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  But the real situation was grim. Gandhi’s government worried that the Bangladeshi exile government was botching the war. Haksar wished that the Awami Leaguers would show more vision, openness, and organizational acumen. After scrutinizing plans for the insurgency, Haksar told Gandhi that they needed better and more broad-based political leadership: “the youth cannot be trained, enthused, made to accept self-annihilation unless they know they have behind them men of calibre, of integrity, of great dedication and idealism.” One Bengali rebel officer complained that “no one in the Bangladesh cabinet knows anything about war.” He disgustedly pointed out that Awami League politicians were seeking “absurd things like (a) vertical take-off and land (VTOL) interceptal plane; (b) Surface to air missiles (SAM); (c) Lasser beams.”18

  The Indian and Bengali military and political leaders squabbled openly. Haksar did not disguise his annoyance at the Bengali nationalists, while one Indian minister warned that “the minds of our friends are already beginning to get estranged from us.” Jayaprakash Narayan, the Indian activist, warned Gandhi of “the danger of Big Brother behaviour on our part with the Bangladesh Ministers and Mukti Fauj. Superiority complex is not one of the lesser virtues of our officers.” He added, “The American behaviour record in South Vietnam should be a lesson for us—do you remember the Ugly American?”19

  Both Indian and Bengali leaders knew that the outgunned rebels were in serious military trouble—with the obvious implication that Indian troops would have to become more directly involved in the fight. The faltering insurgency increased the pressure on Gandhi and the Indian military to move. The rebels were badly outnumbered; many, bearing only knives and hand grenades, were reluctant to attack Pakistan army units. Even the better-armed insurgents were outmatched by Pakistan’s artillery and air force. Without their own heavy artillery or antitank guns, the rebels had to retreat in the face of the superior firepower of the Pakistan army, asking the Indian army for support—and not getting enough. Narayan argued that there was no chance that ragtag guerrillas could succeed against well-trained divisions: “Someone has to come to their aid.”20

  The guerrillas, often fighting with weapons captured from Pakistan, desperately wanted more arms and ammunition from India. The rebel officers pleaded for heavy artillery, antiaircraft rounds, and antitank grenades. They needed everything: rifles, mortars, walkie-talkies, field telephone sets, maps, pocket money (to avoid temptations to corruption), medical kits, binoculars. But India seemed worried about the embarrassment that would inevitably follow when Indian weapons were captured during the fighting.21

  For their part, Bengali rebels chafed at Indian supervision. In a devastating Bangladeshi assessment of the war, a top Awami League leader, Mijanur Rahman Choudhury, lambasted the performance of the Indian army. Choudhury, who would later go on to become prime minister of Bangladesh, wrote that “never was such a heroic force neglected so much as the Mukti Fouz.”

  Even with the Indian army in charge, the Bangladeshi exile government wanted more training camps and arms. The rebels, going up against Pakistani armor, got only ten rounds of ammunition a day—not enough “for amateurish hunters in the jungles.” Officers waited for days to get ammunition for a raid. Senior officers lacked weapons, and everyone was short on rations, uniforms, Pakistani cash (necessary on missions inside East Pakistan), tents, soap, cigarettes, and shoes. “My heart ached when I saw our freedom fighters have to move bare-footed and in tattered clothes,” Choudhury wrote. “I have seen Sector Commanders have to roam like beggars to procure medicine from various sources for their ailing men.”

  He bitterly complained, “We were assured that the ‘Friends’ promised to look after the basic necessities of our men, but the bare truth is that our men never get what they require.” Choudhury, chafing at the insurgents’ “absolute dependence” on the “Friend army,” wrote, “Mukti Fouz must not be left to the mercy of the ‘friends’ alone though their assistance is most prized.”22

  At the root of this distrust was a mismatch between Indian and Bangladeshi objectives. While India—not ready for war until November—had hesitations in its sponsorship of the rebels, the Bengalis were charging forward in a full war for national independence. Many Bengalis understandably thought that India might only want to carve out a chunk of East Pakistani territory and set up a Bangladeshi government there, rather than risk invading all of East Pakistan. Step by step, the Mukti Fouj were dragging India deeper into their war. The team of Indian observers argued that the guerrillas would fare better with “proper support and cover by the Indian Army against bombing and strafing by the Pakistani Army.”23

  By the end of May, Major General Jacob-Farj-Rafael Jacob had drawn up an Indian war plan for taking East Pakistan. Lieutenant General K. K. Singh also boldly drafted military blueprints. By July, the army was quietly moving weapons, supplies, ammunition, and spare parts to the front, to be ready when the orders came. In early August, General Sam Manekshaw and his senior officers were secretly debating their invasion options and holding detailed war games. The Special Service Bureau prepared for a major war, setting up posts along the border and carrying out “counter-sabotage and counter-espionage measures.”24

  By mid-July, India’s government resolved that if Pakistan could not produce a viable political settlement to get the refugees back home, India would have to gradually move to war. As Dhar, one of the government’s foremost hawks, bluntly noted, if the Bengali rebels began fighting more effectively “with guarantees of sanctuary in the neighbouring territory of our country, it is quite likely that the situation may escalate into a war between Pakistan and India. Of such a possibility we need not be unduly afraid. If war comes in this manner, well, let it come and we should not avoid it.”25

  Mao, in his famous handbook for guerrilla warfare, wrote, “During the progress of hostilities, guerrillas gradually develop into orthodox forces.” Sure enough, many Bengalis saw that as their next phase. Choudhury wanted to turn the ragged insurgents into “an organised and regular army,” capable of using artillery and antiaircraft weapons, with a small air force. He wrote, “We should finally settle with the ‘Friend Govt.’ as to whether they will meet our total demand.”26

  The Bangladeshi exile government sought to create a regular army division around the nucleus of the old East Bengal Regiment. In July, building on the irregulars, a rudimentary army—now called the Bangla Desh Forces—set up a unified command headquarters, reporting to a commander in chief, M. A. G. Osmani. Now operating under the command of the Bangla Desh Forces, the rebels had a battle plan that makes a revealing study in how to wage an insurgency.27

  Osmani’s staff put all guerrillas under their command. The fighters were organized into cells of seven rebels and an officer, supervised by a political adviser. They hoped to be armed with pistols, rifles, cheap submachine guns, or light machine guns, as well as a few rocket launchers to blow up gunboats, bunkers, and ammunition dumps. Dressed in coarse civilian lungis and kurtas, they blended in with the locals. (This, if anyone cared, was a violation of the Geneva Conventions, which forbade combatants from faking civilian status.) Whenever possible, the guerrillas would fight near their own homes. Their commanders wanted them to launch “a series of well-planned and vigorous (daily growing in tempo) guerilla strikes over a wide area,” including the “[l]iquidation of enemy agents, informers and collaborators”—a brutal task that invited the worst kind of score settling and abuses. The insurgents now aimed to destroy not just bridges and railways, but also river ports, refineries, power stations, petroleum and oil depots, and air bases. In time, this would hopefully leave the Pakistanis “bled and incapacitated,” so that the rebels could turn to “[k]nocking out the last breath … from the enemy.” The victorious irregulars would then be transitioned “from a guerilla force to a People’s Army.”28

  Such bullish planning aside, the reality was chaotic. Shahudul Haque, Archer Blood’s friend, was put in charge of a platoon in a training camp in Tripura. “I wa
s very disappointed at how scratchy it all was,” he remembers, although proud of the freedom fighters. “No money, no ammunition, no equipment, only dedicated soldiers to teach us.” There was nothing to eat but jackfruit, which he loathes to this day. Sleeping on bamboo platforms, the guerrillas were nearly washed away by monsoon storms. After a few weeks, he got seriously ill, bleeding in his stool. With no doctors or medicine, he could only try the home remedy of coconut water, to no avail. While some of his friends went out to place bombs in Dacca or ambush Pakistani army patrols, Haque had to be taken home. In six weeks, he says, he had lost half his weight.

  Another rebel remembered that they were “scared like hell,” their hands shaking uncontrollably as they tried to light explosives, doing things they had only seen in war movies. Conditions were still miserable, with the fighters in dire need of mosquito repellent, waterproof sheets against the pounding monsoon rains, and antivenom serum for snakebites. At best, they got one cake of soap a month. The troops were running out of ammunition and grenades. As a major in this new Bangladeshi army wrote, there was a “dictatorship in the army command,” so that “the field commanders feel very insecure.… A strategical plan has never been thought of.… [T]he war of Liberation [is] being handled like a novice and non-professional way.” He dismissed Osmani, the top commander, as “a retired Colonel from the Supply Corps who miserably failed to be an infantry soldier.”29

  As the civil war escalated, so did the feud between the Bengali rebels and the Indian army. This Bangladeshi major, who had a reputation as pro-Indian, complained of widespread resentment as he and his fellow officers came to feel that “command of the Bangladesh troops was being gradually handed over under direct control of the Indian Army.” Even the use of child soldiers was mismanaged: “The boys who were returned from training were not being armed. This never happened when BSF was in direct charge.”30

  The Bangladeshi commanders, who were particularly incensed at Lieutenant General Jagjit Singh Aurora, the Indian army officer in charge of the Eastern Command, took their grievances to the Indian army and the Border Security Force. They also complained to R. N. Kao, the R&AW spymaster, that Aurora’s troops were not giving the support that India had earlier pledged to the rebels, despite a top-level decision from Gandhi’s government. In response, Kao alerted the prime minister herself: “Nothing has so far been done about giving guerilla training to the volunteers produced by the B[angla] D[esh] Government.” He warned that there was bad blood between Osmani and Aurora, and “a lot of dissatisfaction, discontentment and misgivings in the B[angla] D[esh] Army.”31

  Kao forthrightly gave Gandhi a bleak assessment. Many rebels believed, he wrote, that “the Govt of India has adopted a go-slow policy and that no efforts are being made to increase the efficiency and speed of action of the BD Army.” The insurgents claimed that the Indian army was reluctant to provide enough arms. Bangladeshi commanders resented “constant interference in the administration of the BD Army,” including hiring, posting, and sacking of troops. Even when getting paid, Bengalis chafed at feeling that they were on the Indian army’s payroll. A senior Bangladeshi officer requested to Kao that the Indian army should not give orders to the Bangladeshi forces that contradicted ones by the Bangladeshi commander.

  Kao urged Gandhi’s government to act fast to patch up relations between the Indian army’s Eastern Command and the Bangladeshi nationalist forces. Two Bangladeshi officers emphatically warned that if Indian support did not improve in the crucial monsoon months, the civil war would drag on, bringing misery to the people. This would help revolutionaries to supplant the Awami League, “in which case Communist China may actively take up the cause of these leftist elements.”32

  War efforts usually look like failures from the inside. Still, for Haksar and other leaders reading these reports in Delhi, it was clear that the Mukti Bahini could bleed the Pakistan army and, with covert Indian support, do terrible damage. But it would take more direct Indian intervention to drive the Pakistan army out of Bangladesh.

  THE WEST BENGAL POWDER KEG

  The raging civil war sent fresh droves of refugees fleeing into India. “We cannot allow their permanent settlement in India,” wrote Indira Gandhi, “but certain needs must be met while they are here.” This was a disaster for the destitute border states—above all for West Bengal.33

  The state was by far the hardest hit. In July, India hosted six and a half million refugees, over five million of them in West Bengal, which contained 419 out of the 593 refugee camps in India. Over a million and a half of the refugees had spilled outside of the camps into the rest of the state. There were hordes of refugees in Calcutta itself, with thousands dug in around the city’s airport. India’s intelligence services reported to Gandhi that the Naxalites—the Maoist radicals—were active in the refugee camps, trying to spark revolution.34

  These masses inevitably strained West Bengali hospitality. Arundhati Ghose, the young Indian diplomat posted to Calcutta, remembers that “then as the refugees came in, there was a beginning of sympathy, tinged with a little bit of resentment. Schools were occupied, there was no free land, they were just everywhere.” The influx heightened tensions between Hindus and Muslims. While the Indian government tried to find housing for the refugees, as well as for leaders of the exile Bangladeshi government, Ghose recalls, sometimes there were “people saying we don’t want to rent out our houses to these people. So we’d say, well, we are requisitioning it.”

  “West Bengal today is deluged with millions of victims of Pakistan’s oppression,” the state’s chief minister wrote in June. His shaky government collapsed late in that month, and for the rest of the crisis West Bengal was placed under central rule by Gandhi’s government. The fallen chief minister wrote that the refugee crisis was a gift to communist and Naxalite revolutionaries, “ever ready to exploit human misery for their own nefarious ends,” and now working “upon the dejected, desolate minds of the refugees.”35

  Gandhi’s government showed its most undemocratic face. Haksar panicked at “the determined onslaught of the Naxalites and the CPM”—the Communist Party (Marxist). He dreaded a fresh vote: “For the present, elections may be ruled out since the CPM will sweep the poll.” But even so, remembering more enlightened principles, he knew that there would have to be elections eventually, or a Naxalite revolution. If the situation in East Pakistan did not improve, he argued, the communists would win new recruits. “If the refugees are not able to go back, the bulk of them will sooner or later be grist to CPM propaganda, so that things can only worsen.”36

  Haksar unhappily noted that the government had to “restore law and order through a firm deployment of armed forces” in West Bengal, with “a cordoning of known trouble spots and combing of villages and certain urban blocs all over the State by the army.” He predicted, “There will be no economic miracle but plenty of political repression.” In florid hopelessness, he wrote that “what is being enacted in West Bengal is the unfolding of a Greek tragedy.… All the wrong steps and all the wrong moves are being taken in a sequence of inexorability.… We go ahead nonetheless, caught in a pincer of fatal historicism.”

  While India raged against Pakistan, here it was thwarting democracy too. Haksar was too intelligent to avoid the painful parallel to Pakistan’s own—and more bloody—crackdown on its Bengalis. Indira Gandhi grew notorious for her repression of the left in West Bengal. “Arrests and suppression will not diminish the ranks of the young people,” Haksar wrote. “We have seen in the past that they never do.” To ward off leftist revolutionary violence in West Bengal, he urged economic development, an amnesty to empty out the jails, and allowing the Communist Party (Marxist) to come to power. If not, “The alternative would be a situation closely parallel to what has developed in East Bengal. (I am purposely not bringing in Vietnam.)” To Gandhi’s government, the refugees were not just fellow human beings in desperate need of succor; they were also potential revolutionaries and subversives, whose return would leave Indi
a a safer country.37

  A LINE NOT DRAWN

  The most decent decision of the Indian government was also its most costly one. India never closed its borders to keep out the Bengali refugees, although it was tempting to do so. As Edward Kennedy said, “The government of India, as it first saw this tide of human misery begin to flow across its borders, could have cordoned off its land and refused entry. But, to its everlasting credit, India chose the way of compassion.”38

  By September, India estimated it had taken in some eight million refugees, with no end in sight. This represented as much as a tenth of the overall population of East Pakistan, by the CIA’s estimation. The economic and political consequences were dire. There was a desperate need for medical facilities in Tripura and Assam, where they were short of ambulances, X-ray machines, plasma, antibiotics, oxygen, splints, and bandages. In a camp of 20,000, there was just one doctor, who was only there for three hours a day. The refugee camps stank of feces and filth. There was not enough food. Children were especially vulnerable. To its horror, the Indian government estimated that there were 1.2 million refugees under the age of two. The results were as grim as they were inevitable: refugees—particularly children—died in droves, with mortality rates as least five times worse than among other migrant populations in India. Bad as this was, Haksar feared that in the general collapse inside East Pakistan, there might be a terrible famine, driving millions more into India.39