The intervention in Bangladesh in 1971 didn't happened overnight. This excerpt from
Prof. Kittu Reddy's article "
The Mother's role in the 1971 war" describes complex things happened.
Mirra Alfassa (21 February 1878 – 17 November 1973), known to her followers as
The Mother or
La Mère, was a French-Indian spiritual
guru,
occultist and yoga teacher, and a collaborator of
Sri Aurobindo, who considered her to be of equal yogic stature to him and called her by the name "The Mother". She founded the
Sri Aurobindo Ashram and established the town of
Auroville; she was influential on the subject of
Integral Yoga.
Pakistani President and his tough military regime, moved to crush the East Pakistani movement for greater autonomy, outlawed the Awami League, which had just won a majority in the nation's first free election, arrested its leader, Sheik Mujibur Rahman, and launched a repressive campaign that turned into a civil war with East Pakistan's Bengalis fighting to set up an independent Bangla Desh (Bengal Nation).
Nearly 1,000,000 people were killed and 10 million refugees streamed into India. "
We have borne the heaviest of burdens," Mrs. Gandhi said, "
and withstood the greatest of pressure in a tremendous effort to urge the world to help in bringing about a peaceful solution and preventing the annihilation of an entire people whose only crime was to vote democratically. But the world ignored the basic causes and concerned itself only with certain repercussions. Today the war in Bangla Desh has become a war on India."
An interview of General Manekshaw
“Mrs Indira Gandhi telling Maneckshaw, “Look at this, - so many are coming in -there is a telegram from the Chief Minister of Assam, a telegram from… What are you doing about it?”, she said to me.
I said nothing. What has it got to do with me?
She said, "Can't you do something? “Can’t you do something? Why don’t you do something?”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to march in”.
I said, "that means war". And she said, “I don’t mind if it is war”.
So I sat down and said, “Have you read the Bible?”
Sardar Swaran Singh said. “What has the Bible got to do with it?”
“In the First Book, The First Chapter, the First Paragraph of the Bible, God said, ‘Let there be Light’ and there was light. So you feel, Let there be war and there shall be war. Are you ready? I certainly am not ready”.
Then I said, “I will tell you what is happening? It is now the end of April. In a few days’ time the monsoon will break and in East Pakistan, when it rains, the rivers become like oceans. If you stand on one side, you can't see the other. I would be confined to the roads. The Air Force would not be able to support me and the Pakistanis would thrash me - that’s one. Secondly my armoured divisions, is in the Babina area, another one in Secunderabad. We are now harvesting. I will require every vehicle, every truck, all the road space, all the railway space to move my soldiers and you will not be able to move our crops” and I turned to Fakruddin Ali Ahmed, the Agriculture Minister and said, “ If there is famine in India, they will blame you. I would not be there to take the blame”. Then I turned around and said, “My armoured division which is supposed to be my strike force has got 12 tanks which are operational out of the whole lot”.
Chavan asked, ‘Sam, why only 12?’
I said, “Sir, because you are the Finance Minister. I have been asking, pleading for months and you said that you have got no money. That’s why”.
Then I said, “Prime Minister, if in 1962 your father had asked me as Army Chief and not General Thapar and your father had said, ‘Throw the Chinese out’, I would have turned around and told him. ‘Look, there are problems’. Now I am telling you what the problems are. If you still want me to go ahead, Prime Minister, I will guarantee you 100% defeat. Now, give me your orders”.
Then Jagjeevan Ram said, “Sam, Maan Jao Na”.
I said, “I have given my professional view now. Now the Government must take a decision” .
The Prime Minister did not say anything, she was red in the face and said, ‘Achcha, char baje milenge’.
Everybody walked out, I, being the junior most, was the last to leave and I smiled at her. "Chief, sit down”.
So, I said, “ Prime Minister, before you open your mouth, do you want me to send in my resignation on the grounds of mental health or physical?’”
She said, “Oh, sit down Sam. Everything you told me is true”.
“Yes. Look it is my job to fight. It is my job to fight to win. Are you ready? I certainly am not ready. Have you internally got everything ready? Internationally have you got everything ready? I don't think so. I know what you want, but I must do it in my own time and I guarantee you 100 percent success. But I want to make it quite clear. There must be one commander. I don't mind, I will work under the BSF, under the CRPF, under anybody you like. But I will not have a Soviet telling me what to do and I must have one political master who will give me instructions. I do not want the refugee ministry, home ministry, defence ministry all telling me. Now make up your mind."
She said, 'All right Sam, nobody will interfere, you will be in command.'
However, Lt Col Bhalla was not at all happy with the situation and was very disturbed that India had not yet recognised Bangladesh. Being close to Gen Jacob, he spoke to him several times without any result. So he wrote to Shri Madhav Pandit, one of the secretaries of the Mother about his feelings. In June he came to Pondicherry and had a darshan of the Mother. No words were exchanged but he felt a little more relaxed and at peace.
On his return to Calcutta, he spoke once again to Gen Arora and Gen Jacob asking them to invade Bangladesh. This time too there was no apparent result.
The rest is history and is well known to the world. However, it might be pertinent to put in a comment made by the Mother after the ceasefire was announced on December 16.
This is what she said:
“Again, it won’t be for this time.
It won’t be done that way. I’ve seen how. It won’t be done through battle: the different parts of Pakistan will demand separation. There are five of them. And by separating, they will join India – to from a sort of confederation. That’s how it will be done.”