India–Pakistan war of 1971

The third war between India and Pakistan lasted just thirteen days, from 3 to 16 December 1971, and ended with the surrender of Pakistan's army in the east and the emergence of Bangladesh as an independent state. India entered the conflict on the side of Bengali nationalists already fighting the Bangladesh Liberation War, after mass killing in East Pakistan had driven millions of refugees across the border. Around 93,000 Pakistani soldiers and civilians were taken prisoner.

Pakistan, created at the partition of India in 1947, consisted of two wings separated by Indian territory. Bengalis in the more populous East Pakistan had long resented the dominance of the west. In the general election of 1970, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's Awami League won 167 of East Pakistan's 169 seats and a near-majority in the national assembly. The military government of Yahya Khan and the western politician Zulfikar Ali Bhutto would not let Mujib take power, and the assembly's opening was postponed. Strikes shut down the east, and in early March Bengali mobs killed Bihari residents seen as pro-western.

On the night of 25 March 1971 the army launched a crackdown in Dhaka, outlawed the Awami League and arrested Mujib. Bengali army units and police rebelled, independence was declared on 26 March, and a government in exile formed in April, with a guerrilla force, the Mukti Bahini. In the following months the Pakistani army and allied militias, including the Razakars, carried out killings on a vast scale, with Hindus particularly targeted. Estimates of the number of civilians killed range widely, from about 300,000 to three million, and the figures remain disputed. Many women were raped, with estimates commonly given between 200,000 and 400,000. Some eight to ten million people fled to India.

The refugee influx placed a heavy burden on India. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi gave political support to the independence movement and let guerrillas train in the refugee camps. In August India signed a treaty of friendship with the Soviet Union. From October Indian troops made raids across the border, and from 21 November they stayed inside East Pakistan alongside the Mukti Bahini.

On the evening of 3 December Pakistan's air force struck eight Indian airfields in a pre-emptive raid. Gandhi treated this as an act of war, and India launched a coordinated air, sea and land offensive. In the east, Indian forces and the Mukti Bahini bypassed strongpoints and closed rapidly on Dhaka, while the navy blockaded the coast. In the west, Pakistani attacks were held at Longewala and Shakargarh. On the night of 4–5 December Indian missile boats attacked Karachi harbour, and a Pakistani submarine sank the Indian frigate Khukri on 9 December. The United States, which had urged India not to intervene, ordered an aircraft carrier task force to the Bay of Bengal on 10 December; it arrived on 15 December, as the fighting neared its end.

As defeat approached, around 14 December, Pakistani forces and their allies killed many Bengali intellectuals, including doctors and teachers. On 16 December 1971 the Pakistani eastern commander, Lieutenant-General A. A. K. Niazi, signed the instrument of surrender at Dhaka's Ramna Race Course before Lieutenant-General Jagjit Singh Aurora. India declared a unilateral ceasefire in the west, and fighting ended on 17 December. Estimates of military dead vary: one CIA estimate put them at more than 3,500 Indian and about 5,000 Pakistani soldiers, while other sources give around 3,000 and 8,000 respectively.

Pakistan lost over half its population. Yahya Khan handed power to Bhutto on 20 December, and in January 1972 Pakistan began a secret nuclear weapons programme. Under the Simla Agreement of July 1972, India returned most of the land it had taken in the west, both sides kept their gains in Kashmir along what became the Line of Control, and the prisoners were later repatriated. It was the third war between the two states since the first conflict of 1947.

Our 1960 map shows Pakistan as a state of two wings on either side of India; the 1985 map shows Bangladesh as an independent country.