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.
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
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:
(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
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1: Wg Cdr Karun Krishna "Jumbo" Majumdar, DFC & Bar:
One of the great role models of the early #IndianAirForce, he was in the third batch of Indian cadets trained at the RAF College Cranwell - which itself makes him part of a tiny, select elite ... /2
2: Back in India, he flew Westland Wapitis with the sole IAF unit, No 1 Sqn - seen 2nd from right in the first photo below. His leadership qualities were recognised early; with flight command as a Flying Officer ... /3
3: No 1 Sqn's time in the NWFP is often overlooked; but it should be better-studied; there are lessons which apply to many 21st-century conflicts. There is some evidence that Jumbo Majumdar, and other early IAF leaders, attempted innovative solutions to "air policing" ... /4
Short 🧵 & links for #ArmisticeDay , & the end of WW1. India today feels it had no stake in WW1, but in fact:
- There was an Indian signatory to the Armistice agreement at WW1's end; &
- Part of Germany's reparations payments were specifically earmarked for India ...
2: ... The Indian signatory was Maharaja Ganga Singh of Bikaner, seen in @SirWilliamOrpen's painting of the signing, in Indian Army uniform behind US President Wilson, Clemenceau of France, Lloyd George of Britain (& from behind, Johannes Bell signing for Germany) ... /3
3: ... ... The above detail from Orpen's (much larger) painting is included in @GMortonJack's fine book, "The Indian Empire at War", which I enjoyed, together with Dr David Omissi's - embarrassed I still haven't picked up @dStephenB's, tho' I have Malik's own ... /4
18: More damaging were fantastical Western reports describing “Soviet officers strutting the streets of New Delhi”, a phrase & notion that damaged India-US relations well into the 21st century. Some anti-Soviet ayatollahs may not yet be entirely past that notion today … /19
19: Two weeks before, @TIME had run a cover + 9-page article on East Pakistan, with 4 photo pages. This was journalism at its best: clear-eyed, & willing to hold government to account. The US knew what was happening; it was reported on by their own journals of record … /20
20: On the treaty, both @srinathraghava3 & Chandraskekhar Dasgupta have written on the differences between New Delhi’s & Moscow’s objectives from the treaty. India needed a P5 ally, for the forthcoming battles at the UN; the USSR saw a counter to the US-China alignment … 21
OTD in 1971 the end of the #BangladeshLiberationWar was in sight, but still uncertain. Always a difficult period in wartime; nobody wants to be the last man to die in the war. These couple of days would have imposed special demands on courage, and on junior command skills ...
2: The previous day, as recorded by @BrainsTrustIn & others, IAF aircraft had carried out a spectacularly successful pin-point strike on the very heart of the West Pakistani puppet government in Bangladesh:
... /3
3: Remaining Pakistan Army units moved from Dacca Cantonment into Dacca University buildings. On 15th morning the IAF went after them, flying low between tall buildings and firing rockets accurately into where the Pakistan Army was sheltering ... /4
#BangladeshLiberationWar: OTD in 1971 a spirited young Gnat pilot took off, against SOPs as his runway was being bombed, fiercely determined to get to grips with the enemy before the war ended. Fg Off Nirmaljit Singh Sekhon would receive the IAF's first & still only PVC ... /2
2: Fg Off Sekhon's story has been told by many, including (respectfully) by a Pakistani officer. One of the most painstaking is this rendition by VR pro Anurag Rana. Nearly a decade after he first rendered it, it remains imho one of the best:
... /3
3: The various retellings differ in some details - particularly in respect of how many of the enemy he shot down, or damaged, or as Douglas Bader once claimed in his logbook, "frightened". But his sheer determination earned a rare tribute - the enemy's respect ... /4
#BangladeshLiberationWar: OTD in 1971, in a painful sequel to the successes of the previous days, 47 Sqn, AF Stn Jamnagar, the IAF, & India lost Wg Cdr HS Gill, one of the most brilliant pilots to ever strap into a KM-1 seat. Lost leading a second attack on the Badin ADCC ... /2
2: In earlier years, he did breathtaking solo aero displays in a MiG-21 in a distinctive red scheme - at *half* the recommended speeds for aeros at low level. The aircraft was actually travelling on a ballistic trajectory; he was able to retain control & recover energy ... /3
3: Sadly, Wg Cdr Gill's death has not been appropriately closed. Altho' a reliable PAF officer has confirmed recovering a Wg Cdr's body in the area, his name figures in write-ups on Indian PsoW allegedly still held in Pakistan, and still worse ... /4