From: banerjee@hsc.usc.edu (Samit Banerjee)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bangladesh,soc.culture.indian
Subject: Re: Victory Day in Bangladesh (what about India?)
Date: 22 Dec 92 21:44:09 GMT
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: hsc.usc.edu

In article <SAHMED.92Dec22133236@occs.cs.oberlin.edu> sahmed@occs.cs.oberlin.edu (Saif Ahmed) writes:

>10,000 + on two fronts is more credible. But don't translate that into
>the Indian military lost 10,000 men trying to give Bangladesh
>independence, it's not quite the same thing. They lost the men in a
>war with Pakistan trying to preserve their territorial integrity.

The war started as a result of the genocide in BD. I doubt if India would
have intervened had there been no killings in erstwhile East Pakistan. Also,
while it is true that India reacted to the Pakistani aggression, the
underlying reason for that attack was Pakistani perceptions that India was
aiding the Mukti Bahini and hence interfering in that country's affairs.
So, you see we come back to the real reason for the war which is the 
unfortunate events in BD in 1970 and 1971. 

More importantly, the Indian Govt. decided to help when most other nations
were willing to wait and watch and in effect let the killings go on. While
nobody else wanted to help BD, the GOI and the people of India did.

>I was merely pointing out
>that the war itself was not started on humanitarian reasons. 

And I think it was. The vast sums of money and food spent on the refugees
were a big drain on our resources and I doubt if a stuggling Indian
economy (pre Green revolution) could afford to take on that extra burden.

>And I
>totally disagree that the importance of geopolitical interests were
>secondary to the genocide as far as policy planners were concerned. If
>that were the case why wait for 1 to 3 million people to get killed
>before coming in.

Good question. Pakistani policy if you will remember was being supported
by the US and it's NATO allies. Also China was threatening to intervene
should war break out between India and Pakistan. Mrs.Gandhi visited
several foreign capitals during the weeks and months leading upto the war
including Washington, London, Bonn and Tokyo. She appealed for Western
intervention so that Pakistan could be restrained from killing it's own people
and also for aid to India to help feed the refugees. Her requests were
turned down.

She had to wait for a couple of months before the Soviet Union decided to
sign the Friendship treaty with India which guaranteed Russian intervention
in the event of a military conflict with a third country. This kept China
and US out of the picture and let the Indian military take on it's
Pakistani counterpart. Also, I think Mrs.Gandhi had the foresight to realise
that war was coming to India's door and the extra couple of months
were spent mobilising troops and getting together resources for the
war effort.

Finally, from a strategic point of view most people will tell you that a 
war during the monsoons or shortly thereafter would result in greater 
casualties and a more protracted conflict, in addition to posing a logistic
nightmare. Hence the choice of November or December to attack. Pakistan made
it simpler by attacking first.  

>A very large number of the refugees in Dehli came pre 1971.

I do not have any proof one way or the other and hence will let the
matter rest.

>Indian citizenship does not come in the form of a paper which one can
>preserve to prove his/her citizenship. The GOI can claim at any time
>that any given group of peole are not Indian citizens and expel them.

Can you show me any precedents to justify this claim? Has the GOI ever
acted chauvinistically or arbitrarily to expel anybody, even foreigners?
When I last heard, even the case of the illegal immigrants in Delhi
was being appealed.

Fortunately in India (and unlike most of her neighbours) there are too 
many checks and balances that prevents the GOI from acting in this manner.
However, public opinion in India is largely biased in favour of preventing
a constant stream of refugees from entering the country and precipitating
the change in demographics that gave rise to the Assam problem.

>You mentioned in a previous article in a
>sarcastic note that the killing of Mujib was a "payment" for India's
>help. As I understood it you felt that it was a betrayal to India. 

I cannot overlook the fact that Mujib was a friend of India and in his
death we lost a good well wisher. 

>I
>proposed above that Mujib's killing only had to do with personal and
>political conflicts and nothing to do with India. 

Maybe so. But you cannot escape the fact that the people who killed him
were decidedly anti-Indian and it was they who had been clamouring for
India to stop playing big brother to BD. 

>I wasn't stating any facts, I was merely extrapolating from your
>article. I had no clue as to where the Indian made weapons came from.

After every war, it is standard operating procedure to search
and recover weapons and arms that might have fallen into the wrong hands.
The Indian army was never allowed to do this.

>>If you want an example, look at Somalia. Exact the same scenario.
>
>Somalia does not have a legitimate govt.

Neither did BD at that time. Mujib had won the elections but was prevented
from taking office. How was Niazi any different from the warlords who
control Somalia? He admittedly controlled the entire nation, had a better
army at his disposal and was a lot more brutal. But as for political
locus standii, he had none.


>You are telling me that if the govt. sincerely wanted to uphold the
>agreement it could not have done so? If that was the case it could
>have either returned the land it got in exchange, or let BD use the
>corridor until the court decided on the issue. I know for a fact it
>could have done the latter because it did let BD use the corridor at
>random times for random periods. One month open, two weeks closed and
>that sort of thing.

You are probably right. But after the case went into litigation, the
Calcutta High Court issued an injunction preventing an further access
to the Tin Bigha corridor until the case was decided. Like it or not,
in my country, the legislative branch of Government can still be superseded
by the judiciary. And while I understand your frustration, there is not 
much the GOI can do when an agreement is being reviewed by the judicial
system.


Samit
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bangladesh