The timeless victories

Justifiably there has never been officially any attempt to apportion the credit between the partners in arms -- for it was jointly achieved by Bangladesh and India who entered into an alliance to drive out the occupation force after the latter recognised Bangladesh. India's armed forces together with the liberation force (Mukti Bahini) of Bangladesh did the job -- Mukti Bahini softening the objectives through a war of attrition and Indian forces effecting the final push into occupied territories in what is called by DK Palit "a lightening campaign." The credit therefore belonged to both.

India's was a professional and battle-hardened armed forces and was more than a match for Pakistan's Eastern Command. As expected its role in the war has been superb and its campaign went on with a surgical precision till the surrender ceremony. But how the Mukti Bahini guerillas, the phantom army of Bangladesh, were making unnerved the occupation forces is indeed a field still unexplored. Drawn from the ranks of ordinary public, the students, peasants and assorted political and social activists they not only withstood the 'shock and awe' of fateful night of 25 March and its aftermath, these guerillas, according to Jagjit Singh Aurora, thoroughly "disorganised and isolated the Pakistan Army" before the Indian offensive was launched. In other words, they were the ones responsible for eventual success leading to victory -- a feat reminding us of the great patriotic wars of national liberation.

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In an unequal war of the magnitude, witnessed during our liberation struggle where, to start with, a ragtag Mukti Bahini was facing up to a Goliath shorn of compassion; a parallel can be drawn with Vietnam war the 30th anniversary of the end of which falls in the year 2005. For many reasons it bears striking resemblance with the conditions of Bangladesh in 1971. It will only be in the fitness of things to have a cursory glance at another timeless victory achieved by Vietnam after an immense suffering of its people. As the year 2005 is going to be out soon and Vietnam's epochal achievement will be consigned to history once again let us see how a fourth rate power, as Vietnam was contemptuously referred to by President Nixon, routed the world's military giant on April 30, 1975 when the last US helicopter codenamed 'Lady 09' evacuated Ambassador Graham Martin from the roof top of US embassy building in Saigon. The mightiest of the west shattered on the hard glass of reality in Ho Chi Minh's Vietnam. Earlier the myth of French power exploded in the battle of Dienbieu Phu.

At the end 'the fourth rate power' dragged Nixon to Paris to accept the DRV's (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) peace terms -- virtually the same that the US President arrogantly rejected earlier. This 'fourth rate power' so weakened the US that it was unable or unwilling to challenge North Korea's seizure of US' electronics laden intelligence ship 'Pueblo'. The 12 days' savagery of Linebaker II, which dropped 40,000 tonnes of bombs on Hanoi and 15,000 tonnes on Haiphong and targeted even schools and hospitals failed to achieve anything but giving "Nixon even more compelling reasons" to return to the negotiating table. The entire economy was 'twisted out of shape' and its social fabrics disintegrated. No less catastrophic were the moral and ethical dimensions of the war with its most telling effect lying in a 'Vietnam syndrome.'

More or less in the same vein Pakistanis called us a non-martial race and Ayub Khan referred to us as a 'lesser breed' in his book. Enraged at our demand of a fair deal in the shape of a wider autonomy they unleashed a genocide -- the worst after the Nazi holocaust in Germany and perpetrated war crimes through loot, arson and rapes. But the verdict of the history is so fair, so stark that the perpetrators of bloodshed and immeasurable sufferings were soon visited by their nemesis. At the end they surrendered partly to those whom they earlier dismissed as 'miscreants.'

The human spirit is indomitable. Whether in Bangladesh or in Vietnam the invaders and occupiers only helped spark that spirit. In both the places the perpetrators of the crimes lacked the sense of history and miscalculated the moral power of the heroic people and dearly paid the prices for their misadventures. And those who sacrificed, suffered and underwent tribulations were finally crowned with historic success -- the timeless victories which will be the beacon of hopes for those who are still suffering the world over.

Brig ( retd) Hafiz is former DG of BIISS.