M. A. G. Osmani
Muhammad Ataul Gani Osmani was a Bangladeshi military officer, revolutionary and politician. His military career spanned three decades, beginning with his service in the British Indian Army in 1939. He fought in the Burma Campaign during World War II, and after the partition of India in 1947, he joined the Pakistan Army and served in the East Bengal Regiment, retiring as a colonel in 1967. Osmani joined the Provisional Government of Bangladesh in 1971 as the commander-in-chief of the nascent Bangladesh Forces. Regarded as the founder of the Bangladesh Armed Forces, Osmani retired as a four star general from the Bangladesh Army in 1972.
Osmani entered politics in independent Bangladesh, serving as a member of parliament and cabinet minister in the government of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Along with Mainul Hosein, he resigned from parliament in opposition to the creation of the one party state of BAKSAL. He advised the government on restoring the chain of command in the military after the 15 August coup. He contested the 1978 Bangladeshi presidential election against Ziaur Rahman. Osmani died in London in 1984 and was buried in his hometown Sylhet.
Early life
Osmani was born into a Bengali Muslim landowning family in Sunamganj, Sylhet, Assam Province, British India, on 1 September 1918. He was a descendant of Shah Nizamuddin Osmani, a 14th-century associate of Shah Jalal. His Home village is in Dayamir Union within Osmani Nagar Upazila of Sylhet District.Osmani attended Cotton School in Sylhet, matriculating at Sylhet Government Pilot High School in 1934. He studied English and Persian. He won the Pritoria Prize for excellence in English. Osmani studied geography at Aligarh Muslim University, and graduated in 1938. He enrolled as a cadet at the Indian Military Academy the following year.
Military career
When he joined the British Indian Army, Osmani was a member of the 4th Urban Infantry from 1939 to 1940 while he was a university student. On 5 October 1940, he received a regular commission as a second lieutenant in the British Indian Army's Royal Indian Army Service Corps. Osmani was initially attached to the 2nd Battalion, Duke of Wellington Regiment, which was tasked with a New Delhi depot. After he completed the Short Mechanical Transport Course and Junior Tactical Course, he was attached to a mechanical transport battalion of the XV Corps and posted to Burma during World War II.British Indian Army (1941–1947)
Osmani was promoted to the ranks of war-substantive lieutenant and temporary captain on 17 February 1941. He received a battlefield promotion to acting major on 23 February 1942, with further promotions to war-substantive captain on 23 May. Between 1941 and 1945, he held the posts of platoon commander, battalion adjutant, company 2IC and battalion commander. From November 1944 to February 1945, Osmani was a grade-two general staff officer at his formation headquarters, completing the Senior Officers Course after the war.He was attached to British Indian Army HQ Bihar and ODisha Area from May to July 1946. On 13 July 1946, Osmani was granted a regular commission in the British Indian Army, with a promotion to substantive captain on 5 October 1946. He subsequently completed the Senior Officers Course in February 1947, and was promoted to local lieutenant colonel. He was posted to British Indian Army GHQ in Simla in the Quartermaster General and Ordnance Branches until August 1947. From August to 6 October 1947 he served as GSO-2 at the HQ of Claude Auchinleck in New Delhi. Although Osmani had passed the Indian Civil Service examination, he declined a foreign-service position in 1947 to remain with the Pakistan Army. He witnessed the end of the British Indian Army, representing Pakistan during the division of army assets between India and Pakistan.
Pakistan Army
After India and Pakistan gained independence in 1947, Osmani joined the Pakistan Army on 7 October 1947. He was promoted to acting lieutenant colonel on 7 January 1948. He was assigned to general-staff headquarters as GSO-1, Coordination, Planning and Personnel.Osmani attended the Long Term Staff Course at the Command and Staff College, Quetta, Pakistan and served with Yahya Khan, Tikka Khan and A. A. K. Niazi, all of whom led the Pakistan Army against his Bangladesh forces in 1971. After completing the course, Osmani joined the staff of army chief of staff Reginald Hutton in January 1949 and recommended the establishment of cadet colleges in East Pakistan. He later became an assistant adjutant general.
Infantry
After serving as a staff officer for eight years, Osmani joined the Pakistan Army infantry. With a rank of major and after induction training, he joined the 5/14 Punjab. He was posted as 2IC and company commander of the 5th Punjab Battalion of the 14th Punjab Regiment, part of a brigade commanded by Ayub Khan, in 1950. Osmani became commander of the 105th Brigade Training Team in January 1951 and commander of the 5/14 Punjab in May, followed by a four-month tour of duty in Kashmir and Waziristan.Osmani disagreed with Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army Gen. Ayub Khan over the treatment of Ishfakul Majid, the senior Bengali army officer in who was falsely accused in the Rawalpindi conspiracy and forced to resign. In August 1951, Osmani left 5/14 Punjab and was posted as third CO of the 1st East Bengal Regiment, the first Bengali to hold the post, in October.
East Pakistan (1950–1956)
Osmani became the CO of the 1st East Bengal Regiment, stationed in Jessore as part of the 107th Brigade, on 8 November 1951. He chose Bengali songs for regimental marching and its band, and the Brotochari became the regimental dance. Osmani ordered his NCOs to submit daily situation reports in Bangla. This display of Bengali culture was frowned on by his Punjabi superiors, who disliked the adoption of what they saw as Hindu culture. Osmani was commandant of the East Bengal Regimental Centre in Chittagong from February 1953 to January 1955.He commanded the 107th Brigade in Jessore from April to October 1953, rejoining 1 EBR as CO until February 1954. After Osmani completed the GHQ law course and left the EBRC, he became an additional commandant of the East Pakistan Rifles under the provincial government of East Bengal in March 1955. In the EBR, he expanded the recruitment of non-Bengali minority groups and ended recruiting from West Pakistan.
GHQ Pakistan
Osmani was promoted to lieutenant colonel and became a senior advisor at CENTO headquarters in Baghdad as part of the Pakistan military delegation from December 1955 to May 1956. He was promoted to acting colonel in May 1956, joining the Pakistan Army GHQ at Rawalpindi as deputy director for military operations. In August and September 1957 he served as an acting brigadier, serving as DDMO until May 1966. Osmani received the permanent rank of colonel in 1961, and received advanced weapons training in the United States three years later. He served under Gul Hassan Khan in 1964, who felt that Osmani had been passed over for promotion. Khan allowed him to focus on the Bengal regiments.By 1958 Osmani was deputy director of the general staff and then deputy director of military operations under Yahya Khan, a position he held until his retirement eight years later. Although he reached the rank of colonel in the first decade of his career, during the next decade he did not receive a promotion. During Osmani's tenure as DDMO in the General Staff Branch, he was a Pakistan Army advisor at CENTO, SEATO and Pakistan Air Defence Committee meetings.
Bengali recruitment bottleneck
Pakistan mustered six infantry divisions and one armoured brigade after the division of the British Indian army in 1947. These formations were neither fully equipped nor staffed. The number of Bengali officers and soldiers in the Pakistan armed forces was small, due to the British preference for recruiting from the martial races and the departure of many non-Muslim Bengali personnel for the Indian Army. The Pakistan Army raised two battalions of the East Bengal Regiment from 1947 to 1950, and Punjab regiments were inherited from the British Indian Army. The Azad Kashmir Regiment was created soon after the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947.When Osmani joined GHQ in 1956, three East Bengal regiments and the East Bengal Regimental Centre were part of the Pakistan Army. Over the next nine years the number of Punjab Regiment battalions grew and reached almost 50, the Frontier Force and Baluch Regiments grew. Many senior army officers believed in the martial-race theory, and considered Bengalis poor military material. Bengali recruits, generally smaller in stature than West Pakistanis, often failed to meet minimum physical requirements. Many Pakistani officers favoured mixed regiments over Bengali ones and some officers felt that increasing the number of Bengali formations threatened Army unity.
Role in 1965 war
Osmani was sidelined by the Pakistani generals, despite his service as DDMO during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965. Instead he devoted himself to the East Bengal regiments. He complained that the Pakistani press suppressed the contributions of his 1st Bengal unit, which was posted in Kasur during the war. Successive Bengali and non-Bengali COs of the 1 EBR built on Osmani's foundation, and under the command of A. T. K. Haque its battalion received 17 awards for gallantry —the largest number of awards of any Pakistan unit in the war. When Osmani visited the unit and recommended a Nishan-e-Haider for a member, he was reportedly furious when the battalion CO disregarded his recommendation. He organised Bengal regimental reunions, seizing every opportunity to enhance the reputation of Bengali units.After the war, Osmani chaired the committee tasked with determining future army-reserve and logistical requirements and was president of the Army Sports Control Board from July 1965 to April 1966. On 16 May 1966, he went on leave prior to retirement. Osmani's successor as DDMO was Rao Farman Ali. Ali wrote that he was horrified at Osmani's treatment by the army; his office was run-down, Osmani was kept out of the loop and office employees treated him with disdain. Osmani was not promoted, perhaps, according to Ali, because he was Bengali and deemed untrustworthy by the high command.