Bangladesh Liberation War
The Bangladesh Liberation War, also known as the Bangladesh War of Independence, was an armed conflict sparked by the rise of the Bengali nationalist and self-determination movement in East Pakistan, which resulted in the independence of Bangladesh with the help of India. The war began when the Pakistani military junta based in West Pakistan—under the orders of Yahya Khan—launched Operation Searchlight against East Pakistanis on the night of 25 March 1971, initiating the Bangladesh genocide.
In response to the violence, members of the Mukti Bahini—a guerrilla resistance movement formed by Bengali military, paramilitary and civilians—launched a mass guerrilla war against the Pakistani military, liberating numerous towns and cities in the war's initial months. At first, the Pakistan Army regained momentum during the monsoon, but Bengali guerrillas counterattacked by carrying out widespread sabotage, including through Operation Jackpot against the Pakistan Navy, while the nascent Bangladesh Air Force flew sorties against Pakistani military bases.
India joined the war on 3 December 1971 in support of the Mukti Bahini, after Pakistan launched preemptive air strikes on northern India and massive flight of some 10 million East Pakistani Bengals to the Indian state of West Bengal, following waves of emigration since Partition in 1947. The subsequent Indo-Pakistani War involved fighting on two fronts; with air supremacy achieved in the eastern theater and the rapid advance of the Allied Forces of Mukti Bahini and the Indian military, Pakistan surrendered in Dhaka on 16 December 1971, in what remains to date the largest surrender of armed personnel since the Second World War..
Rural and urban areas across East Pakistan saw extensive military operations and air strikes to suppress the tide of civil disobedience that formed after the 1970 election stalemate. The Pakistan Army, backed by Islamists, created radical religious militias—the Razakars, Al-Badr and Al-Shams—to assist it during raids on the local populace. Members of the Pakistani military and supporting militias engaged in mass murder, deportation and genocidal rape, pursuing a systematic campaign of annihilation against nationalist Bengali civilians, students, intelligentsia, religious minorities and armed personnel. The capital, Dhaka, was the scene of numerous massacres, including the Dhaka University massacre. Sectarian violence also broke out between Bengalis and Urdu-speaking Biharis. An estimated 10 million Bengali refugees fled to neighboring India, while 30 million were internally displaced.
The war changed the geopolitical landscape of South Asia, with the emergence of Bangladesh as the world's seventh-most populous country. Due to complex regional alliances, the war was a major episode in Cold War tensions involving the United States, the Soviet Union and China. The majority of member states in the United Nations recognized Bangladesh as a sovereign nation in 1972.
Background
Before the Partition of British India, the Lahore Resolution initially envisaged separate Muslim-majority states in British India's eastern and northwestern zones. A proposal for an independent United Bengal was mooted by Prime Minister Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy in 1946 but opposed by the colonial authorities. The East Pakistan Renaissance Society advocated the creation of a sovereign state in eastern British India.Political negotiations led, in August 1947, to the official birth of two states, Pakistan and India, giving presumably permanent homes for Muslims and Hindus, respectively, after the British departed. The Dominion of Pakistan comprised two geographically and culturally separate areas to the east and the west, with India in between.
The western zone was popularly termed West Pakistan and the eastern zone was initially termed East Bengal and later East Pakistan. Although the two zones' population was close to equal, political power was concentrated in West Pakistan, and it was widely perceived that East Pakistan was being exploited economically, leading to many grievances. Administration of two non-contiguous territories was also seen as a challenge.
On 25 March 1971, after an election won by an East Pakistani political party was ignored by the ruling establishment, rising political discontent and cultural nationalism in East Pakistan was met by brutal and suppressive force from the ruling elite of the West Pakistan establishment, in what came to be termed Operation Searchlight. The Pakistan Army's violent crackdown led to Awami League leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman declaring East Pakistan's independence as the state of Bangladesh on 26 March 1971. Most Bengalis supported this move, although some Islamists and Biharis opposed it and sided with the Pakistan Army instead.
Pakistani president Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan ordered the Pakistani military to restore the Pakistani government's authority, beginning the civil war. The war led a substantial number of refugees to flood India's eastern provinces. Facing a mounting humanitarian and economic crisis, India actively aided and organized the Bangladeshi resistance army, the Mukti Bahini.
Language controversy
In 1948, Governor-General Muhammad Ali Jinnah declared that "Urdu, and only Urdu" would be Pakistan's federal language. But Urdu was historically prevalent only in the north, central, and western subcontinent; in East Bengal, the native language was Bengali, one of the two most easterly branches of the Indo-European languages. Bengali speakers constituted over 56% of Pakistan's population.The government stand was widely viewed as an attempt to suppress the culture of the eastern wing. The people of East Bengal demanded that their language be given federal status alongside Urdu and English. The Language Movement began in 1948, as civil society protested the removal of Bengali script from currency and stamps, which were in place since the British Raj.
The movement reached its climax in 1952, when on 21 February, the police fired on protesting students and civilians, causing several deaths. The day is revered in Bangladesh as the Language Movement Day. In memory of the deaths, UNESCO declared 21 February International Mother Language Day in November 1999.
Disparities
Although East Pakistan had the larger population, West Pakistan dominated the divided country politically and received more money from the common budget.East Pakistan was already economically disadvantaged at the time of Pakistan's creation yet this economic disparity only increased under Pakistani rule. Factors included not only the deliberate state discrimination in developmental policies but also the fact that the presence of the country's capital and more immigrant businessmen in the Western Wing directed greater government allocations there. Due to low numbers of native businessmen in East Pakistan, substantial labor unrest and a tense political environment, there were also much lower foreign investments in the eastern wing. The Pakistani state's economic outlook was geared towards urban industry, which was not compatible with East Pakistan's mainly agrarian economy.
Also, Bengalis were underrepresented in the Pakistani military. Officers of Bengali origin in the different wings of the armed forces made up just 5% of the overall force by 1965; of these, only a few were in command positions, with the majority in technical or administrative posts. West Pakistanis believed that Bengalis were not "martially inclined", unlike Pashtuns and Punjabis; Bengalis dismissed the "martial races" notion as ridiculous and humiliating.
Moreover, despite huge defense spending, East Pakistan received none of the benefits, such as contracts, purchasing and military support jobs. The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 over Kashmir also highlighted the sense of military insecurity among Bengalis, as only an under-strength infantry division and 15 combat aircraft without tank support were in East Pakistan to repulse any Indian retaliations during the conflict.
Ideological and cultural differences
In 1947, the Bengali Muslims had identified themselves with Pakistan's Islamic project, but by the 1970s, the people of East Pakistan had given priority to their Bengali ethnicity over their religious identity, desiring a society in accordance with Western principles such as secularism, democracy and socialism. Many Bengali Muslims strongly objected to the Islamist paradigm the Pakistani state imposed.Most members of West Pakistan's ruling elite shared a vision of a liberal society, but nevertheless viewed a common faith as an essential mobilizing factor behind Pakistan's creation and the subsuming of Pakistan's multiple regional identities into one national identity. West Pakistanis were substantially more supportive than East Pakistanis of an Islamic state, a tendency that persisted after 1971.
Cultural and linguistic differences between the two wings gradually outweighed any sense of religious unity. The Bengalis took great pride in their culture and language which, with its Bengali script and vocabulary, was unacceptable to the West Pakistani elite, who believed that it had assimilated considerable Hindu cultural influences. West Pakistanis, in an attempt to "Islamise" the East, wanted the Bengalis to adopt Urdu. The activities of the language movement nurtured a sentiment among Bengalis in favor of discarding Pakistan's communalism in favor of secular politics. The Awami League began propagating its secular message through its newspaper to the Bengali readership.
The Awami League's emphasis on secularism differentiated it from the Muslim League. In 1971, the Bangladeshi liberation struggle against Pakistan was led by secular leaders and secularists hailed the Bangladeshi victory as the triumph of secular Bengali nationalism over religion-centred Pakistani nationalism. While Pakistan's government strives for an Islamic state, Bangladesh was established secular. After the liberation victory, the Awami League attempted to build a secular order and the pro-Pakistan Islamist parties were barred from political participation. The majority of East Pakistani ulama had either remained neutral or supported the Pakistani state, since they felt that the breakup of Pakistan would be detrimental for Islam.