Rereading an account of a long-ago war
Mumtaz Iqbal takes a critical look at a soldier's tale
Surrender At Dhaka
Birth of a Nation
Lt.Gen. JFR Jacob
Manohar
Retired Indian Lt. Gen. J.F.R. Jacob is a tactful guest. Invited by COAS Gen. Moeen U Ahmed for the 26 March celebrations, a nice gesture, Jacob at a press conference complimented Bangladeshis by saying that "freedom fighters' gallantry… liberated Bangladesh from Pakistan occupation."
Jacob is an accomplished soldier and author. His book is a valuable account of the events leading to the fall of Dhaka (spelt as Dacca in 1971) because Jacob was an insider.
The book's value lies not so much in the campaign detailsthese are well-covered in Victory in Bangladesh by Maj. Gen. Lachman Singh Lehl but in anecdotes and vignettes about people and Jacob's candid assessment and opinion about events and personalities.
Perhaps Jacob's most revealing information is the details on the effective logistics build-up that he and others rightly consider to be "…the critical factor in the success of the campaign" (p. 78-83). Hadn't Napoleon said that an army marches on its stomach? Constructing roads, upgrading signals and other forms of communications, collecting vehicles, transporting stores (54,000 tons), getting bridging equipment, moving ammunitionall these and myriad other requirements for waging war successfully were in place before hostilities commenced.
Jacob rightly claims credit for this impressive achievement. He took a risk and started stockpiling by end-May 1971 even before receiving Army HQ's (AHQ) operating instruction and without briefing Aurora. When Aurora later found out, he wanted to suspend work till the op instruction arrived. Jacob with difficulty prevailed upon him to let logistics preparations continue.
This episode is symptomatic of the uneasy Aurora-Jacob relationship. The COS seems to have had little time for his GOC-in-C. Jacob makes the remarkable contention that he couldn't brief Aurora on the logistics preparation because the latter was "…involved in advising the Mukti Bahini and spent time touring." These activities kept Aurora so busy that Jacob was "…left to get on with the planning, both operational and logistic, for the regular Army." (P.64).
This astonishing observation doesn't exactly flatter Aurora though Jacob maintains he got on well with his boss despite this and other differences (p.155), nor is it a particularly edifying example of a smooth Commander/COS relationship based on mutual confidence.
Though Jacob fulsomely praises India's Chief of Army Staff, Gen. (later Field Marshal) S.H.F.J. Manekshaw (p.153-54), he berates him for putting the capture of the ports of Chittagong and Khulna, and other territory, ahead of the capital Dhaka as the strategic objective in AHQ's operating instruction and 13 December 1971 directive to Eastern Command (p. 65-67; 159).
Jacob graphically describes the conference in early August 1971 in Fort William's war room to discuss AHQ's instruction. Manekshaw, Aurora and Director of Military
Operations Maj. Gen (later Lt. Gen.) K.K. Singh adamantly rejected Jacob's forceful recommendation that Dhaka should be the strategic objective. Jacob quotes Manekshaw:
"Sweetie, don't you see that if we take Khulna and Chittagong, Dacca will automatically fall." ("Sweetie" was the loaded endearment the COAS used before proceeding to rebuke). Jacob stuck to his guns. But his superiors were unmoved.
Jacob provides a tantalising peek into Delhi's vacillation on the timing of Indian military intervention in Bangladesh. In early April 1971, Manekshaw at a cabinet meeting used astute arguments and with some difficulty managed to convince Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of the unpreparedness and inadvisability of the Indian army intervening forthwith (Appendix 6 gives Manekshaw's amusingly candid account of this meeting).
Jacob corroborates Manekshaw's account. In the beginning of April, Manekshaw had rung up Jacob to say that the government wanted Eastern Command "…to move immediately into East Pakistan". Jacob protested, observing that he "…could be ready earliest by 15 November".
"Upset and impatient" at this answer, Manekshaw called Jacob the next day to say "…senior bureaucrats were accusing the Army of being over-cautious, if not cowardly". Jacob reiterated his position and praises Manekshaw for having the "…courage to uphold our (Eastern Command) stand". (p.36).
What is puzzling in this exchange is that Aurora, Jacob's boss, figures nowhere in it!
The matter on intervention did not end there. Jacob sardonically recalls a visit shortly thereafter by a Border Security Force (BSF) delegation led by its Director General FK Rustomjee. He informed Jacob that Delhi had tasked BSF to throw out the Pakistanis since Eastern Command would not do so. Would Jacob please send a contingent to take part in the Victory Parade BSF planned to hold in Dhaka two or three weeks hence?
Jacob laughed, told Rustomjee that he was out of his depth and politely ushered him out (p.37).
What is one to make of these accounts, especially the quixotic BSF episode? It is reasonable to assume that policy makers in Delhi, like many others, did not have
a clear grasp in early April 1971 of what was happening inside East Pakistan. Mrs. Gandhi's government was puzzled and unsure about the quality and magnitude of military posture and response ((See Muldhara.'71 by Muyeedul Hasan, one of the finest accounts of the liberation movement, including a critical analysis of Indian policy deliberations)
Jacob's graphic account of the background events and climactic negotiations, where he played a major role, leading to Lt. Gen. A.A.K. Niazi's surrender on 16 December 1971 is absolutely fascinating (p.129-148). He records Niazi and Indian Maj. Gen. G.C. Nagra, who knew Niazi while defence attache in Islamabad, constantly cracking bawdy jokes in Punjabi (many of which Maj. (later Maj. Gen) Siddiq Salek in his book Witness to Surrender says are unprintable) while negotiating surrender with the Indians in Niazi's Kurmitola ops room! This is an interesting insight into Niazi's tortuous character and an intriguing reaction of a defeated general under stress.
On the Mukti Bahini (MB), Jacob considers that operation Jackpot, the code name for guerrilla operations inside Bangladesh, probably could have been even more effective had fewer (about 8,000) but more intensively trained fighters been deployed rather than the 100,000 or so that were actually recruited. However, this does not stop Jacob from praising the MB's performance, judging their contribution to be "…a crucial element in the operations prior to and during full-scale hostilities." (p.94).
The one occasion Jacob ventures into diplomacy, and gets roundly snubbed, is around 18 December 1971 when running into External Affairs Policy Planning Chief late D.P. Dharthe suave architect of India's Bangladesh policy--at Dum Dum Airport, Kolkata. Jacob suggested that India should get Bangladesh to agree on "three essentials": guarantees for the Hindu minority; rationalisation of the enclaves and transit rights by rail and inland waterways through Bangladesh with the use of facilities at Chittagong Port." Dhar smiled and in effect told Jacob to mind his own business (p.99).
These three items form an intriguing menu for Indo-Bangladesh diplomacy. The last item is of course a hot button issue of some vintage between Dhaka and Delhi.
Jacob makes interesting assertions about his role in the Bangladesh liberation movement.
Thus, he clams to have suggested to Bangladesh leaders around the first week or so of
April 1971 to "proclaim a Provisional Government…like the Free French Government … (of) de Gaulle" and even prepared the related draft declaration which he gave to Tajuddin (p. 41).
Again, Jacob claims credit for initiating the first contact in early April 1971 with diplomat Deputy High Commissioner Hossain Ali in Kolkata which resulted in Ali and his staff switching allegiance to Bangladesh on 18 April 1971. The interesting point here is that Jacob did not inform Manekshaw or Aurora before taking this initiative (p.41-42). This strains credulity.
These and other claims in this readable and informative narrative suggest that modesty is not necessarily one of Jacob's strengths. The book makes transparent Jacob's disappointment that his accomplishments were not sufficiently recognised or rewarded.
Mumtaz Iqbal is a freelancer.
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