Voices Anand Neelakantan Preeti Shenoy Utkarsh Amitabh Ravi Shankar Deepali Bhardwaj Swami Sukhabodhananda MAGAZINE Buffet People Wellness Books Food Art & Culture Entertainment NEW DELHI December 14 2025 SUNDAY PAGES 12 (Left, clockwise) Richard Nixon with Henry Kissinger; Indira Gandhi with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman; the Mukti Bahini soldiers Book Excerpt The Wars Behind the War Even before the first shots of 1971 were fired, India was quietly arming and training the Mukti Bahini as Pakistani troops unleashed a campaign of rape and mass murder across East Bengal. With the US firmly backing Pakistan, Indira Gandhi openly cocked a snook at Washington—turning diplomacy into defiance and resolve into battle B y early October, India was reeling under the refugee crisis and stood alone as the international community was not prepared to exert pressure to compel Yahya Khan to negotiate with the Awami League. On the other hand, the Mukti Bahini had stepped up its game against the Pakistan Army in East Pakistan. The West, in particular the US, wagered that the fightback by the Mukti Bahini would force Pakistan’s hand and trigger a military response, leading to war. However, to reiterate, nobody was willing to squeeze Yahya Khan to stop the genocide in East Pakistan. *** The Indians had learnt that Kissinger had ordered the CIA to initiate contacts with factions of the leadership of the governmentin-exile to prepare the ground for negotiations and a settlement with West Pakistan. Kissinger has left an account of one man operating under the nom-de-plume of Qaiyum, who was the contact with the US consulate in Calcutta. This contact went live in the last week of July on behalf of a certain Bangladeshi leader. The conditions Qaiyum set were Mujib’s participation in the negotiations and acceptance of the six points in return for something less than independence. US intelligence wanted to contact the foreign minister of the exiled government, Khondakar Mostaq Ahmed, directly and link him up with Yahya Khan, who had shown willingness to engage in secret talks. According to journalist Lawrence Lifschultz, around eight secret meetings were held between the CIA and Khondakar. However, by early September, when Qaiyum was asked to arrange a key meeting, he pleaded his inability do so due to the surveillance of Indian intelligence agencies. On September 3, Qaiyum warned the US consul that the Indian government had formally asked the Bangladesh leadership to route all contacts with the US through New Delhi. Though Khondakar managed a meeting with the US consul on September 28, by the end of October, according to Kissinger, all channels to the Bangladesh leadership dried up. And that the Indian press was raising a shindig over stories of a key Bangladesh cabinet minister’s contacts with foreign representatives. Khondakar did not report this entire opening up of the channel with the US to his cabinet colleagues. *** From early October, the Indian Army had been supporting attacks by the Mukti Bahini on Pakistani border posts. This initially took the form of artillery fire on Pakistani positions and the participation of a small number of Indian groups in an offensive. By the second week of October, the Indian Army’s eastern command ordered its formations to not only defend the border but also carry out offensive operations up to 16 km inside East Pakistan. The idea was to capture an important salient in East Pakistan that would assist in the eventual full-fledged military intervention. The captured territory was, however, held by Mukti Bahini with the Indian troops retreating behind the borders. On October 12, US ambassador to India Kenneth Keating called on Foreign Minister Swaran Singh to convey Washington’s concern over the increasing risk of war between Pakistan and India. He said that the US had specific information that 60,000 Mukti Bahini fighters were poised to cross the border during October. Mukti Bahini operations on this scale could not be achieved without Indian support. If this report was correct, Pakistan would create a military response in the west. Nobody could accuse India of initiating the problems, but India had the responsibility of preventing it from escalating into war. By the end of October, India was baking its final plans for a military and diplomatic assault, and the maintenance of secrecy became paramount. On October 27, 1971, DP Dhar flew to Calcutta to apprise Tajuddin of India’s concern regarding Khondakar. The question was: could Khondakar be trusted as India and the Mujib Nagar Government were about to begin joint planning for the final stage of the liberation war? Tajuddin wanted to sack him, but to maintain party unity Khondakar , was shifted to another ministry and his foreign , secretary Mehboob Alam Chashi, was , dismissed from office on disciplinary grounds. Khondakar did not forget this humiliation; he became a part of the anti-India cabal and extracted his revenge in more ways than is known. Tajuddin Ahmed was assassinated on November 3, 1975 in Dhaka Central Jail, since called Jail Killing Day followed by COAS , Khaled Mosharraf on the 7th. Was this orchestrated by Khondakar? Back in the battlefield, around the end of October, the Indian Army’s IV Corps faced a huge setback near Sylhet; it is now called the Battle of Dhalai. With the monsoon tapering off, the Mukti Bahini, including East Bengal Rifles (EBR), were raiding tea gardens to target power plants, machinery or tea godowns. The , Pakistanis had fortified the area of the tea gardens and, fed up of the constant pin pricks, shelled the town of Kamalpur in India on the Dhalai river which had an airfield. This was between October 14 and 20, leading to an exodus of the civilian population. *** Lt Gen Sagat Singh told Gonsalves that he did not want an EBR defeat, especially when they were meeting success elsewhere. EBR had successfully carried operations to capture the communication hubs of Kasba and Saldanadi between Akhaura and Comilla. Sagat Singh sent out instructions that his forces were not to surrender any moral superiority and a , decision was taken to use regular troops to capture the Border Out Post and the built-up area. This led to a near uncontrollable spiral of violence which sucked in the entire 61 Brigade. *** By October 31, Sagat Singh heard of the series of debacles; the Jats had suffered heavy casualties with seventy killed or injured. He was disquieted to hear loose talk amongst his headquarters staff that perhaps the Indian Army did not have the gumption to fight such battles of attrition. Accepting a setback was not in Sagat Singh’s nature. His ruthless and dogged streak, so evident while he was commanding troops in Sikkim and Mizoram, made him determined not to give up the battle of Dhalai on a losing note, especially as he had not been fed authentic information on the strength of the enemy there. Sagat Singh flew to Kamalpur in bad weather in an IAF helicopter piloted by the squadron’s flight commander, Flt Lt Jayaraman. The corps commander remained adamant that Dhalai would not be a defeat for the Indian Army and Brigade Commander , Tom Pande committed himself and put his reputation at stake. A bitter battle followed between October 31 and November 6, where more than 100 troops of the Indian Army laid down their lives before the Indians got better of the Pakistanis. The battle of Dhalai is important from two perspectives. First, Sagat Singh realised that the Pakistan soldier, though harried and dispirited, was no pushover. Properly lead, he held his ground, and his battle drills were superior to that of the Indians. In adherence to Niazi’s directions, he was willing to contest every inch of ground in East Pakistan to the bitter end. Second it reinforced a fact that the Pakistanis are known to play a strong game with a weak hand, and you can’t afford to take the foot off the pedal while dealing with them. *** The battle throws a unique light on some of the facets of Sagat Singh’s character, especially as a war leader: his ruthlessness in getting the job done, his reluctance to compromise on his orders, his unwillingness to lose face, his supreme confidence in his own knowledge and ability even in face of reverses, and his abhorrence to allowing the troops to disgrace the unit’s name by withdrawing from the battlefield with a taint of defeat. *** As the battle raged in Dhalai, on October 31 Mrs Gandhi met British PM Edward Heath and clearly enunciated the fear that war might break out as Islamabad and the Awami League were not able to resolve the crisis peacefully . India definitely did not seek conflict, but if it was attacked, it would be compelled to fight. Heath wrote to Yahya Khan on November 9, asking him to consider releasing Mujib and negotiating with the Awami League. Yahya Khan rejected the appeal, stating that was impossible for him to negotiate with Mujib. Heath told members of the cabinet committee on defence and overseas policy ‘In the long run , our interest probably lay more with India than Pakistan. I think we should take care not to repeat a 1965 experience when we had suffered maximum disadvantage without compensating benefits from either side.’ *** Sheikh Mujibur Rahman with his daughter, a young Sheikh Hasina History circles back with a cruel symmetry: in the chaos of a wounded nation, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman once stood condemned to die as Bangladesh burned around him. Years later, his daughter, Sheikh Hasina, is sentenced under eerily similar skies While the tempo of irregular warfare had picked up velocity India had to ensure , complete secrecy of the training camps and mandated that no Indian should participate in any crossborder operation lest they be caught. The principle of plausible deniability was of supreme importance. This became even more important as the Indian PM set of on a tour of Europe and the US. It was this concern that worried the commanders sick when Leading Seaman Chiman Singh who was training the frogmen in Plassey inadvertently walked into East Pakistan with his Mukti Bahini Frogmen Commandos on November 1. He was immediately declared MIA (Missing in Action). He was under strict instructions not to cross the India-East Pakistan border. His death, or worse his capture, would reveal India’s hand in the covert war and provide the evidence the Pakistan Army was so desperately seeking. *** By all accounts, Nixon’s face-off with Mrs Gandhi in the Oval Office was angry protract , Turn to page 2