The future, not the past

It is true that Pakistan made blunders leading to 1971. However the mistakes were not one-sided - there are always two sides to a story, writes Ikram Sehgal

Wednesday, March 24, 2010
In May 2000 during Musharraf’s visit to India, I was cornered in a live TV programme in New Delhi by Rajdeep Sardesai then with NDTV, with JN Dixit and Kuldip Nayar as my fellow panelists. They kept harping about Pakistan Army’s excesses in East Pakistan in 1971 until I offered to bear their costs for travel and accommodation next time there was a hockey or cricket match in Dhaka Stadium between India and Pakistan. They did not take up my offer because they knew very well which team the Bangladeshis would root for.

This was seen to good effect when (then) PM Mian Nawaz Sharif visited the Dhaka Stadium as Bangladesh PM Hasina Wajid’s guest during a Pakistan-India cricket match. The entire Dhaka Stadium was cheering the Pakistan team (opening pair Saeed Anwar and Amer Sohail were going berserk, those were the days). They rose up as one when the Pakistan PM walked into the Stadium.

It is true that Pakistan made blunders leading to 1971. However the mistakes were not one-sided; there are always two sides to a story. Pakistan was considered the villain of the piece in 1971, but to quote Larry Choudhury, a Bangladeshi settled in the USA:

“The fall of Dhaka at the hands of the Indian Army was followed with looting and stealing at gunpoint by the Indian army personnel in various parts of the country including posh Dhaka. I saw this with my own eyes on December 23-31, 1971 and January 01-09, 1972 at various parts of the country. Also I saw Indian army taking advantage at the Aricha Ghat from the fruitsellers, particularly those selling boroi or kool and narkeli-kool (fruit with golden-plum like taste and a single seed) getting them at subsidised price via 58% inflated Indian Trimurti brand currencies.

“These looters looted Dhaka's New Market, Stadium Market, and Baitul Mukarram Market areas almost at gunpoint within a week or two and made off with Chinese single/double barrel flasks, Canadian Winchester torches (flashlights), Chinese and European suitcases/brief-cases. Chinese nailcutters, Chinese and Korean ready-made clothes (shirts, pants, etc.), foreign leather belts, radios/transistors, regular torch or transistor batteries, and numerous other consumer items. Television was not quite an attractive piece for these looters because they had hardly any TV station to watch or make programs. The Indian looters were carrying them to their Atal jeeps and Shaktiman trucks.

“Loading these vehicles continued until the elegant Sheikh came from London on January 10, 1972. In presence of the Sheikh these vehicles carried armaments left by the Pakistani Army in various cantonments. But the Sheikh or his lieutenants did not see it. I have seen each of these events, when I was visiting various parts of my country during that time” (‘What India did to the nascent Bangladesh immediately after December 16, 1971?’, Mombu Internet Forum, Sept 01 2004).

Mohammad Zainal Abedin of Bangladesh writes in a separate article: “In 1971 though India claimed victory over Pakistan in Bangladesh, its forces could not capture even a district in West Pakistan, rather hundreds of thousands of Indian soldiers were captured by Pakistani troops and many Indian soldiers surrendered to Pakistan. So the so-called victory of Indian army in Bangladesh against Pakistan was possible due to the Bangladeshis in general and the freedom fighters in particular. If we were allowed to liberate our country ourselves, India would not get the chance to loot our country as they did after 16th December that included machineries and accessories of jute mills, textile mills, sugar mills, steel mills and their raw materials stored in the godowns, food, banks, markets, schools, colleges, universities, even residential houses and offices, even toilet materials worth almost Tk. 90,000 crores.

“…India misappropriated cash money and relief materials like food, baby food, clothes, blankets, medicines, etc., that were donated by several international agencies and groups for the Bangladeshi refugees sheltered in India in 1971. It is difficult to calculate how many billions of dollars India looted from Bangladesh through monopoly business since 1972. Through the independence war of Bangladesh India was immensely benefited economically, militarily, strategically, and internationally. So India involve in our war of liberation was for Indian interest, not for us” (‘India held in our liberation war for India's interests’,

http://newsfrombangladesh.net/)

Along with 32 other officers and 1000 other ranks, I became a prisoner of war (PW) in India in early April 1971. Undeclared by India, the first PW Camp for Pakistani prisoners of war was opened by the Indian Army’s Eastern Command on April 25, 1971 -- eight months before actual war broke out on Dec 3, 1971 -- in Panagarh in West Bengal, close to the Bihar border. Before that some of us who were shifted to Panagarh by Indian Air Force from Agartala were kept in an Indian jail in Agartala.

As the first Pakistani PW to ever escape from an Indian PW camp, I had to fight the war all over again in Dec 1971.

While it sounds good for world perception for India to claim that they never interfered in East Pakistan, India should consider itself lucky that despite 1971’s bitter experience, Pakistan wants to resolve all issues so that wars of the 1971 type are not repeated on the nuclear scale - a distinct possibility if we don’t take the road to peace.

While one should never forget the past or condone excesses by any side, the world does move on. After centuries of internecine warfare based on race, religion and/or pure hatred for no conceivable reason, consider what Europe has become today. We must have peace with India, not on Indian terms or Pakistani terms, but on terms that are good for India as well as for its neighbours.

That is the only way forward. That is the only future for our children that makes sense

This article is dedicated to US Marine Sgt Frank Adair (frankyboye@msn.com) the American who saved my life in Calcutta in 1971 after I escaped from the Indian PW Camp on July 16, 1971).

ARTICLE BY : Ikram Sehgal