TIME Magazine July 12, 1971
When Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her new Congress party were returned to power last March, with a two-thirds majority in Parliament, she promised an ambitious development programmed that would change the lives of India’s almost €00 million people. By last week, however, it was clear that the country’s economy never robust, was bogging down for reasons that are not of Mrs. Gandhi’s making. More than 60,00,000 refugees have fled to India since the Pakistan Government based in West Pakistan began a savage campaign of repression and terror in East Pakistan, last March. The cost of feeding and sheltering the refugees and caring for thousands of cholera victims will total at least $ 400 million in the first six months.

TIME Magazine May 10, 1971

While East Pakistan continues to suffer from the bloody civil war and the growing threat of food shortages, the other half of the divided country is bearing burdens of another sort. The army backed federal Government of President Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan remains totally committed to keeping the Eastern wing from breaking away to establish Bangladesh, as independent Bangla State. But the strain of the undertaking is overtaxing West Pakistan’s resources and nerves. “This regime has stuck East Pakistan in its throats”; says one American diplomat in the federal capital of Islamabad, “The army must either swallow it or cough it up.”

TIME Magazine April 26, 1971

Radio Pakistan announced last week that Pakistan International Airlines has resumed its internal flights between the East Pakistan capital of Dacca, and the town of Jessore, formerly a stronghold of rebel resistance. The broadcast failed to note that the PIA Prop Jets were carrying only soldiers and that they were escorted into Jessore Airport by air force Sabre Jets.

It was true, however that the army had taken the offensive in Pakistan’s savage civil war. In the early days of fighting, the troops had prudently preferred to remain in their garrison areas, for the most part, until additional men and supplies arrived. Last week they began to push toward the Indian border, hoping to secure the hard top roads by the time the monsoon rains began in late May. If they succeed, they will be able to block any sizable imports of arms and other equipment for the Bangladesh (Bengal State) resistance fighters.

"TIME magazine April 12, 1971

“There is no doubt” said a foreign diplomat in East Pakistan last week, “that the word massacre applies to the situation.” Said another Western official: ‘‘it’s a veritable-bloodbath. The troops have been utterly merciless.”

As Round I of Pakistan’s bitter civil war ended last week, the winner—predictably was the tough West Pakistan army, which has a powerful force of 80,000 Punjabi and Pathan soldiers on duty in rebellious East Pakistan. Reports coming ■cut of the East via diplomats, frightened refugees and clandestine broadcasts varied wildly. Estimates of the total dead ran as high as 300,000. A figure of 10,000 to 15,000 is accepted by several Western governments, but no one can be sure of anything except that untold thousands perished.

Mass Graves

Opposed only by bands of Bengali peasants armed with stones and bamboo sticks, tanks rolled through Dacca, the East’s capital, blowing houses to bits. At the University, soldiers slaughtered students inside the British Council build­ing. “It was like Chengis Khan,” said a shocked Western official who witnessed the scene. Near Dacca’s marketplace, Urdu-speaking government soldiers ordered Bengali-speaking townspeople to surrender, and then gunned them down when they failed to comply. Bodies lay in mass graves at the University, in the old city, and near the municipal dump.

During rebel attacks on Chittagong, Pakistani naval vessels shelled the port, setting fire to harbor installations. At Jessore, in the south-west, angry Bengalis were said to have hacked alleged government spies to death with staves and spears. Journalists at the Petrapole checkpoint on the Indian border found five bodies and a human head near the frontier post—the remains, apparently, of a group of West; Pakistanis who had tried to escape. At week’s end there were reports that East Bengali rebels were maintaining a precarious hold on Jessore and perhaps Chittagong. But in Dacca and most other cities, the rebels had been routed.
The army’s quick victory, however, did not mean that the 58 million West Pakistanis could go on dominating the 78 million Bengalis of East Pakistan indefinitely. The second round may well be a different story. It could be fought out in paddies and jungles and along river banks for months or even years.

Completing the Rupture

The civil war erupted as a result of a victory that was too sweeping, a mandate that was too strong. Four months ago, Pakistan’s President Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan, held elections for a Constituent Assembly to end twelve years of Martial Law. Though he is a Pathan from the West, Yahya was determined to be fair to the Bengali. He assigned a majority of the assembly seats to Pakistan’s more populous eastern wing, which has been separated from the West by miles of India since the partitioning of the subcontinent in 1947.

To everyone’s astonishment, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his Awami League won 167 of the 169 seats assigned to the Bengalis, a clear majority in the 313 seat assembly. “I do not want to break Pakistan,” Mujib told TIME shortly before the final rupture two weeks ago. “But we Bengalis must have autonomy so that we are not treated like a colony of the western wing.” Yahya resisted Mujib’s demands for regional autonomy and a withdrawal of troops. Mujib responded by insisting on an immediate end to Martial Law. Soon the break was complete. Reportedly seized in his Dacca residence at the outset of fighting and flown to West Pakistan, Mujib will probably be tried for treason.

All Normal

West Pakistanis have been told little about the fighting. ALL NORMAL IN EAST was a typical newspaper heading in Karachi last week. Still, they seemed solidly behind Yahya’s tough stand. “We can’t have our flag defiled, our soldiers spat at, our nationality brought into disrepute,” said Pakistan Government Information Chief, Khalid Ali. “Mujib, in the end, had no love of Pakistan.”

Aware that many foreigners were sympathetic to the Bengali Yahya permitted the official news agency to indulge in any way of paranoia ‘‘Western press reports prove that a deep conspiracy has been hutched by the Indo-Israeli axis against the integrity of Pakistan and the Islamic basis of her ideology," said the agency.

The Indian government did, in fact, contribute to Pakistan anxiety. Although New Delhi denied that India was supplying arms to the Bengali rebels, the Indian Parlia­ment passed u unanimous resolution denouncing the ‘‘carnage” In East Pakistan. India’s enthusiasm is hardly surprising in view of its lo.ng standing feud with the West Pakistanis and the brief but bloody war of 1965 over Kashmir. But Western governments urged New Delhi to restrain itself so as not to provoke West Pakistan into making an impulsive response.

Hit And Run

For the time being, West Pakistan’s army can probably maintain its hold on Dacca and the other cities of the East. But it can hardly hope to control 55,000 sq. ml. of countryside and a hostile population indefinitely. The kind of Bengali terrorism that forced the British Raj to move the capital from Calcutta to Delhi in 1911, may well manifest itself again in a growing war of hit-and-run, sabotage and arson. In modem times, the East Bengali have been best known to foreigners as mild-mannered peasants, clerks and shopkeepers, perhaps the least martial people on the subcontinent. But in their support of an independent Bangladesh (Bengal State), they have displayed a fighting spirit that could spell lasting turmoil for those who want Pakistan to remain united. As Mujib often asked his followers rhetorically: “Can bullets suppress 78 million people?”

TIME Magazine April 5, 1971, THE WORLD

With the awesome fury of a cyclone off the Bay of Bengal,, civil war swept across East Pakistan last week. In city after crowded dusty city the army turned its guns on mobs of riot­ing civilians. Casualties mounted into the thousands. Though the full toll remained uncertain because of censorship and disorganization in the world’s most densely populated corner (1,400 people per sq. ml.) at week’s end some estimates had dead. Even if President Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan is prepared to accept casualties of a geometrically greater magnitude, the outcome is likely to be the final breakup of East Pakistan and the painful birth of a new nation named Bangladesh (Bengal State).

The indistinct battle lines reflected the ethnic and cultural divisions that have beset Pakistan since its creation as a Moslem homeland when British India was partitioned in 1947. Two predominantly Moslem areas that used to be part of India became a new country—the two part separated by

miles of Indian territory. Thus though 80,000 West Pakistani soldiers were on hand to keep order in East Pakistan last week, their supply bases were 1,000 miles away and most food and ammunition had to be carried 3,000 miles around the coast of India. The troops, mostly tall, fierce Punjabis and Pathans were surrounded in East Pakistan by a hostile population of 78 million Bengali. The civil war and it could be called no less promised to be long and bloody. The Bengali, armed with a few looted guns, spears and often just bamboo stave's, were ill-trained for a guerrilla war. But a resistance movement, once organized, might eventually force the West Pakistanis to depart. In a way the struggle evoked haunting memories of the Nigerian civil war of 1967-70, when the federal regime sought justification in the name of national unity and the Biafrans in the name of self-determination.

First Shot

Until last week, Pakistan political leaders seemed on the verge of settling their differences. Then in rapid order, three events carried the nation over the brink of violence. In Chittagong, a mob surrounded West Pakistani troops unload­ing supply ships. Where the first shots came from is unclear,, but when the troops opened fire, 35 Bengalis were killed. Their political leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, called a general strike to protest. Then Yahya Khan outlawed Mujib and his Awami League Party as “enemies of Pakistan" and ordered the armed forces to “do their duty”.

In Dacca, army tanks and truckloads of troops with fixed bayonets came clattering out of their suburban base, shouting “Victory to Allah,” and ‘‘Victory to Pakistan.” TIME cor­respondent Dan Coggin, who, along with other newsmen, was subsequently expelled from Pakistan reported: ‘‘Before long, howitzer, tank, artillery and rocket blasts rocked half a dozen scattered sections of Dacca. Tracers arched over the darkened city. The chatter of automatic weapons was punctuated with grenade explosions, and tall columns of black smoke towered over the city. In the night came the occasional cry of ‘Joi Bangla (Victory to Bengal) ’, followed by a burst of machine-gun fire.”

The army ordered a strict 24-hour curfew in Dacca, with violators shot on sight. But soon the Free Bengal Revolu­tionary Radio Centre, probably somewhere in Chittagong, crackled into life. Over the clandestine station, Mujib proclaimed the creation of the “sovereign, independent Bengali nation,” and called on its people to “resist the enemy forces at all costs in every corner of Bangladesh.” The defiant words, however, lacked military substance. At 1.30 a.m. the following day, soldiers seized the Sheikh in his home. Meanwhile, scattered rioting broke out in West Pakistan to protest the prospect of prolonged military rule.

The rupture in Pakistan stemmed from the country’s first experiment with true democracy. After it was founded in 1947, Pakistan was ruled on the basis of a hand-picked electorate; Martial Law was imposed after an outbreak of riot­ing in 1969. During those years, Pakistan was divided by more than geography. Physically and psychologically the 58 million tall, light-skinned people of the West identified with the Islamic peoples who inhabit the area of land stretching as far as Turkey. The smaller, darker East Pakistanis seemed to belong to the world of South and South-east Asia. More divisive yet was the fact that the westerners monopolized the government and the army had dominated the nation’s com­mercial life. The East Pakistanis have, over the years, earned the bulk of the country’s foreign exchange with their jute exports, yet the majority of schools, roads, new factories and modern government buildings went up in the west.

Eager to relinquish power and return the country to civilian rule, Yahya called elections last December for a National Assembly to write a new constitution. East Pakistanis .gave Sheikh Mujib’s Awami League 167 of the region’s 169 seats and an overall majority in the combined nation’s 313 seat assembly chamber. Mujib’s platform called for a virtual dismantling of the central government, leaving it in charge of defense and diplomacy and giving the provinces total control of taxes, trade and foreign aid.

Determined to hold the country together, Yahya resisted Mujib’s demands for autonomy. Postponing the Constitu­ent Assembly, he flew to Dacca, and in eleven days of meet­ing with Mujib came almost within sight of a compromise agreement. Yahya, however, demanded that the leader of West "Pakistan’s majority party, ex-Foreign Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, also be a party to the agreement. Bhutto insisted on heading the foreign ministry while Mujib maintained that with an overall majority, he had the right to form a govern­ment without Bhutto.

Mendicant among Nations

If East Pakistan eventually takes its place in the world, community as Bangladesh, it will have the world’s eighth, largest population and lowest per capita income ($ 50 a year). It will, inevitably, become a mendicant among nations, and the U.S. will face the need to increase the $ 150 million a year in foreign aid that it now gives to the combined wings of the country. East Pakistan has little industry to speak of, and the world-demand for jute is gradually dropping. West Pakistan will also be left smaller and poorer, though it now has the beginning of an industrial base, consisting primarily of textile mills.

If anyone gains from the sorry split, it will be India, which would face a greatly weakened adversary. Mujib has indicated that he would like to establish friendly relations with New Delhi and, particularly, with the Hindu Bengalis just across the border. He does not share West Pakistan’s hostility toward India over the disputed territory of Kashmir. West Pakistan, left with a smaller economic base and without, the East’s foreign exchange earnings, could not easily maintain as strong an army as the one thoughtful Indians could not regard their neighbor’s troubles with too much satisfaction. India itself is, by no means, immune to the centrifugal forces of tribalism and many of its people remember all too well Nehru’s recurring nightmare; a subcontinent alternating between, periods of political unity and bloody interludes of division and strife.

‘‘Raise Your Hands and Join Me”

When West Pakistani soldiers arrested Sheikh Mujibur (“Mujib”) Rahman last week, they gave him a chance to add to an unenviable record. Mujib has already spent more time in prison than any other major Pakistani politician; nine years and eight months.

What makes the Sheikh so unpopular with West Pakistanis is the fact that for more than 23 years he has been the leading advocate of Purbadesh (regional autonomy) for East Pakistan. In last December’s elections, Purbadesh was Mujib’s chief issue.. After visiting the cyclone-devastated Ganges Delta region just before the general elections, he declared: “If the polls bring us frustration, we will owe it to the million who have died in the cyclone to make a supreme sacrifice of another million lives, if need be, so that we can live as free people.”

Grey-haired, stocky and tall for a Bengali (6ft.) the bespectacled Mujib always wears a loose white shirt with a black, sleeveless, vest like jacket. A moody man, he tends to scold Bengalis like so many children. He was born in the East Bengal village of Tongipara 51 years ago to a middle class landowner (his landlord status accounts for the title of Sheikh). Mujib studied liberal Arts at Calcutta’s Islamia College and Law at Dacca University. He lives with his wife 'Fazilatunnessa, three sons and two daughters in a modest two- stored house in Dacca’s well-to-do Dhanmondi section. Except for a brief stint as an insurance salesman, he has devoted most of his time to politics. First he opposed British rule in India/ After the subcontinent’s partition in 1947, he denounced West Pakistan’s dominance of East Pakistan with every bit as much vehemence. “Brothers,” he would say to his Bengali fol­lowers, “do you know that the streets of Karachi are paved with gold? Do you want to take back that gold? Then raise your hands and join me.” He was first jailed in 1948, when he demonstrated against Pakistan Founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah for proclaiming Urdu the new nation’s lingual francs.

Yet he has remained, in many respects, a political moderate. ‘He is a social democrat who favors nationalizing major industries, banks and insurance companies. In foreign exchange policy too, he follows a middle course. Where West Pakistan’s Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto favors closer ties with China and the Soviet Union and is stridently anti-Indian, Mujib would like to trade with India and is regarded as moderately pro-Western. 

Time, Monday, March 15, 1971

If we begin to think of ourselves as Bengalis, Punjabis and Sindhis first, and Moslems and Pakistanis only incidentally, then Pakistan is bound to disintegrate.

—Mohammed Ali Jinnah, 1948

The blood was still flowing from the murderous communal clashes that followed the 1947 partition of the Indian subcontinent when Pakistan's founder gave voice to that fear. Last week blood flowed again as the world's fifth most populous nation (130 million), divided between a wheat-growing West with tall, light-skinned people and a rice-growing East with short dark-skinned people, moved ominously toward a breakup—or a civil war.