BALANCE OF POWER IN THE CONTEXT OF LIBERATION WAR OF BANGLADESH

WHAT IS BALANCE OF POWER?

In international relations, an equilibrium of power sufficient to discourage or prevent one nation or party from imposing its will on or interfering with the interests of another. The term came into use at the end of the Napoleonic Wars to denote the power relationships in the European state system. Until World War I, Britain played the role of balancer in a number of shifting alliances. After World War II, a Northern Hemisphere balance of power pitted the U.S. and its allies against the Soviet Union and its satellites in a bipolar balance of power backed by the threat of nuclear war. China's defection from the Soviet camp to a nonaligned but covertly anti-Soviet stance produced a third node of power. With the Soviet Union's collapse (1991), the U.S. and its NATO allies were recognized universally as the world's paramount military power. Behind all the interpretations of the balance of power lies the appeal to realism in the conduct of international affairs. Realism remains the best, perhaps the only persuasive, argument for restraint; and it is common ground that the doctrine of the balance of power is a device to promote restraint, whether it is argued that lack of restraint is wrong, or dangerous, or ultimately bound to fail. In that sense the balance of power in international affairs is clearly related to the idea of checks and balances within a government, which is equally a device to impose restraint on men who might otherwise, seduced by power, abandon it.

THE EMERGENCE OF BANGLADESH

In the background of the nationalistic struggle against British Colonial Rule in India since the mid 20's of the last century, Hindu-Muslim communal tensions led in 1947 to the partition of India and Pakistan was created as a separate homeland for Muslims. East Pakistan was inhabited by the Bengalee nation with a distinct language and culture of its own and was physically separated from West Pakistan by a thousand miles. Pakistan therefore, was an unrealistic state from the very beginning. Since its very inception, the Pakistani rulers denied the democratic aspirations of the Bengalees and their national rights. The country declared itself as an Islamic Republic in 1956 and military rule was imposed from 1958. The Military Rulers tried to subjugate the Bengalees politically,

culturally and economically and naturally the disillusionment with the new nation was not surprising. The struggle for a separate homeland manifested itself right from 1948 through a continuous, united and popular struggle for democracy, autonomy and for the upholding of its secular cultural identity. In first-ever national Parliamentary elections held in 1970 based on a one man-one vote basis, the Bengalee nationalist forces led by Bangabandhu Sheikh MujiburRahman won landslide victory and his party, the Awami League became majority party in the whole of Pakistan. However, the Pakistani military machinery refused to accept this electoral verdict; thus leading to a non-violent non-cooperation movement in East Pakistan. In an attempt to crush the nationalistic movement in East Pakistan, the Pakistani Military Junta unleashed a systematic genocide against Bengalee people on the fateful night of March 25, 1971. The Junta received support from a handful local religion based parties and religious fundamentalists. The Pakistani rampage resulted in the worst genocide since the Second World War, and an estimated 3 million people were killed, some 278,000 women were raped and 10 million had to take refuge in neighboring India. In this background, the independence of Bangladesh was declared and elected representatives of 1970s election from East Pakistan formed the Bangladesh Government in Exile on the 10th of April, 1971. The Cabinet took oath of office at Baiddyanathtala in Meherpur, later renamed as Mujibnagar on April 17, 1971. Students and youth took military training and the MuktiBahini (freedom fighters) fought back the occupation forces under 11 Sectors, adopting guerilla tactics and kept the Pakistani army in a harassed and indefensible state. International condemnation of Pakistans atrocities came from governments, public leaders, cultural personalities and media. Unfortunately, the Nixon administration of United States and China supported Pakistan government, more from global strategic interests, while India and The Soviet Union supported the Bangladesh cause. On December 3, after Pakistan attacked and bombed airfields in the western part of India, The Allied Command of the Indian Army and the Muktibahini (Bangladesh Freedom Fighters) was formed and they started the formal armed assault. On December 16, 1971, the Pakistan Armed Forces ignominiously surrendered to this Allied Command and independent Bangladesh was born as democratic and secular state.

ROLE OF INDIA IN 1971

India played a pivotal role in the process of transforming the province of East Bengal within Pakistan into the sovereign State of Bangladesh. Bangladesh, it has been aptly remarked, became an independence country in December 1971 mainly because Indias armed forces decisively defeated Pakistans armed forces in the east in the 12 day war and India was the first foreign power to recognize that independence.

INDIAS INVOLVEMENT AND INTERVENTION

The political, military, geographical, and historical factors behind Indias intervention in the East Bengali conflict also shaped the major though often unstated objectives that India desired to achieve by playing a decisive part in the crisis. India wanted the reduction of Pakistan as a political and military rival in the South Asian region. It aimed at undermining the Islamic ideology of Pakistan in order to display the superiority and enduring nature of its own state ideology of secularism. Both these goals could be achieved if the East Bengali struggle led by a secular, socialist, and democratic Awami League triumphed. A third Indian objective was to ensure that a protracted armed struggle in East Bengali did not result in the replacement of the predominantly bourgeois, liberal Awami League leadership by a radical, left-oriented leadership that would be friendly to China. Throughout her nine month-long involvement in the East Bengali crisis India successfully used all the resources at her command to ensure that her objectives were achieved. There were four distinct phases in the process of growing Indian involvement and eventual military intervention in the conflict in East Bengal. The first, the period of early involvement, lasted approximately from the end of March to the end of April 1971. During this period India in principle decided to support the East Bengali movement. Accordingly she permitted East Bengali refugees as well as Bengali nationalist political and military leaders to take shelter in India and set up an migr Bangladesh government in Calcutta. She also gave nominal military support to the East Bengali partisans and carried on concerted diplomatic and propaganda activities in favor of the East Bengalis. The second phase, lasting from the beginning of May to the end of June 1971, was one of more intense Indian involvement in the east Bengali struggle. During the phase an unusually large Bengali refugee influx into India gave the Indian authorities ample reason to become more concerned with the conflict in East Bengal. The Indian authorities now began to step up their

indirect military to the East Bengali partisans and lay down contingency plans to launch a military assault on the Pakistani army in East Bengali in case of eventual necessity, at the same time India also carried on her political and diplomatic efforts against Pakistan and in favor of the East Bengali nationalists. During the third phase (July-November 1971) the Indian government intensified its military and diplomatic efforts to bring about a desirable settlement of the East Bengal problem, by which it meant a settlement acceptable to the Awami League leaders, who alone could convince the East Bengali refugees in India that they could safely return home. It was during this period, especially at the end of the monsoon in September, that India began t deploy a considerable part of her military forces, so as to encircle East Bengal. Three Indian army corps with more than seven divisions all but one of which (the 9th Division in West Bengal) were crack Mountain divisions (especially trained to fight China in a possible fresh Sino-Indian clash in the Himalayas) were deployed all along the India-East Bengal border. On the diplomatic plane India succeeded in obtaining more articulate and effective diplomatic and moral support from her closest friend, the Soviet Union. The Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation signed in August 1971 strengthened Indians existing ties with the Soviet Union. Later, during the Indo-Pak War of December 1971, the repeated exercise of the Soviet veto in the UN Security Council prevented an early ceasefire and this allowed the allied Indo-Bangladesh forces time to defeat Pakistani forces in East Bengal. The fourth phase (3-16 December 1971) was the thirteen days of intensified warfare and was marked by direct and eventually successfully Indian military intervention in East Bengal. The Indian intervention resulted in the conclusive defeat of the Pakistani forces in the east the de facto birth of Bangladesh.

THE SOVIET UNIONS STAND ON BANGLADESH:

The Soviet Union was the first Great Power to deplore publicly the Pakistani military crackdown in East Bengal. It was also the first major power to officially recognize the State of Bangladesh, which it did within thirty-eight days of its de facto liberation from the Pakistani forces. Within eight days of the Pakistani military action against the east Bengalis, President Nikolai Podgorny on behalf of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on 2 April 1971 wrote an unusual letter to President Yahya Khan of Pakistan making an instant appeal for the adoption of the most urgent population in East Pakistan and for turning to methods of a peaceful

solution. Podgornys letter added that a peaceful settlement would also meet the interest of preserving peace in the areaand be received with satisfaction by the entire Soviet People. The response of the Soviet Union to the 1971 crisis in East Bengal was conditioned by the general Soviet policy with regard to Asia in the 1960s. it was a policy of growing involvement, initially undertaken to contain Americas influence in Asia, but increasingly directed at stemming the diplomatic and military as well as ideological advance of China, now emerging as the Soviet Unions principal rival in the Third World. The Soviet Unions desire to present its credentials as an Asian power, its desire to counter potential American, Japanese or Chinesebacked schemes for alliances and alignments led to its launching in the spring of 1969 a campaign for a system of collective security in Asia. This campaign became the guide and mainstay of the Soviet Unions diplomacy in Asia as events and developments in the South Asian subcontinent were setting the stage for the conflict in east Bengal. The Soviet Unions close tie with India was a vital factor in shaping the Soviet response toward the East Bengali crisis in 1971. An amiable working relationship had prevailed between the two countries since at least the visit of Bulgarian and Khrushchev to New Delhi in December 1955. The Indo-Soviet ties were further strengthened in the wake of the 1962 Sino-Indian border war. Indias defeat in the 1962 clash and the worsening Sino-Soviet relations eventually (mainly during 1969-1971) caused Moscow to attach more significance to her ties with India. As the dominant power in the South Asian subcontinent adjoining China, India could be built up as an effective counterpoise to china and thus helped Moscow to contain peking military and diplomatically. Another important factor behind the Soviet Unions response and rather close involvement in the 1971 crisis in South Asia was the Soviet self-image as a Great power situated on two continents- Europe and Asia who, as the Soviet foreign Minister , Andrei Gromyko, speaking in the Supreme Soviet in June 1968, said, did not plead with anybody to be allowed to have their say in the solution of any question involving the maintenance of international peace, concerning the freedom and independence of the peoples.

CHINA: on the Horns of a Dilemma: to help an ally or support a peoples War

The Indian government asserts that is has launched the war in order to realize the national aspirations of the people in East Pakistan and bring about the return of the east Pakistani refugees to their homeland. This assertion is indeed absurd to the extreme. Many countries in the world have nationality problems, which need to be solved properly and reasonably in conformity with

the desire and interest of the people, but these are the internal affairs of the respective countries, which can be solved only by their own government and people, and in which no foreign country has the right to interfere. What right has India to take over the affairs of others into its own hands, flagrantly interfere in Pakistans internal affairs and even employ powerful armed forces to invade and occupy East Pakistan? The Indian government has single handedly manufactured a so called Bangladesh and inserted into East Pakistan by armed force. The Soviet government has played a shameful role in this war of aggression launched by India against Pakistan. The purpose of Soviet Union is to control over India and thereby, contend with the other super power for hegemony in the whole of south Asian subcontinent and the Indian Ocean and at the same time foster India and turn into the sub power on the south Asian subcontinent as its assistant and partner in committing aggression against Asia. These words, in which the Chinese government reacted to the birth of independent Bangladesh on 16th December 1971, express the sum and substance of the Chinese view of the 1971 East Bengali struggle for separation from Pakistan. China, herself a multinational sate, sees the national question not as one concerning the independent statehood for the constituent nationalities but as one of wining over recalcitrant nationality groups to socialist unity by destroying the inimical class forces within the relevant groups. The Chinese government was not inclined to view the East Bengali struggle led by the predominantly middle class liberal Awami League leaders, increasingly aided by expansionist India, as a genuine struggle for national liberation. By 16 December 1971 the Chinese government openly stated their view that the Awami league regime in the newly independent Bangladesh was a puppet regime which unable to exists without the protection of Indian bayonets and therefore, the same stuff as the so called Manchukuo of the thirties and forties, which was under the guidance of Japanese militarism.

Chinas response to the east Bengali struggle for separation from Pakistan was determined by her perception of the world in the late nineteen sixties and early seventies. This perception was mainly shaped by several important factors like rivalry with Soviet Union in the TW world and Asia, her adversarial relationship with India, her decade long friendship with Pakistan and gradual relegation of the United States to the position of a less important adversary than the Soviet Union.

UNITED STATES ROLE REGARDING 1971:

The 1971 crisis in East Bengal erupted at a time when the united states, under president Nixon, was busy recasting her global and Asian politics to suit the needs of the new international system which by 1970 had become much more complex. For the Sino-Soviet misunderstanding had ripened into heated clashes, both ideological and territorial. During 1969 and 1970 President Nixons Asian policy was dominated by a gradual US separation with China. This process, which was virtually coterminous with the reinstatement of Soviet union as necessarily the main rival of US, began under so called Guam or Nixon doctrine; and by the beginning of 1971 under US and China were both ready to undertake its compliment- the improvement of Sino-American relations as a means of improving the position of both states against their common rival. This was the immediate background of the highly controversial White House policy toward the East Bengal crisis in 1971 when the Nixon administration supported Pakistan, an old ally of America and friend of China and opposed the democratically elected representatives of East Bengal (aided by India, who was in turn backed by the Soviet Union) in their attempts to separate East Bengal from Pakistan. The crisis in East Bengal exploded into armed conflict on the night of 25th March 1971 when the Pakistan government launched its military crackdown on the East Bengalis. The American press in line with the western press in general vividly reported the brutal and indiscriminate military assault by the Islamabad government on the East Bengalis. This made it difficult for the US, as for any other government, to commend or defend the Pakistani action. The very early response of US government was, therefore, marked by silence. As the crisis developed the American response to it went through several distinct phases.

The 1st phase of quiet non-involvement began on 25th March and lasted roughly until 10th July 1971. During this phase the US posture was neutral and she described the problem in the East Bengal as Pakistanis internal matter. The 2nd phase started with secret trip by President Nixons national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, to china on 10th July 1971. This marked the real beggings of Sino-US cooperation and led indirectly to the formalized Indo-Soviet alliance by treaty in August. During this phase, which lasted until September, US pursued diplomacy of restraint, counseling India to desist from armed conflict with Pakistan and privately pressing Pakistan to thrash out a political statement of the East Bengal issue.

During 3rd phase, lasting from September until December r 3, when the Indo-Pakistan war over Bangladesh broke out, the United States attempted to promote a constructive political dialogue between the Pakistani military government and East Bengali nationalist leaders in India, but in vain. The 4th phase covered the period of Indo-Pak war. During the 14 days sub continental war, The US backed Pakistan and blamed India for the escalation of hostilities and tried through the United nations and other means to bring about a ceasefire and save West Pakistan from possible Indian attempts to destroy it militarily.

It is important to note that throughout all these phases there was a great divergence between the policy and attitude of US administration and the American press, legislative bodies, and academic community. For the most part of these nongovernmental bodies openly and empathetically sided with the East Bengal and supported the Indian role in aiding and assisting them.

CONCLUSION:

The liberation war of Bangladesh in 1971 has been signified as very destructive war independence. Both the two nations fought for their independence where Bangladesh, the resulted winner country considered about 3 million lives. In this destructive war, India reinforce Bangladesh, they provided with heavy weapon and thus gave birth Bangladesh, as an independent nation. Soviet Union, from its side also played its role from the side of Bangladesh. On the other hand, China & United states opposed to this new growing nation. So a good amount of power interchanging had been experienced to the nation. Despite, Bangladesh managed to raise its place to the Atlas, proving it own an independent nation.