Indian Defence Review

Niazi had no control over his command. On surrender, his headquarters were unable to indicate the exact strength of his forces and where they were located. Large quantities of arms and ammunition stowed in various dumps fell into the victor’s hands. The number of troops at Niazi’s disposal, the amount of stockpiled material available and the defence potential endowed by mighty rivers and marshy ground proved that if Niazi had the heart to fight he could have prolonged the war long enough to enable Pakistan’s foreign friends to push through a resolution in the Security Council to safeguard its territorial integrity and compel Indian acceptance of it.

The US even went to the brink of direct intervention by ordering a naval task force into Bangladesh waters. The force had a flagship of more than 90,000 tons, the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Enterprise, capable of launching Phantom fighter-bombers carrying nuclear warheads. The Tripoli, another aircraft carrier, was a commando helicopter launcher. There were six other warships, including destroyers and escorts, some marine troops and administrative elements.

The abject surrender brought Pakistan humiliation which it would find it difficult to live with.

Although the proclaimed role of this task force was only to evacuate a handful of US citizens, New Delhi understood this to be an act of international arm twisting by a superpower. But the Indian Government and the military high commend refused to be intimidated. Instead, they were spurred to accelerate the progress Dacca’s surrender. A Washington newspaper columnist, Jack Anderson, later revealed that the tasks assigned to the US force were “to compel India to divert both ships and planes to shadow the task force, to weaken India’s blockade of the East Pakistan’s waters, and force India to keep planes on defence alert, thus reducing their operations against Pakistan ground troops.”

The task force moved too late to carry out any of these assignments. If it had established a beachhead on East Pakistan territory a week earlier and started evacuating Pakistani armed personnel and equipment under its combat arms protection, India and its armed forces in the theatre would have been placed in a very embarrassing position. Action against the task force would have meant open war against a superpower, and this would have prompted other powers to intervene, with the possibility of an escalation into an international conflagration, an eventuality India did not want. But Niazi’s rapid collapse saved India this embarassment. The abject surrender brought Pakistan humiliation which it would find it difficult to live with.