In July 1971, 51 yrs ago, US then-NSA Kissinger secretly visited Communist China, then without diplomatic relations. Nine months later Indian PM Indira Gandhi signed a treaty of Friendship with brand-new Bangladesh PM Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. What connects these two events? .../2
2: The answer is the #BangladeshLiberationWar 1971. Arguably the war - & the horrific holocaust in East Pakistan, starting with the notorious Operation Searchlight - would not have happened but for the US-China outreach.
More in forthcoming tweets, & in my book #DecemberInDacca
3: Pakistan was, in July 1971, facilitating US-Communist China rapprochement. Nixon & Kissinger needed CMA Yahya Khan (pic 1), & did nothing to stop the Pak Army's crackdown (pic 2), which sent a record refugee wave into India (pic 3) ... /4
More forthcoming #DecemberInDacca
4: Pic 2 is intentionally blurred, as the original is quite horrific. For anyone who really wants to see it, it is at thedailystar.net/frontpage/news….
(For those awaiting aeroplane pics, yes, there will be some later in this thread.)
5: Continuing on the background to the #1971War which liberated Bangladesh, Kissinger's initial secret visit to Communist China was announced on 15 July, and covered admiringly in, among others, @TIME magazine's issue dated OTD in 1971, in celebratory & admiring tones ... /6
6: Hindsight always offers opportunities for egregious snark, but the cover line of that issue must be irresistible to satirists, fifty-one years later: "To Peking for Peace" ... /7
7: Meanwhile, back in India, as unheralded Indian officials and volunteers got on with the work of organising relief for the millions of East Pakistani refugees already in India, even the New York Times' Sydney Schanberg was beginning to notice the absence of peace:
8: Imho the best India-centric view of the diplomatic events leading up to the #1971War which liberated Bangladesh is Srinath Raghavan's academic-standard "1971: A Global HIstory of the Creation of Bangladesh", reviewed here:
hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?is…
More to come.
(Incidentally #KargilVijayDivas, being marked today, is a direct descendant of the failure to recognise the #1971War for what it was. Full respect to those who served, in both wars.)
9: Continuing on #1971War background to Bangladesh's Liberation, the US’s 1971 line-up behind Pakistan was driving other global alignments. Going back to 1966, the USSR had established itself as something of a broker between India & Pakistan, hosting the Tashkent Treaty ... /10
10: But USSR influence in India was domestically opposed. By 1968 the Jan Sangh, parent of current ruling BJP, was regularly protesting outside USSR Info Centre & Embassy, against USSR arms sales to Pakistan (admittedly smaller than to India) – yes, history is complex ... /11
11: As early as 1969 the USSR proposed a co-operation treaty to India. It was first suggested by Defence Minister Andrei Grechko, WW2 Marshal & former commander 1st Guards Army. Interestingly today, he was of Ukrainian descent – did I mention that history is complex? ... /12
12: New Delhi & Moscow had quite different objectives, in pursuing co-operation. The USSR-China Ussuri River military clash had occurred literally on the day Marshal Grechko arrived in Delhi. This was mind-concentrating, for both India & the USSR ... /13
13: India in 1971 was under no illusions about iron brotherhood or such nonsense – she faced the worst humanitarian crisis since WW2 (& earlier in some ways), hosting 10 million refugees, plus the strategic nightmare of a China-Pakistani-USA line-up against her ... /14
14: India saw the clear threats to her interests. She took a crucial, much-misunderstood step to help protect herself, the 51st anniversary of which falls next week. More about it next week.
(And yes, pictures of aeroplanes will figure. As set out in my book, #DecemberInDacca, Gnats & Hunters, MiG-21s & Su-7s, were among the instruments soon to be used, in resolving the humanitarian tragedy unfolding at that time in East Pakistan leading up to the #1971War
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.