The history of

East Bengal ur, , common_name = East Bengal , status = Province of the Dominion of Pakistan , p1 = Bengal Presidency , flag_p1 = Flag of British Bengal.svg , s1 = East ...

and

East Pakistan East Pakistan was a Pakistani province established in 1955 by the One Unit Policy, renaming the province as such from East Bengal, which, in modern times, is split between India and Bangladesh. Its land borders were with India and Myanmar, wi ...

from 1947 to 1971 covers the period of

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

's history between its independence as a part of

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...

from British colonial rule in 1947 to its independence from Pakistan in 1971.

1947–56: Dominion era

Post-partition difficulties

Bengali Language Movement

One of the most divisive issues confronting Pakistan in its infancy was the question of what the

official language An official language is a language given supreme status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically the term "official language" does not refer to the language used by a people or country, but by its government (e.g. judiciary, ...

of the new state was to be.

Mohammad Ali Jinnah Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the mono ...

yielded to the demands of refugees from the Indian states of Bihar and

Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...

, who insisted that

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' Punjabi, Sindhi,

Pushtu Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani (). Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official languages ...

, and Baluchi) were upset that their languages were given second-class status. In East Pakistan, the dissatisfaction quickly turned to violence. The Bengalis of East Pakistan constituted a majority (an estimated 54%) of Pakistan's entire population. Their language,

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

, like Urdu, belongs to the Indo-Aryan language family, but the two languages have different scripts and literary traditions.Blood, Peter R
"Transition to Nationhood, 1947-58"
In Heitzman & Worden. Jinnah visited East Pakistan on only one occasion after independence, shortly before his death in 1948. Speaking in Dhaka to a throng of over 300,000 on March 21, 1948, he announced that, "Without one state language, no nation can remain tied up solidly together and function." Jinnah's views were not accepted by most East Pakistanis. On February 21, 1952, a demonstration was carried out in Dhaka in which students demanded equal status for Bengali. The police reacted by firing on the crowd and killing many students, most of whom remain unidentified to this day. (A memorial, the Shaheed Minar, was built later to commemorate the martyrs of the language movement.) Two years after the incident, Bengali agitation effectively forced the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the rep ...

to designate "Urdu and Bengali and such other languages as may be declared" to be the official languages of Pakistan.

Political issues

What kept the new country together was the vision and forceful personality of the founders of Pakistan: Jinnah, the governor general popularly known as the ''Quaid i Azam'' (Supreme Leader); and

Liaquat Ali Khan Liaquat Ali Khan ( ur, ; 1 October 1895 – 16 October 1951), also referred to in Pakistan as ''Quaid-e-Millat'' () or ''Shaheed-e-Millat'' ( ur, lit=Martyr of the Nation, label=none, ), was a Pakistani statesman, lawyer, political theoris ...

(1895–1951), the first

prime minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...

, popularly known as the ''Quaid i Millet'' (Leader of the Community). The government machinery established at independence was similar to the

viceregal A viceroy () is an official who reigns over a polity in the name of and as the representative of the monarch of the territory. The term derives from the Latin prefix ''vice-'', meaning "in the place of" and the French word ''roy'', meaning "k ...

system that had prevailed in the pre-independence period and placed no formal limitations on Jinnah's constitutional powers. In the 1970s in Bangladesh Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the leader of the independence movement of Bangladesh from Pakistan, would enjoy much of the same prestige and exemption from the normal rule of law. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman has often been criticized in many quarters of being autocratic. When Jinnah died in September 1948, the seat of power shifted from the governor general to the prime minister, Liaquat. Liaquat had extensive experience in politics and enjoyed as a refugee from India the additional benefit of not being too closely identified with any one province of Pakistan. A moderate, Liaquat subscribed to the ideals of a parliamentary, democratic, and

secular Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin ''saeculum'', "worldly" or "of a generation"), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Anything that does not have an explicit reference to religion, either negativ ...

state. Out of necessity he considered the wishes of the country's religious spokesmen who championed the cause of Pakistan as an

Islamic state An Islamic state is a state that has a form of government based on Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a translation of the Arabic term ...

. He was seeking a balance of Islam against secularism for a new constitution when he was assassinated on October 16, 1951, by fanatics opposed to Liaquat's refusal to wage war against India. With both Jinnah and Liaquat gone, Pakistan faced an unstable period that would be resolved by military and civil service intervention in political affairs. The first few turbulent years after independence thus defined the enduring politico-military culture of Pakistan. The inability of the politicians to provide a stable government was largely a result of their mutual suspicions. Loyalties tended to be personal, ethnic, and provincial rather than national and issue oriented.

Provincialism Parochialism is the state of mind, whereby one focuses on small sections of an issue rather than considering its wider context. More generally, it consists of being narrow in scope. In that respect, it is a synonym of " provincialism". It may, p ...

was openly expressed in the deliberations of the

Constituent Assembly A constituent assembly (also known as a constitutional convention, constitutional congress, or constitutional assembly) is a body assembled for the purpose of drafting or revising a constitution. Members of a constituent assembly may be elected b ...

. In the Constituent Assembly, frequent arguments voiced the fear that the West Pakistani province of Punjab would dominate the nation. An ineffective body, the Constituent Assembly took almost nine years to draft a constitution, which for all practical purposes was never put into effect. Liaquat was succeeded as prime minister by a conservative Bengali, Governor General

Khwaja Nazimuddin Sir Khawaja Nazimuddin ( bn, খাজা নাজিমুদ্দীন; ur, ; 19 July 1894 – 22 October 1964) was a Pakistani politician and one of the leading founding fathers of Pakistan. He is noted as being the first Bengali to ha ...

. Former finance minister Ghulam Mohammad, a Punjabi career civil servant, became governor general. Ghulam Mohammad was dissatisfied with Nazimuddin's inability to deal with Bengali agitation for provincial autonomy and worked to expand his own power base. East Pakistan favored a high degree of autonomy, with the central government controlling little more than foreign affairs, defense, communications, and currency. In 1953, Ghulam Mohammad dismissed Prime Minister Nazimuddin, established

martial law Martial law is the imposition of direct military control of normal civil functions or suspension of civil law by a government, especially in response to an emergency where civil forces are overwhelmed, or in an occupied territory. Use Marti ...

in Punjab, and imposed governor's rule (direct rule by the central government) in East Pakistan. In 1954, he appointed his own "cabinet of talents".

Mohammad Ali Bogra Sahibzada Syed Mohammad Ali Chowdhury ( bn, সৈয়দ মোহাম্মদ আলী চৌধুরী; Urdu: سید محمد علی چوہدری), more commonly known as Mohammad Ali Bogra ( bn, মোহাম্মদ আলী ...

, another conservative Bengali and previously Pakistan's ambassador to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

and the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...

, was named prime minister. During September and October 1954 a chain of events culminated in a confrontation between the governor general and the prime minister. Prime Minister Bogra tried to limit the powers of Governor General Ghulam Mohammad through hastily adopted amendments to the ''de facto'' constitution, the Government of India Act of 1935. The governor general, however, enlisted the tacit support of the army and civil service, dissolved the Constituent Assembly, and then formed a new cabinet. Bogra, a man without a personal following, remained prime minister but without effective power. General

Iskander Mirza Sahibzada Iskander Ali Mirza ( bn, ইস্কান্দার আলী মির্জা; ur, ; 13 November 1899 – 13 November 1969), , was a Pakistani Bengali general officer and civil servant who was the first President of Pakista ...

, who had been a soldier and civil servant, became minister of the interior; General

Muhammad Ayub Khan Muhammad Ayub Khan (Urdu: ; 14 May 1907 – 19 April 1974), was the second President of Pakistan. He was an army general who seized the presidency from Iskander Mirza in a coup in 1958, the first successful coup d'état in the country's ...

, the army commander, became minister of defence; and

Chaudhry Muhammad Ali Chaudhry Muhammad Ali ( Urdu, pa, ; 15 July 1905 – 2 December 1982), best known as Muhammad Ali, was a Pakistani politician and statesman who served as the fourth prime minister of Pakistan, appointed on 12 August 1955. His government tra ...

, former head of the civil service, remained minister of finance. The main objective of the new government was to end disruptive provincial politics and to provide the country with a new constitution. The Federal Court, however, declared that a new Constituent Assembly must be called. Ghulam Mohammad was unable to circumvent the order, and the new Constituent Assembly, elected by the provincial assemblies, met for the first time in July 1955. Bogra, who had little support in the new assembly, fell in August and was replaced by Choudhry; Ghulam Mohammad, plagued by poor health, was succeeded as governor general in September 1955 by Mirza.

United Front cabinet in East Bengal

Legislative election held from March 8 to 12, 1954, the

United Front A united front is an alliance of groups against their common enemies, figuratively evoking unification of previously separate geographic fronts and/or unification of previously separate armies into a front. The name often refers to a political ...

, a political coalition anchored by A. K. Fazlul Huq's Krishak Sramik Samajbadi Dal (Peasants and Workers Socialist Party) and the Awami League (People's League) led by

Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy ( bn, হোসেন শহীদ সোহ্‌রাওয়ার্দী; ur, ; 8 September 18925 December 1963) was a Bengali barrister and politician. He served as the Prime Minister of Pakistan from 1956 t ...

, won 223 out of 237 Muslim seats (total 309 seats) in

East Bengal Legislative Assembly The East Pakistan Provincial Assembly, known as the East Bengal Legislative Assembly between 1947 and 1955, was the provincial legislature of East Pakistan between 1947 and 1971. It was known as the East Bengal Assembly from 1947 to 1955 when the ...

. The

Muslim League Muslim League may refer to: Political parties Subcontinent ; British India *All-India Muslim League, Mohammed Ali Jinah, led the demand for the partition of India resulting in the creation of Pakistan. **Punjab Muslim League, a branch of the organ ...

had been overwhelmingly defeated in the 1954 provincial assembly elections by the United Front. Rejection of West Pakistan's dominance over East Pakistan and the desire for Bengali provincial autonomy were the main ingredients of the coalition's twenty-one-point platform. 1954 east bengal cabinet

On April 3, 1954, ''Sher-e-Bangla'' A. K. Fazlul Huq formed a four-member United Front cabinet. The full cabinet was formed on 15 May. Huq took over as the Chief Minister of the province. But on 30 May 1954 the governor-general of Pakistan Ghulam Mohammad dismissed the United Front government, upon of accusations against A. K. Fazlul Huq of attempting secession. The East Pakistani election and the coalition's victory proved pyrrhic; Bengali factionalism surfaced soon after the election and the United Front fell apart. From 1954 to Ayub's assumption of power in 1958, the Krishak Sramik and the Awami League waged a ceaseless battle for control of East Pakistan's provincial government.

1956–66

1956 Constitution

Prime Minister Choudhry induced the politicians to agree on a constitution in 1956. In order to establish a better balance between the west and east wings, the four provinces of West Pakistan were amalgamated into one administrative unit. The 1956 constitution made provisions for an

as embodied in its Directive of Principles of State Policy, which defined methods of promoting Islamic morality. The national parliament was to comprise one house of 300 members with equal representation from both the west and east wings.

Suhrawardy's premiership :1956-1957

The Awami League's Suhrawardy succeeded Choudhry as prime minister in September 1956 and formed a coalition cabinet. He, like other Bengali politicians, was chosen by the central government to serve as a symbol of unity, but he failed to secure significant support from West Pakistani power brokers. Although he had a good reputation in East Pakistan and was respected for his pre-partition association with Mohandas K. Gandhi, his strenuous efforts to gain greater provincial autonomy for East Pakistan and a larger share of development funds for it were not well received in West Pakistan. Suhrawardy's thirteen months in office came to an end after he took a strong position against abrogation of the existing "One Unit" government for all of West Pakistan in favor of separate local governments for Sind,

Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising a ...

, Baluchistan, and the

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (; ps, خېبر پښتونخوا; Urdu, Hindko: خیبر پختونخوا) commonly abbreviated as KP or KPK, is one of the Administrative units of Pakistan, four provinces of Pakistan. Located in the Geography of Pakistan, ...

. He thus lost much support from West Pakistan's provincial politicians. He also used emergency powers to prevent the formation of a Muslim League provincial government in West Pakistan, thereby losing much Punjabi backing. Moreover, his open advocacy of votes of confidence from the Constituent Assembly as the proper means of forming governments aroused the suspicions of President Mirza. In 1957 the president used his considerable influence to oust Suhrawardy from the office of prime minister. The drift toward economic decline and political chaos continued.

1958 coup

On October 7, 1958,

issued a proclamation that abolished political parties, abrogated the two-year-old constitution, and placed the country under martial law. Mirza announced that martial law would be a temporary measure lasting only until a new constitution was drafted. On October 27, he swore in a twelve-member cabinet that included Ayub Khan as prime minister and three other generals in ministerial positions. Included among the eight civilians was

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Zulfikar (or Zulfiqar) Ali Bhutto ( ur, , sd, ذوالفقار علي ڀٽو; 5 January 1928 – 4 April 1979), also known as Quaid-e-Awam ("the People's Leader"), was a Pakistani barrister, politician and statesman who served as the fourt ...

, a former university lecturer. On the same day, the general exiled Mirza to

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

because "the armed services and the people demanded a clean break with the past." Until 1962, martial law continued and Ayub purged a number of politicians and civil servants from the government and replaced them with army officers. Ayub called his regime a "revolution to clean up the mess of black marketing and corruption."Blood, Peter R
"The 'Revolution' of Ayub Khan, 1958-66"
In Heitzman & Worden.

1962 Constitution

The new constitution promulgated by Ayub in March 1962 vested all executive authority of the republic in the president. As chief executive, the president could appoint ministers without approval by the legislature. There was no provision for a prime minister. There was a provision for a National Assembly and two provincial assemblies, whose members were to be chosen by the "Basic Democrats"—80,000 voters organized into a five-tier hierarchy, with each tier electing officials to the next tier. Pakistan was declared a republic (without being specifically an Islamic republic) but, in deference to the

ulama In Islam, the ''ulama'' (; ar, علماء ', singular ', "scholar", literally "the learned ones", also spelled ''ulema''; feminine: ''alimah'' ingularand ''aalimath'' lural are the guardians, transmitters, and interpreters of religious ...

s (religious scholars), the president was required to be a Muslim, and no law could be passed that was contrary to the tenets of Islam. The 1962 constitution made few concessions to Bengalis. It was, instead, a document that buttressed centralized government under the guise of "basic democracies" programs, gave legal support to martial law, and turned parliamentary bodies into forums for debate. Throughout the Ayub years, East Pakistan and West Pakistan grew farther apart. The death of the Awami League's Suhrawardy in 1963 gave the mercurial Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (commonly known as Mujib) the leadership of East Pakistan's dominant party. Mujib, who as early as 1956 had advocated the "liberation" of East Pakistan and had been jailed in 1958 during the military coup, quickly and successfully brought the issue of East Pakistan's movement for autonomy to the forefront of the nation's politics.

Economic issues

During the years between 1960 and 1965, the annual rate of growth of the

gross domestic product Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjective nature this measure is oft ...

per capita was 4.4% in West Pakistan versus just 2.6% in East Pakistan. Furthermore, Bengali politicians pushing for more autonomy complained that much of Pakistan's export earnings were generated in East Pakistan by the export of Bengali jute and

tea Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of ''Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of southwestern China and north ...

. As late as 1960, approximately 70% of Pakistan's export earnings originated in the East Wing, although this percentage declined as international demand for jute dwindled. By the mid-1960s, the East Wing was accounting for less than 60% of the nation's export earnings, and by the time of Bangladesh's independence in 1971, this percentage had dipped below 50%. Mujib demanded in 1966 that separate foreign exchange accounts be kept and that separate trade offices be opened overseas. By the mid-1960s, West Pakistan was benefiting from Ayub's "Decade of Progress," with its successful "

green revolution The Green Revolution, also known as the Third Agricultural Revolution, was a period of technology transfer initiatives that saw greatly increased crop yields and agricultural production. These changes in agriculture began in developed countrie ...

" in wheat, and from the expansion of markets for West Pakistani textiles, while the East Pakistani standard of living remained at an abysmally low level. Bengalis were also upset that West Pakistan, because it was the seat of government, was the major beneficiary of foreign aid.

1966–71

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Announcing 6 Points At Lahore

At a 1966 Lahore conference of both the eastern and the western chapters of the Awami League, Mujib announced his six-point political and economic program (on 5 February) for East Pakistani provincial autonomy. Blood, Peter R
"Emerging Discontent"
In Heitzman & Worden. Mujib's six points ran directly counter to President Ayub's plan for greater national integration. Ayub's anxieties were shared by many West Pakistanis, who feared that Mujib's plan would divide Pakistan by encouraging ethnic and linguistic cleavages in West Pakistan, and would leave East Pakistan, with its Bengali ethnic and linguistic unity, by far the most populous and powerful of the federating units. Ayub interpreted Mujib's demands as tantamount to a call for independence. After pro-Mujib supporters rioted in a general strike in Dhaka, the government arrested Mujib in January 1968. Ayub suffered a number of setbacks in 1968. His health was poor, and he was almost assassinated at a ceremony marking ten years of his rule. Riots followed, and

was arrested as the instigator. At Dhaka a tribunal that inquired into the activities of the already-interned Mujib was arousing strong popular resentment against Ayub. A conference of opposition leaders and the cancellation of the state of emergency (in effect since 1965) came too late to conciliate the opposition. On February 21, 1969, Ayub announced that he would not run in the next presidential election in 1970. A state of near anarchy reigned with protests and strikes throughout the country. The police appeared helpless to control the mob violence, and the military stood aloof. At length, on March 25 Ayub resigned and handed over the administration to the commander in chief, General Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan. Once again the country was placed under martial law. Mass uprising 1969 Dhaka University

General Yahya assumed the titles of

Chief Martial Law Administrator The office of the Chief Martial Law Administrator was a senior and authoritative post with Zonal Martial Law Administrators as deputies created in countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia that gave considerable executive authority and p ...

and President. He announced that he considered himself to be a transitional leader whose task would be to restore order and to conduct free elections for a new constituent assembly, which would then draft a new constitution. He appointed a largely civilian cabinet in August 1969 in preparation for the election, which was scheduled to take place in December 1970. Yahya moved with dispatch to settle two contentious issues by decree: the unpopular " One Unit" of West Pakistan, which was created as a condition for the 1956 constitution, was ended; and East Pakistan was awarded 162 seats out of the 300-member

. On November 12, 1970, a

Bhola cyclone The 1970 Bhola cyclone (Also known as the Great Cyclone of 1970) was a devastating tropical cyclone that struck East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh) and India's West Bengal on November 11, 1970. It remains the deadliest tropical cyclone ever re ...

devastated an area of almost of East Pakistan's mid-coastal lowlands and its outlying islands in the

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line betwee ...

. As many as 250,000 lives were lost. Two days after the cyclone hit, Yahya arrived in Dhaka after a trip to Beijing, but he left a day later. His seeming indifference to the plight of Bengali victims caused a great deal of animosity. Opposition newspapers in Dhaka accused the Pakistani government of impeding the efforts of international relief agencies and of "gross neglect, callous inattention, and bitter indifference." Mujib, who had been released from prison, lamented that "West Pakistan has a bumper wheat crop, but the first shipment of food grain to reach us is from abroad" and "that the textile merchants have not given a yard of cloth for our shrouds." "We have a large army," Mujib continued," but it is left to the British Marines to bury our dead." He added, "the feeling now pervades... every village, home, and slum that we must rule ourselves. We must make the decisions that matter. We will no longer suffer arbitrary rule by bureaucrats, capitalists, and feudal interests of West Pakistan." Yahya had announced plans for the December 7 national election, and urged voters to elect candidates who were committed to the integrity and unity of Pakistan. The elections were the first in the history of Pakistan in which voters were able to elect members of the National Assembly directly. In a convincing demonstration of Bengali dissatisfaction with the West Pakistani regime, the Awami League won all but two of the 169 seats allotted East Pakistan in the National Assembly. Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party came in a poor second nationally, winning 81 out of the 138 West Pakistani seats in the National Assembly. The Awami League's electoral victory promised it control of the government, with Mujib as the country's prime minister, but the inaugural assembly never met. The number of West Pakistani troops entering East Pakistan had increased sharply in the preceding weeks, climbing from a pre-crisis level of 25,000 to about 60,000, bringing the army close to a state of readiness. As tensions rose, however, Yahya continued negotiations with Mujib, flying to Dhaka in mid-March. Talks between Yahya and Mujib were joined by Bhutto but soon collapsed, and on March 23, Bengalis following Mujib's lead defiantly celebrated "Resistance Day" in East Pakistan instead of the traditional all-Pakistan "Republic Day". Yahya decided to "solve" the problem of East Pakistan by repression. On the evening of March 25 he flew back to

Islamabad Islamabad (; ur, , ) is the capital city of Pakistan. It is the country's ninth-most populous city, with a population of over 1.2 million people, and is federally administered by the Pakistani government as part of the Islamabad Capital ...

. The military crackdown in East Pakistan began that same night.

1971: Liberation

On March 25, the Pakistan Army launched,

Operation Searchlight Operation Searchlight was the codename for a planned military operation carried out by the Pakistan Army in an effort to curb the Bengali nationalist movement in former East Pakistan in March 1971. Pakistan retrospectively justified the opera ...

, a genocidal crackdown which attempted to suppress

Bengali nationalism Bengalism or Bengali nationalism () was a form of nationalism that focused on Bengalis as a singular nation. The people of Bengali ethnicity speak Bengali language. Bengalis mostly live across Bangladesh and the Indian states of Tripura an ...

. Within hours a wholesale attack had commenced in Dhaka, with the heaviest casualties concentrated on the

University of Dhaka The University of Dhaka (also known as Dhaka University, or DU) is a public research university located in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It is the oldest university in Bangladesh. The university opened its doors to students on July 1st 1921. Currently i ...

and the Hindu area of the old town. The Pakistan Army came with hit lists and systematically killed several hundred Bengalis. Mujib was captured and flown to

West Pakistan West Pakistan ( ur, , translit=Mag̱ẖribī Pākistān, ; bn, পশ্চিম পাকিস্তান, translit=Pôścim Pakistan) was one of the two Provincial exclaves created during the One Unit Scheme in 1955 in Pakistan. It was ...

for incarceration.Blood, Peter R
''The War for Bangladeshi Independence, 1971''
In Heitzman & Worden. To conceal what they were doing, the Pakistan Army corralled the corps of foreign journalists at the International Hotel in Dhaka, seized their notes, and expelled them the next day.

Simon Dring Simon John Dring (11 January 1945 – 16 July 2021) was a British foreign correspondent, television producer, and presenter. He worked for Reuters, ''The Daily Telegraph'' of London, and BBC Television, Radio News, and Current Affairs, covering, o ...

, a reporter for ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

'' who escaped the censor net, estimated that three

battalion A battalion is a military unit, typically consisting of 300 to 1,200 soldiers commanded by a lieutenant colonel, and subdivided into a number of companies (usually each commanded by a major or a captain). In some countries, battalions a ...

s of troops—one

armored Armour (British English) or armor (American English; see spelling differences) is a covering used to protect an object, individual, or vehicle from physical injury or damage, especially direct contact weapons or projectiles during combat, or f ...

, one

artillery Artillery is a class of heavy military ranged weapons that launch munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications during siege ...

, and one

infantry Infantry is a military specialization which engages in ground combat on foot. Infantry generally consists of light infantry, mountain infantry, motorized infantry & mechanized infantry, airborne infantry, air assault infantry, and mar ...

—had attacked the virtually defenseless city. Various informants, including missionaries and foreign journalists who clandestinely returned to East Pakistan during the war, estimated that by March 28 the loss of life reached 15,000. By the end of summer as many as 300,000 people were thought to have lost their lives.

Anthony Mascarenhas Neville Anthony Mascarenhas (10 July 1928 – 3 December 1986) was a Pakistani journalist and author. His works include exposés on the brutality of Pakistan's military during the 1971 independence movement of Bangladesh, ''The Rape of Bangla D ...

in '' Bangladesh: A Legacy of Blood'' estimates that during the entire nine-month liberation struggle more than one million Bengalis may have died at the hands of the Pakistan Army. The West Pakistani press waged a vigorous but ultimately futile campaign to counteract newspaper and radio accounts of atrocities. One paper, the ''Morning News'', even editorialized that the armed forces were saving East Pakistanis from eventual Hindu enslavement. The civil war was played down by the government-controlled press as a minor insurrection quickly being brought under control. After the tragic events of March, India became vocal in its condemnation of Pakistan. An immense flood of East Pakistani refugees, between 8 and 10 million according to various estimates, fled across the border into the Indian state of

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fou ...

. In April, an Indian parliamentary resolution demanded that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi supply aid to the rebels in East Pakistan. Mr.

K.C. Pant Krishna Chandra Pant (10 August 1931 – 15 November 2012) was an Indian Member of Parliament for 26 years and was the prime minister's interlocutor on Kashmir. He was a cabinet minister in the Government of India and held several constitutio ...

, being the state minister for Home Affairs was assigned the responsibility of handling the situation of refugees in West Bengal. Upon Mr. Pant's recommendation She complied but declined to recognize the provisional government of independent Bangladesh. A propaganda war between Pakistan and India ensued in which Yahya threatened war against India if that country made an attempt to seize any part of Pakistan. Yahya also asserted that Pakistan could count on its American and Chinese friends. At the same time, Pakistan tried to ease the situation in the East Wing. Belatedly, it replaced Tikka, whose military tactics had caused such havoc and human loss of life, with the more restrained Lieutenant General A.A.K. Niazi. A moderate Bengali,

Abdul Malik Abdul Malik ( ar, عبد الملك) is an Arabic (Muslim or Christian) male given name and, in modern usage, surname. It is built from the Arabic words '' Abd'', ''al-'' and ''Malik''. The name means "servant of the King", in the Christian instan ...

, was installed as the civilian governor of East Pakistan. These belated gestures of appeasement did not yield results or change world opinion. 1971 Instrument of Surrender

On December 4, 1971, the Indian Army, far superior in numbers and equipment to that of Pakistan, executed a three-pronged

pincer movement The pincer movement, or double envelopment, is a military maneuver in which forces simultaneously attack both flanks (sides) of an enemy formation. This classic maneuver holds an important foothold throughout the history of warfare. The pin ...

on Dhaka launched from the Indian states of West Bengal,

Assam Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...

, and

Tripura Tripura (, Bengali: ) is a state in Northeast India. The third-smallest state in the country, it covers ; and the seventh-least populous state with a population of 36.71 lakh ( 3.67 million). It is bordered by Assam and Mizoram to the ea ...

, taking only 12 days to defeat the 90,000 Pakistani defenders. The Pakistan Army was weakened by having to operate so far away from its source of supply. The Indian Army, on the other hand, was aided by East Pakistan's

Mukti Bahini The Mukti Bahini ( bn, মুক্তিবাহিনী, translates as 'freedom fighters', or liberation army), also known as the Bangladesh Forces, was the guerrilla resistance movement consisting of the Bangladeshi military, paramilitary ...

(Liberation Force), the freedom fighters who managed to keep the Pakistan Army at bay in many areas. On 16 December 1971, the Pakistan army wing in East Pakistan led by Niazi surrendered and Bangladesh was liberated. This day is celebrated in Bangladesh as "Victory Day" with more emphasis than Independence Day (26 March 1971).

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