Customer Reviews

War and Secession: Pakistan, India, and the Creation of Bangladesh

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The authors provide a well-balanced, unbiased historical account of the accounts leading to the war of 1971. The book is very well researched with numerous notes on various sources of information.

The book describes the genesis of the problems in East Pakistan, beginning with the partition of India and the formation of Pakistan's two wings. Carefully collected economic data demonstrates the lop-sided distribution of wealth in Pakistan with more government spending and foreign aid going to the West than to the East, despite the latter having a greater population and suffering from severe natural disasters. Also cited are the differences between East and West Pakistan over confronting India over Kashmir. The East did not share a penchant for confronting India over Kashmir - a territory that lay over a 1000 miles away. There were more pressing problems at home then (circumstances that are eerily similar to those today in Pakistan!).

These differences came to a height in a war fought over Kashmir in 1965 (instigated upon Bhutto's advice to Ayub Khan) when East Pakistan was left virtually undefended against any potential Indian military advances. This further contributed to its sense of insecurity.

The politicians of West Pakistan, most notably Z. A. Bhutto and Yahya Khan, are blamed unambiguously for their role in canceling a session of the first democratically elected national assembly in Pakistan that precipitated in a crisis in March 1971. India's role in contributing to the crisis until March 1971 was minimal, if any, but was to assume greater importance in the months to follow. The failure of all political processes to placate the demands of Z. A. Bhutto led to the suspension of the National Assembly, and subsequent events.

However, once the crisis resulted in millions of refugees flowing into India that threatened to upset the delicate demographic balance in the affected states, the problem also became one of India's. The authors fault Indira Gandhi for not trying harder to achieve a political settlement of the problem. It is highly unlikely that India could have mediated a problem between West and East Pakistan. After Indira Gandhi concluded that the problem could not be resolved politically by Pakistan's leaders, India began to play an increasingly larger political-military role, beginning in the summer of 1971 and concluding with a lightning military campaign in December, 1971.

Sisson and Rose present a highly informative account of the events leading to the independence of Bangladesh. As a Pakistani, it proved depressing reading as one sees how events unfolded in what would almost be a comedy of errors had the human cost not been so high. The actions of key protaganists leave one disgusted at their short-sightedness and venality. Much as we may like to think that it was 'all India's fault', the authors make it quite clear that while India acted to take full opportunity of the chances it had, its role in precipitating the Crisis was negligible (if at all). Similarly, while Yahya Khan and the Army must take the blame for the ultimate decision of the Army action, the behaviour of the prominent Pakistani political leaders, especially Bhutto (who, from the events narrated in the book, seems to come away with the most blame), beggars belief. A must read for anyone interested in the events of 1971 free of the baggage that subcontinental writers bring to the subject.

This "unbiased," thoroughly researched account, has all the feel of hermetically-sealed academia. While reading "War and Secession" I kept trying to account for the authors' strangely sterile analysis of one of the most outrageous and shameful unravelling of the democratic processes in recent history. I can only assume that neither of the authors spent much time in Pakistan or Bangladesh previous to their research trips for interview purposes. Their sometimes painfully detailed account is limited to the bureaucratic and military chambers of power and is curiously drained of the flesh and blood of the real historic situation. Academic "objectivity" actually becomes less objective by not adequately indicating the real consequences of the dry political struggles. This becomes especially evident halfway through the book when, astoundingly, after spending a long chapter detailing final negotiations, the skip ENTIRELY any details of what the infamous military crackdown of March 25, 1971 actually entailed, in terms of the brutal extermination of tens of thousands of Bengali civilians.

The authors' subtle anti-Indian bias and curious defensiveness of Nixon-Kissinger becomes more apparent in the last third of the book. I was expecting a case study in conflict resolution (or some such thing), but kept wondering why they wrote this book. The final "Interpretations," when I finally got to it, was a disappointment. It offered no new insights or thought-provoking analysis, or, most pointedly, suggestions for how to avoid, or more constructively intevene in, such conflicts in the future.

This is definitely NOT a book for the general reader, as the authors not only write in a dry, typically old-fashioned academic style, but seem to assume readers' familiarity with the situation. For example, they switch from referring to the capital of Pakistan as "Rawalpindi" to "Islamabad" without explanation, and similarly offer the first use of the term "Bangladesh" without quotes or context.

There are also a few minor factual errors that don't change the book's value for its detailed account or the overall import of the history it describes, but do make me wonder why they didn't use a fact-checker (standard procedure, I thought, for a major scholarly work). For example, they describe the "major" cyclone of "October" 1970, which in fact took place on November 12-13; and then procede to give no indication of the singular, historic nature of this cyclone, which killed at least 250,000 people in the Ganges Delta OVERNIGHT.

Overall, this book provides some valuable "primary source" information for specialists, with insights into why the war happened, but little acknowledgement of its probable inevitability, given the arbitrary divisions of post-British Partition. Regarding the Pakistan Army, Shuja Nawaz's Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army, and the Wars Within (Oxford Pakistan Paperbacks) (2008) is a far better resource. Alas, the definitive book about the 1971 Bangladesh war of independence has yet to be written.

Sisson and Rose present a thorough analysis of the policy decisions of the involved governments that led to the creation of Bangladesh as an independent country. The authors describe the issues and events that faced the leaders of the respective governments and their actions. Of note, the book does not describe the events that occurred to the people of Bangaldesh during the war.

Richard Sisson and Leo E. Rose put all of their many interviews to good use in War and Secession (Pakistan, India, and the Creation of Bangladesh). They present all sides of the various complex relationships of this region, as well as presenting the fascinating international views of the situation, predominantly China, USSR, and the US. They are careful to remain unbiased (perhaps sometimes a little too unbiased in the case of Bhutto, in my opinion) and present the misperceptions that all sides were using to base their decisions upon. This book will also be a joy for the general reader as they make all the issues understandable and unravel all the tangles between the various personalities. The authors provide a defintive account of the creation of Bangladesh that will both entertain and inform.

This seems to me to be an adequate account of the events of the 1971 war leading to the creation of Bangladesh. I do not proclaim to be an expert in this field, but the authors did a fair job constructing the events and major actors leading up to the crisis that became the 1971 war. The unfortunately drawback may also be the book's strength - the perspective was drawn mostly from the views of India, Pakistan, and Mujibur Rahman, the elected leader of the Awami Party in East Pakistan, which eventually became Bangladesh. Somewhere the needs and desires of the people of Bangladesh people become submerged, so I might agree with the "3 star critic" who saw this book as somewhat "academic and sterile." Nonetheless, I think the authors do responsibly convey some of the important events of the war itself (their chosen topic), but not the history, politics, and culture of Bangladesh. People desiring more of the latter will wish to read more elsewhere.