Fall of Dacca: What have we learnt from our past mistakes? (Part Three)

To a few others it was a case of misplaced egoistic velour – not to be dubbed as the ‘chickens’ in the army parlance. The true information was not only denied to the common man in West Pakistan but even to those at the helm also. Handling of the East Pakistan issue at the International level, too, was a fiasco on our part. We had not only mobilised any world opinion in our favour but had rather alienated them mostly.

On the other hand Indira Gandhi undertook a whirlwind tour of 19 countries in October 1970 propagating the imaginary atrocities against the Bengalis and particularly the Hindus of East Pakistan and yet assuring each one of them that India had no designs of attacking it. While she was convincing and canvassing the world powers, her army’s Eastern Command was giving the final touches to the Attack Plan in Fort William at the eastern bank of river Hooghly, Calcutta.

Whereas in our case despite Nixon’s more or less ordering  Kissinger to ‘do something’ their 7th Fleet just passed by the Bay of Bengal without even radioing the customary courtesy good will message or tooting its horns thrice ceremonially. I am personally a witness to the Chinese repeated enquiries as to what could they do, after we had established am emergency radio link with them? But all that we could get from the stupor laden President’s Secretariat at Rawalpindi was, “Just wait, please”.

Hopes from the sincere Chinese friends were so high that when the Indians parachuted their troops at Narain Ganj every one thought them to be the Chinese! Our Eastern Command had a morbid fear of the Indians capturing a piece of the territory and passing it on to the Muktis who would plant a flag there and declare it to be Bangladesh, and which the Indians will recognise instantly, thus giving birth to Bangladesh.

Consequently they spread the troops in a thin line all along the border, weakening themselves all over. There was no depth, no reserves, and no second lines. There was enemy (Indians) in the front and enemy at the back (Muktis).

They never realised that it was not the territory but the capital of the country that mattered.  It had to be the Warsaw, the Paris, the Moscow, the Berlin and in our case the Dacca which until captured by the enemy the country would not fall.

If only they had concentrated all the troops in Dacca, made a fortress out of it and fought there for months, which they could do, the East Pakistan story would have been different. We still wouldn’t have been able to avert the creation of Bangladesh but it would have come into being by the intervention of the world powers and probably the UN itself. Pakistan would not have had to suffer the ignominy of the defeat.

The views in this article are the writer’s own and in no way represent newspakistan.pk’s official editorial policy.

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Posted by Web Desk on Dec 16 2012. Filed under Opinion, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.