by Gary J. Bass
18. Joseph Lelyveld, Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011), pp. 33–131. Mark Mazower, No Enchanted Palace: The End of Empire and the Ideological Origins of the United Nations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), pp. 152–89. Nehru declared that the United Nations proved itself “a guardian of human rights” (Mazower, No Enchanted Palace, p. 179). NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 220, Heath-Gandhi meeting, 24 October 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 163, Haksar to Gandhi, Trudeau briefing, 11 January 1971. MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. II, “Implications of the General Assembly Resolution,” n.d. December 1971. See NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 171, Haksar revised draft speech, August 1971. In 1968, the Indian government pushed a draft UN Security Council resolution condemning the execution of political prisoners as a “threat to international peace and security”—the standard for justifiable intervention. India urged a reluctant Britain “to take urgently all necessary measures including the use of force” (UN Security Council draft resolution by India et al., S/8545, 16 April 1968). India, joined by Pakistan, invoked Chapter VII of the UN Charter. In 1966, for the first time, the UN Security Council invoked Chapter VII to impose mandatory economic sanctions. See J. Leo Cefkin, “The Rhodesian Question at the United Nations,” International Organization, vol. 22, no. 3 (1968), pp. 649–69; Walter Darnell Jacobs, “Rhodesia,” World Affairs, vol. 130, no. 1 (April–June 1967), pp. 34–44; “Danger of Using Force in Rhodesia,” Guardian, 28 March 1968; Philip Murphy, “ ‘An Intricate and Distasteful Subject,’ ” English Historical Review, vol. 121, no. 492 (2006), pp. 746–77; and Carl Watts, “ ‘Moments of Tension and Drama,’ ” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, vol. 8, no. 1 (spring 2007). Britain and the white Rhodesian regime disputed whether Rhodesia really counted as independent of Britain (Richard M. Cummings, “Rhodesian Unilateral Declaration of Independence and the Position of the International Community,” New York University Journal of International Law and Politics, vol. 6 [1973], pp. 57–84). NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 276, Subrahmanyam, “Bangla Desh and Our Policy Options,” 4 April 1971. MEA, WII/121/54/71, vol. II, East Bengal memorandum, n.d. 1971.
19. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 166, Haksar notes, 20 May 1971.
20. MEA, WII/125/59/71, Singh statement in Lok Sabha, 20 July 1971. NMML, Kaul Papers, Subject File 19, part II, Singh briefing in London, n.d. June 1971.
21. See, for instance, Jayakar, Indira Gandhi, p. 166.
22. Dhar, Indira Gandhi, the “Emergency,” and Indian Democracy, p. 158. Tharoor, Reasons of State, p. 125. Surjit Mansingh, India’s Search for Power: Indira Gandhi’s Foreign Policy, 1966–1982 (New Delhi: Sage, 1984), pp. 216–17.
23. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 229, Haksar to Dhar, 22 May 1971.
24. Dhar, Indira Gandhi, the “Emergency,” and Indian Democracy, p. 156.
25. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 166, Gandhi statement in Lok Sabha, 24 May 1971. Dhar, Indira Gandhi, the “Emergency,” and Indian Democracy, pp. 156–58.
26. Ibid., p. 158. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 166, Haksar to Gandhi, 23 May 1971.
27. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 166, Gandhi statement in Lok Sabha, 24 May 1971. See NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 166, Haksar to Gandhi, 23 May 1971. MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. I, Ranganathan to heads of mission, 17 June 1971.
28. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 166, Gandhi statement in Lok Sabha, 24 May 1971. Using language that hearkened back to the United Nations Charter, she said, “They are threatening the peace and stability of the vast segment of humanity represented by India.” Although India had no hope that the United States or China would allow such a thing, Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter empowers the Security Council to determine if a situation constitutes “any threat to the peace” and to take steps “to maintain or restore international peace and security.” On refugees as a reason for war, see Jack Snyder, “Realism, Refugees, and Strategies of Humanitarianism,” Andrew Hurrell, “Refugees, International Society, and Global Order,” and Adam Roberts, “Refugees and Military Intervention,” all in Alexander Betts and Gil Loescher, eds., Refugees in International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); Martha Finnemore, The Purpose of Intervention: Changing Beliefs About the Use of Force (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2003); Kelly M. Greenhill, Weapons of Mass Migration: Forced Displacement, Coercion, and Foreign Policy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2010).
29. NMML, Kaul Papers, Subject File 19, part II, Singh briefing in London, n.d. June 1971.
30. Ajit Bhattacharjea, Jayaprakash Narayan: A Political Biography (New Delhi: Vikas, 1975), pp. 7–8, 66–67, 78, 130–37, 163. Ratan Das, Jayaprakash Narayan: His Life and Mission (New Delhi: Sarup & Sons, 2007), p. 56. Ramachandra Guha, India After Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy (New York: Ecco, 2003), p. 494. For a fascinating selection of Narayan’s writings, see Ramachandra Guha, ed., Makers of Modern India (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011), pp. 368–93. See Allan and Wendy Scarfe, J.P.: His Biography (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1977, 1998).
31. NMML, Kaul Papers, Subject File 19, part II, Rogers-Gandhi talk, n.d. October 1971. See POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Keating to Rogers, 4 May 1971, New Delhi 6741; Dhar, Indira Gandhi, the “Emergency,” and Indian Democracy, p. 157. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 170, Haksar to Gandhi, 8 August 1971. See Narayan statement, 2 April 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, pp. 612–13; Narayan to Moraes, 4 April 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, pp. 614–15; Narayan statement, 29 July 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, p. 632. Bhattacharjea, Jayaprakash Narayan, p. 78. See Narayan statement, 16 March 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, pp. 608–9. Jayakar, Indira Gandhi, pp. 169–70.
32. Narayan statement, 18 September 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, pp. 648–55. Narayan-Islam meeting, 8–9 July 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, pp. 840–49. Narayan–Mukti Fouj meeting, 9 July 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, pp. 849–52. See Narayan to Kaul, 15 July 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, p. 628, and Narayan to Gandhi, 15 July 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, p. 629. See also Rahman to Narayan, 13 July 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, p. 853. Sen notes, 27 October 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, pp. 862–69. Narayan to participants, 3 September 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, pp. 640–41. Narayan statement, 18 September 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, pp. 648–55. Narayan to Radhakrishna, 24 May 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, pp. 620–21. Nagorski to Narayan, 11 June 1971, Selected Works, pp. 839–40. MEA, HI/1012/5/71, Bahadur Singh to Kaul, 14 June 1971. Sen notes, 27 October 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, p. 863. NSC Files, Box 596, Country Files—Middle East, India, vol. III, Saunders and Hoskinson to Kissinger, 9 June 1971. MEA, HI/1012/78/71, Jha to Kaul, 14 July 1971. NSC Files, Box 596, Country Files—Middle East, India, vol. III, Sisco to Keating, 8 June 1971, State 100740. See NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 225, Sen to Patel, 9 June 1971; NSC Files, Box 759, Presidential Correspondence File, Yahya to Nixon, 18 June 1971, “Excerpts from Latest Statements of Indian Leaders on the East Pakistan Situation.”
33. Narayan to Gandhi, 15 September 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, pp. 642–48. See Ranjit Gupta and Radhakrishna, eds., World Meet on Bangla Desh (New Delhi: Impex, 1971); Bangladesh conference resolutions, 18–20 September 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, pp. 858–61; Dandavate to Narayan, 21 September 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, pp. 861–62. Jayakar, Indira Gandhi, pp. 169–70.
34. Habib Tanvir, “The Rebel Poets of Bangla Desh,” Times of India, 6 June 1971.
35. Joya Chatterji, Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932–1947 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 1–17. Britain had tried an earlier administrative partition in 1905. See John R. McLane, “The Decision to Partition Bengal in 1905,” Indian Economic and Social History Review, vol. 2, no. 3 (July 1965); Yasmin Khan, The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2007), pp. 63–80. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Bush to Rogers, 2 April 1971, airg
ram A-499, for Sen note verbale to Thant, 30 March 1971. Sukhwant Singh, India’s Wars Since Independence: The Liberation of Bangladesh (New Delhi: Vikas, 1980), vol. 1, p. 16. Kissinger argued that India was “scared to death of their own Bengalis. Deep down the Indians don’t really want an independent East Pakistan, because within ten years of that the West Bengalis are going to start bringing pressure on them for autonomy” (FRUS, 40 Committee meeting, 9 April 1971, pp. 63–65). See FRUS, Nixon-Kissinger telcon, 29 March 1971, pp. 35–36; NSC Files, Box H-112, SRG Minutes, SRG meeting, 31 March 1971; White House tapes, Oval Office 477-1, 12 April 1971, 10:24–10:33 a.m.
36. See NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 175, Haksar to Gandhi, 13 January 1972. Amberish K. Diwanji, “Arundhati Ghose,” Rediff.com, 6 July 1998.
37. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 165, Haksar to Dhar, 7 April 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Sen to Gandhi, 30 March 1971.
38. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 164, Haksar to Gandhi, 31 March 1971; NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Haksar to Gandhi, 31 March 1971.
39. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 165, Haksar to Gandhi, 5 April 1971. The official was Ashok K. Ray, formerly India’s deputy high commissioner in Dacca. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 175, Haksar to Gandhi, 13 January 1972.
40. John Saar, “Faces Emptied of All Hope,” Life, 18 June 1971, pp. 22–29.
41. Sydney H. Schanberg, “Bengalis Ride a Refugee Train of Despair,” New York Times, 17 June 1971. Sydney H. Schanberg, “Disease, Hunger and Death Stalk Refugees Along India’s Border,” New York Times, 9 June 1971.
42. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 171, Dutt to Haksar, 23 June 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 171, Dutt to Haksar, 23 June 1971.
43. MEA, WII/121/54/71, vol. II, refugee statistics, 3 July 1971. See NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 168, Gandhi to Franjieh, draft, June 1971. MEA, HI/1012/30/71, Chib to Kaul, 9 June 1971. Dhar, Indira Gandhi, the “Emergency,” and Indian Democracy, p. 158.
44. Dhar, Indira Gandhi, the “Emergency,” and Indian Democracy, p. 154.
45. REF PAK, Box 3008, Farland to Rogers, 28 June 1971, Islamabad 6487. Joseph Sisco noted, “The Pakistanis don’t seriously question the figures” (FRUS, SRG meeting, 23 July 1971, pp. 270–83). See Choudhury, Last Days of United Pakistan, p. 190; NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 166, Haksar to Kaul, 22 May 1971; NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Dhar to Kaul, 28 April 1971; MEA, HI/1012/30/71, Chib to Kaul, 9 June 1971.
46. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 171, Patel to Haksar, 20 July 1971; NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 171, World Bank report, 8 July 1971. There is another copy in U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on Refugees, Relief Problems in East Pakistan and India (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), pp. 211–26. The World Bank team spent twelve days in East Pakistan in early June. See NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 225, Sen to Patel, 9 June 1971; NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 168, B. R. Patel to I. G. Patel, 18 June 1971.
47. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, “Report on the visit of Border Areas of Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura,” 7 July 1971. See PMS, 7/371/71, vol. II, Afzalpurkar to Gandhi, 12 August 1971.
48. Robert McNamara, at the World Bank, once suggested that India was deliberately making the conditions bad in order to stem the tide of refugees (NSA, Kissinger-McNamara telcon, 13 August 1971, 8:40 a.m.). I found no Indian documentary evidence to back this up, although given the state of Indian archives, this does not definitively refute the allegation. Perhaps more to the point, even if India had done everything it could, the camps would still have been miserable. PMS, 7/371/71, vol. II, Gandhi note, 16 June 1971. See PMS, 7/371/71, vol. II, Mishra to Gandhi, n.d. June 1971. PMS, 7/371/71, vol. II, National Federation of Indian Women to Gandhi, 14 July 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, “Report on the visit of Border Areas of Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura,” 7 July 1971.
49. PMS, 7/371/71, vol. II, National Federation of Indian Women to Gandhi, 14 July 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, “Report on the visit of Border Areas of Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura,” 7 July 1971. See Dhar, Indira Gandhi, the “Emergency,” and Indian Democracy, p. 156.
50. Richard Sisson and Leo E. Rose, War and Secession: Pakistan, India, and the Creation of Bangladesh (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), p. 153. See PMS, 7/371/71, vol. II, National Federation of Indian Women to Gandhi, 14 July 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, “Report on the visit of Border Areas of Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura,” 7 July 1971. See NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 168, Action Committee for the People’s Republic of Bangla Desh appeal, 24 June 1971.
CHAPTER 9: INDIA ALONE
1. Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006), pp. 222–23. For a superb history of Nehru’s diplomacy in this period, see Srinath Raghavan, War and Peace in Modern India: A Strategic History of the Nehru Years (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). See John W. Garver, Protracted Contest: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Twentieth Century (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001). MEA, HI/1012/14/71, Mishra to Kaul, 7 May 1971.
2. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 220, Heath-Gandhi conversation, 24 October 1971. See NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 165, Haksar to Dhar, 7 April 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 220, R&AW report, “Threat of a Military Attack or Infiltration Campaign by Pakistan,” January 1971. See POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Keating to Rogers, 8 April 1971, New Delhi 5242; POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Farland to Rogers, 19 April 1971, Islamabad 3523. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 220, R&AW report, “Threat of a Military Attack or Infiltration Campaign by Pakistan,” January 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 170, “Rationalisation of the intelligence and Security set-up,” August 1971.
3. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Dhar to Kaul, 4 April 1971. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Zhou to Yahya, 12 April 1971, in Farland to Rogers, 13 April 1971, Islamabad 3360. See MEA, HI/1012/30/71, Chib to Kaul, 6 May 1971; MEA, HI/1012/14/71, Mishra to Kaul, 7 May 1971; POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Osborn to Rogers, 12 April 1971, Hong Kong 2241; POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Farland to Rogers, 13 April 1971, Islamabad 3311; POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Keating to Rogers, 8 April 1971, New Delhi 5242; POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Farland to Rogers, 8 April 1971, Islamabad 3237.
4. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 203, Singh-Gromyko conversation, 7 June 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 165, Haksar to Dhar, 7 April 1971. See also note from “Shri K”—perhaps R. N. Kao of the R&AW—in NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 220, n.d. Kaul shared the same concerns (POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Keating to Rogers, 8 April 1971, New Delhi 5242), as did a leading Bengali journalist (POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Gordon to Rogers, 8 April 1971, Calcutta 598). POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Gordon to Rogers, 8 April 1971, Calcutta 590.
5. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 220, R&AW report, “Threat of a Military Attack or Infiltration Campaign by Pakistan,” January 1971. Patrick E. Tyler, A Great Wall: Six Presidents and China (New York: PublicAffairs, 1999), pp. 71–73. Thomas J. Christensen, Worse than a Monolith: Alliance Politics and Problems of Coercive Diplomacy in Asia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), pp. 146–259. Odd Arne Westad, Brothers in Arms: The Rise and Fall of the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1945–1963 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1998). NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 229, Dhar-Grechko discussions, 5 June 1971.
6. NSC Files, Box 596, Country Files—Middle East, India, vol. III, Keating-Kissinger memcon, 3 June 1971. Gandhi told this to Keating, who passed it along to Kissinger. MEA, HI/1012/30/71, Chib to Kaul, 9 June 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 165, Haksar to Dhar, 7 April 1971.
7. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 276, Dhar to Kaul, 25 March 1971. See, for instance, MEA, HI/1012/57/71, Dhar to Kaul, 8 April 1971; NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Dhar to Kaul, 29 April 1971; NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Dhar to Kaul, 28 April 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Dhar to Kaul, 4 April 1971.
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8. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 203, Dhar to Kaul, 3 March 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Dhar to Kaul, 29 April 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 229, Dhar-Grechko discussions, 5 June 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 89, Kaul memorandum, 15 June 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 280, Kosygin-Dhar meeting, 5 August 1971. P. N. Dhar, Indira Gandhi, the “Emergency,” and Indian Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 170. Shashi Tharoor, Reasons of State: Political Development and India’s Foreign Policy Under Indira Gandhi, 1966–1977 (New Delhi: Vikas, 1982), p. 106.
9. POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Spengler to Farland, 3 April 1971, State 56617. See MEA, HI/1012/57/71, Dhar to Kaul, 8 April 1971; MEA, HI/1012/57/71, Dhar to Kaul, 13 May 1971; MEA, HI/1012/30/71, Chib to Kaul, 6 May 1971; POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Farland to Rogers, 4 April 1971, Islamabad 3126; and POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Keating to Rogers, 6 April 1971, New Delhi 5053. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Dhar to Kaul, 4 April 1971. See NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 89, Dhar letter, 18 April 1971; NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Dhar to Haksar, 29 April 1971; NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Dhar to Kaul, 28 April 1971; MEA, HI/1012/57/71, Dhar to Kaul, 13 May 1971; MEA, HI/1012/57/71, Dhar to Kaul, 15 June 1971. For unhappy U.S. responses, see POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Blood to Rogers, 5 April 1971, Dacca 1118; and POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2530, Keating to Sisco, 5 April 1971, Calcutta 553.
10. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 165, Haksar to Dhar, 7 April 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 89, Dhar letter, 18 April 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 165, Kosygin to Gandhi, 14 April 1971, in NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 165, Haksar to Dhar, 15 April 1971. See POL 23-9 PAK, Box 2531, Beam to Rogers, 14 April 1971, Moscow 2348. MEA, HI/1012/57/71, Dhar to Kaul, 13 May 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 89, Dhar letter, 18 April 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 165, Haksar to Dhar, 15 April 1971.