This scribe’s earliest memories of Yahya Khan are from the early 1960s when he arrived in Dacca as GOC 14th Division. Our dwelling then was close to the Flagstaff House with a clear view of its porch.
Overview of Yahya’s early military career
Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan Qizilbash was born in 1917 (Chakwal, West Punjab). Although born in the Punjab, Dari (Classic Farsi) was spoken in his house. After graduation from the Military Academy at Dehradun in 1938, he was commissioned in the Baluch Regiment of the British Indian Army. At the time of partition, he was a Major posted at the prestigious Command & Staff College, Quetta.
During the commotion of the partition, Yahya used to sleep (armed) with an escort in the Staff College Library due to the apprehension that there was a conspiracy to destroy or pilfer its books. When he was congratulated by a colleague (who had opted to serve India) in a party that was held for celebrating independence, he said something which at the end of the day came true. He retorted, “What are we celebrating? We have been friends but now we will end up fighting each other.” Yahya’s military career reflected his prophecy, and his end was extremely unfortunate.
During his tenure in the British Indian Army, he served in North Africa, Italy, and Mesopotamia (present Iraq). He was taken prisoner by the Italians but ultimately managed to escape from the Italian POW Camp. Sahibzada Yakub (Later Lt. General and Commander Eastern Command until March 08, 1971) was also incarcerated with him as a POW. According to Yahya, Yakub’s priority was learning the Italian Language. (Yakub had command over several languages and had read Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’ in Russian.)
After the departure of senior British officers from Pakistan Army and appointment of General Ayub Khan as its C-in-C in 1951 Yahya’s rise was meteoric. At 34 he was a Brigadier and at 40 a Major General. With the latter promotion he was posted in East Pakistan as GoC 14thDivision; the highest military rank serving in East Pakistan. Before that he was Ayub’s right hand man in executing the coup d’état of October 1958. He was also the key person in selecting and planning of the country’s new capital, Islamabad.
He was seen in bad light when he was taking over Operation “Grand Slam”. from Major General Akhtar Husain Malik on September 02, 1965. The objective was to sever the land route between India and Kashmir. 7 Div troops were put for the operation under Akhtar Husain Malik GOC 12 Div since Chamb was in his area. Once River Tawi was crossed, it was mandated that the changeover to GOC 7 Div Maj Gen Yahya Khan was to take place. This change in command during the middle of the campaign should not have been so planned to take place but the fact remains that it was so mandated earlier. Grand Slam culminated into a full 17-day war when India launched a full-fledged offensive across the international border starting on September 06, 1965.
The conspiracy theorists still believe that relieving Maj. Gen. Malik (a Mujahid and the planner of liberating Kashmir) and replacing him with Maj. Gen. Yahya was a conspiracy. No one yet knows who in the GHQ or the Presidency was the great conspirator / traitor of the time. After all, the overall command which authorized the insurrection into Kashmir was no different from that who decided to change the field command. Whether it was the correct decision or not, is debatable.
Lt. Gen. Gul Hasan the last C-in-C (actually COAS) of the Pakistan Army who held sensitive posts in the GHQ during the 1960s, records in his memoir that the Military thrust into Kashmir was bogged down on the 2nd day and the possibility of severing the land route between Kashmir and India was no longer a possibility. According to Gul Hasan, Yahya was tasked to implement an honorable retreat for the 12th Division.
It is also perceived that Malik’s personal battle plans exceeded that of the approved plan which was the reason for his removal. Perhaps Malik did not take any lesson from Gen. MacArthur who was fired by President Truman during the Korean war despite his meritorious services during WW II in the Pacific theater. It is alleged that while the goal of Operation Grand Slam was to take Akhnoor (a small outpost on Jammu-Pathankot Road); Malik was contemplating to take the major town of Jammu.
In 1966 Ayub not only promoted Yahya to the rank of a Lt. General over several seniors but also appointed him the Deputy C-in-C of the Army. Promotions strictly according to seniority and retirement on completion of tenure has been the tradition in the Indian Army since independence. On the other hand, we in Pakistan have not established any such tradition.
Ayub Khan was appointed Army C-in-C in 1951. When he executed a coup d’état in October 1958, he was serving his third tenure as C-in-C. Both Zia and Musharraf were promoted to the rank of COAS out of turn, superseding several senior Generals. Both Kayani and Bajwa received extension in their terms as COAS.
C-in-C | Commander in Chief (this designation was scrapped in 1971, after Bhutto’s taking over the country)
COAS | Chief of Army Staff (Lt. Gen. Gul Hasan was the first army Chief who held this designation.)
The Interregnum
Ayub Khan had read Niccolò Machiavelli’s, “The Prince” (courtesy Z. A. Bhutto, when Ayub was his Daddy) but he did not take any lessons from it. It is also widely perceived that Ayub’s cognitive abilities were significantly compromised after he fell critically ill in 1968. A popular uprising which started in 1968, led in West Pakistan by his once able heir apparent, Z. A. Bhutto brought down Ayub’s decade long regime, with the imposition of Martial Law on March 26, 1971, by Gen. Yahya Khan, the army C-in-C.
The agitation was far fiercer in East Pakistan. Hardly anyone realized that while the masses were out in the streets to oust the Ayub in West Pakistan; in East Pakistan it was a movement for the economic, political, and social rights of the Bengali majority. Such feelings of deprivation although present from the time of independence had metamorphosized into a staunch national movement; particularly after the war with India in 1965. In this war hostilities on ground took place on the western front only. It was Z. A. Bhutto who thanked China in a session of the National Assembly (early 1966) in Dacca for holding India from invading East Pakistan.
It was perhaps the last straw on the camel’s back. The Bengali nationalists were furious in their backlash, with the notion that the army that is fed, trained, and armed from the hard currency earnings of East Pakistan was available only to defend the Western wing, while the defense of the Eastern Wing was delegated to a foreign power.
Yahya in the driving seat, his achievements and failures
In the opinion of this scribe Yahya did not graduate into a politician, unlike Ayub or his successors (Zia, Musharraf). The latter (Zia and Musharraf) were prompt in dispatching dissenting colleague Generals home. Even Hitler fired his most trusted deputy, Reich Marshal Hermann Goering a few weeks before he committed suicide in his Berlin bunker. Yahya on the other hand fired no one from his junta. It may be noted that the commanders and administrators in East Pakistan was not a part of his Junta.
There is a point of view that he progressively became a prisoner of his own coterie. Had he read ‘The Prince‘ he may have fared better. His A.D.C. (Sq. Ldr. Arshad Sami, S.J.) records that Yahya was personally a compassionate person when it came to family, friends, and his own staff.
Great leaders have shown little compassion in statecraft. According to Brutus (who assassinated his friend Julius Caesar in the Roman Senate), “I loved Caesar, but I loved Rome more.” Was it not Hazrat Umar ibn Khattab (RA) who impeached (Field Marshal) Khalid ibn Walid, the architect and implementer of Byzantine military defeat at Yarmouk, for a minor misdemeanor?
When compassion grows to absolute trust it has negative consequences. Yahya trusted Mujib more than he should have in the political sense. Mujib the hardcore politician that he was, succeeded in convincing Yahya that his Six Points were only for securing votes. He had also managed to assure Yahya that he would be flexible after the elections.
It is also alleged that Bhutto had developed a personal rapport with Yahya’s key generals, who had significant influence in the decision making. Yahya did not gather the required strength to execute a putsch, which was necessary for Yahya (as President) in absolute command and preventing the breakup of United Pakistan.
Yahya’s political decisions
A political guru from East Pakistan, Toffazal Hossain a.k.a. Manik Mian (editor of Daily Ittefaq, the most popular Bangla Newspaper in East Pakistan) advised Yahya, immediately after imposition of Martial Law in March 1969, not to take over the burden of writing a new constitution. He suggested that the Martial Law regime should conduct elections based on the 1956 Constitution, which could be duly amended by the elected National Assembly, with due consideration to the current national aspirations. Unfortunately, Manik Mian died very soon, i.e. on June 01, 1969.
If Yahya had heeded to Manik Mian’s suggestion Mujib would have remained an important politician but not attained the level of the Frankenstein he proved to be later. The decision of Yahya would have been acceptable by all in the early days of Martial Law. Mujib could not have contested any such decision because of the stature in the politics of East Pakistan that Manik Mian enjoyed.
(Sehgal, Ikram & Robotka, Bettina | Blood over Different Shades of Green |Oxford University Press, Pakistan | 2020 | ISBN 978-0-19-070227-4) ,
Yahya took his own time in drafting the Legal Framework Order (LFO) under the framework of which the elections were to be contested and held. With the LFO, Yahya took two major political decisions. One was that the elections were to be held on a principle of “One man, One vote”. It implied that the principle of parity that had existed since enforcement of the 1956 Constitution was done away with. The second decision was to dissolve the “One Unit” in West Pakistan and to replace it with four provinces. The Khan of Kalat representing Baluchistan did not like it at all; but that is a different story.
The LFO had several basic flaws. Most prominent was that the assembly could pass the constitution with a simple majority. With the principle of ‘one man one vote’ this could give an undue advantage to East Pakistan in the process of constitution making with a simple majority. Yahya was advised to raise the bar to 60% of the votes if not two-third majority but he did not oblige.
The Constitution had to be provided accent by the President. Under provisions of the LFO he was also empowered to scrap it. If the Military President of Pakistan was de jure, the Dictator of Rome, what was the sense of going through the process of general elections?
Yahya Khan could have decided the quantum of provincial autonomy as well. If the Awami League was not satisfied with the extent of provincial autonomy they could have modified the arrangement constitutionally, after the elections. This would have been accepted by all, considering that the Martial Law regime in the initial phase was relatively strong. With the passage of time the political parties gained strength while the military junta fell into a state of apathy.
Conduct of Elections
Yahya allowed the contesting political parties a very long election campaign which lasted 11 months. This freehand resulted in cementing the nationalist fervor in East Pakistan and the sociologist ideology in West Pakistan. Elections were held in December 1970 which was generally perceived as free and fair. This perception is however not wholly true.
The second reality was that the martial law regime allowed Awami League an absolute free hand during their election campaign. The Awami League campaigned on fascist patterns, not allowing any other party to voice their opinion. The Jamaat-e-Islami had a significant following in East Pakistan however Awami League workers disrupted their planned inaugural election mass meeting at Paltan Maidan in Dacca with such a ferocity that Maulana Maudoodi had to flee for his life. That was the end of Jamaat-e-Islami in East Pakistan.
A very important leader of East Pakistan Maulana Bhashani (National Awami Party, China faction) boycotted the elections. Being on the extreme left he wanted immediate independence of East Pakistan. Had the Martial Law authorities checked the fascist election campaign of the Awami League and persuaded Maulana Bhashani to contest the elections, Awami League could not have earned the brute majority. On the other hand, the Yahya regime openly supported the right-wing parties, especially the Jamaat-e-Islami. The latter could secure only four National Assembly seats.
The appeasement of Awami League by the Martial Law authorities before the elections turned into the appeasement of the Pakistan People’s Party in West Pakistan after the elections. The common man remained flabbergasted at the weak conduct of the Martial Law regime.
Postponement of National Assembly Session
Notwithstanding all prior mistakes, Yahya’s gravest blunder was the postponement of National Assembly session scheduled in Dacca on March 03, 1971. The announcement was made very casually, defying recommendations given by the local authorities in East Pakistan, both civil and military. Paradoxically The Governor of East Pakistan, Vice Admiral Ahsan was summarily relieved of his duties before the infamous announcement was aired at noon, March 01, 1971, on Radio Pakistan.
His next blunder was to procrastinate his visit to Dacca which was repeatedly requested by Lt. Gen. Sahibzada Yakub Ali Khan, Commander Eastern Command, during the initial days of March 1971. Yahya arrived ultimately, but too late i.e. on March 15, only to discover that the government writ had ceased to exist in the entire Eastern Wing and Mujib was the de facto dictator of East Pakistan. It dawned on him quite late that the Awami League, now only wanted him to sign on the dotted lines, assuming full responsibility for the breakup of United Pakistan.
Yahya’s negotiations with Awami League in Dacca
The common perception is that Yahya dragged on the negotiations buying time to prepare the Dacca Garrison for initiating Operation Searchlight. He is also blamed for unleashing Operation Searchlight. Both the perceptions are weak. Much stronger forces were at play on ground. Actually, the party was already over anywhere between the afternoons of March 01 and March 07, 1971.
There was a chance for United Pakistan to have survived if the National Assembly could have convened as scheduled. Here Yahya is the major culprit in giving in to the wimps of Z. A. Bhutto in postponing the assembly session sine die. If Yahya had listened to Yakub and arrived in Dacca between March 03 & 05, Pakistan could still have existed, albeit as a loose federation or a confederation.
As recorded by G. W. Chaudhry, Mujib’s unscheduled visit to the Dacca President House on March 21, 1971, and his demand that power should be transferred immediately (i.e. without any constitutional arrangement) to elected representatives, separately in East and West Pakistan was the absolute negation of United Pakistan from Mujib’s end.
(Notwithstanding whatever had been agreed in the deliberation during the last five days.)
Readers may note that whatever was agreed on March 20, 1971, recorded as Draft Proclamation was already far more than the autonomy that Awami League had been demanding for East Pakistan under the Six Point formula.
Should Yahya have agreed?
On the next day i.e. March 22, 1971, Kamal Hosain, The Awami League Constitutional Expert arrived at the Dacca President House with a Draft Constitution, without the very concept of a United Pakistan.
What does one recommend for Yahya now?
(Chaudhry, G W | Last Days of United Pakistan | Indiana University Press |1974| ISBN 0 19 577461 1)
The next day which was to be celebrated as Republic Day was celebrated as the National Day of Bangladesh. The BD flag was hoisted on Mujib’s residence and Mujib spent the day taking salutes from different Awami organizations, shouting chants of Joy Bangla.
Operation Searchlight
According to the informed opinion of this scribe who has seen the political unrest on ground in East Pakistan, starting in 1968 and braved the month of March 1971 under Awami League siege in Dacca, and happens to be a witness to the initial days of Operation Searchlight; It is of no historic consequence for the ultimate result if the military action was launched or not. Bangladesh would still have come into being on the mid-morning of March 26, 1971. Yahya Khan and his Junta along with the general officers of the Eastern Command would have been held hostage. The Pak army soldiers in East Pakistan would have been slaughtered or held as Prisoners of War.
Operation Searchlight had to be launched if not for the sake of establishing the writ of the government, surely for saving the lives of the Pakistani soldiers and pro-Pakistan civilians.
(Jawaid, Muhammad S. | A Quest into The Genesis of New Pakistan | Self-published | 2018 | ISBN (978-1-53238891-0)
Unfortunately, Operation Searchlight deviated from its planned course at the very onset. In contrast to its planned internal security goals, it had to achieve, the campaign turned out into a civil war. An element of inhuman brutality was also added during the actual execution. Such metamorphose had reasons. The planners had not foreseen that they would face mutiny, desertions, armed insurgency (aided by India) and last but not the least, the mass brutal killings by the Awami League cadre of the pro Pakistani population, starting March 01, 1971. The carnage continued well into 1972. (The victims were both Biharis and pro-Pakistani Bengalis)
(Salik, Siddiq | Witness to Surrender | Oxford University Press, Pakistan |1977| ISBN 0-19- 577257-1)
The official state of war was lifted by the Eastern Command on May 10, 1971, with securing the southernmost town of Cox Bazar. Still, the writ of the army remained only in the cities until the surrender on December 16, 1971.
Yahya did not repose an iota of trust in the general officers of the Eastern Command. By the second week of April 1971 most of them were shunted out and replaced by hawks from West Pakistan. Even the military command was taken away from Lt. Gen. Tikka Khan who was brought in on March 07, 1971, to take over from Yakub. On April 07, he was made the Governor of East Pakistan while the military command was vested with freshly promoted Lt. General Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi.
The period from March 1971 to December 1971 was that of a civil war, and insurgency; and during the last three weeks, total war with India. This scribe is not aware what level of communication or confidence existed between Niazi and Yahya or GHQ Rawalpindi. Sadly, no such references are available for the interim period between April 07, 1971, and early December 1971. A future national catharsis may result in the GHQ de-classifying the documents.
A point of view exists which suggested declaring a general amnesty after the initial days of Operation Searchlight and having secured major towns in East Pakistan. Thereafter inviting the Awami League for negotiations, Mujib included. (This was also the view of Maj. Gen. Farman, advisor to Governor East Pakistan.)
Yahya and his Junta decided to use brute force discounting that the point of no return has already been crossed. They also failed to take into consideration the international backlash which was created by the millions of refugees fleeing into India. The poor refugees had no option but to flee to India. The Pakistan army on its mission to secure towns other than Dacca, burnt thousands of villages by firing incendiary bullets on houses made from bamboo. One can refer to Siddiq Salik (Witness to Surrender, 1977) who has described such an advance North of Dacca.
It was not only cruel and inhuman, worthy of the perpetuators of being tried for war crimes. The brutality of the army (against the Bengalis) escalated when they witnessed the brutal massacres (in thousands) by Awami League ruffians of the pro-Pakistani Urdu speaking Biharis which took place continuously from March 01, 1971, onwards. The Mukti Bahini also did not spare the pro-Pakistani Bengalis later during the insurgency. This mutual brutality is a separate subject for discussion.
(Bose, Sarmila | Death Reckoning, Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War | Oxford University Press, Pakistan | 2011 | ISBN 978-0-19-906477-9)
(Saikia, Yasmin | Women, War and The Making of Bangladesh, Remembering 1971 | Oxford University Press, Pakistan | 2011 | ISBN 978-0-19-906476-2)
(Ashraf, Azmat | Refugee, Unsettled as I Roam: My Endless Search for a home | Friesen Press, Canada | 2020 | ISBN 978-1-5255-6383-6)
(Zakariya, Anam |1971, A People’s History from Bangladesh, Pakistan and India |Penguin, Random House, India, 2019 | e-ISBN 978-9-353-05721-3)
The Eastern Command also alienated itself from the rest of the world by expelling the world media from Dacca on the morning of March 26, 1971. Yahya also imposed a strict censorship on information coming out of East Pakistan during the entire insurgency. The general population of West Pakistan was completely unaware of the events in East Pakistan except for those who had personal contacts. (The interested may refer to DAWN 50 years ago being published daily). The account of our ambassador in Moscow who had to bear the personal wrath of Alexi Kosygin in defending the official Pakistani narrative is worth going through.
(Marker, Jamshed |Quiet Diplomacy, Memoirs of an Ambassador of Pakistan | Oxford University Press, Pakistan | 2010 | ISBN 978-0-19-547779-9)
How devoted are indoctrinated soldiers? Very much! If one considers the NAZI Wehrmacht (army) which was the result of the indoctrination over a generation after the German defeat in WWI. The indoctrination of almost 90% soldiers dealing with the insurgency was no more than 15 minutes. On their arrival at Dacca Airport, they were given a pep-talk implying that Bengalis were a lesser race and lesser Muslims. Furthermore, they were closer to Hindus in their social and cultural life as compared to the high Muslims. Implying that killing them was acceptable!
The readers may note that seven out of 12 army battalions under 14th Division in East Pakistan had either mutinied or deserted. The situation of the paramilitary East Pakistan Rifles and the Police was also similar. To augment boots on the ground two infantry Divisions were air lifted by PIA to East Pakistan in late March / early April 1971. In addition, a force of five thousand from Punjab Police.
These souls who had been summarily ordered to immediately reach Karachi (from Quetta & Kharian) put on a plane to Dacca, knew nothing about East Pakistan, with very few exceptions. They had no prior emotional or social links with the people of East Pakistan. They did not know the language nor were they familiar with the climate or the landscape of East Pakistan. And last but not the least, on landing in Dacca, they were told that they here to deal with the ‘Untermensch’ (sub-humans) so that Pakistan can survive.
The atrocities committed by the Pakistan army in East Pakistan in the initial days of Operation Searchlight a back lash to the killings by the Awami League starting March 01, 1971. However, after the installation of Lt. Gen. A. A. K. Niazi on April 07, 1971, the rogues in the army got tacit approval to play God. Niazi was a debauched person and was corrupt to the core. The only evidence I can cite here is from his own colleagues.
(Raja, Khadim Husain | A Stranger in my Own Country, East Pakistan 1969-1971 | Oxford University Press, Pakistan | 2012 | ISBN 978-0-19-547441-1)
(Hasan, Gul | Memoires | Oxford University Press, Pakistan | 1993 | ISBN 0-19- 577447-7)
Yahya Khan also did not pay any heed to the suggestion of his colleagues who had served in East Pakistan and knew the local political matrix and the Bengali nationalist psyche. (The much maligned by Bangladesh) Maj. Gen. Rao Farman Ali who was responsible for planning Operation Searchlight and implementing it in Dacca, had given a draft speech to Yahya before his departure to Karachi from Dacca on March 25, 1971. In this draft it was proposed to announce that Mujib has been taken into protective custody to save him from extremist elements in his Party.
The next day Yahya closed all doors for future reconciliation in his address to the nation announcing that Mujib was a traitor, and he would not be spared. He also banned Awami League as political party, shutting doors for any possibility of a political solution in future.
Some months later he had to sit on a block of ice and eat his hat when the world leaders including his friend President Nixon forced him to negotiate with the BD government in exile at Calcutta. By this time, it was too late. Indira Gandhi had prepared the international diplomatic environment aided with which she could devour Pakistan. A peaceful agreement between The Awami League and the Government in Islamabad was an anathema to her. Therefore, she made sure that the Bangladesh Prime Minister in exile did not oblige.
POW | Prisoner of War
GOC | General Officer Commanding
PIA | Pakistan International Airlines
Yahya’s conduct during the hearing of Hamoodur Rahman Commission
During the proceedings of the Hamoodur Rahman Commission, Yahya accepted the responsibility of the 1971 Military defeat and the loss of East Pakistan, however he demanded that he be tried in an open court.
Bhutto may have decided against bringing Yahya and his Junta before the Judiciary or a Military Court Martial because of his own complicity in the debacle of 1971. Zia was however clean from any participation in the events of 1971. He could have brought them to the book. Most of the key players were still alive and active.
When Zia initiated his accountability drive, some of his colleagues voiced that charity should begin from home. Lt. Gen. Faiz Ali Chishti (Commander X Corps) suggested that Yahya should be the first one to be tried. Zia agreed but after some procrastination dropped the idea citing difficulties in formation of a tribunal which could try a four-star general.
(Chishti, Faiz Ali | Betrayals of Another Kind, Islam, Democracy and The Army in Pakistan | Tricolor Books, Islam Ganj, Azad Market, Delhi | 1989 | ISBN 81 85404 00 3)
I am no way here to defend any of the moral ‘Munkirat’ but am constrained to separate chaff from wheat from a historical perspective.
Drinking was never considered a vice by humankind with few exceptions since times immemorial. It was Kosher for the (great) Umayyads, Abbasids, Mamluks, Safavids, Moghuls and the Ottomans, with very few exceptions. One may pick any book on the Moghuls, Ottomans, or the Princely rulers of India (both Muslim and Hindu) to inform themselves of the immorality and debauchery of the Muslim ruling class. Illa Masha Allah!
Assigning the entire cause of the 1971 holocaust only to the moral turpitude of one person is akin to burying one’s head in sand. Several other things were very wrong which were deliberately pushed under the rug by the Bhutto regime and to a great extent by the intelligentsia. The tragedy is further compounded with the nation collectively not bothering to make any efforts in finding them out. It was convenient to make Yahya look worse with passing of time. It may be noted that hard drinkers including Sir Winston Churchill and Mustafa Kamal Ataturk have been successful statesmen in contemporary history.
Yahya’s hard drinking (or for that matter, of a fair number of the officer corps) did not begin with his imposition of Martial Law or on the eve of December 1970 elections. Despite his hard drinking Yahya earned promotions in the army to the rank of C-in-C. One may also evaluate the conduct of the Martial Law Administrators, Corps Commanders, Divisional Commanders, and the Principal Staff Officers at the GHQ. Were they also drunk or had simply turned into imbeciles?
A rational approach may also be taken to analyze each major decision of the Yahya Khan administration if they were made with a strategy to get rid of East Pakistan or was merely ad hoc measures to go with the tide for remaining in power, or in the extreme case under the influence of alcohol, with no logic. Prima Facie evidence indicate that the decisions were ad hoc sans any long-term vision. They also carried the fatal element of procrastination.
The character assassination of Yahya
The personal and political vilification of Yahya started in the evening newspapers, on the 2nd or 3rd day of the taking over of the country by Z. A. Bhutto, I recall Barrister Iqbal Ahmed (we were a tenant in his father’s house in December 1971) who was a political activist in the 1950-60’s and belonged to the respected lot that produced towering politicians like Dr. Rasheed and Mairaj Muhammad Khan, presenting the banner headlines to us and mentioned that “We shall now see an era of political persecution in Pakistan that we have not seen until now”. Ultimately, Bhutto’s regime proved to be the worst uncivil dictatorship in Pakistan.
Yahya’s character assassination was a planned campaign of the Bhutto regime ostensibly to divert the public attention from the part played by Bhutto himself in the 1971 disaster. Bhutto could not have dared bring Yahya and his Junta to a trial (even in camera) because he was one of the three principal players in the breakup of Pakistan.
The morality of the Pakistani High Society
Drinking in Pakistani society has been inherited from the British era as a mark of privileged status. Those who drink in any capacity will never touch pork, non-halal chicken or beef. I have witnessed numerous instances in my professional career where liquor was halal in two situations: when it was available gratis, or when no one was looking.
Even Ayub Khan who is remembered as an ‘enlightened’ Muslim could not live without his evening shot of whisky. Drinks were normal in military messes and gala state dinners until Zia ul Haq took over. It did not reduce the consumption of alcohol but made ‘a bar‘ an integral feature in the basement of most new villas. Despite the enforced prohibition, drinking remains on the rise as a status symbol.
Such liberties are whole heartedly accepted (mubah) in the higher echelons of our ‘Muslim society but they remain ‘lash-able’ only when it comes to the masses.
Our society continues in its practice of hypocrisy. The excerpt below, written in 1989 is still valid today.
“ I mentioned to the man I was talking to, one of the central figures in the country in the past couple of decades, that I found Pakistan a hypocritical place. I said it partly as a provocation, but to my surprise, he agreed with me, and had a theory to explain it.“
There are two sort of nations, he said those rooted in the soil and, and those rooted in ideas. India belongs to the first category.
At partition, the Muslims came from India to Pakistan in search of an idea of a homeland. The people who lived in Pakistan were not stirred by the cry: local grandees had mostly either supported the British or allied themselves with the Congress party. Still the locals were quite happy to get rid of the Hindus, because they could wipe out their debts to the money lenders and get hold of abandoned property. When Pakistan was almost a reality, they voiced their support.
The fanfare of idealism that brought the new country into being didn’t change the nature of the place selected to make it a reality. Islamic morality and egalitarianism were laid over a tribal society with normal sexual and alcoholic habits and a rigid hierarchy of power. The old world persisted, paying lip service to new.
(Duncan, Emma | Breaking the Curfew, A Political Journey Through Pakistan Penguin, Great Britain | 1989 | ISBN 0-7181-2989-X)
Root cause of the debacle
Drinking alone did not lead to the total failure of Yahya’s Junta. It was the general moral degradation of the society as whole. A few have been identified by the Hamoodur Rahman Commission Report. If I can recall such traits include integrity and accountability, very short in supply both in the military and political leadership. With the passage of time the cancer has metastasized in our civil service, education, commerce and even the conduct of civil society.
The report also observes that the Pakistan Army developed a ‘lust of easy wealth’ after their ‘success’ in the 1965 war. It naturally resulted in dilution of their professional capabilities. This is visible even today. We have renewed the Mughal tradition of rewarding every senior promotion with land grants. To some extent this privilege is also enjoyed by the civil service and the judiciary. Pilferage and loot by politicians and the government functionaries is an added curse. Sadly, our Judiciary is no less corrupt than the other branches of government.
Fifty years ago we could sustain a war for three weeks. Our nuclear deterrent in place has given us additional time and space.
The 1971 War
From the actions of the Yahya Junta, it seems that they had decided to let go East Pakistan. The decision not to let the Eastern Wing rule over the West was already in place. With the involvement of India and its diplomatic efforts succeeding in moulding world opinion in favour of India and Bangladesh, the situation went beyond the control of Yahya and his Junta.
Planning of the war in both East and West Pakistan was faulty. In East Pakistan the strategy was to defend small border towns turning them with one-month provisions into fortresses. Unfortunately, Dacca itself was not developed as a ‘fortress’. The Indian army bypassed the fortress towns’ and reached Dacca from the North, aided with para drops close to Dacca. The Indian Eastern Command played its own game here, “Dacca first”, ignoring the wishes of the GHQ in Delhi, which wanted to take Khulna and Chittagong before Dacca.
India had no more than three thousand combat heads in the vicinity of Dacca when the surrender took place on December 16, 1971. According to Maj. Gen. Jacob (Chief of Staff Indian Eastern Command, later Lt. Gen.), it was possible to defend Dacca for a few more days albeit with bloodshed.
Lt Gen. Jacob has shared the panic at Delhi GHQ because of the apprehension that Niazi at the end of the day could opt to defend Dacca. The Soviets had by then informed the Indians that they will not veto any future resolution asking for ceasefire. Had such a resolution be passed by the UN Security Council with Dacca still in control of Pakistan army, the entire Indian war effort would have been compromised and additionally a surrender would have been avoided.
(Jacob F. R. Lt. General |Surrender at Dacca, Birth of a Nation | The University Press Ltd. Dhaka | 1997 | ISBN 984 05 1395 8)
Although India had launched an all-out offensive in East Pakistan on November 23, 1971, Pakistan did not bother to bring the world attention to recognize that India was the aggressor. This was a major failure in decision from Yahya and his Junta. Pakistan however launched a half-hearted offensive from the west on December 03, 1971. At the end of the war on December 17, 1971, Pakistan’s 1st Armoured Corps had not moved from its peacetime location, and its Air Force had been largely preserved in West Pakistan.
The hawks in New Delhi were eager to finish off West Pakistan as well. Indira Gandhi relented because of the agreement reached a few days earlier between Nixon and Brezhnev: that the reality of Bangladesh will be accepted, and India will not be allowed to destroy West Pakistan.
Yahya addressed the nation on December 16, 1971, in which he informed the nation that a small setback in battle does not mean defeat and vowed to continue the war. He did not mention East Pakistan or the surrender of the Pakistan army at Dacca. He also pledged to give the country a constitution on December 20, 1971.
Conclusion
The 6th Armoured Division stationed at Gujranwala (in reserve during the war) mutinied on December 17, and after a quick chain of events, the Chief of General Staff, Lt. Gen. Gul Hasan together with the Air Chief, Air Marshal A. Rahim Khan managed to depose Yahya on December 20, 1971, replacing him with Z. A. Bhutto.
The time between December 16 and 20, 1971 was quite tense in Rawalpindi / Islamabad. Several efforts were contemplated for crushing the mutiny of the 6th Armored Division; however, none could be implemented.
(Ali, Farrukh B | Prison Journey, A Memoir | Vanguard Books, Lahore | 2014 | ISBN 978-969-402-573-5)
For reasons known only to Bhutto, the leaders of the uprising (Brig. F. B. Ali and four other senior officers) were discharged from the army in August 1972. Bhutto’s vengeance did not end here. Ali was awarded life imprisonment in 1973 in the ‘Nadir Cinema’ conspiracy case. The trial took place at Attock fort with Maj. Gen. Zia ul Haq presiding the Court Martial.
The Shimla accord was concluded between India and Pakistan in June 1972. Bhutto signed on the dotted lines. In the opinion of this scribe, Indira Gandhi was magnanimous in victory. This may be the subject of another story.
Yahya Khan died in August 1980. He had no contact with the outside world since being deposed. Neither Yahya nor any one of his Junta or Niazi were brought to the book. Bulk of the facts that led to the bloody break up of United Pakistan in 1971 went with him to the grave.
