The Bangladeshi Parliament’s decision to observe March 25 as Genocide Day has seemingly intriguing Indian agenda to mar the celebrations of 23rd March Pakistan Day observed across Pakistan and world capitals. . The reality is no genocide of the proportion of 3 million Bengalis occurred.

The genesis of creation of Bangladesh can be traced to the vicious desire of India to dismember Pakistan right from the day Pakistan came into being on August 14, 1947. Gandhi in his address of July 1947 to Congress Party of Bengal said, “Congress was opposed to Pakistan and that he was one of those who have steadfastly opposed the division of India”. Similarly, Nehru, on the eve of partition remarked, “India accepted the partition with the conviction that the new state was not viable and would collapse in a short time”.

India had fertile ground for its machinations in dismembering Pakistan, because of the mishandling of the national language issue by the central government of Pakistan and hegemonic attitude of West Pakistan politicians which had sown the seeds of marginalisation and alienation in the Bengali population of East Pakistan. The question of official language was settled as late as in 1956, after having created huge discontent in East Pakistan. Furthermore, there was a great sense of deprivation and exploitation in East Pakistan and general feelings of East Pakistanis were so developed by Indian propagandists that they were being systematically colonised by West Pakistani imperialism and complained about unequal growth and development between both the wings.

India cleverly created and later capitalised on the above mentioned discontentment of East Pakistanis and chose Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, the Awami League Leader, as their useful tool to accomplish their desire to dismember Pakistan. India established their successful contact with Mujib in 1962. Mujib continued meetings with the Indian Intelligence Bureau and other intelligence officials frequently and had numerous meetings with Indira Gandhi.

One such meeting was held at Agartala where, in fact, the germ of dismemberment of Pakistan was conceived in an organised manner. It was in July 1967 that ISI came to know about the conspiracy to dismember Pakistan hatched at Agartala between RAW and 35 Awami League members including Mujib. The plan was delayed because of China-India War of 1962 and later Pakistan-India War of 1965. The Agartala Conspiracy case was eventually filed in 1967 but it was however, withdrawn in 1969 due to immense countrywide political pressure generated by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

Agartala Conspiracy sky-rocketed Mujib and Awami League’s popularity and AL entered the general elections of December 1970 on the basis of hatred against West Pakistan. There was massive rigging in East Pakistan and AL miscreants ensured that no voter would be allowed to vote for their opponents. The ballot boxes were stuffed in advance and thus it succeeded in winning 160 out of 162 seats.

India, in the meantime took practical steps to isolate East Pakistan from West Pakistan. First, India staged the drama of hijacking of its plane in January 1971 by suspending all air routes communication between East Pakistan and West Pakistan over its air space.

On account of the repeated postponement of the National Assembly Session, Mujib ordered a non-cooperation movement on March 1, 1971 and ordered AL’s miscreants to burn the national flag and create chaos and rioting all over the province and on March 25, 1971, he declared independence of Bangladesh.

On March 25, 1971 Pakistan took military action, Operation Search Light, to stop ongoing riots and chaos created by the AL militants. India created refugee camps along the border of East Pakistan, in order to attract international support. According to noted Indian journalist Kuldip Nayar’s version in his book “Distant Neighbours”, “eighty five percent of those Bengalis who left East Pakistan were Hindus who would have gone away to West Bengal after partition in 1947 in any case”.

The Indian intervention, in reality, was not political, but was a vicious, planned attack on Pakistan’s sovereignty. Even Indira Gandhi openly confessed in a television interview to French television on November 8, 1971, that “Independence of Bangladesh, FreeBangladesh was inevitable…India would not permit the return of refugees until Sheikh Mujib was released.” Thus, the refugees’ conundrum was a more Indian construct not only to win international support but also to organise and train the Mukti Bahini to effectively carry out terrorist activities and later on support Indian Army in the war in East Pakistan.

In pursuance of its goal to isolate Pakistan diplomatically, India approached almost all major powers, pursuing them to support its policies and on August 7, 1971 signed with the USSR treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation. The treaty entailed USSR’s support to India in the event of war with a third party.

In pursuance of the orders of Indira Gandhi, it was decided to set up a provincial exile government of East Pakistan/Bangladesh in Calcutta. It was April 14, 1971 that the exile Bangladeshi government was formed in a house at ‘8 Theatre Road Calcutta’ with its name as ‘Mujib Nagar’ giving an impression that it was a separate territory. To propagate the stance of the provincial government of Bangladesh, a separate Bangladesh radio ‘Free Bengal Betal Kendra’ was also established under the supervision of RAW.

Thus, India had effectively equipped itself before entering into war with Pakistan; and finally, on the night of 20 and 21 November, 1971 India attacked East Pakistan. Indian forces comprising 3 Corps and 9 divisions from the west and another 2 Corps of 6 divisions from the east moved into East Pakistan from all directions.

From the above narrative, it can fairly be concluded that India followed a multipronged strategy to dismember Pakistan by utilising political, economic, social and geographical gap between the two wings and by preparing Mukhti Bahini militarily and by military intervention in East Pakistan.

Senior Bangladeshi politicians and military officials have already accepted on various occasions that their independence was achieved with help from India. Maj Gen (Retd.) Z A Khan, former DGFI of Bangladesh in March 2005 stated “There is no doubt that RAW played a vital role during our liberation war, but their motive was to divide Pakistan at any cost to weaken their arch rival Pakistan. Their hidden objective is to establish undivided India, which they call ‘Akhand Bharat Mata” and Shawkat Ali, Deputy Speaker of Bangladesh parliament said on December 17, 2011, “I would give 100 percent credit to India for the liberation ofBangladesh”.

Our conclusion is strengthened by Indian Prime Minister Modi’s blurbs that “We fought for Bangladesh’s ‘swabhimaan’ (honour)…alongside Mukhti Jodha (Mukhti Bahini)…for Bangladesh…Indians were fighting side-by-side with them and in a way helped realise the dream of Bangladesh’; and that, “Indian soldiers fought alongside Bengali guerrillas and regular armed resistance forces during the nine month war.” The dismemberment of Pakistan was achieved by India with the help of former Soviet Union, Israel and other anti Pakistan forces.