Features

Victory In The East

Published

4 years ago

2021/12/23

Commanding Officer of Pakistan Army forces in East Pakistan, Lt. Gen A. A. K. Niazi, signing the instrument of surrender on December 16, 1971 in the presence of Lt. Gen. Arora

Birth of Bangladesh – Part III

By Jayantha Somasundaram

(Continued from December 22)

In the aftermath of the 1857 Indian Mutiny, when over50 percent of the 130,000 Indian Sepoys joined the uprising against the British East India Company, the theory of ‘martial races’ was developed by Lord Roberts of Kandahar, Commander-in-Chief of the British Indian Army 1885-1893. Thereafter it was believed that the best recruits would be drawn from British India’s north-west. “The Punjabi Muslims headed the list, followed by the Sikhs, the Gurkhas, the Rajputs and others claiming Kshatriya ancestry,” claims G.S. Bhargava in ‘Their Finest Hour’, a record of the 1971 Indo-Pakistan War. “Brahmins and Bengalis, including Muslims were out. In the south, while Tamils were tolerated, the Telugus, the Coogis and the Moplahs were not encouraged to join the army.”

This history is important, not only to understand the composition of the Indian and Pakistani armed forces, after 1947, but to comprehend the racialised prism through which military recruitment was perused as well as the caste-based preconceptions through which military capability was understood. Therefore the Pakistani armed forces, staffed mainly by Punjabi Muslims, was seen as inherently superior, compared to the Bengali Mukthi Bahini.

When Bangladesh seceded, only a single division of the Pakistan Army was stationed in East Bengal, but by year end there were three. The Army’s attempts to quell the independence struggle in the east ultimately led to 10 million Bengalis fleeing to India. Both in rural Bangladesh and in their refugee camps across the Indian border, the Mukti Bahini liberation force took shape. It was trained, armed and supported by India. By the time the Indian Army entered Bangladesh on December 4, the Mukhti Bahini were already 50,000 strong.

The Pakistan Army was mainly made up of recruits from West Pakistan because of a mindset going back to British colonial times which held that the “Bengalis…had not been considered one of the ‘martial races,’” as explained by Peter Tsouras in ‘Changing Orders: The Evolution of the World’s Armies, 1945 to the Present’.

Despite the intensity of the civil war in Bangladesh and the impossible burden of 10 million refugees, New Delhi bided its time, waiting for the onset of winter. Then they could transfer four out of the 10 Mountain Divisions from the Himalayas to the Bangladesh front, confident that its snowbound passes would preclude any Chinese intervention across the Himalayas. These redeployed units took their positions alongside four fresh Indian Divisions, and together they confronted four Pakistani Divisions. The Pakistanis, moreover, were already tied down in a debilitating guerrilla war at the hands of the Mukthi Bahini while simultaneously attempting to defend the long East Pakistan border which was totally surrounded by Indian territory.

In April 1971 when the Indian Cabinet had discussed the prospect of war over the instability in East Bengal, Chief of Army Staff General Sam Manekshaw reported that the Army was not ready and needed time to ensure victory in a conflict with Pakistan. “In December 1971 (when)… India’s Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, asked her Army Chief, Sam Hormusji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw, if he was ready for the fight. He replied with the gallantry, flirtatiousness and sheer cheek for which he was famous: ‘I am always ready, sweetie.’ (He said he could not bring himself to call Mrs Gandhi “Madame”, because it reminded him of a bawdy-house.)” (The Economist, July 5, 2008)

Gen Manekshaw’s strategy was to have II Corp under Lt. Gen. T.N. Raina attack Bangladesh from the west while Lt. Gen. Sagat Singh’s IV Corp would invade from the east and Lt. Gen. Mohan Thapan XXXIII Corp was to enter from the north. Each Indian Army Corp contained three to four divisions. The Eastern Command was in the hands of Lt. Gen. Jagjit Singh Aurora and his Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Jack Farj Rafael Jacob. The Indian Army was supported by three brigades of regular Mukti Bahini.

An interesting footnote to the British Army’s theory of Indian martial races and an example of the secular pluralism of India is the fact that Manekshaw was a Parsi and Jacob a Baghdadi Jew.

The 1971 Indo-Pakistan War began on December 3, when the Pakistan Air Force, operating from West Pakistan, in a pre-emptive strike, attacked Indian airfields in its north-west, adjacent to Bangladesh. But these attacks were ineffective and within a matter of hours the Indian Air Force (IAF) was able to establish air superiority over Bangladesh which would become the main theatre of conflict in the coming fortnight.

The strategy of the Pakistan Army (PA) was to hold a set of key choke points like river crossings but being too thinly spread, they were repeatedly outflanked by the advancing Indian Army and Mukthi Bahini which bypassed them and secured the Pakistani’s defensive points before they could fall back to them. The Indians used heliborne troops and paratroopers to leapfrog over Pakistani lines. The IAF’s control of the air denied the retreating PA their avenue of relief and escape. Consequently, Pakistani morale plummeted. Peter Tsouras explains that “greatly out-numbered by the Indians, beset by guerrillas and despised by the civilian population, the Pakistan garrison attempted to defend far too much of the country and was spread too thinly.”

On the West Pakistani-Indian frontier the order of battle was 13 Indian Army Divisions facing 12 Pakistan Army Divisions, giving the illusion of parity. But in fact India had a 3:2 advantage in personnel and a 2:1 superiority in armour capability. There was, however, heavy fighting in the west where initially PA made gains in Punjab and Kashmir. While the Indians were able to limit and contain the Pakistani advance they also attacked further south in the Sind capturing 3,000 square miles of Pakistani territory.

During British times, it was believed that South Asian troops were incapable of employing armour effectively. During World War II this led then Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery, commanding the British Eighth Army battling Generalleutnant Erwin Rommel, to relegate the 1st Indian Armoured Division to Palestine, since he was reluctant to commit them on the battlefields of North Africa.

A week into the war, though holding a heavy concentration of troops along the southern border of Jammu and Kashmir, the Pakistanis were quiet on that front. So, in an effort to draw them out and engage them, on December 15, the 47th Indian Infantry Brigade launched an offensive across the Basantar River which divided the two countries. This was in order to establish bridgeheads at Jarpal and also at Ghazipur which was sheltered by a forest; all this with the objective of launching an assault on Zafarwal.

An Indian armoured unit of the 17th Horse with its British Centurion Tanks had to break the resistance at Ghazipur and overnight, crossed a broad defensive minefield. At daybreak the Pakistani defenders laid a thick smokescreen under cover of which they positioned two squadrons of 31 Cavalry’s M48 Patton tanks and the 13 Lancers Armoured Regiment. The result was the biggest tank battle in the history of the Indo-Pakistan Wars which left 48 Pattons destroyed. Montgomery’s presumption had been disproved!

As the Pakistan Army rolled back, in a desperate reaction, US President Richard Nixon, on the advice of Henry Kissinger, his National Security Advisor ordered the US Seventh Fleet’s Task Force 74 in the Pacific, led by the nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, to enter the Bay of Bengal.

On December 16, Dacca was captured and the 93,000 strong Pakistani Army in Bangladesh surrendered, the largest military surrender post-World War II. The following year the Simla Agreement entered into by New Delhi and Islamabad provided for both the return of Pakistani prisoners of war and Islamabad’s recognition of Bangladesh. The US, Pakistan’s key military ally, was one of the last to recognise Bangladesh. While its other ally China vetoed Bangladesh’s admission to the UNO.

‘I have given you independence, now go and preserve it.’

– Sheikh Mujibur Rahman

(Part IV tomorrow)

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Features

Maduro abduction marks dangerous aggravation of ‘world disorder’

Published

20 hours ago

2026/01/8

Sahan Weerasooriya

Venezuelan President Maduro being taken to a court in New York

The abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by US special forces on January 3rd and his coercive conveying to the US to stand trial over a number of allegations leveled against him by the Trump administration marks a dangerous degeneration of prevailing ‘world disorder’. While some cardinal principles in International Law have been blatantly violated by the US in the course of the operation the fallout for the world from the exceptionally sensational VVIP abduction could be grave.

Although controversial US military interventions the world over are not ‘news’ any longer, the abduction and hustling away of a head of government, seen as an enemy of the US, to stand trial on the latter soil amounts to a heavy-handed and arrogant rejection of the foundational principles of international law and order. It would seem, for instance, that the concept of national sovereignty is no longer applicable to the way in which the world’s foremost powers relate to the rest of the international community. Might is indeed right for the likes of the US and the Trump administration in particular is adamant in driving this point home to the world.

Chief spokesmen for the Trump administration have been at pains to point out that the abduction is not at variance with national security related provisions of the US Constitution. These provisions apparently bestow on the US President wide powers to protect US security and stability through courses of action that are seen as essential to further these ends but the fact is that International Law has been brazenly violated in the process in the Venezuelan case.

To be sure, this is not the first occasion on which a head of government has been abducted by US special forces in post-World War Two times and made to stand trial in the US, since such a development occurred in Panama in 1989, but the consequences for the world could be doubly grave as a result of such actions, considering the mounting ‘disorder’ confronting the world community.

Those sections opposed to the Maduro abduction in the US would do well to from now on seek ways of reconciling national security-related provisions in the US Constitution with the country’s wider international commitment to uphold international peace and law and order. No ambiguities could be permitted on this score.

While the arbitrary military action undertaken by the US to further its narrow interests at whatever cost calls for criticism, it would be only fair to point out that the US is not the only big power which has thus dangerously eroded the authority of International Law in recent times. Russia, for example, did just that when it violated the sovereignty of Ukraine by invading it two or more years ago on some nebulous, unconvincing grounds. Consequently, the Ukraine crisis too poses a grave threat to international peace.

It is relevant to mention in this connection that authoritarian rulers who hope to rule their countries in perpetuity as it were, usually end up, sooner rather than later, being a blight on their people. This is on account of the fact that they prove a major obstacle to the implementation of the democratic process which alone holds out the promise of the progressive empowerment of the people, whereas authoritarian rulers prefer to rule with an iron fist with a fixation about self-empowerment.

Nevertheless, regime-change, wherever it may occur, is a matter for the public concerned. In a functional democracy, it is the people, and the people only, who ‘make or break’ governments. From this viewpoint, Russia and Venezuela are most lacking. But externally induced, militarily mediated change is a gross abnormality in the world of democracy, which deserves decrying.

By way of damage control, the US could take the initiative to ensure that the democratic process, read as the full empowerment of ordinary people, takes hold in Venezuela. In this manner the US could help in stemming some of the destructive fallout from its abduction operation. Any attempts by the US to take possession of the national wealth of Venezuela at this juncture are bound to earn for it the condemnation of democratic opinion the world over.

Likewise, the US needs to exert all its influence to ensure that the rights of ordinary Ukrainians are protected. It will need to ensure this while exploring ways of stopping further incursions into Ukrainian territory by Russia’s invading forces. It will need to do this in collaboration with the EU which is putting its best foot forward to end the Ukraine blood-letting.

Meanwhile, the repercussions that the Maduro abduction could have on the global South would need to be watched with some concern by the international community. Here too the EU could prove a positive influence since it is doubtful whether the UN would be enabled by the big powers to carry out the responsibilities that devolve on it with the required effectiveness.

What needs to be specifically watched is the ‘copycat effect’ that could manifest among those less democratically inclined Southern rulers who would be inspired by the Trump administration to take the law into their hands, so to speak, and act with callous disregard for the sovereign rights of their smaller and more vulnerable neighbours.

Democratic opinion the world over would need to think of systems of checks and balances that could contain such power abuse by Southern autocratic rulers in particular. The UN and democracy-supportive organizations, such as the EU, could prove suitable partners in these efforts.

All in all it is international lawlessness that needs managing effectively from now on. If President Trump carries out his threat to over-run other countries as well in the manner in which he ran rough-shod over Venezuela, there is unlikely to remain even a semblance of international order, considering that anarchy would be receiving a strong fillip from the US, ‘The World’s Mightiest Democracy’.

What is also of note is that identity politics in particularly the South would be unprecedentedly energized. The narrative that ‘the Great Satan’ is running amok would win considerable validity among the theocracies of the Middle East and set the stage for a resurgence of religious fanaticism and invigorated armed resistance to the US. The Trump administration needs to stop in its tracks and weigh the pros and cons of its current foreign policy initiatives.

Features

Pure Christmas magic and joy at British School

Published

20 hours ago

2026/01/8

Sahan Weerasooriya

Students of The British High School in Colombo in action at the fashion show

The British School in Colombo (BSC) hosted its Annual Christmas Carnival 2025, ‘Gingerbread Wonderland’, which was a huge success, with the students themseles in the spotlight, managing stalls and volunteering.

The event, organised by the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA), featured a variety of activities, including: Games and rides for all ages, Food stalls offering delicious treats, Drinks and refreshments, Trade booths showcasing local products, and Live music and entertainment.

The carnival was held at the school premises, providing a fun and festive atmosphere for students, parents, and the community to enjoy.

The halls of the BSC were filled with pure Christmas magic and joy with the students and the staff putting on a tremendous display.

Among the highlights was the dazzling fashion show with the students doing the needful, and they were very impressive.

The students themselves were eagerly looking forward to displaying their modelling technique and, I’m told, they enjoyed the moment they had to step on the ramp.

The event supported communities affected by the recent floods, with surplus proceeds going to flood-relief efforts.

Features

Glowing younger looking skin

Published

20 hours ago

2026/01/8

Sahan Weerasooriya

Hi! This week I’m giving you some beauty tips so that you could look forward to enjoying 2026 with a glowing younger looking skin.

Face wash for natural beauty

* Avocado:

Take the pulp, make a paste of it and apply on your face. Leave it on for five minutes and then wash it with normal water.

* Cucumber:

Just rub some cucumber slices on your face for 02-03 minutes to cleanse the oil naturally. Wash off with plain water.

* Buttermilk:

Apply all over your face and leave it to dry, then wash it with normal water (works for mixed to oily skin).

Face scrub for natural beauty

Take 01-02 strawberries, 02 pieces of kiwis or 02 cubes of watermelons. Mash any single fruit and apply on your face. Then massage or scrub it slowly for at least 3-5 minutes in circular motions. Then wash it thoroughly with normal or cold water. You can make use of different fruits during different seasons, and see what suits you best! Follow with a natural face mask.

Face Masks

* Papaya and Honey:

Take two pieces of papaya (peeled) and mash them to make a paste. Apply evenly on your face and leave it for 30 minutes and then wash it with cold water.

Papaya is just not a fruit but one of the best natural remedies for good health and glowing younger looking skin. It also helps in reducing pimples and scars. You can also add honey (optional) to the mixture which helps massage and makes your skin glow.

* Banana:

Put a few slices of banana, 01 teaspoon of honey (optional), in a bowl, and mash them nicely. Apply on your face, and massage it gently all over the face for at least 05 minutes. Then wash it off with normal water. For an instant glow on your face, this facemask is a great idea to try!

* Carrot:

Make a paste using 01 carrot (steamed) by mixing it with milk or honey and apply on your face and neck evenly. Let it dry for 15-20 minutes and then wash it with cold water. Carrots work really well for your skin as they have many vitamins and minerals, which give instant shine and younger-looking skin.