by Gary J. Bass
43. NSA, Kissinger to Haig, 11 July 1971. NSA, Kissinger to Nixon, 14 July 1971. For a beautiful analysis of Nixon’s and Kissinger’s trips to Beijing in the context of other Western encounters, see Jonathan D. Spence, The Chan’s Great Continent: China in Western Minds (New York: Norton, 1998), pp. 218–23.
44. Library of Congress, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, Winston Lord interview, 28 April 1998 and subsequent.
45. Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 750–51. Tyler, Great Wall, p. 100. NSA, Kissinger to Nixon, 14 July 1971. NSA, Zhou-Kissinger memcon, 10 July 1971, 11:20–11:50 p.m. Kissinger, White House Years, p. 862. For a balanced evaluation of Chinese and India claims, see Srinath Raghavan, War and Peace in Modern India (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), pp. 227–310.
46. NSA, Zhou-Kissinger memcon, 10 July 1971, 12:10 p.m. In fact, as recently as the Kennedy administration, the CIA had been secretly supporting guerrillas fighting Chinese rule in Tibet, a project that Chinese officials presumed had Indian backing. (John B. Roberts and Elizabeth A. Roberts, Freeing Tibet [Saranac Lake, N.Y.: Amacom, 2009], pp. 91–103.)
47. NSA, Zhou-Kissinger memcon, 10 July 1971, 12:10 p.m.
48. NSA, Zhou-Kissinger memcon, 11 July 1971, 10:35–11:55 a.m. NSA, Kissinger to Nixon, 14 July 1971.
49. NSA, Kissinger to Nixon, 14 July 1971. NSA, Zhou-Kissinger memcon, 11 July 1971, 10:35–11:55 a.m.
50. NSA, Kissinger-Huang memcon, 16 August 1971, 9:05–10:45 a.m.
51. NSA, Zhou-Kissinger memcon, 11 July 1971, 10:35–11:55 a.m. Kissinger told Nixon that Zhou wanted to make “sure that we would continue to use the Yahya channel occasionally because ‘one should not burn bridges that have been useful.’ ” (NSA, Kissinger to Nixon, 14 July 1971.)
52. NSA, Kissinger to Nixon, 14 July 1971. See Evelyn Goh, “Nixon, Kissinger, and the ‘Soviet Card’ in the U.S. Opening to China, 1971–1974,” Diplomatic History, vol. 29, no. 3 (June 2005), pp. 481–82.
53. NSA, Kissinger-McNamara telcon, 13 August 1971, 8:40 a.m. Nixon noted, “The Chinese have been exterminating people for years.” (White House tapes, Oval Office 784–21, 21 September 1972, 12:25-2:01 p.m.) See Yang Jisheng, Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958–1962, trans. Stacy Mosher and Guo Jian (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2012); Frank Dikötter, Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–1962 (New York: Walker, 2011); Roderick MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, 3 vols. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974–97).
54. Kissinger, White House Years, p. 755. See White House tapes, Oval Office 549-25, 28 July 1971, 4:21–4:54 p.m.
55. H. R. Haldeman, The Haldeman Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1994), 10 July 1971, p. 317; 13 July 1971, pp. 318–19.
56. NSC Files, Box 1025, Presidential/HAK MemCons, Farland-Kissinger memcon, 30 July 1971. See Huang, Memoirs, p. 232.
57. NSC Files, Box 138, Kissinger Office Files, Country Files—Middle East, Nixon to Yahya, 26 July 1971. See NSC Files, Box 138, Kissinger Office Files, Country Files—Middle East, Nixon to Yahya, 7 August 1971. NSC Files, Box 138, Kissinger Office Files, Country Files—Middle East, Kissinger to Yahya, 26 July 1971. White House tapes, Oval Office 549-25, 28 July 1971, 4:21–4:54 p.m. See White House tapes, Oval Office 551-6, 29 July 1971, 11:52 a.m.–12:20 p.m. Kissinger, White House Years, p. 739. Haldeman, Haldeman Diaries, 17 July 1971, p. 322.
58. MEA, HI/1012/30/71, Chib to Kaul, 5 August 1971. MEA, HI/1012/78/71, Jha to Kaul, 7 September 1971. MEA, HI/1012/14/71, Mishra to Paranjpe, 20 August 1971.
59. MEA, HI/1012/30/71, Chib to Kaul, 5 August 1971. See MEA, WII/125/59/71, Singh statement in Lok Sabha, 20 July 1971.
60. Archer K. Blood, The Cruel Birth of Bangladesh: Memoirs of an American Diplomat (Dacca: University Press of Bangladesh, 2002), p. 257.
61. FRUS, NSC meeting, 16 July 1971, pp. 264–67.
62. NSA, Nixon and Kissinger talk to White House staff, 19 July 1971, 11:40 a.m.
CHAPTER 12: THE MUKTI BAHINI
1. For his reported version, see Sydney H. Schanberg, “Bengalis Form a Cabinet as the Bloodshed Goes On,” New York Times, 14 April 1971, pp. A1, A12.
2. MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. I, Gandhi press conference, 19 October 1971.
3. J. F. R. Jacob, Surrender at Dacca: Birth of a Nation (New Delhi: Manohar, 1997), pp. 90–94. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 89, Dhar to Haksar, n.d. 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, Sen to Gandhi, 30 June 1971. The exiles had raised £100,000 worth of arms.
4. Oriana Fallaci, Interviews with History and Conversations with Power (New York: Rizzoli, 2011), p. 264. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 89, Dhar to Haksar, n.d. 1971.
5. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 171, “Political Prospective” and “A Note on How the [sic] Help the Mukti Fouj Win the Bangla Desh Liberation War?” 18 August 1971. Haksar evidently saw the report on August 18, but it was written earlier. See A. T. M. Abdul Wahab, Mukti Bahini Wins Victory (Dacca: Columbia Prokashani, 2004), pp. 171–97.
6. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 229, Choudhury to Syed Nazrul Islam, July 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 171, “Political Prospective” and “A Note on How the [sic] Help the Mukti Fouj Win the Bangla Desh Liberation War?” 18 August 1971.
7. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 229, Choudhury to Syed Nazrul Islam, July 1971; NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, Choudhury to Syed Nazrul Islam, July 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 220, “SSB and Bangladesh,” 3 February 1972.
8. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Narayan to Haksar, 4 July 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 89, Dhar to Haksar, n.d. 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, “Report on the visit of Border Areas of Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura,” 7 July 1971. Narayan-Mukti Fouj meeting, 9 July 1971, Jayaprakash Narayan, Selected Works, ed. Bimal Prasad (New Delhi: Manohar, 2008), vol. 9, pp. 849–52. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 171, “Political Prospective” and “A Note on How the [sic] Help the Mukti Fouj Win the Bangla Desh Liberation War?” 18 August 1971.
9. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, “Report on the visit of Border Areas of Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura,” 7 July 1971. According to Jayaprakash Narayan, one special unit was mustered “directly under the command of Gen. Manekshaw,” although under orders from D. P. Dhar to work under the Bengali sector commanders (Sen notes, 27 October 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, pp. 862–69). Narayan based this on information from Tajuddin Ahmad. See P. N. Dhar, Indira Gandhi, the “Emergency,” and Indian Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 168.
10. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 170, “Rationalisation of the intelligence and Security set-up,” August 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Kao report, Bangla Desh, 3 July 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 220, “SSB and Bangladesh,” 3 February 1972.
11. White House tapes, White House telephone 10-116, 7 October 1971, 10:32–10:58 a.m. See Abdul Wahab, Mukti Bahini Wins Victory, pp. 203–12.
12. MEA, WII/109/31/71, vol. I, Indian government press information bureau, Gandhi speech, 12 December 1971. MEA, WII/109/31/71, vol. I, Gandhi statement to Parliament, 16 December 1971.
13. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, “Report on the visit of Border Areas of Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura,” 7 July 1971. See Habibul Alam, Brave of Heart: The Urban Guerilla Warfare of Sector-2, During the Liberation War of Bangladesh (Dacca: Academic Press and Publishers Library, 2006), p. 288.
14. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, “Report on the visit of Border Areas of Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura,” 7 July 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 229, Choudhury to Syed Nazrul Islam, July 1971; NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, Choudhury to Syed Nazrul Islam, July 1971.
15. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, “Report on the visit of Border Areas of Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura,” 7 July 1971. See Sen notes, 27 October 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, pp. 862–69. NMML, Haksar
Papers, Subject File 229, Choudhury to Syed Nazrul Islam, July 1971; NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, Choudhury to Syed Nazrul Islam, July 1971.
16. Dom Moraes, Mrs Gandhi (London: Jonathan Cape, 1980), p. 188.
17. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, “Report on the visit of Border Areas of Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura,” 7 July 1971. For an estimate of twenty-five thousand, see Narayan-Mukti Fouj meeting, 9 July 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, pp. 849–52. MEA, HI/1012/30/71, Chib to Kaul, 5 August 1971. MEA, HI/1012/30/71, Chib to Kaul, 4 September 1971. MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. I, Gandhi press conference, 19 October 1971. Her words are an inadvertent and unpoetic version of Byron: “For Freedom’s battle once begun, / Bequeath’d by bleeding sire to son, / Though baffled oft is ever won.” (Timothy Garton Ash, The Polish Revolution: Solidarity [New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2002], p. 49.)
18. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 168, Haksar to Gandhi, 4 June 1971. See Narayan to Kaul, 15 July 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, p. 628; NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 171, “Political Prospective” and “A Note on How the [sic] Help the Mukti Fouj Win the Bangla Desh Liberation War?” 18 August 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, “Situational Report of Bangladesh Army,” 5 July 1971. See Sukhwant Singh, India’s Wars Since Independence: The Liberation of Bangladesh (New Delhi: Vikas, 1980), vol. 1, pp. 30–31.
19. Narayan to Kaul, 15 July 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, p. 628. See Muyeedul Hasan, “1971: PNH in Bridging the Security Gap,” in Subrata Banerjee, ed., Contributions in Remembrance: Homage to P. N. Haksar (Chandigarh, India: Centre for Research and Industrial Development, 2004), vol. 2, pp. 21–28. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, Narain to Swaminathan, 13 July 1971. Narayan to Gandhi, 20 July 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, p. 630. Italics added. Narayan to Gandhi, 1 August 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, p. 634. See NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 89, Dhar to Haksar, n.d. 1971.
20. Singh, Liberation of Bangladesh, pp. 38–39. A. A. K. Niazi, The Betrayal of East Pakistan (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 62–68. By one count, there were about six thousand Bengali irregulars trained for war, with five thousand more being trained monthly by the Indians and Bengalis (Narayan-Mukti Fouj meeting, 9 July 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, pp. 849–52). They faced roughly eighty thousand Pakistani soldiers and irregulars (NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 171, “Political Prospective” and “A Note on How the [sic] Help the Mukti Fouj Win the Bangla Desh Liberation War?” 18 August 1971; Haksar evidently saw the report on August 18, but it was written earlier). By late September, the CIA estimated there were eighty thousand Pakistan troops against perhaps fifty thousand Bengalis in some way associated with the resistance (NSC Files, Box 570, Indo-Pak Crisis, CIA Office of National Estimates, “The Indo-Pakistani Crisis,” 22 September 1971). 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. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 171, “Political Prospective” and “A Note on How the [sic] Help the Mukti Fouj Win the Bangla Desh Liberation War?” 18 August 1971. Jayaprakash Narayan, “Bangladesh and India’s Future,” Indian Express, 27–28 October 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, pp. 660–66.
21. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, “Report on the visit of Border Areas of Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura,” 7 July 1971.
22. Mahfuzul H. Chowdhury, Democratization in South Asia (London: Ashgate, 2003), pp. 50, 121. NMML, Haksar Papers, III Installment, Subject File 229, Choudhury to Syed Nazrul Islam, July 1971.
23. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, “Report on the visit of Border Areas of Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura,” 7 July 1971.
24. Jacob, Surrender at Dacca, pp. 60–70, 78–83. Singh, Liberation of Bangladesh, pp. 65–79. For Indian navy plans in July, see N. Krishnan, No Way but Surrender: An Account of the Indo-Pakistan War in the Bay of Bengal, 1971 (New Delhi: Vikas, 1980), pp. 19–29. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 220, “SSB and Bangladesh,” 3 February 1972.
25. Richard Sisson and Leo E. Rose, War and Secession: Pakistan, India, and the Creation of Bangladesh (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), pp. 206, 209–10. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 89, Dhar to Haksar, n.d. 1971.
26. Mao Zedong, “On Guerrilla Warfare,” in Richard K. Betts, ed., Conflict After the Cold War (New York: Pearson-Longman, 2005), p. 457. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 229, Choudhury to Syed Nazrul Islam, July 1971; NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, Choudhury to Syed Nazrul Islam, July 1971.
27. Narayan-Mukti Fouj meeting, 9 July 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, pp. 849–52. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, “Situational Report of Bangladesh Army,” 5 July 1971. Dhar, Indira Gandhi, the “Emergency,” and Indian Democracy, p. 165. Jacob, Surrender at Dacca, pp. 43-44. Abdul Wahab, Mukti Bahini Wins Victory, pp. 215–41. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 89, Dhar to Haksar, n.d. 1971. See MEA, WII/121/54/71, vol. II, Menon to Kaul, 5 July 1971. See James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War,” American Political Science Review, vol. 97, no. 1 (February 2003), pp. 75–90. Bangladesh was a likely case for an insurgency: a weak government that ran a brutal counterinsurgency campaign, alienating the people; and rough terrain, foreign base camps, and foreign support to help the rebels. There were other risk factors: a regime that included democratic elements, as in the 1970 elections; instability in the government; foreign diasporas, as in West Bengal; and a large population. Fearon and Laitin use Bangladesh as their key example of a state that is geographically hard to control. The only factor that was missing was the government’s loss of foreign support, which did not happen: both the United States and China stood by Yahya.
28. In the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, Article 37 prohibits the “resort to perfidy” in combat, including “the feigning of civilian, non-combatant status.” NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Bangla Desh Forces, “Guerillas,” n.d. July 1971.
29. Alam, Brave of Heart, pp. 17, 23–24. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Bangla Desh Forces, “Guerillas,” n.d. July 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, “Situational Report of Bangladesh Army,” 5 July 1971. For the authorship of the report, see NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Roy to Gandhi, 5 July 1971.
30. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, “Situational Report of Bangladesh Army,” 5 July 1971.
31. Narayan to Gandhi, 20 July 1971, Narayan, Selected Works, p. 630. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Kao report, Bangla Desh, 3 July 1971.
32. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 227, Kao report, Bangla Desh, 3 July 1971. See NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 220, Kao to Haksar, 9 July 1971.
33. PMS, 7/371/71, vol. II, Gandhi to Kirpal, 2 August 1971. See NSC Files, Box 574, Indo-Pak War, South Asian Congressional, Kennedy report, 1 November 1971.
34. MEA, WII/121/54/71, vol. II, refugee statistics, 3 July 1971. MEA, HI/1012/30/71, refugee statistics, 3 July 1971. MEA, WII/121/54/71, vol. II, East Bengal memorandum, n.d. 1971. Pupul Jayakar, Indira Gandhi: An Intimate Biography (New York: Pantheon, 1992), pp. 171–72.
35. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 168, Mukherjee to Dhavan, June 1971. See NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, Gandhi to Swaminathan, 1 April 1970.
36. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, Haksar notes, 15 July 1971.
37. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, Haksar notes, 15 July 1971. On West Bengal’s political evolution to the present day, see Ashok Malik, “Didi’s Long March,” Tehelka Magazine, vol. 8, no. 20 (21 May 2011).
38. NSC Files, Box 574, Indo-Pak War, South Asian Congressional, Kennedy speech, 26 August 1971.
39. For the ongoing flow of refugees, see MEA, WII/121/54/71, vol. II, refugee statistics, 3 July 1971; MEA, HI/1012/30/71, Kumar memorandum, refugee statistics, 7 September 1971; MEA, HI/1012/30/71, Kumar memorandum, refugee statistics, 19 September 1971; MEA, HI/1012/30/71, Kumar memorandum, refugee statistics, 22 September 1971. NSC Files, Box
570, Indo-Pak Crisis, South Asia, CIA Office of National Estimates, “The Indo-Pakistani Crisis,” 22 September 1971. East Pakistan’s population was seventy-six million. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 171, Bhashani to Haksar, 29 July 1971. MEA, WII/121/60/71, Kennedy-Khadilkar conversation, 14 August 1971. NSC Files, Box 574, Indo-Pak War, South Asian Congressional, Kennedy report, 1 November 1971. This report represents the professional judgment of Nevin Scrimshaw and John Lewis, two of the best development and nutrition experts in the United States. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 169, Haksar to Gandhi, 24 July 1971. This would have had more impact if it was not in a draft note to Kosygin.
40. NSC Files, Box 574, Indo-Pak War, South Asian Congressional, Kennedy report, 1 November 1971. Sydney H. Schanberg, “Bengali Refugees Stirring Strife in India,” New York Times, 6 October 1971. Sisson and Rose, War and Secession, p. 181. MEA, WII/121/54/71, vol. II, East Bengal memorandum, n.d. 1971. MEA, HI/1012/30/71, Kumar memorandum, refugee statistics, 7 September 1971. More precisely, by this count, there were 8,386,000 refugees in total, of which 7,120,000 were Hindus and 1,034,000 were Muslims.
41. MEA, WII/121/54/71, vol. II, UN memorandum, n.d. July 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 89, Shriman Narayan to Gandhi, 5 August 1971; Gandhi note in margin, 6 August 1971.
42. NMML, Kaul Papers, Subject File 19, part II, Singh briefing in London, n.d. June 1971. MEA, HI/121/13/71, vol. II, Dixit to heads of mission, 4 December 1971. NMML, Haksar Papers, Subject File 89, Shriman Narayan to Gandhi, 5 August 1971; Gandhi note in margin, 6 August 1971.