During that summer, I was invited for dinner to the military mess in honour of the new commander General Niazi. I noticed I was the only civilian there. The General was holding forth, so I asked him how he would face the Indian attack when it came. Acutely aware of the political situation, I listened to his answer intently. The military officers also listened intently, but observing protocol, agreed with everything they were hearing.
I then added, “What would happen if East Pakistan were cut off from West Pakistan, which would be the primary objective of the Indian army?”
The general stared at me and asked, “Haven’t you heard of the Niazi Corridor Theory?”
“No,” I replied baffled, and muttered something about making a break from the northern districts of East Pakistan towards the Chinese border which was not far.
“No, no,” the General replied with a flourish. “I will march my troops from East Pakistan down to Calcutta and then along the Ganges towards West Pakistan and West Pakistani troops will march towards my troops, and we will meet up and establish an open corridor.”
Believing this was humour, I smiled – only to realise that he was deadly serious, as were the nodding officers around us.
That night, I knew we were in deep trouble. I began to realise that the senior West Pakistani civil servants that I met were attempting to make contingency plans in case the entire structure of the state collapsed and before they were captured by Indian troops.
I thought of my friend Sabir Kamal.
A young aristocratic couple from Dhaka were being harassed by a West Pakistani officer demanding access to the wife and threatening to arrest the father of the husband and accuse him of being a “miscreant.” I advised them to go to Karachi to their relatives and got them coveted seats on the next PIA flight against the two seats allocated to my office. Similarly, I diverted a terrible fate that awaited my previous CSP Bengali boss from my time at Kishorganj, who was accused of being a possible “miscreant.” 30 years later when I saw him at a White House iftar dinner given by President Bush as the Bangladesh Ambassador, we greeted each other warmly
Later in the year, Mr Malik, a civilian Governor, was appointed to head East Pakistan. Gentle and scholarly, he was the father of a school fellow who arranged for me to have dinner at the governor’s house with his father. While I talked about arranging for us to be repatriated to West Pakistan, the governor argued that he needed officers like me to stay for several years longer.
Indeed, after dinner he wrote to the government of Pakistan suggesting that officers like me should be posted for long period to ensure the unity of the nation. My dinner had backfired!
This was literally on the eve of the breakup of Pakistan. It was clear that the senior officials of Pakistan had little idea of the existential crisis that Pakistan was facing.
By now the Bengali chief secretary had been replaced by a West Pakistani CSP officer and I noted that he had started making frequent trips to West Pakistan on the slightest pretext. Unfortunately for him, the wheel turned against him and as he returned to Dhaka just when the war had started between India and Pakistan and all flights were cancelled. He was captured by the Indians as a prisoner of war.
For me to be posted back to Peshawar, Mr Sufi, the Establishment Secretary, had to visit Bangkok and meet my parents, who explained the plight of my batch of civil servants. Sufi had to fly back to Islamabad via Dhaka and have time to walk down to my office and chat with me. It gave me the crucial half hour to explain our position.
Bless him: on his return, he prepared and moved the file to return us to our home provinces. The process to post us back had started, and it would wind its leisurely way through the labyrinthine corridors of the bureaucracy until the orders were issued to each one of us. I received the orders in late November, just when I arrived in Karachi.
Another crucial step in getting me out was to be given leave, which I obtained after pleading with the Chief Secretary in Dhaka to allow me to see my wife and mother in Karachi. Reluctantly, I was allowed leave and I had bought my tickets for the return flight from Karachi to Dhaka. Almost immediately on arrival, war had begun between India and Pakistan and all flights were cancelled.
I was clear to return to Peshawar safe and sound. We took the train from Karachi to Peshawar. Along the way, we saw bombed out buildings and railway tracks. There was an air of desolation and uncertainty hanging over everything. But also, one of defiance.
The war led to the fall of Dhaka and the collapse of Pakistan, which lost its majority province. The image of General Niazi surrendering to the Indian general in Dhaka along with almost a hundred thousand troops still evokes pain and humiliation in many Pakistanis. That was the darkest day of Pakistani history. The loss of East Pakistan was a devastating blow for Pakistan, as it challenged the very basis of its creation.
The general stared at me and asked, “Haven’t you heard of the Niazi Corridor Theory?”
“No,” I replied baffled, and muttered something about making a break from the northern districts of East Pakistan towards the Chinese border which was not far.
“No, No,” the General replied with a flourish. “I will march my troops from East Pakistan down to Calcutta and then along the Ganges towards West Pakistan and West Pakistani troops will march towards my troops, and we will meet up and establish an open corridor.”
Believing this was humour, I smiled – only to realise that he was deadly serious as were the nodding officers around us
My life quickly settled down in the regular rhythm of my posting in the Peshawar secretariat as the Deputy Secretary, Home and Tribal Affairs Department. It was the typical 9-to-5 monotonous bureaucratic routine. What happened in East Pakistan appeared far away and unreal. No one seemed to be interested in that part of history. In any case, history was now turning its attention to the north-west, and by the end of the decade, Soviet troops would invade Afghanistan and a new chapter in world history would open.
One visitor from East Pakistan – now Bangladesh – was the younger brother of the Bengali chief secretary. A pleasant, highly intelligent and affectionate young man, he had arrived in Peshawar hoping to see his brother who was under house arrest. He had nowhere to go and was worried what to do about it. I asked him to come and stay with us and we gave him every hospitality. I arranged transport and permissions for him to see his brother. He was most grateful, as people were avoiding him – for at that stage, Bengalis were being treated as the enemy. When the elder brother was finally released from captivity, the first thing he did was to come to our house and express his deep appreciation.
Then, a few weeks into the new year, one early morning, not long after midnight, a cathartic poem poured out of me almost whole. I asked Zeenat to write it down. I called it, “They are taking them away to the slaughter houses.”
The first lines were:
“They are taking them away
sullen shine the stars
the moon in agony aloof
so still stand the palm trees
the seasons are bearing
my dreams away
sanity
suspended
while all the black
horrors of the mind
uncoil
slowly
snakily
settle
over this land
they came by night
they came in shame
they came
to take the weapon and the woman
my throat
was dry
and chilled
my groin, for
they are taking them away
to the slaughter houses”
And the last lines of the poem were:
“[…]the lords of men
gods of pain
have taken council:
the unholy juggernaut will move
it is decreed
and none to challenge it
what compulsions drive such men
what fear makes them such savages
while reason, so thin on the breast,
deserts so quickly
who was martyr
which one saint
depended only
on the language he spoke;
to such a fine point
is the concept of alienation reduced; for
there is no shame like the shame of
taking them away to the slaughter houses.”
There has been a highly charged controversy around how many people died and who killed them. There is an equally heated debate around the figure of women raped. There were rumors that West Pakistani officers had ordered their troops to impregnate Bengali women in order to produce “Islamic children” and “improve the stock.” Pakistanis deny any wrongdoing and dismiss the idea of genocide, while Bengalis assert that as many as 3 million people were killed by West Pakistanis and large numbers of women raped.
My own assessment from the field was that such surveys were difficult to conduct, and in any case, all assessments were distorted by wild rumours and ethnic prejudices. I believe all acts of violence are to be condemned. Each one of those lives lost, whether Bengali or Punjabi, was equally precious. Now, looking back half a century later, I am disappointed to note that instead of apologising, embracing and moving ahead in order to close an unhappy chapter of their mutual history, Pakistanis and Bengalis are still caught up in debates about numbers. A Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the spirit of Mandela and on the pattern of South Africa, however painful and belated, should be set up to ascertain the facts and clear the air. South Asians must learn to move ahead from their tragedies and pain.
1971 was a traumatic year that had seen the break-up of Pakistan. We had lived in the midst of great acts of heroism and humanity, but also horrific acts of brutality and ignorance. After 1971, when Pakistan was broken in two and its critics gloated that it was all over for the Muslim nation, the idea of Pakistan remained; that idea was difficult to kill.
The loss of East Pakistan with its literate, cultured, and lively population was like the amputation of the right hand for Pakistan.
And yet there were lessons, too, for the country that emerged from this painful division: Pakistan needed to have better relations based on compassion and fairness with its minority provinces, and an improved understanding with its neighbours, especially India and Afghanistan. Pakistan needed to create think-tanks and promote public intellectuals and debate in order to guide and enlighten the government of the day and the general public to prevent them from living in dangerous isolation.
But Pakistan, like most states, was resistant to learning lessons from its past.