By  Mowahid Hussain Shah

December 27 , 2013

Yahya Khan Speaks on 1971

 

Abdul Quader Molla’s hanging in Dacca demonstrates that the demons of 1971 have yet to be exorcised. The common refrain is that the West inflicted Nazi-like carnage on the East. But it overlooks the largely unseen dark side of the brutality inflicted on hapless West Pakistanis in East Pakistan. No Bengali got killed in 1971 in West Pakistan.

Sarmila Bose, grand-niece of Indian freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose, amply documents the atrocities inflicted on pro-Pakistan elements in her 2011 book, “Dead Reckoning: Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War.” I was present at its Washington launch.

In Lahore, a segment of self-loathing Punjab elite over-simplifies issues and fashionably pins all blame on Punjabi chauvinism, thereby nourishing separatist seeds, entrenching victimhood, and bypassing broader issues of misgovernance, unfairness, and avarice.

Lest it be forgotten, East Pakistan was a province of Pakistan. And those who try to forcibly secede from the larger union are not greeted with a bouquet of daffodils. Abraham Lincoln’s war (1861-1865) against the seceding American South is one prime example.

Not heard in the conversation on 1971 has been the voice of General Yahya Khan, whose misfortune it was to preside over the vivisection of a united Pakistan. The nation’s misfortune became someone else’s good fortune.

A lot is known about 1971; but so little is understood. If Pakistan has to pull itself back from the brink, it needs to know what went wrong in 1971 to ensure that those calamitous blunders are not repeated and the warning signals not ignored.

Yahya passed away in 1980, leaving only an affidavit, “Yahya Speaks,” filed in the Lahore High Court in 1978. Here are Yahya Khan’s exact words about Bhutto’s stance in 1971:

“That this threat of Mr Bhutto that whosoever will go to Dacca his legs will be broken…aggravated the situation in East Pakistan. …It put at stake the national solidarity…provided a cause of revolt in East Pakistan. This was no less dangerous than the Six Points and clearly meant separation of the two wings of the country. It was tremendously perilous to the integrity of Pakistan. Rather, it was more suicidal to the integrity of Pakistan than the six points formula of Mujib. …Bhutto was slave to his lust for power so much that he proposed the concept of two prime ministers in one country. Such statements ultimately contributed to the breakup of Pakistan.”

Sadly, the self-inflicted wounds of 1971 were overshadowed by the unjust trial and execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1979, which at some personal cost I had then publicly opposed and condemned.

You are a traitor when absent from power; and a savior when present in power. Yahya was the first chairman of CDA and oversaw Islamabad’s construction and, yet, did not own even a plot in Islamabad. He had a pivotal role in Nixon’s China initiative. In the White House letter of August 7, 1971 to Yahya, Nixon wrote that “the generations to come will forever be in your debt.”

To conclude with Shakespeare: “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.”

 

---------------------------------------------------------------

 

PREVIOUSLY


Election 2004: Decisive but Divisive

Muslim Youth & Kashmir in America

The Big Picture: Wealth without Vision

Oxygen to Global Unrest

Punishing the Punctual

Change without Change

Don’t Be Weak

Passionate Attachment

The Confidence of Youth

The Other Side of Democracy

Campaign of Defamation

Pakistani Women & the Legal Profession

A Pakistani Journey

Farewell to Fazal

Mukhtaran and Beyond

Revamping the OIC

7/7 & After

Nuclear Double-Standard

Return to Racism

Hollywood – The Unofficial Media

The Sole Superpower

The UN at 60

A Slow Motion World War?

Elite vs. Street

Iqbal Today

Macedonia to Multan

Defending our Own

2006 & Maulana Zafar Ali Khan

Error against Terror

The Limits of Power

Cultural Weaknesses

Aggressive at Home, Submissive Abroad

Global Storm

The Farce of Free Expression

The Changing Mood

Condi & India

Xenophobia

Looking inward

Re-Thinking

A Tale of Two Presidents

Close to Home

Flashpoint Kashmir

The Spreading Rage

Confronting Adversity

The Illusion of International Law

Other Side of Extremism

Five Years after 9/11

The Educated Ignorant

The Decline of Humor

Icons

Six Years of Insanity

The War Not Being Fought

Munir Niazi

Compliance & Defiance

Counter-Message

Miscast

The Goddess of Wealth

The Meaning of Moderation

The Tora Bora of Fear

Clash of Civility

The Early Race

Challenge & Response

Will & Skill

Zealotry

Movie-Media and Pakistan

Hug with a Thug

Quest for Integrity

Unconquered

Vanity

Bringing Back the Past

Stuck in Iraq

Islam, Science and the West

Turmoil over Turkey

Leaders versus Leadership

Might Does Not Make Right

Kursi First

Vision & Will

Battle of the Billionaires

Assassination Alley

Extremism and Change

Rosy Expectations

Short-Term Gain, Long-Term Pain

Not Winning

Beyond Baghdad: Five Years after

The Hijab of Democracy

Hate, Fear & Hope

Weapon of Words

Hide N’ Seek

Yanking in the UN

Obama’s Breakthrough

Let Lahore Be Lahore

National Mood & Sports

Flirting with Fire

Trips Abroad

Georgia on the Mind

Duel for the White House

Zia to Zardari

Palestine: Avoiding the Unavoidable 

Not Working 

In the Ring 

Obama’s America

Smiles & Dreams

Quiet Deeds of Good

Crime and Indifference

Journey of Understanding

VIP-hunting

Terror via Counter-Terrorism

Umpires or Vampires?

The Long Road

Yesterday’s Reminder

Appeasement and the Real Threat

Israel’s Washington Agenda

New Challenges

Cairo and Beyond

Re-fighting Old Battles

America ’s Super Villains

Activism in America

Style without Substance

Overcoming Barriers

Ashes to Afghanistan

The Looming Change

Fear and Possibilities

What Is Not Debated 

Hired Guns

Rampage at Fort Hood

Manmohan in Washington

The Long Duel

Green Nukes

Vision and Division

Avoiding Why

Striving to Matter

Shame-proof

Anxiety and Opportunity

Putting Iraq in America

The Right Strategy

Looking Beyond

Rot at the Top

Strategic Folly

Daring & Caring

Over-Stepping on Turkey

Sudan : Perils of Provincialism

Old Fears, New Target

Europe ’s Stain

The US-Pakistan Enigma

The Status Quo Is Unacceptable

9 Years after 9/11

License to Steal

US Muslims at the Crossroads

Tumor of Terror

An Arab Voice

Disastrous Decisions

Double Game

Sticky Wiki

What Quaid Was Not

Money Conspiracy

Pharaohs & Pirates

Greed and Cricket

Change & Challenge  

Forty Years after 1971

Abandoning Our Own

Rewarding Failure

Osama and Obama

Tsunami of Tolerance

Representation and Presentation

Meek and Weak

Change or the Same?

No Easy Exit

Nation to Non-Nation

10 Years after 9/11

Shining India?

Big Power, Small Politics

Rule of the Gun

Proxy of the Powerful

Fight for Fairness

Republican Race

Actors or Directors

Speaking out

Professional Sycophants

More Provinces?

Too Much Information

Soft Separation

Soft Poison

Unemployment & Over-Population

Seize the Day

The Arab Awakening

Ben Bella

At University of Gujrat

Good People Behaving Badly

Playing Over-Smart

Do Less

Resisting the Resistible

Performance, Not PR

Home-grown Havoc

Salutation to the 65 th Year

Plague of Provincialism

USA Elections 2012

Rage

Fight or Flight

Rift and Drift

Obama II

Me and We

Small Role or Small Actors?

On Losing

Who Will Guard the Guards?

Loyal to Their Loot

Prevail or Fail

Perceptions and Reality

Toll of Occupation

Re-think, Re-examine, and Self-correct 

The Washington Tribe

Voice and Vision

Moral Slump

Wall of Illusion

Under One Banner

Bitter Harvest

Gallows and the Throne

Scent of Power

At a Standstill

Leaders and Leadership

The Deadline

Fighting Darkness

Distant Connections

Governance: The Long View

Discussion in DC

Darkness in the Mind

Killing Kennedy and Liaquat Ali


2001

 

Editor: Akhtar M. Faruqui
© 2004 pakistanlink.com . All Rights Reserved.