Part IV (Concluded): The Blood Telegram by Gary J Bass

 

The Importance of being Yahya

It is not often remembered that the United States was knee deep in the morass that was the Vietnam War, at the same time as the genocide in East Pakistan. The trial of members of the US armed forces accused of the My Lai massacre ended on 29^th March 1971 bringing to public knowledge the horrors of the Vietnam War. Coming as it did after the stalemate of the Korean War with an estimated 2-3 million civilian deaths, the American public opinion was entirely opposed to America’s entry into another Asian war. Responding to public opinion, Nixon was anxious to end the Vietnam War. Instead of doing this honorably, admitting defeat and negotiating a cease fire, he entered into subterfuge.

North Vietnam was backed by Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the US. Initially, the American support was financial and military, but starting around 1965, America put its own boots on the ground, leading to an unprecedented escalation of the conflict. Nixon wanted to reach out to China, and persuade it to moderate its support to North Vietnam. At the same time, it was thought that a direct contact of the US with China would weaken the Soviet Union in the Cold War. China and the Soviet Union had already begun to have differences over the Soviet support to India in the 1962 and 1965 wars. China was also anxious to gain global acceptance and acquire a permanent membership of the Security Council. It decided to play ball with Nixon. Yahya, China’s poster boy in the subcontinent agreed to play the courier in person.

Yahya was not the only conduit to China, then available to the US. But the US chose Yahya over the others, cleverly sensing that given the deep trouble he found himself in, in his domestic politics, he would be most committed to render this service in exchange for American support (page 104). True to his promise, Yahya succeeds in arranging a meeting between Kissinger and Zhou Enlai. Kissinger on a visit to Pakistan, feigns illness, withdraws from public engagements, and secretly flies off to China for this meeting (pages 115-116). Once the meeting was over, and a direct China-US communication channel was established, Yahya’s utility in furthering US foreign policy had effectively ceased. But the US continued to prop up Yahya, to prove to their new ally China that the US was a firm and reliable partner for the long term (pages 174, 237). Given that all these developments took place it May-July 1971, the Hindus in East Pakistan paid a heavy price over the next six months, with Yahya continuing his selective genocide confident in the US’ support to his regime.

Interestingly, China viewed the East Pakistan problem as similar to the problems posed by Taiwan and Tibet to itself. China’s support to Pakistan was a direct consequence of this perception. China was also on the verge of its own cultural revolution (October 1971), the core of which was martial law and a strident denunciation of capitalism. To shake hands with the US in this atmosphere had its own challenges for China.

In the ultimate analysis, each country pursued cynically its self-interest, as “India chose the way of compassion” (page 190), hosted 10 million refugees on its soil, waged a war at its own expense, and on its own strength, and liberated East Pakistan without claiming any territory for itself, not even a buffer zone for the Hindu and Buddhist minority as was suggested in some quarters.

Closing Comments- A continuing selective genocide.

Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. Today, fifty years after its founding, the people of Bangladesh have chosen to forget their founding father, Mujibur Rehman, having set fire to the museum and national monument to his memory. They have desecrated the statue of Rabindranath Tagore, the author of their national anthem. They have chosen to join hands with the state of Pakistan, and the army of Pakistan, their former tormentors. They have attempted to Arabize their language. They have once again embarked on the selective targeting of their Hindu population, a move if unchecked can once again lead to selective genocide. Is a war of liberation now possible? Can you liberate an already liberated country? Can you wait for a crisis to unfold and then react to it?

We can no longer close our eyes to the fact that the entire majority community in Bangladesh is radicalized. Denying this and attributing the current developments to a radical fringe is to delude ourselves until the next crisis should overtake us.

A calm and clearly thought out policy that prescribes pro-active sustained ameliorative action during the most normal of times can even now stave of crisis. The Citizens Amendment Act (CAA) is now in place. A special window ought to be opened to admit into Indian citizenship the religious minorities of Bangladesh, before they get hounded out in the next crisis. Beginning slowly and imperceptibly, this ‘bringing out’ must gather momentum with passing time. An infiltration of Bangladeshi Muslims is already occurring at an alarming speed, with an estimated 10 million illegal migrants already within India and dispersed wherever politicians seek to establish a vote bank. While it is a herculean task to send such numbers back, it should be comparatively easier to bring the persecuted minorities of Bangladesh in. This latter population would integrate fully and help the growing Indian economy which is staring at a declining democratic dividend in the not so distant future (see Mukherjea and Rajahnsa, Behold the Leviathan).

The question is, can India stand up this challenge?