India Invaded Pakistan - Know the Facts
By Ahmed Quraishi
Islamabad , Pakistan
I wrote a commentary following a cricket match between Pakistan and India on 30 March 2011. An Indian reader, Mr. Mohit Kaul, responded to my opinion by posting a reply that contained misleading information about the 1971 Indian invasion of Pakistan.
Personal attacks and official propaganda aside, this is a good opportunity to briefly mention some facts and dispel myths about India's 1971 invasion of Pakistan. Pakistani rulers are the worst advocates of their national causes. That's why you don't hear any intelligent advocacy from the mouths of Pakistani rulers.
First of all, there was no 'Indo-Pakistan war of 1971'.
That's a misleading description.
India INVADED Pakistan in 1971. Use the right words because there is a big difference.
Pakistani history books, official and private, need to be corrected.
There was a full-fledged, one-sided invasion across an international boundary. And it was an unprovoked invasion, preplanned and exploiting post-election chaos in Pakistan.
The rest of my comment to my friend from India went as follows:
Dear Mohit,
Thank you for the comment. I read it twice but I am disappointed to see the same propaganda points that Indian surfers prowling Pakistani and international websites post everywhere to hide some of the bitter realities about Incredible India’s negative role in the region.
One of the good things to happen out of the post-2001 Afghan war is the exposure of India’s role. It’s been slow and initially many of India’s friends in the UK and the US tried to brush it under the carpet. But eventually, some of the seniors in Washington and Kabul finally came clean on India’s covert terror-related activities, where the good Indians have been passing on arms, money and training to terrorists to go kill Pakistani civilians in our cities.
The Indian role in 1971 is the dirtiest Indian secret that’s been effectively hidden from the world. The main reason it remained hidden is our lousy Pakistani politicians who can’t put together two coherent sentences on any subject.
The first link you provide, from globalsecurity.org, proves the Indian dirty role. The first line in that link says: “The third war between India and Pakistan took place between November 22 when the Indians began providing active artillery support to the separatists.”
This did not start out as a Pakistan-India war. It was a Pakistani election gone bad and political parties resorted to violence to prove their points. India saw an opportunity in internal Pakistani chaos and invaded Pakistan across the international border without any provocation.
The quote you refer to from Major Gen. Hakeem Qureshi’s book does not support your point. It’s retrospection from our side about our own mistakes. He refers to what went wrong in our local politics that led to the chaos that were exploited by India to invade. The same goes for the youtube link.
More details that emerged in recent years conclusively show that India actually started recruiting local peasants in areas of East Pakistan adjoining India. In two years, these recruits became foot soldiers for a terrorist militia known as Mukti Bahini that sprung to action as soon as the Indian army began the invasion. Indian soldiers and their terror militia went on rampage, murdering Pakistanis on linguistic basis to feed chaos and provide legitimacy to the massacre.
Don’t try to portray this history as some kind of payback for Pakistan’s cricket team losing a match to India last week.
And don’t go prowling websites to plant official Indian propaganda. Gone are the days of one-sided Indian propaganda. Pakistanis are also speaking up now, and every time you plant misleading info you’ll create more opportunities for exposing the other side of Indian links to regional instability and terrorism.
More on Mukti Bahini
Mr. Mushtaq Sethi wrote the following remarks that are very useful in understanding the Indian proxy militia:
Mukti Bahini were not “just another” insurgent force: on the contrary, their original core consisted of defectors from the former East Bengal Regiments of the Pakistani Army, who reached the Indian soil and also those Hindus who had fled East Pakistan and crossed over to India and had returned after having received complete training in the art of guerilla warfare. They were soon reinforced by a considerable number of volunteers, mainly students, then during April and May, Pakistan had purged Bangalis from the armed forces. Many others defected, while those who remained were not trusted. Result was that the combat effectiveness of Pakistani units suffered considerably:
Once in India, together with other volunteers from East Pakistan, they were trained and organized into six new East Bengal Regiments, in June 1971. By November 1971, the Mukti Bahini was reinforced by addition of three artillery batteries ... as well as a small flying service (operating two Aérospatiale SA.316B Alouette III helicopters, one DeHavilland Canada DHC-3 Otter and a single Douglas DC-3 Dakota transport). They were counting up to 85.000 and their order of battle during the war in December was as follows:
- K Force/Brigade, consisting of 10th and 11th East Bengal Regiment and No.3 Field Battery- S Force/Brigade, consisting of 2nd and 4th East Bengal Regiment, and No.1 Field Battery- Z Force/Brigade, consisting of 1st, 3rd, and 8th East Bengal Regiment, and No.2 field Battery. Source: http://www.pakistanarmy.gov.pk/AWPReview/TextContent.aspx?pId=197&rnd=446
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