began with preemptive aerial strikes on 11

Indian air stations, which led to the

commencement of hostilities with
Pakistan and Indian entry into the war of
independence in East Pakistan on the side
of Bengali nationalist forces. Lasting just
13 days, it is one of the shortest wars in
history.[28][29]
 Indo-Pakistani War of 1971
Part of the Indo-Pakistani wars and conflicts
and Bangladesh Liberation War

First Row: Lt-Gen. A.A.K. Niazi, the Cdr. of Pakistani

Eastern Comnd., signing the documented instrument
in Dacca in the presence of Lt. Gen. Jagjit Singh
Aurora (GOC-in-C of Indian Eastern Comnd.). Surojit
Sen of All India Radio is seen holding a microphone on
the right.
 Second Row (left to right): Vice Adm. N. Krishnan
(FOC-in-C Eastern Naval Comnd.), Air Mshl. H.C.
Dewan, (AOC-in-C Eastern Air Comnd., Lt Gen. Sagat
Singh (Cdr. IV Corps), Maj Gen. JFR Jacob (COS
Eastern Comnd.) and Flt Lt Krishnamurthy (peering
over Jacob‘s shoulder).

Date 3–16 December 1971 (13 days)

Location Eastern Front:

India–East Pakistan border
Bay of Bengal
Pasha enclaves

Western Front:

India–Pakistan border
 Line of Control
Zero Point
Indian Ocean
Arabian Sea

Result Decisive Indian victory[1][2][3]

Eastern front:
Surrender of East Pakistan
military command
Western front:
Unilateral ceasefire[4]

Territorial Eastern Front:

changes
 Independence of East
Pakistan as Bangladesh

Western Front:

Indian forces captured

around 5,795 square miles
(15,010 km2) land in the West
but returned it in the 1972
Simla Agreement as a
Belligerents
gesture of goodwill.[5][6][7]
 India  Pakistan

Provisional East Pakistan

Government of
Bangladesh

Commanders and leaders

V. V. Giri Yahya Khan
(President of India) (President of Pakistan)
Indira Gandhi Nurul Amin
(Prime Minister of India) (Prime Minister of
Swaran Singh Pakistan)
(External Minister of Gen. A.H. Khan
India) (Chief of Staff, Army
Jagjivan Ram GHQ)
(Defence Minister of India) Lt.Gen A.A.K. Niazi 
Gen Sam (Commander, Eastern
Manekshaw Command)
(Chief of Army Staff) Lt.Gen Gul Hassan
 Lt.Gen J.S. Arora Khan
(GOC-in-C, Eastern (Chief of General Staff)
Command) Lt.Gen Abdul Ali
Lt.Gen G.G. Bewoor Malik
(GOC-in-C, Southern (Commander, I Corps)
Command) Lt.Gen Tikka Khan
Lt.Gen K. P. Candeth (Commander, II Corps)
(GOC-in-C, Western Lt.Gen Sher Khan
Command) (Commander, IV Corps)
Lt.Gen Premindra MGen Iftikhar
Bhagat Janjua †
(GOC-in-C, Central (GOC, 23rd Infantry
Command) Division)
Lt.Gen Sagat Singh MGen Khadim
(GOC-in-C, IV Corps) Hussain
Lt.Gen T. N. Raina (GOC, 14th Infantry
(GOC-in-C, II Corps) Division)
Lt.Gen Sartaj Singh VAdm Muzaffar
(GOC-in-C, XV Corps) Hassan
Lt.Gen Karan Singh (Cdr-in-Chief, Navy)
(GOC-in-C, I Corps) RAdm Rashid
MajGen Farj R. Ahmed
Jacob (COS, Navy NHQ)
(COS, Eastern Command) RAdm Moh'd Shariff
MajGen Om  
Malhotra (Cdr, Eastern Naval
(COS, IV Corps) Command)
MajGen Inderjit RAdm M.A.K. Lodhi
Singh Gill (Cdr, Western Naval
(Dir, Military Operations) Command)
Adm S. M. Nanda RAdm Leslie
(Chief of Naval Staff) Norman
VAdm S. N. Kohli (Commander, Pakistan
(Cdr. Western Naval Marines)
Command) AM Abdul Rahim
VAdm N. Krishnan Khan
(Cdr. Eastern Naval (Cdr-in-Chief, Air Force)
Command) AVM P.D. Callaghan
RAdm S H Sarma (Chief Ins, Pakistan Air
(Cdr. Eastern Fleet) Force)
ACM Pratap C. Lal Air Cdre Inamul Haq 
(Chief of Air Staff)
 Rameshwar Kao (Cdr Eastern Air
(Director of RAW) Command)
Tajuddin Ahmad Gp.Capt. Z.A. Khan 
(PM Provisional
Government) (COS, Air AHQ Dhaka)
Col. M.A.G. Osmani Abdul Motaleb Malik  
(Commander, Mukti
Bahini) (Governor of East
Pakistan)

Strength
Indian Armed Forces: Pakistan Armed
500,000 Forces: 365,000
Mukti Bahini: 175,000
Casualties and losses
Total: 675,000

 India  Pakistan
2,500[8]–3,843 9,000 killed[22]
killed[9][10] 25,000 wounded[11]
9,851[9]–12,000[11] 93,000 captured
injured 2 Destroyers[23]
1 Minesweeper[23]
1 Naval
1 Submarine[24]
aircraft[12][13]
3 Patrol vessels
1 Frigate 7 Gunboats
Okha harbour
Pakistani main port
damaged/fuel tanks
Karachi facilities
destroyed[14][15][16]
 Damage to several damaged/fuel tanks
western Indian destroyed[23][25]
airfields[17][18] Pakistani airfields
Pakistani claims damaged and
cratered[26]
130 IAF
Pakistani claims
Aircraft[19][20]

Indian claims 42 PAF Aircraft[27]

Indian claims
45 IAF Aircraft[21]

Neutral claims 94 PAF Aircraft[21]

Neutral claims
45 IAF Aircraft[8]
75 PAF Aircraft[8]
During the war, Indian and Pakistani
militaries simultaneously clashed on the
eastern and western fronts; the war ended
after the Eastern Command of the
Pakistan military signed the Instrument of
Surrender[30][31] on 16 December 1971 in
Dhaka, marking the formation of East
Pakistan as the new nation of Bangladesh.
Officially, East Pakistan had earlier called
for its secession from the unity of
Pakistan on 26 March 1971. Approximately
90,000[32] to 93,000 Pakistani servicemen
were taken prisoner by the Indian Army,
which included 79,676 to 81,000 uniformed
personnel of the Pakistan Armed Forces,
including some Bengali soldiers who had
remained loyal to Pakistan.[32][33][34] The
remaining 10,324 to 12,500 prisoners were
civilians, either family members of the
military personnel or collaborators
(razakars).[32][35][36][37] It is estimated that
between 300,000 and 3,000,000 civilians
were killed in Bangladesh.[38][39][40][41][42]
As a result of the conflict, a further eight to
ten million people fled the country to seek
refuge in India.[43]

During the 1971 Bangladesh war for

independence, members of the Pakistani
military and supporting Islamist militias
called the Razakars raped between
200,000 and 400,000 Bangladeshi women
and girls in a systematic campaign of
genocidal rape.[44][45][46]

Background
The Indo-Pakistani conflict was sparked by
the Bangladesh Liberation War, a conflict
between the traditionally dominant West
Pakistanis and the majority East
Pakistanis.[23] The political tensions
between East Bengal and West Pakistan
had its origin in the creation of Pakistan as
a result of the partition of India by the
United Kingdom in 1947; the popular
language movement in 1950; mass riots in
East Bengal in 1964; and the mass
protests in 1969. These led to the
resignation of President Ayub Khan, who
invited army chief General Yahya Khan to
take over the central government.[47]:xxx
The geographical distance between the
eastern and western wings of Pakistan
was vast; East Pakistan lay over 1,000
miles (1,600 km) away, which greatly
hampered any attempt to integrate the
Bengali and the Pakistani cultures.[48]:13–14

To overcome the Bengali domination and

prevent formation of the central
government in Islamabad, the
controversial One Unit programme
established the two wings of East and
West Pakistan. West Pakistanis'
opposition to these efforts made it difficult
to effectively govern both wings.[47]:xxx In
1969, President Yahya Khan announced
the first general elections and
disestablished the status of West Pakistan
as a single province in 1970, in order to
restore it to its original heterogeneous
status comprising four provinces, as
defined at the time of establishment of
Pakistan in 1947.[49] In addition, there were
religious and racial tensions between
Bengalis and the multi-ethnic West
Pakistanis, as Bengalis looked different
from the dominant West Pakistanis.[50]

The general elections, held in 1970,

resulted in East Pakistan's Awami League
gaining 167 out of 169 seats for the East
Pakistan Legislative Assembly, and a near-
absolute majority in the 313-seat National
Assembly, while the vote in West Pakistan
was mostly won by the socialist Pakistan
Peoples Party.[51]:686–687 The Awami
League leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
stressed his political position by
presenting his Six Points and endorsing the
Bengalis' right to govern.[47]:xxx The
League's election success caused many
West Pakistanis to fear that it would allow
the Bengalis to draft the constitution
based on the six-points and
liberalism.[52]:xlv

To resolve the crisis, the Admiral Ahsan

Mission was formed to provide
recommendations. Its findings were met
with favourable reviews from the political
leaders of West Pakistan, with the
exception of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the
chairman of the Pakistan Peoples
Party.[53]:109–110

Map shows Pakistan and East Pakistan. Distance

between the two was 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of Indian
territory.
However, the military top brass vetoed the
mission's proposal.[53]:110 Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto endorsed the veto,[53]:110 and
subsequently refused to yield the
premiership of Pakistan to Sheikh Mujibur
Rahman. The Awami League called for
general strikes in the country. President
Yahya Khan postponed the inauguration of
the National Assembly, causing a
shattering disillusionment to the Awami
League and their supporters throughout
East Pakistan.[54] In reaction, Sheikh
Mujibur Rahman called for general strikes
that eventually shutdown the government,
and dissidents in the East began targeting
the ethnic Bihari community, which had
supported West Pakistan.[55]

In early March 1971, approximately 300

Biharis were slaughtered in riots by Bengali
mobs in Chittagong alone.[56] The
Government of Pakistan used the "Bihari
massacre" to justify its deployment of the
military in East Pakistan on 25 March,
when it initiated its military crackdown.[57]
President Yahya Khan called on the
military - which was overwhelmingly led by
West Pakistanis - to suppress dissent in
the East, after accepting the resignation of
Lieutenant-General Yaqub Ali Khan, the
chief of staff of the East-Pakistani
military.[58][59]

Mass arrests of dissidents began and,

after several days of strikes and non-
cooperation, the Pakistani military, led by
Lieutenant-General Tikka Khan, cracked
down on Dhaka on the night of 25 March
1971. The government outlawed the
Awami League, which forced many of its
members and sympathisers into refuge in
Eastern India. Mujib was arrested on the
night of 25/26 March 1971 at about
1:30 am (as per Radio Pakistan's news on
29 March 1971) and taken to West
Pakistan. Operation Searchlight, followed
by Operation Barisal, attempted to kill the
intellectual elite of the east.[60]

On 26 March 1971, Major Ziaur Rahman of

Pakistan Army declared the independence
of Bangladesh on behalf of Sheikh Mujibur
Rahman.[61][62][63]

In April, the exiled Awami League leaders

formed a government-in-exile in
Baidyanathtala of Meherpur. The East
Pakistan Rifles and Bengali officers in
Pakistan's army, navy, and marines,
defected to the rebellion after taking
refuge in different parts of India. The
Bangladesh Force, namely the Mukti
Bahini, consisting of Niyomito Bahini
(Regular Force) and Oniyomito Bahini
(Guerilla Force), was formed under the
retired colonel Mohammad Ataul Gani
Osmani.[64]

India's involvement in
Bangladesh Liberation War
After the resignations of Admiral S.M.
Ahsan and Lieutenant-General Yaqub Ali
Khan, the media correspondents began
airing reports of the Pakistani military's
widespread genocide against their Bengali
citizens,[65] particularly aimed at the
minority Bengali Hindu population,[66][67][28]
which led to approximately 10 million
people seeking refuge in the neighbouring
states of Eastern India.[66][65][68] The Indian
government opened the East Pakistan–
India border to allow the Bengali refugees
to find safe shelter; the governments of
West Bengal, Bihar, Assam, Meghalaya and
Tripura established refugee camps along
the border.[69]:23–24 The resulting flood of
impoverished East Pakistani refugees
strained India's already overburdened
economy.[67]
The Indian government repeatedly
appealed to the international community
for assistance, but failed to elicit any
response, despite the External Affairs
minister Swaran Singh meeting foreign
ministers of other countries.[70] Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi on 27 March 1971
expressed full support of her government
for the independence struggle of the
people of East Pakistan, and concluded
that instead of taking in millions of
refugees, it was economical to go to war
against Pakistan.[68] On 28 April 1971, the
Gandhi cabinet had ordered the Chief of
the Army Staff General Sam Manekshaw
to "Go into East Pakistan".[71][72][73]
Defected East Pakistan military officers
and the elements of Indian Research and
Analysis Wing (RAW) immediately started
using the Indian refugee camps for
recruitment and training of Mukti Bahini
guerrillas that were to be trained against
Pakistan.[74] In 1971, a strong wave of
Indian-supported Bangladeshi nationalism
emerged in the East. Violence and the
systematic targeted killings of unarmed
multi-ethic Pakistanis living in the East
started.[75]:164 Vehicle bombings on
government secretariats became a normal
narrative in news reports, and high-profile
assassinations of Bengali politicians loyal
to Pakistan became common in the
East.[75]:164 According to Jussi Hanhimäki,
Finnish historian of terrorism, the Bengali
terrorism in the East is a somewhat
"forgotten episode of annals of
terrorism."[75]:164 The Hamoodur Rahman
Commission endorsed the claims of
Bengali terrorism when it critically penned
that the ill-treatment of families of multi-
ethnic Pakistanis led to the Pakistani
military soldiers reacting violently to
restore the writ of the government.[76]

The news media's mood in Pakistan had

also turned increasingly jingoistic and
militaristic against East Pakistan and India
when the Pakistani news media reported
the complexity of the situation in the East,
though the reactions from Pakistan's news
media pundits were mixed.[77][78] By the
end of September 1971, a propaganda
campaign, possibly orchestrated by
elements within the Government of
Pakistan, resulted in stickers endorsing
"Crush India" becoming a standard feature
on the rear windows of vehicles in
Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Lahore; this
soon spread to the rest of West
Pakistan.[79] By October, other stickers
proclaimed Hang the Traitor in an apparent
reference to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.[80] By
the first week of December, the
conservative print media outlets in the
country had published jihad related
materials to boost the recruitment in the
military.[79]

India's official engagement

with Pakistan

Objective
Illustration showing military units and troop
movements during operations in the Eastern sector of
the war.

By the end of April 1971, Prime Minister

Indira Gandhi had asked the Indian Army
chief General Sam Manekshaw if he was
ready to go to war with Pakistan.[81][82]
According to Manekshaw's own personal
account, he refused, citing the onset of
monsoon season in East Pakistan and
also the fact that the army tanks were
being refitted.[82] He offered his
resignation, which Gandhi declined.[82] He
then said he could guarantee victory if she
would allow him to prepare for the conflict
on his terms, and set a date for it; Gandhi
accepted his conditions.[82][83] In reality,
Gandhi was well aware of the difficulties
of a hasty military action, but she needed
to get the military's views to satisfy her
hawkish colleagues and the public opinion,
which were critical of India's restraint.[73]

By November 1971, an Indian-Pakistani

war seemed inevitable. The Soviet Union
reportedly warned Pakistan against the
war, which they termed as "suicidal course
for Pakistan's unity."[84]:part-3 Despite this
warning, in November 1971, thousands of
people led by conservative Pakistani
politicians marched in Lahore and across
Pakistan, calling for Pakistan to "crush
India".[85][86] India responded by starting a
massive buildup of the Indian Army on the
western borders; the army waited until
December, when the drier ground in the
East would have made for easier
operations and the Himalayan passes
would have been closed by snow,
preventing any Chinese
intervention.[87]:174–175 On 23 November,
President Yahya Khan declared a state of
emergency in all of Pakistan and told his
people to prepare for war.[88]
On the evening of 3 December, at about
5:40 pm, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF)
launched surprise pre-emptive strikes on
eleven airfields in north-western India,
including Agra, which was 300 miles
(480 km) from the border.[89]:82–83 At the
time of this attack, the Taj Mahal had been
camouflaged with a forest of twigs and
leaves and draped with burlap, because its
marble glowed like a white beacon in the
moonlight.[90]
These preemptive strikes, known as
Operation Chengiz Khan, were inspired by
the success of Israeli Operation Focus in
the Arab–Israeli Six-Day War. Unlike the
Israeli attack on Arab airbases in 1967,
which involved a large number of Israeli
planes, Pakistan flew no more than 50
planes to India.[89]:82[91]

In an address to the nation on radio that

same evening, Prime Minister Gandhi held
that the air strikes were a declaration of
war against India[92][93] and the Indian Air
Force (IAF) responded with initial air
strikes that very night.[4] These expanded
to massive retaliatory air strikes the next
morning.[4]

This air action marked the official start of

the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971; Prime
Minister Gandhi ordered the immediate
mobilisation of troops and launched a full-
scale invasion of Pakistan.[94]:333 This
involved Indian forces in massive
coordinated air, sea and land assaults on
Pakistan from all fronts.[94]:333 The main
Indian objective on the Eastern front was
to capture Dacca, and on the Western front
was to prevent Pakistan from entering
Indian soil. There was no Indian intention
of conducting any major offensive into
Pakistan to dismember it into different
states.

Naval hostilities
Pakistan's PNS Ghazi sank off the fairway buoy of
Visakhapatnam near the eastern coast of India,

making it the first submarine casualty in the waters

around the Indian subcontinent.

Unlike the 1965 war, the Navy NHQ

staffers and commanders of the Pakistan
Navy knew very well that the Navy was ill-
prepared for the naval conflict with
India.[95]:65 The Pakistan Navy was in no
condition of fighting an offensive war in
deep sea against the Indian Navy, and
neither was it in a condition to mount
serious defence against Indian Navy's
seaborne encroachment.[96]:75–76

In the western theatre of the war, the Indian

Navy's Western Naval Command under
Vice admiral S.N. Kohli, successfully
launched a surprise attack on Karachi port
on the night of 4/5 December 1971 under
the codename Trident.[23] The naval attack
involving the Soviet-built Osa missile boats
sank the Pakistan Navy's destroyer
PNS Khaibar and minesweeper
PNS Muhafiz while PNS Shah Jahan was
also badly damaged.[23] Pakistani naval
sources reported that about 720 Pakistani
sailors were killed or wounded, and
Pakistan lost reserve fuel and many
commercial ships, thus crippling the
Pakistan Navy's further involvement in the
conflict.[96]:85–87 In retaliation, the Pakistan
Navy submarines, Hangor, Mangro, and
Shushuk, began their operations to seek
out the major Indian warships.[96]:86–95[97]
On 9 December 1971, Hangor sank
INS Khukri, inflicting 194 Indian casualties,
and this attack was the first submarine kill
since World War II.[98]:229[99]

The sinking of INS Khukri was followed by

another Indian attack on Karachi port on
the night of 8/9 December 1971 under the
codename Python.[23] A squadron of Indian
Navy's Osa missile boats approached the
Karachi port and launched a series of
Soviet-acquired Styx missiles, that resulted
in further destruction of reserve fuel tanks
and the sinking of three Pakistani
merchant ships, as well as foreign ships
docked in Karachi.[100] The Pakistan Air
Force did not attack the Indian Navy ships,
and confusion remained the next day when
the civilian pilots of Pakistan International,
acting as reconnaissance war pilots,
misidentified PNS Zulfiqar and the air force
attacked its own warship, inflicting major
damages and killing several officers on
board.[101]
In the eastern theatre of the war, the Indian
Eastern Naval Command, under Vice
Admiral Nilakanta Krishnan, completely
isolated East Pakistan by a naval blockade
in the Bay of Bengal, trapping the Eastern
Pakistan Navy and eight foreign merchant
ships in their ports.[96]:82–83 From 4
December onwards, the aircraft carrier
INS Vikrant was deployed, and its Sea
Hawk fighter-bombers attacked many
coastal towns in East Pakistan, including
Chittagong and Cox's Bazar.[102] Pakistan
countered the threat by sending the
submarine PNS Ghazi, which sank en route
under mysterious circumstances off
Visakhapatnam's coast.[103][104]

Due to high number of defections, the Navy

relied on deploying the Pakistan Marines -
led by Rear Admiral Leslie Mungavin -
where they had to conduct riverine
operations against the Indian Army, but
they too suffered major losses, mainly due
to their lack of understanding of
expeditionary warfare and the wet terrain
of East Pakistan.[105]
Indian aircraft carrier INS Vikrant launches an Alize
aircraft

The damage inflicted on the Pakistan Navy

stood at 7 gunboats, 1 minesweeper, 1
submarine, 2 destroyers, 3 patrol crafts
belonging to the coast guard, 18 cargo,
supply and communication vessels; and
large-scale damage inflicted on the naval
base and docks in the coastal town of
Karachi. Three merchant navy ships –
Anwar Baksh, Pasni and Madhumathi –[106]
and ten smaller vessels were captured.[107]
Around 1900 personnel were lost, while
1413 servicemen were captured by Indian
forces in Dacca.[108] According to one
Pakistani scholar, Tariq Ali, Pakistan lost
half its navy in the war.[109]

Air operations
Indian Air Force Mig-21s during the war.

After the sneak attack, the PAF adopted a

defensive stance in response to the Indian
retaliation. As the war progressed, the IAF
continued to battle the PAF over conflict
zones, but the number of sorties flown by
the PAF decreased day–by–day.[110][111]
The IAF flew 4,000 sorties while the PAF
offered little in retaliation, partly because
of the paucity of non-Bengali technical
personnel.[23]

This lack of retaliation has also been

attributed to the deliberate decision of the
PAF's Air AHQ to cut its losses, as it had
already incurred huge losses in the conflict
in the liberation war in the East.[112] The
PAF avoided making contacts with the
Indian Navy after the latter raided the port
of Karachi twice, but the PAF did retaliate
by bombing Okha harbour, destroying the
fuel tanks used by the boats that had
attacked.[19][113]

In the East, No. 14 Squadron Tail Choppers

under Squadron Leader PQ Mehdi, who
was taken as POW, was destroyed, putting
the Dhaka air defence out of commission
and resulting in Indian air superiority in the
East.[23]

At the end of the war, PAF pilots made

successful escapes from East Pakistan to
neighbouring Burma; many PAF personnel
had already left the East for Burma on their
own before Dacca was overrun by the
Indian military in December 1971.[114]

Indian attacks on Pakistan

A destroyed aircraft hangar at Dacca airfield after an

Indian air attack.

As the Indian Army tightened its grip in the

East Pakistan, the Indian Air Force
continued with its attacks against Pakistan
as the campaign developed into a series
of daylight anti-airfield, anti-radar, and
close-support attacks by fighter jets, with
night attacks against airfields and
strategic targets by Canberras and An-12s,
while Pakistan responded with similar
night attacks with its B-57s and C-
130s.[115]:107–108

The PAF deployed its F-6s mainly on

defensive combat air patrol missions over
their own bases, leaving the PAF unable to
conduct effective offensive
operations.[115]:107 The IAF's raids
damaged one USAF and one UN aircraft in
Dacca, while a RCAF DHC-4 Caribou was
destroyed in Islamabad, along with the
USAF's Beech U-8 owned by the US
military's liaison chief Brigadier-General
Chuck Yeager.[115]:107[116] Sporadic raids by
the IAF continued against PAF forward air
bases in Pakistan until the end of the war,
and interdiction and close-support
operations were maintained.[115]:107–108
One of the most successful air raids by
India into West Pakistan happened on 8
December 1971, when Indian Hunter
aircraft from the Pathankot-based 20
Squadron, attacked the Pakistani base in
Murid and destroyed 5 F-86 aircraft on the
ground. This was confirmed by Pakistan's
military historian, Air Commodore M Kaiser
Tufail, in his book 'In The Ring and On Its
Feet - Pakistan Air Force in the 1971 Indo-
Pak War'.[117]
The PAF played a more limited role in the
operations. They were reinforced by
Mirages from an unidentified Middle
Eastern ally (whose identity remains
unknown).[115]:107 According to author
Martin Bowman, "Libyan F-5s were
reportedly deployed to Sargodha AFB,
perhaps as a potential training unit to
prepare Pakistani pilots for an influx of
more F-5s from Saudi Arabia."[115]:112 The
IAF was able to conduct a wide range of
missions – troop support; air combat;
deep penetration strikes; para-dropping
behind enemy lines; feints to draw enemy
fighters away from the actual target;
bombing and reconnaissance.[115]:107 The
PAF, which was solely focused on air
combat, was blown out of the
subcontinent's skies within the first week
of the war.[115]:107 Those PAF aircraft that
survived took refuge at Iranian air bases or
in concrete bunkers, refusing to offer a
fight.[118]

India flew 1,978 sorties in the East and

about 4,000 in Pakistan, while the PAF flew
about 30 and 2,840 at the respective
fronts.[115]:107 More than 80 percent of IAF
sorties were close-support and interdiction
and about 45 IAF aircraft were lost.[8]

Pakistan lost 75 aircraft,[8] not including

any F-6s, Mirage IIIs, or the six Jordanian
F-104s which failed to return to their
donors.[8] The imbalance in air losses was
explained by the IAF's considerably higher
sortie rate and its emphasis on ground-
attack missions.[8]
Ground operations

The Indian T-55 tanks penetrating the Indo-East

Pakistan border towards Dacca.

Tank-55 now at National War Memorial in Pune

Before the start of the war, the Indian Army
was well organised on both fronts and
enjoyed significant numerical superiority
over the Pakistan Army.[119]:596 The Indian
Army's extraordinary war performance at
both fronts brought up the prestige,
confidence, and dignity that it had lost
during the war with China in 1962.[120]

When the conflict started, the war

immediately took a decisive turn in favour
of India and their Bengali rebel allies
militarily and diplomatically.[119]:596 On
both fronts, Pakistan launched several
ground offensives, but the Indian Army
held its ground and initiated well-
coordinated ground operations on both
fronts.[119]:596 Major ground attacks were
concentrated on the western border by the
Pakistan Army, fighting together with the
Pakistan Marines in the southern border,
but the Indian Army was successful in
penetrating into Pakistani soil. It eventually
made some quick and initial gains,
including the capture of around 5,795
square miles (15,010 km2)[5][6] of Pakistani
territory; this land gained by India in Azad
Kashmir, Punjab and Sindh sectors was
later ceded in the Simla Agreement of
1972, as a gesture of goodwill[7]
Casualties inflicted to Pakistan Army's I
Corps, II Corps, and Pakistan Marines'
Punjab detachment were very high, and
many soldiers and marines perished due
to lack of operational planning and lack of
coordination within the marine-army
formations against Indian Army's Southern
and Western Commands.[121]:82–93 By the
time the war came to end, the army
soldiers and marines were highly
demoralised– both emotionally and
psychologically– on the western front and
had no will to put up a defensive fight
against the approaching Indian Army
soldiers.[122]:1–2

The War Enquiry Commission later

exposed the fact that for the Pakistan
Army and Pakistan Marines, the arms and
training of marines, soldiers and officers
were needed at every level, and every level
of command.[123]

On 23 November 1971, the Indian Army

conventionally penetrated to the eastern
fronts and crossed East Pakistan's
borders to join their Bengali nationalist
allies.[124]:156 Contrary to the 1965 war,
which had emphasised set-piece battles
and slow advances, this time the strategy
adopted was a swift, three-pronged
assault of nine infantry divisions with
attached armoured units and close air
support that rapidly converged on Dacca,
the capital of East Pakistan.[124]:156
Lieutenant General Jagjit Singh Aurora, the
General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of
the Indian Army's Eastern Command, led
the full Indian thrust into East Pakistan. As
the Indian Eastern Command attacked the
Pakistan Eastern Command, the Indian Air
Force rapidly destroyed the small air
contingent in East Pakistan and put the
Dacca airfield out of commission.[124]:156
In the meantime, the Indian Navy
effectively blockaded East
Pakistan.[124]:156

The Indian campaign's "blitzkrieg"

techniques exploited weaknesses in the
Pakistani positions and bypassed
opposition; this resulted in a swift
victory.[125]:802 Faced with insurmountable
losses, the Pakistani military capitulated in
less than a fortnight and psychological
panic spread in the Eastern Command's
military leadership.[125]:802 Subsequently,
the Indian Army encircled Dacca and
issued an ultimatum to surrender in "30-
minutes" time window on 16 December
1971.[126] Upon hearing the ultimatum, the
East-Pakistan government collapsed when
the Lt-Gen. A.A.K. Niazi (Cdr. of Eastern
Command) and his deputy, V-Adm. M.S.
Khan, surrendered without offering any
resistance.[124] On 16 December 1971,
Pakistan ultimately called for unilateral
ceasefire and surrendered its entire four-
tier military to the Indian Army– hence
ending the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971.[124]
On the ground, Pakistan suffered the most,
with 8,000 killed and 25,000 wounded,
while India only had 3,000 dead and 12,000
wounded.[11] The loss of armoured
vehicles was similarly imbalanced and this
finally represented a major defeat for
Pakistan.[11]

Surrender of Pakistan Eastern

Command in East Pakistan

Officially, the Instrument of Surrender of

Pakistan Eastern Command stationed in
East Pakistan, was signed between the
Lieutenant General Jagjit Singh Aurora, the
GOC-in-C of Indian Eastern Command and
Lieutenant-General A.A.K. Niazi, the
Commander of the Pakistan Eastern
Command, at the Ramna Race Course in
Dacca at 16:31Hrs IST on 16 December
1971. As the surrender was accepted
silently by Lieutenant-General Aurora, the
surrounding crowds on the race course
started shouting anti-Pakistan slogans,
and there were reports of abuses aimed at
the surrendering commanders of Pakistani
military.[127]

Hostilities officially ended at 14:30 GMT

on 17 December, after the fall of Dacca on
15 December, and India claimed large
gains of territory in Pakistan (although pre-
war boundaries were recognised after the
war). The war confirmed the independence
of Bangladesh.[115]:107

Following the surrender, the Indian Army

took approximately 90,000 Pakistani
servicemen and their Bengali supporters
as POWs, making it the largest surrender
since World War II. Initial counts recorded
that approximately 79,676 war prisoners
were uniformed personnel, and the
overwhelming majority of the war
prisoners were officers - most of them
were from the Army and Navy, while
relatively small numbers were from the Air
Force and Marines; others in larger number
were serving in the paramilitary.[128]

The remaining prisoners were civilians who

were either family members of the military
personnel or collaborators (razakars). The
Hamoodur Rahman Commission and the
POW Investigation Commission reports
instituted by Pakistan lists the Pakistani
POWs as given in the table below. Apart
from soldiers, it was estimated that 15,000
Bengali civilians were also made prisoners
of war.[129]
 Number of captured
Inter-Service Branch Officer Commanding
Pakistani POWs

Lieut enant -General Amir Abdullah

 Pakist an Army 54,154
Khan Niazi

Pakist an Navy/Pakist an
1,381 Rear-Admiral Mohammad Shariff
Marines

 Pakist an Air Force 833 Air Commodore Inamul Haq

Paramilit ary/East Pakist an

22,000 Major-General Rao Farman Ali
Rifles/Police

Civil government personnel 12,000 Governor Abdul Mot aleb Malik

Tot al: 90,368 ~

Foreign reaction and

involvement

United States and Soviet Union

The Blood Telegram

The Soviet Union sympathised with the

East Pakistanis, and supported the Indian
Army and Mukti Bahini's incursion against
Pakistan during the war, in a broader view
of recognising that the succession of East
Pakistan as Independent Bangladesh
would weaken the position of its rivals—
the United States and China. The Soviet
Union gave assurances to India that if a
confrontation with the United States or
China developed, it would take counter-
measures. This assurance was enshrined
in the Indo-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and
Cooperation signed in August 1971.[130]

However, the Indo-Soviet treaty did not

mean a total commitment to every Indian
position, even though the Soviet Union had
accepted the Indian position during the
conflict, according to author Robert
Jackson.[131]:72–73 The Soviet Union
continued its sympathetic gesture to
Pakistan until mid-October 1971, when it
stressed Pakistan to come up with a
political settlement and affirmed its
continuation of industrial aid to
Pakistan.[131]:73 By November 1971, the
Soviet ambassador to Pakistan Alexei
Rodionov directed a secretive message
(Rodionov message) that ultimately
warned Pakistan that "it will be embarking
on a suicidal course if it escalates
tensions in the subcontinent.[84]:part-3

The United States stood with Pakistan by

supporting it morally, politically,
economically and materially when U.S.
President Richard Nixon and his Secretary
of State Henry Kissinger refused to use
rhetoric in a hopeless attempt to intervene
in a large civil war. The U.S. establishment
perceived to the impression that they
needed Pakistan to help stop Soviet
influence in South Asia in an informal
alliance with India.[132]:281 During the Cold
War, Pakistan was a close formal ally of
the United States and also had close
relations with the People's Republic of
China, with whom Nixon had been
negotiating a rapprochement and where he
intended to visit in February 1972.[133]
Nixon feared that an Indian invasion of
Pakistan would mean total Soviet
domination of the region, and that it would
seriously undermine the global position of
the United States and the regional position
of America's new tactical ally,
China.[132]:281–282 Nixon encouraged
Jordan and Iran to send military supplies
to Pakistan, while also encouraging China
to increase its arms supplies to Pakistan,
but all supplies were very limited.[134]:61
The Nixon administration also ignored
reports it received of the "genocidal"
activities of the Pakistani military in East
Pakistan, most notably the Blood
telegram, and this prompted widespread
criticism and condemnation - both by the
United States Congress and in the
international press.[65][135][136]
Then U.S. Ambassador to the United
Nations, George H.W. Bush, introduced a
resolution in the UN Security Council
calling for a cease-fire and the withdrawal
of armed forces by India and
Pakistan.[131]:73[137] However, it was vetoed
by the Soviet Union, and the following days
witnessed the use of great pressure on the
Soviets from the Nixon-Kissinger duo to
get India to withdraw, but to no avail.[138]

When Pakistan's defeat in the eastern

sector seemed certain, Nixon deployed
Task Force 74 - led by the aircraft carrier
USS Enterprise - into the Bay of Bengal.
Enterprise and its escort ships arrived on
station on 11 December 1971.[139]:xxxx
According to a Russian documentary, the
United Kingdom also deployed a carrier
battle group led by the aircraft carrier
HMS Eagle to the Bay,[130][140] on her final
deployment.

On 6 and 13 December, the Soviet Navy

dispatched two groups of cruisers and
destroyers from Vladivostok;[130] they
trailed US Task Force 74 into the Indian
Ocean from 18 December 1971 until 7
January 1972. The Soviets also had a
nuclear submarine to help ward off the
threat posed by the USS Enterprise task
force in the Indian Ocean.[141][142]

As the war progressed, it became apparent

to the United States that India was going
to invade and disintegrate Pakistan in a
matter of weeks, therefore President Nixon
spoke with the USSR General Secretary
Leonid Brezhnev on a hotline on 10
December, where Nixon reportedly urged
Brezhnev to restrain India as he quoted: "in
the strongest possible terms to restrain
India with which … you [Brezhnev] have
great influence and for whose actions you
must share responsibility."[143]

After the war, the United States accepted

the new balance of power and recognised
India as a dominant player in South Asia;
the US immediately engaged in
strengthening bilateral relations between
the two countries in the successive
years.[144] The Soviet Union, while being
sympathetic to Pakistan's loss, decided to
engage with Pakistan after sending an
invitation through Rodionov to Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto, who paid a state visit to the Soviet
Union in 1972 to strengthen bilateral
relations that continued over the
years.[145]:16

A 2019 study argues "that Nixon and

Kissinger routinely demonstrated
psychological biases that led them to
overestimate the likelihood of West
Pakistani victory" in the war, and that they
overestimated "the importance of the
crisis to broader U.S. policy. The evidence
fails to support Nixon and Kissinger’s own
framing of the 1971 crisis as a contest
between cool-headed realpolitik and
idealistic humanitarianism, and instead
shows that Kissinger and Nixon’s policy
decisions harmed their stated goals
because of repeated decision-making
errors."[146]

China, Iran and Sri Lanka

During the course of the war, China harshly
criticised India for its involvement in the
East Pakistan crises, and accused India of
having imperialistic designs in South
Asia.[147]:19 Before the war started,
Chinese leaders and officials had long
been philosophically advising the Pakistan
government to make peaceful political
settlements with the East Pakistani
leaders, as China feared that India was
secretly supporting, infiltrating, and arming
the Bengali rebels against the East
Pakistani government.[148][149] China was
also critical of the Government of East
Pakistan, led by its Governor Lieutenant-
General Tikka Khan - which used ruthless
measures to deal with the Bengali
opposition - and did not endorse the
Pakistani position on that issue.[149]

When the war started, China reproached

India for its direct involvement and
infiltration in East Pakistan.[149] It
disagreed with Pakistani President Yahya
Khan's consideration of military options,
and criticised East Pakistan Awami
League politicians' ties with India.[149]
China reacted with great alarm when the
prospects of Indian invasion of Pakistan
and integration of Pakistan-administered
Kashmir into their side of Kashmir, became
imminent.[92] US President Nixon
encouraged China to mobilise its armed
forces along its border with India to
discourage the Indian assault, but the
Chinese did not respond to this
encouragement since the Indian Army's
Northern Command was well prepared to
guard the Line of Actual Control, and was
already engaging and making advances
against the Pakistan Army's X Corps in the
Line of Control.

China did not welcome the break-up of

Pakistan's unity by the East Pakistani
politicians, and effectively vetoed the
membership of Bangladesh when it
applied to the United Nations in 1972.[150]
China objected to admitting Bangladesh
on the grounds that two UN resolutions
concerning Bangladesh, requiring the
repatriation of Pakistani POWs and
civilians, had not yet been
implemented.[151] Furthermore, China was
also among the last countries to recognise
the independence of Bangladesh, refusing
to do so until 31 August 1975.[152][150][153]
To this date, its relations with Bangladesh
are determined by the Pakistan factor.[154]

During the course of the conflict, Iran also

stood with Pakistan politically and
diplomatically.[155]:78–79 It was concerned
with the imminent break-up of Pakistan
which, it feared, would have caused the
state to fractionalise into small pieces,
ultimately resulting in Iran's encirclement
by rivals. After the war, however, Iran began
cementing ties with India based on mutual
security co-operation.[155]:79 At the
beginning of the conflict, Iran had helped
Pakistan by sheltering PAF's fighter jets
and providing it with free fuel to take part
in the conflict, in an attempt to keep
Pakistan's regional integrity united.[155]:80
When Pakistan called for unilateral
ceasefire and the surrender was
announced, the Shah of Iran hastily
responded by preparing the Iranian military
to come up with contingency plans to
forcefully invade Pakistan and annex its
Balochistan province into its side of
Balochistan, by any means necessary,
before anybody else did it.[155]:79

Sri Lanka saw the partition of Pakistan as

an example for themselves and feared
India might use its enhanced power
against them in the future.[156]:7 Despite
the left wing government of Sirimavo
Bandaranaike following a neutral non-
aligned foreign policy Sri Lanka decided to
help Pakistan in the war.[157][158] As
Pakistani aircraft could not fly over Indian
territory, they would have to take a longer
route around India and so they stopped at
Bandaranaike Airport in Sri Lanka where
they were refuelled before flying to East
Pakistan.[159]

Arab World
As many Arab countries were allied with
both the United States and Pakistan, it was
easy for Kissinger to encourage them to
participate. He sent letters to both, the
King of Jordan and the King of Saudi
Arabia. President Nixon gave permission
for Jordan to send ten F-104s and
promised to provide replacements. F-86s
from Saudi Arabia helped camouflage the
extent of PAF losses, and some Libyan F-
5s were reportedly deployed to Sargodha
AFB, perhaps as a potential training unit to
prepare Pakistani pilots for an influx of
more F-5s from Saudi Arabia.[115]:112
Libyan leader Gaddafi also personally
directed a strongly worded letter to Indian
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi accusing her
of aggression against Pakistan, which
endeared him to all Pakistanis.[160] In
addition to these three countries, an
unidentified Middle Eastern ally also
supplied Pakistan with Mirage IIIs.
However, other countries such as Syria and
Tunisia were against interfering describing
it as an internal matter of Pakistan.[161]
Aftermath

India

The war stripped Pakistan of more than

half of its population, and with nearly one-
third of its army in captivity, clearly
established India's military and political
dominance of the subcontinent.[28] India
successfully led a diplomatic campaign to
isolate Pakistan and skilfully manipulate
Pakistan's supporting countries to limit the
extent of support to Pakistan.[119]:596 In
addition, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's
state visit to United Kingdom and France
further helped break ice with the United
States, and blocked any pro-Pakistan
resolution in the United Nations.[119]:596
There was also a meeting between Prime
Minister Gandhi and President Nixon in
November 1971, where she rejected the US
advice against intervening in the
conflict.[119]:596

The victory also defined India's much

broader role in foreign politics, as many
countries in the world had come to realise
- including the United States - that the
balance of power had shifted to India as a
major player in the region.[155]:80[162]:57 In
the wake of changing geopolitical realities,
India sought to establish closer relations
with regional countries such as Iran, which
was a traditional ally of Pakistan.[162]:57
The United States itself accepted a new
balance of power, and when India
conducted a surprise nuclear test in 1974,
the US notified India that it had no "interest
in actions designed to achieve new
balance of power."[144]

In spite of the magnitude of the victory,

India was surprisingly restrained in its
reaction.[28] Mostly, Indian leaders seemed
pleased by the relative ease with which
they had accomplished their goals—the
establishment of Bangladesh and the
prospect of an early return to their
homeland of the 10 million Bengali
refugees who were the cause of the
war.[28] In announcing the Pakistani
surrender, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi
declared in the Indian Parliament:

Dacca is now the free capital of

a free country. We hail the
people of Bangladesh in their
hour of triumph. All nations
who value the human spirit will
recognise it as a significant
milestone in man's quest for
liberty.[28]
Colonel John Gill of National Defense
University, US, remarks that, while India
achieved a military victory, it was not able
to reap the political fruits it might have
hoped for in Bangladesh. After a brief
'honeymoon' phase between India and
Bangladesh, their relationship began to
sour.[163][164] The perceived Indian overstay
revived Bangladeshi anxieties of Hindu
control.[165] Many were concerned that
Mujib was permitting Indian interference in
the country's internal matters[166] and
many in the Bangladeshi army resented his
attachment with India.[167] Whilst India
enjoys excellent relations with Bangladesh
during the Awami League tenures, relations
deteriorated when the Bangladesh
Nationalist Party assumed power. A 2014
Pew Research Center opinion poll found
that 27% of Bangladeshis were wary of
India. However, 70% of Bangladeshis held
a positive view of India: while 50% of
Bangladeshis held a positive view of
Pakistan.[168]

Pakistan
For Pakistan, the war was a complete and
humiliating defeat,[28] a psychological
setback that came from a defeat at the
hands of rival India.[36] Pakistan lost half
its population and a significant portion of
its economy, and suffered setbacks to its
geopolitical role in South Asia.[28][36] In the
post-war era, Pakistan struggled to absorb
the lessons learned from the military
interventions in the democratic system
and the impact of the Pakistani military's
failure was grave and long-lasting.[169][170]
From the geopolitical point of view, the war
ended in the breaking-up of the unity of
Pakistan from being the largest Muslim
country in the world to its politico-
economic and military collapse that
resulted from a direct foreign intervention
in 1971.[171]:50[172]:1[173][174] The Pakistani
policy-making institutions further feared
that the historicity of the Two-nation
theory had been disproved by the war, that
Muslim nationalism had proved insufficient
to keep Bengalis a part of Pakistan.[36]
The Pakistani people were not mentally
prepared to accept the magnitude of this
kind of defeat, as the state electronic
media had been projecting imaginary
victories; however, the privately-owned
electronic news media coverage in East
Pakistan had reported the complexity of
the situation.[36] When the ceasefire that
came from the surrender of East Pakistan
was finally announced, the people could
not come to terms with the magnitude of
defeat; spontaneous demonstrations and
massive protests erupted on the streets of
major metropolitan cities in Pakistan.
According to Pakistani historians, the
trauma was extremely severe, and the cost
of the war for Pakistan in monetary terms
and in human resources was very
high.[175]:xxx[176] Demoralized and finding
unable to control the situation, the Yahya
administration fell when President Yahya
Khan turned over his presidency to Zulfikar
Ali Bhutto, who was sworn in on 20
December 1971 as President with the
control of the military.[177]
The loss of East Pakistan shattered the
prestige of the Pakistani military.[36]
Pakistan lost half its navy, a quarter of its
air force, and a third of its army.[109] The
war also exposed the shortcomings of
Pakistan's declared strategic doctrine that
the "defence of East Pakistan lay in West
Pakistan".[178] Hussain Haqqani, in his
book Pakistan: Between Mosque and
Military notes,

Moreover, the army had failed

to fulfill its promises of fighting
 to the last man. The eastern
command had laid down arms
after losing only 1,300 men in
battle. In West Pakistan 1,200
military deaths had
accompanied lackluster military
performance.[179]

In his book The 1971 Indo-Pak War: A

Soldier's Narrative, Pakistan Army's Major
General Hakeem Arshad Qureshi, a veteran
of this conflict, noted:
We must accept the fact that, as
a people, we had also
contributed to the bifurcation of
our own country. It was not a
Niazi, or a Yahya, even a Mujib,
or a Bhutto, or their key
assistants, who alone were the
cause of our break-up, but a
corrupted system and a flawed
social order that our own
apathy had allowed to remain in
place for years. At the most
critical moment in our history
we failed to check the limitless
ambitions of individuals with
dubious antecedents and to
thwart their selfish and
irresponsible behaviour. It was
our collective 'conduct' that had
provided the enemy an
opportunity to dismember
us.[180]
Scholar Willem van Schendel stated that
the Pakistani Army resisted fiercely and
suffered many casualties.[181]

Independent defence sources stated that

the Indian superiority was less than 2 to
1.[182]

After the war, the Pakistan Army's generals

in the East held each other responsible for
the atrocities committed, but most of the
burden was laid on Lieutenant-General
Tikka Khan, who earned notoriety from his
actions as governor of the East; he was
called the "Butcher of Bengal" because of
the widespread atrocities committed
within the areas of his responsibility.[183]
Unlike his contemporary Yaqub who was a
pacifist and knew well of the limits of
force, Tikka was a "soldier known for his
eager use of force" to settle his
differences.[184]:100[185][186][187]

Confessing at the hearings of the War

Enquiry Commission, Lieutenant-General
A.A.K. Niazi reportedly commented on
Tikka's actions and noted: "On the night
between 25/26 March 1971, [General]
Tikka struck. Peaceful night was turned
into a time of wailing, crying and burning.
[General] Tikka let loose everything at his
disposal as if raiding an enemy, not
dealing with his own misguided and misled
people. The military action was a display
of stark cruelty more merciless than the
massacres at Bukhara and Baghdad by
Chengiz Khan and Halaku Khan... [General]
Tikka... resorted to the killing of civilians
and a scorched earth policy. His orders to
his troops were: "I want the land, not the
people..."." Major-General Rao Farman
reportedly had written in his table diary:
"Green land of East Pakistan will be
painted red. It was painted red by Bengali
blood."[188] However, Farman forcefully
denied writing that comment, and laid all
responsibility on Tikka, while testifying at
the War Enquiry Commission in 1974.[189]

Major reforms were carried out by

successive governments in Pakistan after
the war in the light of many insightful
recommendations made in the Hamoodur
Rahman Commission's Report.[190]:254 To
address the economic disparity, the NFC
system was established to equally
distribute the taxation revenue among the
four provinces, the large-scale
nationalisation of industries and
nationwide census were carried out in
1972.[191] The Constitution was
promulgated in 1973 that reflected this
equal balance and a compromise between
Islamism and Humanism, and provided
guaranteed equal human rights to all.[192]
The military was heavily reconstructed and
heavily reorganised, with President Bhutto
appointing chiefs of staff in each inter-
service, contrary to C-in-Cs, and making
instruction on human rights compulsory in
the military syllabus in each branch of
inter-services.[193]:62–100 Major
investments were directed towards
modernising the navy.[96]:100 The military's
chain of command was centralized in JS
HQ led by an appointed Chairman joint
chiefs committee to coordinate the
combined and well-integrated military
efforts to safeguard the nation's defence
and unity.[193]:62–63 In addition, Pakistan
sought to have a diversified foreign policy,
as Pakistani geostrategists had been
shocked that both China and the United
States provided limited support to
Pakistan during the course of the war, with
the US displaying an inability to supply
weapons that Pakistan needed the
most.[194]:xxxiii

On 20 January 1972, Pakistan under

Bhutto launched the clandestine
development of nuclear weapons in a view
of "never to allow another foreign invasion
of Pakistan."[195]:133–135 This crash
programme reached parity in 1977 when
the first weapon design was successfully
achieved.[196]

Bangladesh

As a result of the war, East Pakistan

disintegrated and became an independent
country, Bangladesh, as the world's fourth
most populous Muslim state on 16
December 1971. Pakistan itself secured
the release of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from
the Headquarter Prison and allowed him to
return to Dacca. On 19 January 1972, Mujib
was inaugurated as the first President of
Bangladesh, later becoming the Prime
Minister of Bangladesh in 1974.

On the brink of defeat in around 14

December 1971, the media reports
indicated that the Pakistan Army soldiers,
the local East Pakistan Police they
controlled, razakars and the Shanti
Committee carried out systematic killings
of professionals such as physicians,
teachers, and other intellectuals,[197][198] as
part of a pogrom against the Bengali Hindu
minorities who constituted the majority of
urban educated intellectuals.[199][200]

Young men, especially students, who were

seen as possible rebels and recruiters
were also targeted by the stationed
military, but the extent of casualties in East
Pakistan is not known, and the issue is
itself controversial and contradictory
among the authors who wrote books on
the pogrom;[201][202] the Pakistani
government itself denied the charges of its
involvement in 2015.[203] R.J. Rummel cites
estimates ranging from one to three
million people killed.[204] Other estimates
place the death toll lower, at 300,000.
Bangladesh government figures state that
Pakistani forces aided by collaborators
killed three million people, raped 200,000
women and displaced millions of
others.[205][206]
According to the authors Kenton
Worcester, Sally Bermanzohn, and Mark
Ungar, Bengalis themselves killed about
150,000 non-Bengalis living in the East.[207]
There had been reports of Bengali
insurgents indiscriminately killing non-
Bengalis throughout the East; however,
neither side provided substantial proofs
for their claims and both Bangladeshi and
Pakistani figures contradict each other
over this issue.[208][209] Bihari
representatives in June 1971 claimed a
higher figure of 500,000 killed by
Bengalis.[210]

In 2010, the Awami League's government

decided to set up a tribunal to prosecute
the people involved in alleged war crimes
and those who collaborated with
Pakistan.[211] According to the
government, the defendants would be
charged with crimes against humanity,
genocide, murder, rape and arson.[212]

According to John H. Gill, there was

widespread polarisation between pro-
Pakistan Bengalis and pro-liberation
Bengalis during the war, and those internal
battles are still playing out in the domestic
politics of modern-day Bangladesh.[213] To
this day, the issue of committed atrocities
and pogroms is an influential factor in the
foreign relations between Pakistan and
Bangladesh.[214]

Impact

Pakistan: War Enquiry Commission

and War prisoners
In the aftermath of the war, the Pakistani
Government constituted the War Enquiry
Commission, to be headed by Chief
Justice Hamoodur Rahman, who was an
ethnic Bengali,[215] and composed of the
senior justices of the Supreme Court of
Pakistan.[215] The War Enquiry
Commission was mandated with carrying
out thorough investigations into the
intelligence, strategic, political and military
failures that causes the defeat in the war.
The War Commission also looked into
Pakistan's political and military
involvement in the history of East Pakistan
that encompasses 1947–71. The First War
Report was submitted in July 1972, but it
was very critically opined and penned on
political misconducts of politicians and
the military interference in national
politics.[216]:22–197 Written in moral and
philosophical perspective, the First Report
was lengthy and provided accounts that
were unpalatable to be released to the
public. Initially, there were 12 copies that
were all destroyed, except for the one that
was kept and marked as "Top Secret" to
prevent the backlash effects on the
demoralised military.[217]:127 In 1976, the
Supplementary Report was submitted,
which was the comprehensive report
compiled together with the First Report;
this report was also marked as
classified.[218]

In 2000, the excerpts of the Supplementary

Report were leaked to a political
correspondent of Pakistan's Dawn, which
the Dawn published together with India
Today.[219][220] The First Report is still
marked as classified, while the
Supplementary Report's excerpts were
suppressed by the news
correspondents.[221]:288–289 The War
Report's supplementary section was
published by the Pakistan Government, but
it did not officially hand over the report to
Bangladesh despite its requests.[222])

The War Report exposed many military

failures, from the strategic to the tactical–
intelligence levels, while it confirmed the
looting, rapes and the unnecessary killings
by the Pakistan military and their local
agents.[223] It laid the blame squarely on
Pakistan Army generals, accusing them of
debauchery, smuggling, war crimes and
neglect of duty.[224] The War Commission
had recommended public trial of Pakistan
Army generals on the charges that they
had been responsible for the situation in
the first place and that they had
succumbed without a fight,[225] but no
actions were ever taken against those
responsible, except the dismissal of chiefs
of the Pakistan Army, Pakistan Air Force,
Pakistan Navy, and decommissioning of
the Pakistan Marines.[219][225]

The War Commission, however, rejected

the charge that 200,000 Bengali girls were
raped by the Pakistan Army, remarking, “It
is clear that the figures mentioned by the
Dacca authorities are altogether fantastic
and fanciful," and cited the evidence of a
British abortion team that had carried out
the termination of "only a hundred or more
pregnancies".[226][215][227] The Commission
also claimed that "approximately 26,000
persons (were) killed during the action by
the Pakistan military"[226][228] Bina D'Costa
states that the War Commission was
aware of the military's brutality in East
Pakistan, but "chose to downplay the scale
of the atrocities committed."[226]

The second commission was known as

Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 Prisoners of
War Investigation, conducted solely by the
Pakistani government, that was to
determine the numbers of Pakistani
military personnel who surrendered,
including the number of civilian POWs.[229]
The official number of the surrendered
military personnel was soon released by
the Government of Pakistan after the war
was over.[229]

India: Indo-Pakistani Summits

On 2 July 1972, the Indo-Pakistani summit

was held in Simla, Himachal Pradesh, India
where the Simla Agreement was reached
and signed between President Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto and Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi.[230] The treaty provided insurance
to Bangladesh that Pakistan recognised
Bangladesh's sovereignty, in exchange for
the return of the Pakistani POWs.[90] In
mere five months, India systematically
released more than 90,000 war prisoners,
with Lieutenant-General A.A.K. Niazi being
the last war prisoner to be handed over to
Pakistan.[90]
The treaty also gave back more than
13,000 km² of land that the Indian Army
had seized in Pakistan during the war,
though India retained a few strategic
areas, including Turtuk, Dhothang, Tyakshi
(earlier called Tiaqsi) and Chalunka of
Chorbat Valley,[231][232] which was more
than 804 km².[233][234][235] The Indian
hardliners, however, felt that the treaty had
been too lenient to President Bhutto, who
had pleaded for leniency, arguing that the
fragile stability in Pakistan would crumble
if the accord was perceived as being
overly harsh by Pakistanis and that he
would be accused of losing Kashmir in
addition to the loss of East Pakistan.[36]
As a result, Prime Minister Gandhi was
criticised by a section in India for believing
Bhutto's "sweet talk and false vows", while
the other section claimed the agreement
to be successful, for not letting it to fall
into "Versailles Syndrome” trap.[236]

In 1973, India and Pakistan reached

another compromise when both countries
signed a trilateral agreement with
Bangladesh that actually brought the war
prisoners, non-Bengali and Pakistan-loyal
Bengali bureaucrats and civilian servants
to Pakistan.[237] The Delhi Agreement
witnessed the largest mass population
transfer since the Partition of India in
1947.[238]

Bangladesh: International Crimes

Tribunal

In 2009, the issue of establishing the

International Crimes Tribunal began to take
public support. The tribunal was formally
established in 2010 to investigate and
prosecute suspects for the genocide
committed in 1971 by the Pakistan Army
and their local collaborators, Razakars, Al-
Badr and Al-Shams during the Bangladesh
Liberation War.[239]:169

Long-term consequences
Steve Coll, in his book Ghost Wars,
argues that the Pakistan military's
experience with India, including Pervez
Musharraf's experience in 1971,
influenced the Pakistani government to
support jihadist groups in Afghanistan
even after the Soviets left, because the
jihadists were a tool to use against India,
including bogging down the Indian Army
in Kashmir.[240][241]
After the war, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
authorised the highly secretive and
clandestine atomic bomb programme,
as part of its new deterrence policy, to
defend itself and never to allow another
armed invasion from India. Many
Pakistani scientists, working abroad at
the IAEA and European and American
nuclear programmes, immediately
returned to what remained of Pakistan
and participated in making Pakistan a
nuclear power.
Writing about the war in Foreign Affairs
magazine, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto stated
"There is no parallel in contemporary
history to the cataclysm which engulfed
Pakistan in 1971. A tragic civil war,
which rent asunder the people of the two
parts of Pakistan, was seized by India
as an opportunity for armed
intervention. The country was
dismembered, its economy shattered
and the nation's self-confidence totally
undermined."[242] This statement of
Bhutto has given rise to the myth of
betrayal prevalent in modern Pakistan.
This view was contradicted by the post-
War Hamoodur Rahman Commission,
ordered by Bhutto himself, which in its
1974 report indicted generals of the
Pakistan Army for creating conditions
which led to the eventual loss of East
 Pakistan and for inept handling of
military operations in the East.[219]

Military awards

Battle honours

After the war, 41 battle honours and 4

theatre honours were awarded to units of
the Indian Army; notable among them
are:[243]
East Pakistan 1971 (theatre honour)
Sindh 1971 (theatre honour)
Jammu and Kashmir 1971 (theatre
honour)
Punjab 1971 (theatre honour)
Basantar River
Bogra
Chachro

Chhamb
Defence of Punch
Dera Baba Nanak
Gadra City
Harar Kalan
Hilli

Longewala
Parbat Ali
Poongli Bridge
Shehjra
Shingo River Valley
Sylhet
Gallantry awards

For bravery, a number of soldiers and

officers on both sides were awarded the
highest gallantry award of their respective
countries. Following is a list of the
recipients of the Indian award Param Vir
Chakra, Bangladeshi award Bir Sreshtho
and the Pakistani award Nishan-E-Haider:

India

Recipients of the Param Vir Chakra:[244][245]

Lance Naik Albert Ekka (Posthumously)

 Flying Officer Nirmal Jit Singh Sekhon
(Posthumously)
Major Hoshiar Singh
Second Lieutenant Arun Khetarpal
(Posthumously)
Bangladesh

Recipients of the Bir Sreshtho:[246][247]

Captain Mohiuddin Jahangir

(Posthumously)
Lance Naik Munshi Abdur Rouf
(Posthumously)
 Sepoy Hamidur Rahman (Posthumously)
Sepoy Mostafa Kamal (Posthumously)
ERA Mohammad Ruhul Amin
(Posthumously)
Flight Lieutenant Matiur Rahman
(Posthumously)
Lance Naik Nur Mohammad Sheikh
(Posthumously)
Pakistan

Recipients of the Nishan-E-Haider:[248][249]

 Major Muhammad Akram
(Posthumously)
Pilot Officer Rashid Minhas
(Posthumously)
Major Shabbir Sharif (Posthumously)
Sarwar Muhammad Hussain
(Posthumously)
Lance Naik Muhammad Mahfuz
(Posthumously)

Civilian awards
On 25 July 2011, Bangladesh Swadhinata
Sammanona, the Bangladesh Freedom
Honour, was posthumously conferred on
former Indian Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi.[250]

On 28 March 2012, President of

Bangladesh Zillur Rahman and the Prime
Minister Sheikh Hasina conferred
Bangladesh Liberation War Honour and
Friends of Liberation War Honour to 75
individuals, six organisations, Mitra Bahini
and the people of India at a special
ceremony at the Bangabandhu
International Conference Centre, Dhaka.
This included eight heads of states: former
Nepalese President Ram Baran Yadav, the
third King of Bhutan Jigme Dorji
Wangchuck, former Soviet General
Secretary Leonid IIyich Brezhnev, former
Soviet head of state Nikolai Viktorovich
Podgorny, former Soviet Prime Minister
Alexei Nikolaevich Kosygin, former
Yugoslav President Marshal Josip Broz
Tito, former UK Prime Minister Sir Edward
Richard George Heath and former
Nepalese Prime Minister Bishweshwar
Prasad Koirala. The organisations include
the BBC, Akashbani (All India Radio),
International Committee of the Red Cross,
United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees, Oxfam and Kolkata University
Shahayak Samiti.

The list of foreign friends of Bangladesh

has since been extended to 568 people. It
includes 257 Indians, 88 Americans, 41
Pakistanis, 39 Britons, 9 Russians, 18
Nepalese, 16 French and 18
Japanese.[251][252]

In media
Films
Border, a 1997 Bollywood war film
directed by J.P.Dutta. This movie is an
adaptation from real life events that
happened at the Battle of Longewala
fought in Rajasthan (Western Theatre)
during the 1971 Indo-Pak war. Border
on IMDb
Hindustan Ki Kasam, a 1973 Bollywood
war film directed by Chetan Anand. The
aircraft in the film are all authentic
aircraft used in the 1971 war against
Pakistan. These include MiG-21s, Gnats,
Hunters and Su-7s. Some of these
aircraft were also flown by war veterans
such as Samar Bikram Shah (2 kills) and
Manbir Singh. Hindustan Ki Kasam on
IMDb
Aakraman, 1975 Bollywood film set
during this war featuring a romantic love
triangle.
1971 – Prisoners of War, a 2007
Bollywood war film directed by Sagar
Brothers. Set against the backdrop of a
prisoners' camp in Pakistan, it follows
six Indian prisoners awaiting release
after their capture in the 1971 India-
Pakistan war.
The Ghazi Attack, a 2017 war film
directed by Sankalp Reddy. It is based
on the sinking of PNS Ghazi during the
war.
 1971: Beyond Borders, a 2017 Indian war
drama film written and directed by Major
Ravi.[253]
Short films
Mukti - Birth of a Nation, a 2017 short
film directed by Manu Chobe depicts the
negotiations between Jacob and Niazi
over the Instrument of Surrender.[254]
Miniseries/Dramas
PNS Ghazi, an Urdu (Pakistani) drama
based on sinking of PNS Ghazi, ISPR

See also
Post–World War II air-to-air combat
losses
Indo-Pakistani War of 1965
Separatist nationalism in Pakistan
Muslim nationalism in South Asia
Pakistaniat
Conservatism in Pakistan
Socialism in Pakistan
Bangladesh Forces
Timeline of the Bangladesh War
Radcliffe Line
India and state-sponsored terrorism
United States–Pakistan relations before
1990
Soviet Union-Pakistan relations before
1990
Tridev Roy
Operation Searchlight\Barisal
Riverine Warfare
Protest of 1969 in Pakistan
Pakistan Air Force in East Pakistan
Pakistan news media in Indo-Pakistani
war of 1971
International Crimes Tribunal
(Bangladesh)
Indian Army in East Pakistan
Pakistan-Afghanistan relations
1971 Winter POWs/MIA Investigations,
Pakistan
Pakistan military deployments in other
countries
Pakistan and its Nuclear Deterrent
Program
General:

History of Bangladesh
History of Myanmar
List of conflicts in Asia

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The film puts across the message that
fighting wars for "borders and orders"
robs away so many lives needlessly" .
The Times of India. Retrieved 20 June
2017.
254. Mukti - Birth of a Nation in News18

Further reading
Cilano, Cara, ed. (2010). Pakistaniaat:
Special issue on 1971 War.
Hanhimäki, Jussi M. (2004). The Flawed
Architect: Henry Kissinger and American
Foreign Policy . Oxford University Press.
ISBN 978-0-19-517221-8.
Hayes, Jarrod. "Securitization, social
identity, and democratic security: Nixon,
India, and the ties that bind."
International Organization 66.1 (2012):
63-93. online
Haqqani, Hussain (2005). Pakistan:
Between Mosque and Military . United
Book Press. ISBN 978-0-87003-214-1.
Niazi, General A. A. K. (1999). Betrayal of
East Pakistan . Oxford University Press.
ISBN 978-0-19-579275-1.
Palit, D K (1972). The Lightning
Campaign: The Indo-Pakistan War 1971 .
Compton Press Ltd. ISBN 978-0-900193-
10-1.
Raghavan, Srinath (2013). 1971– A
global History of Creation of Bangladesh
(PDF). Harvard University Press.
ISBN 978-0-674-72864-6.
Raja, Dewan Mohammad Tasawwar
(2010). O General My General (Life and
Works of General M A G Osmany). The
Osmany Memorial Trust, Dhaka,
Bangladesh. ISBN 978-984-8866-18-4.
Saigal, J R (2000). Pakistan Splits: The
Birth of Bangladesh . Manas
Publications. ISBN 9788170491248.
Warner, Geoffrey. "Nixon, Kissinger and
the breakup of Pakistan, 1971."
 International Affairs 81.5 (2005): 1097-
1118.

External links
Video of General Niazi Surrendering
A complete coverage of the war from
the Indian perspective
An Atlas of the 1971 India – Pakistan
War: The Creation of Bangladesh by
John H. Gill
Actual conversation from the then US
President Nixon and Henry Kissinger
during the 1971 War  – US Department
of State's Official archive.
Indian Army: Major Operations
Pakistan: Partition and Military
Succession USA Archives
Pakistan intensifies air raid on India
BBC
A day by day account of the war as seen
in a virtual newspaper.
The Tilt: The U.S. and the South Asian
Crisis of 1971.
16 December 1971: any lessons learned?
By Ayaz Amir  – Pakistan's Dawn
India-Pakistan 1971 War as covered by
TIME
Indian Air Force Combat Kills in the 1971
war (unofficial), Centre for Indian Military
History
Op Cactus Lilly: 19 Infantry Division in
1971, a personal recall by Lt Col Balwant
Singh Sahore
All for a bottle of Scotch, a personal
recall of Major (later Major General) C K
 Karumbaya, SM, the battle for Magura
"The Rediff Interview/Lt Gen A A Khan
Niazi" . Rediff. 2 February 2004.

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