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Back in ’71: US policy revisited

Newly declassified US records show a more full and gruesome picture of what took place behind the scenes of the 1911 Southasian Crisis in Islamabad, New Delhi and Washington, DC. They also show a softer side of the involved leadership. But who takes responsibility for the violence that was perpetrat

By Imtiaz Ahmed
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These arguments were laid down on the basis of secondary sources and some personal interactions with the policymakers of the 'interim government' of Bangladesh. In recent years, however, available information on the 1971 Southasian Crisis has suddenly proliferated, especially with the declassification of secret and confidential documents relating to the US government's policy towards the region during that period. Particularly significant in shedding new light on the era are the US State Department's 2005 South Asia Crisis, 1971, as well as Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, Volume XI, and Roedad Khan's 1999 The American Papers: Secret and Confidential India-Pakistan-Bangladesh Documents, 1965-1973. Also important are some of the memoirs and reflections on the crisis published in the late 1980s and 1990s by the policymakers of Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and the US, including those by Muyeedul Hasan, K M Safiullah, A A K Niazi, Hamoodur Rahman, Archer Blood and Subrata Banerjee.

In light of the richness of material now available, there is a pressing need to revisit the US policy towards Southasia in 1971. One may also, in the process, return to the three arguments presented above. For the sake of economy, this review will base itself almost exclusively on the declassified documents published in 2005 as a US Department of State Publication (DOSP).

Unilateral administration

The 'sharp difference' between the US administration and the US Congress, press and people during the Crisis can now be looked into more objectively and interpreted with some measure of confidence, particularly with reference to four issues. First, that of genocide. There are only two references to 'genocide' in the DOSP documents, one by East Pakistan Consul General Archer Blood and the other by US Ambassador to India Kenneth Keating. The terms otherwise used within the Nixon administration to refer to the indiscriminate-yet-calculated killing of unarmed Bengalis were 'bloodshed', 'bloodletting', 'blood-bath', 'atrocities' and the like.