Most Twitter trends are silly, often even outrageous and obnoxious. But one trend today, #VijayDiwas, could perhaps lead to a kind of consensus even amongst the forever warring Twitter groups. Forty five years ago today, the beleaguered, bruised and battered Pakistan Army surrendered to the Indian Army at Dhaka and Bangladesh came into being as a nation state. Including Kargil in 1999, the 1971 "Bangladesh Liberation War" happens to be the only decisive and comprehensive military victory of the Indian armed forces after it became an independent country in 1947. To a large extent, it helped soothe the deeply wounded Indian psyche in the aftermath of the military humiliation doled out by China in 1962. Much will be written about the event and many patriotic and nationalistic musings would be on offer. But look at it objectively and you will find that the "glorious" Bangladesh victory was not without consequences. Here is a check list of five consequences of the 1971 military victory:
1: Imperious Indira Gandhi: Nobody had ever accused Indira Gandhi of modesty or humility. Her stature as a leader was already towering in 1971 when she had brilliantly used the "Garibi Hatao" slogan to vanquish all her opponents in the Lok Sabha elections. Coming soon after the electoral victory, the military victory over Pakistan seemed to infuse her with a sense of "manifest destiny". It was not enough for her acolytes to argue that Indira was invincible. In their eyes, she also became irreplaceable, a sort of modern day democratic version of being an Empress. It would not be churlish to argue that the seeds for the imposition of Emergency in 1975 were sown in those heady days.
2: A Thousand Bleeding Cuts: If you are even moderately active on social media, you could not possibly have missed the front page of Karachi based newspaper Dawn from that era. The edition came out after the Dhaka surrender. The banner headline says: War Till Victory. There is a prominent ad on the same page asking Pakistanis to donate generously for the "cause". The headline of the ad says: Jehad means total commitment. No strategic analyst has any doubt whatsoever that Pakistan conceptualized and relentlessly pursued the policy of a "thousand bleeding cuts" to be inflicted on India as a result of the military humiliation in 1971. To a large extent, Pakistan has been successful in its strategy. If you honestly want to look at the "root cause" of successive terror attacks in India, don't look at the Babri Masjid. The roots lie in 1971.
3: The "Bear Hug": If you get a chance, do read the excellent book The Blood Telegram that provides a fascinating insight into the Bangladesh war. It has details of the perfidious manner in which the United States ignored the genocide being perpetrated by the Pakistan Army in the then East Pakistan. First, the American President Richard Nixon and his advisor Henry Kissinger disliked India and disliked Indira Gandhi even more. Second, Pakistan was the conduit for secret negotiations with China. In the run up to the war, India was left literally friendless and defenseless despite nice words of commiseration from western powers. It was against this backdrop that India accepted the "bear hug": a strategic alliance with the Soviet Union. The Indian military is still heavily dependent on supplies from the erstwhile Communist Empire. Of course, the carefully nurtured façade of non-alignment (a Nehruvian ideal) went out of the window as a result of that strategic alliance.
4: The Lurch To Left: As discussed above the 1971 war forced Indira Gandhi to embrace the Soviet Union and also gave her a sense of manifest destiny. When she had split the Congress party in 1969, she had nationalized banks and abolished the pricy purse of princely states to project a pro poor and socialist image. After 1971, her economic policies lurched even more to the Left, with disastrous consequences for India. Her "socialist" policies ensured that politicians and bureaucrats had a stranglehold over every business activity in the country. It did not reduce poverty, but did foster a culture of corruption that is deeply embedded in the "System". At one time in 1973, Indira even toyed with Soviet and Chinese models of "nationalizing" the food grains trade. Mercifully for India, that experiment was short lived. You can still see the pernicious impact of this pro poor posturing in the confused statements and speeches given by her grandson Rahul Gandhi
5: Economic Calamity: Wars usually leave the economies of warring nations in a terrible shape. The Second World War so badly ruined the British economy that it had to abandon Imperialism. The Bangladesh war too left deep economic wounds for India, along with the burden of managing millions of refugees. The Indian economy could have possibly managed with some luck. But luck was not on her side. First came failed monsoons that led to a crippling shortage of food grains and consequent inflation. Then came the "oil shock" of 1973 when the oil import bill of India shot up by almost four times. It took India a long, long time to recover economically.
