaded regarding why andhow India could assist the Bangladeshi cause in a global political environmentwhen official support for Bangladesh was non-existent. Bangladesh was trulyan orphan. Pakistan was not only the apple of American eyes, China, the ussrand European powers since all wanted to see that Pakistan remained intact.This part of the story is remarkable. Why would the world fail to see, let aloneact on, the atrocities and brutalities of the Pakistani army on the civilian pop-ulation of unarmed Bangladeshis? The world was not just consumed by thepower politics of theColdWar, pursuing andweighing their ownnational inter-ests, they were complicit by their nonchalance. Other than issuing perfunctorycriticisms of military excesses, the international community was indifferent.The year 1971 was not 2015 and the international media remained obscure; itdid not have the teeth, nor the visuals.

The diplomatic world was busy with flurry of activities behind closed doors,writingmemos andnotes andpursuing gentle persuasion. The field-level diplo-mats sending notes back to their home countries, recoding atrocities and del-icate narratives of their ventures with politicians in the then-undivided Pak-istan. Thanks to the research of Raghavan, now we can peep through the veiland see the intrigues and manoeuvres behind the closed doors. And the pic-ture we get is dismal. Not only was Bangladesh abandoned, India too waslonely in the world of international relations. The task for overcoming India’senforced isolation was one challenge and then to sell the Bangladesh cause tothe world was a herculean challenge. The steadfastness of Mrs. Indira Gandhi,the war-time Prime Minister of India, the true Iron Lady, was as crucial for theBangladesh cause as the tenacity of the freedom fighters was.

The role of the Cold War and the ensuing delicate dance in which thesuperpowers and would-be superpowers were engaged had a profound impacton the cause of Bangladesh. In the 1970s, the headline catching world newswasVietnam where the superpowers and their retinues were deeply implicated.Chinawas still in the tail-end of its disastrous “Great Leap ForwardMovement”.The Middle East was recovering from the 1967 war and was preparing for the

review essay 643

Asian Journal of Social Science 43 (2015) 635–647

next war in 1973. South Africa was reeling under Apartheid. Did they careabout Bangladesh? No-one did. That conclusion gleaned from the research ofRaghavan is incontrovertible.

Garry Bass, a Yale historian, in his prize-winning book, The Blood Telegram,captures only one episode of that dramatic period. He pours over the diplo-matic communications between the us Consulate in Dhaka, the then-capitalof East Pakistan (present day Bangladesh) headed by Archer Blood, a diplo-mat with a conscience, who cabled in telegrams narrating the atrocities of themurderous Pakistani army and urging the us leadership to save humanity, andby default, Pakistan. Alas! His telegrams were stonewalled by MachiavellianHenry Kissinger who was driven to bequeathing his legacy by establishing rap-prochement with China. According to Bass, Kissinger told Nixon, “The Dacca[Dhaka] consulate is in open rebellion” (Bass, 2013: 86). Whether the numberof people should be the basis of us position and following comparisons withBiafra where the us did not intervene, the discussion turned philosophical.Nixon used the example of Jews in Germany and on the ground that they werenot too many in Germany, Nixon asked (perhaps, rhetorically), “Was it there-fore not immoral for Hitler to kill them?” (ibid.). The moral quandary did notstand in the way of real politik. us support for Pakistan remained unflinch-ing. It was Pakistan that played the role of a middle-man, as a facilitator of aclandestine traffic. Kissinger was whisked away from Pakistan under the coverof night on a secret mission to China. Pakistan was rewarded for its part byearning full us military and economic support until the end of the war period.The atrocities of the Pakistani army were ignored, and worse, hushed up underthe blanket of self-serving world leaders for whom moral pangs had no bear-ing.

While knowledge of the background of the war of liberation is significantlyshaped by the fine research of Raghavan, Guhatakurta and van Schendel bringto light through their scholarly compilation that sets the case of Bangladeshto the curious as to why Bangladesh needed to break away from first Indiaand then Pakistan. What is the raison d’être of Bangladesh? Is the creation ofBangladesh accidental? A side-effect of the South Asian politics marred by theendless rivalry between India and Pakistan? No. An emphatic no. Bangladeshhad a distinct identity created by its geography as much by her long history. Allnations tend to create a narrative of uniqueness, while the narrative of unique-ness of Bangladesh is not apocryphal. A quick scan of the last millennium ofhistory of India shows, Bengal had a distinct identity of its own; first, under thePathan (Muslim) rulers who ruled from Delhi and their subedars (governors)enjoyed a relatively autonomous status. Bengal lived in the suspendedworld ofindependence and dominance under central rule even beforeMuslim rule. The

644 review essay

Asian Journal of Social Science 43 (2015) 635–647

Buddhists historically inhabited the region and as the Hindus replaced them,the Buddhist influence did not disappear, and as the Muslims replaced Hindurulers, the Hindu influence lingered. The tapestry thus formed the source ofuniqueness of Bangladeshi culture.

Themyths that Raghavan’s important book, based on careful arguments andfacts, debunks are as follows:

1. India had a long-standing plan to dismember Pakistan, as she never rec-onciled with the partition of historic India in 1947. The facts of history,as we know through the assiduous research of Raghavan, show that theevents were fraught with unexpected developments. India had a hugenumber of hesitations. Except for one or two key advisers, such as K. Sub-ramanium, many members of the core elite were not enthusiastic aboutmilitary intervention. The key issues were repatriating the growing num-ber of refugees and an eventual political settlement that would take thepopular opinion expressed in elections into account and create a conge-nial situation for the refugees to return homes. One of India’s own chal-lenges at that time was to deal with Maoist insurgencies inside India,especially in Bengal. Chances, asmuch as structures, played a role of greatsignificance.

2. The Liberation War of Bangladesh and her right to self-determinationwere widely supported in the international arena. Except for pockets ofsympathy and support from civil society, media and pop stars, the major-ity of the governments around the world wanted to see an intact Pakistaneven until the last days of the war. They took a cautious approach thatentailed a political settlement that would create a congenial atmospherefor the refugees—which swelled to nearly ten million—to return to theirhomes, i.e., East Pakistan. Even the ceasefire proposal proposed jointlyby Britain and France, two permanent members of the un Security coun-cil, on 15 December 1971, when the Indian and Bangladeshi joint forceswere on the outskirts of Dhaka sought an immediate ceasefire, politicalsettlement and the return of refugees. In other words, the major pow-ers of the Western, democratic world were in favour of a status quo ante.Indian leadership remained unflinching and the proposal did not takeoff. The visit of the Indian Prime Minister to Europe and the us from 25October to 12 November and earlier contacts with the major Europeanleaders did pay some dividends but the support for India was lukewarmat best.

3. China was a staunch supporter of a united Pakistan as a trusted friend;it was ready to take any step to maintain the integrity of Pakistan. In

review essay 645

Asian Journal of Social Science 43 (2015) 635–647

fact, the us, under the leadership of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger,was the truest and most steady friend of Pakistan until the last moment.The us government, as in any democracy, did not allow its presidentand his trusted aides to shape foreign and strategic policies in a single-handed manner. The hands of Nixon and Kissinger were somewhat con-strained by the internecine conflicts with Congress and even the StateDepartment. There were times when even the usmilitary did not go withthe assessments of the White House. The multiple locations of decision-making in the us allowed Bangladesh to see the light of the day.

4. Related to this myth was the perception that Nixon and Kissinger hadunbridled power. In the shipment ofmilitary hardware even in the days ofdire crisis from Pakistan, they had to channel their support through backdoors. They requested Iran and Jordan to supply aircraft, ammunitions,etc. to Pakistan with the promise of making it good later. Such back doortactics were also used in diplomatic relations with the ussr, as the lastditch effort to use ussr leadership to sway India to change its plan ofgoing to war against Pakistan.

5. The Soviet Union was a staunch ally of India and played an active rolein helping to liberate Bangladesh as it stood guard and protected Indiaagainst the recriminations that could come from China and the UnitedStates. The story is more complicated and full of nuances and shadowplays. The ussr was deeply engaged in the Cold War but also valuedthe need for rapprochement, so it was unwilling to ignore the rules ofdiplomacy and international norms. The ussr was not as blunt as she ismade out to be and played a sensible game of not alienating Pakistan toomuch. Even though Pakistan was drifting towards China, in addition toits historical ties with the us, the ussr maintained its ties with Pakistanto the extent that until October 1971, it remained a supplier of militaryhardware.

6. China’s role became somewhat ambivalent with India’s diplomatic over-tures as the conditions worsened and reached a point of no-return informer East Pakistan. China was courted by India as one of India’s pro-China diplomats was sent to Beijing to gain the trust of his hosts. At thelast minute, out of desperation, when Nixon-Kissinger approached Chinato intervene in the crisis on Pakistan’s side, China demurred and backedout, much to the chagrin of Kissinger. China’s high politics were marredby its own internecinewar between LianBiao andhis loyalists versusMaoand his loyalists. Mao had to walk a fine line, though he managed to con-tain the split and discipline the rivals, hewas in nomood to get embroiledin a war, proxy or real.

646 review essay

Asian Journal of Social Science 43 (2015) 635–647

7. Even the us administration was not free from divergence and disso-nance. The State Department remained somewhat independent of theclutches of the hyperactive and domineering National Security Adviser,HenryKissinger. The split between theWhiteHouse and the StateDepart-ment and, in the final stage, the reluctance of the us Department ofDefense not to go along with the Nixon-Kissinger gambit helped Bangla-desh.

8. Even apparently minor incidents, such as the Pakistani Foreign Minis-ter’s emotional outbursts mixed with theatrics when he stormed out ofthe un Security Council, aided the joint forces of Indian army and theBangladeshi freedom fighters in buying time to reach and encircle ofDhaka, forcing the Pakistani forces to surrender. The storming out ofBhutto was occasioned by the Polish proposal of ceasefire with someuncomfortable terms for Pakistan, tabled on 14 December 1971, that, ifpassed, could deprive the joint forces of a clear victory.

9. India’s war plan did not include the occupation of Dhaka. The plan aimedat capturing strategic cities, such as Chittagong and Khulna, the portcities, to cut off the supply-line for Pakistani forces. The field comman-ders, especially Major General Jacob, overrode the decision andmarchedtowards Dhaka.

10. Contrary to all expectations, General Niazi was instructed by PresidentYahiya to surrender and avoid loss of lives (presumably, for the Pakistanitroops).

The birth of Bangladesh was surely not predestined. As Raghavan concludes:“In fact, there was nothing inevitable either about the breakup of united Pak-istan or about the emergence of an independent Bangladesh. Rather, it was theproduct of historical currents and conjunctures that ranged far beyond SouthAsia” (p. 265).

The fate of Bangladesh was shaped by the events and processes elsewhere.The global forces, such as the Cold War, had had as much bearing as local andregional events had. And let’s not forget, the personalities and psychologicalmake-up of the leading characters in this historical drama played their part too,which were adumbrated in this fine book but remain for further explorations.

References

Bass, J. Gary (2013) The Blood Telegram: India’s Secret War in East Pakistan. New York:Alfred Knopf.

review essay 647

Asian Journal of Social Science 43 (2015) 635–647

Euromonitor Institute (2008) “The Next 11 Emerging Economies”. Available at: http://blog.euromonitor.com/2008/02/the-next-11-emerging-economies.html.

World Bank (2015) “Global Economic Prospects: Chapter 2: South Asia”. Available at:http://www.worldbank.org/content/dam/Worldbank/GEP/GEP2015a/pdfs/GEP2015a_chapter2_regionaloutlook_SAR.pdf.