When a new nation was born !

K Datta

The most famous photograph in Indian military history! Lieutenant General A A K Niazi, the Pakistan army commander in East Pakistan, signs the Instrument of Surrender, before Lieutenant General Jagjit Singh Aurora, General Officer Commanding in Chief, Eastern Command, December 16, 1971. In a matter of 13 days after the outbreak of hostilities in the in the first fortnight of the December of 1971 Lt Gen JS Aurora, India's Eastern Army commander, flew over to Dhaka to get Lt. Gen AAK Niazi, commanding the armed forces of East Pakistan (as it was then known) to sign a piece of typed paper, called Instrument of Surrender, and with it a new nation called Bangladesh was born.
Not to forget the historic event 45 years ago, the Bangladesh government, in a gesture to honour the memory of the Indian soldiers – 1,668 of them, as reportedly compiled by a Bangladeshi army officer – who laid down their lives the Bangladesh government has decided to present Rs.5 lakh to every family of the dead.
Significantly, it has also decided to raise a suitable memorial in their memory in Brahmanbaria, in eastern Bangladesh.
The campaign, swift and decisive is a golden chapter in the history of Indian arms, restoring some much needed respect and pride after the loss of face the Army suffered in the conflict with China on the northeastern border less than a decade earlier. The removal from his

The two wings of Pakistan were separated by about a thousand miles of Indian territory, not to mention their differences of language of culture. Proud of their Bangla language, the East violently resisted the imposition of Urdu and its Arabic script, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, father of the Pakistan nation, having declared that Urdu and only Urdu was the official language of the country.

Mujibur Rehman shoulders of his epaulettes and his handling over of his pistol belt by Lt Gen Niazi, fighting off tears forming in his eyes, while his men were ordered to lay down their arms ("hathyar bar zamin") was a dramatic ceremony which marked the emergence of India as a regional super-power.
Before the hostilities blew up to take the shape of a war, East Pakistan went through a long phase of turmoil. Sheikh Mujibur Rehman's Awami League, despite sweeping 160 of the 162 seats in the Eastern wing of the Pakistan in the elections of 1969, was denied his due. In the West, Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party won 81 out of 138 assembly seats. But no way the West would give up its dominant role in the governance of the country.
The two wings of Pakistan were separated by about a thousand miles of Indian territory, not to mention their differences of language of culture. Proud of their Bangla language, the East violently resisted the imposition of Urdu and its Arabic script, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, father of the Pakistan nation, having declared that Urdu and only Urdu was the official language of the country.
To quell the rising Bengali nationalism and non-cooperation movement and seeing the rise of the Mukti Bahini, the military rulers of the eastern wing kept augmenting its strength with reinforcements of men and material from the Western Pakistan.
Before the hostilities turned into a full blown war, the Pakistan's eastern wing went through long months of turbulence after the Awami League, which had swept all but two of the 162 assembly seats, in the country's 1969 elections was denied its due place in country's governance. With the Punjabi-dominated western wing, accustomed to playing a overbearing role, refusing to give up control the bitterness came to a point when Mujib announced a provisional government of Bangladesh and decided in April 1971 to move to Kolkata. In March the military junta in the east had launched its tyrannical operation of oppression, forcing waves of migrants into the states of West Bengal, Assam and Tripura. An estimated ten million took refuge in these states.

Indira Gandhi With the support of Mukti Bahini and its Mukti Jodhhas, Bengali nationalism grew more assertive and took the shape of a non-cooperative movement. This resistance the military rulers from the western wing sought to crush with ruthless measures of what was described as "Operation Searchlight." Worried by the influx of millions of people into India and adding to its problems. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi kept drawing the attention of the international community to this human aspect of the turmoil which was causing an unbearable burden.
Invited to attend at meeting of her cabinet in March, Gen. SHFJ Manekshaw, India's Army Chief, was asked if his Army was in a position to immediately undertake a military solution, to which he replied in the negative and went on to give a detailed explanation.
Hastily launching an invasion of a country of rivers and streams crisscrossing its terrain without adequate preparation would, he feared, end in a disaster like the one suffered in the Indo-China conflict less than a decade earlier when the Army was ordered to "throw out" the intruding Chinese by then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. In a few weeks the monsoon would drench east Bengal, hindering movement.

Gen. SHFJ Manekshaw The outspoken Army Chief could guarantee success only if he was given time to prepare and choose strategically the right moment to strike.
As it turned out, it was a war in which the Indian Army engineers played a important role by building bridges to enable fighting formations and their equipment and other supplies to cross over.
It took several months of preparation during which men, armour and equipment was mobilized before Indian forces went into action. Once they did, the stress was on speedy movement. One town after another was captured. There was always the possibility of a UN Security Council calling for a ceasefire, what with China and the Unites States tilting towards Pakistan. It must be said for Indira Gandhi that she determinedly stood up to international pressure till India's Army finally took over control of Dacca and forced Lt Gen. Niazi to surrender on December 16, 1971.
The end was swift, sure and satisfying. For Manekshaw it was specially rewarding, the government conferring on him the rank of Field Marshal, the first Indian to be raised to that rank. There is a thin line between becoming a Field Marshal and being dismissed, he once is reported to have told an interviewer after the task of winning was accomplished.
The Army that he led, it was quickly made clear, was not an army of occupation. It went back to its peacetime stations once the job was over, the 93,000 Pakistani soldiers taken prisoner were placed in POW camps in India and Mujib's new government of Bangladesh was installed in Dacca.