On 26 March 1971, East Pakistan declared independence from Pakistan after armed forces perpetrated a massacre at Dhaka University. A few months earlier, the Awami League of Mujibur Rahman, a party in what is now Bangladesh, secured enough seats in the first free and fair general election in the country after the 1947 independence to form the government of Pakistan. But Ali Bhutto and the political/military leaders in West Pakistan, current day Pakistan, didn’t want to transfer power. Instead they eventually sent in the army with the objective to “kill three million of them and the rest will eat out of our hands”.
As a result of the chaos 10 million people fled to India creating a mammoth humanitarian crisis – the largest refugee camp in human history – in an already overpopulated country that was slowly emerging from a devastating British Raj. This led to India’s RAW training some of these refugees and sending them across the border to fight back the oppressors. Nevertheless the Pakistani army went on a massive killing spree for almost nine months. An estimated 3 million people died, 300,000 women and girls were raped. This event is known as the Bangladesh genocide.
It ended after Pakistan bombarded India and the latter retaliated and won the war in 13 short days. Which explains why Indian PM Narendra Modi was the chief guest in the capital of the 87%-Muslim 160-million-people country today. But in 1971 it was an “avatar of Goddess Durga” who was at the helm of the subcontinent.
