“Can I ask you something if you don’t mind?” Asked the young man, whom I had requested for an interview. It was June 2009 and joint forces comprising central counter-insurgency paramilitary forces namely Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and West Bengal police had just been deployed in the dense jungles of Lalgarh in the western district of West Midnapore, which was in the grips of a Maoist attack. The militants had captured the entire area, surrounded administrative buildings including the local police station (where personnel were forced to lock themselves in) and killed government officials, politicians and police.

I was reporting from the strife-torn region for the national newsmagazine I then worked for and I approached a jawan of the CRPP for an insider’s account. He was not authorized to be quoted but he nevertheless revealed what he was entitled to including the rigorous daily routine he and his comrades had to follow and the perpetual threat to their lives which was an integral aspect of assignments in hostile regions.

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He said that he was proud to be a solder and felt that it was an honor to wake up at the crack of dawn every day and prepare for any eventuality including death. Several of his friends had died after being ambushed by the insurgents and blown to bits in landmine explosions. But he had a burning question….for journalists. For the life of him he and his comrades could not comprehend why there are so many articles about “excesses” committed by the forces but rarely about the sacrifices they make? “We often discuss this amongst ourselves,” he said in Hindi. He was from a remote village in Bihar.

“We leave the comforts of our homes and families far behind and we go to the ends of the earth to fight for ‘our brothers and sisters’. We know that a few individuals do commit crimes and we do not condone it but why do you only write about the wrongdoings and rarely about the sacrifices we make? Don’t you appreciate us?”
Of course we do. And we do also write about soldiers’ sacrifices. I told him that.

“I would love to come across a few,” he said, smiled and disappeared into the deathly silence of the dense, dark forest. I don’t know if the young man survived the conflict but I wish that he could read the recently-released book written by Ushinor Majumdar, a journalist. It is, if it can be called that, an ode to the unsung heroes of another paramilitary force, the Border Security Force (BSF), whose role in the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, is virtually undocumented, not to mention unknown.

Called “India’s Secret War: The BSF and Nine Months to the Birth of Bangladesh,” and published by Penguin Random House, India, the book is a revelation.

Delving deep into international archives which have been classified for decades, Majumdar ferrets out secret stories about how officers and soldiers of the then still fledgling force which was formed in May 1965, literally went the extra mile, often deep into enemy territory, risking their lives (and sometimes livelihoods) to help the Bengali-speaking people of then East Pakistan in their quest for freedom from the oppressive and tyrannical rule of West Pakistan.

Indeed, according to the author, these stories were earlier not publicized “because of the secret nature of the missions.” Ushinor narrates the story of Bangladesh with intrigue, sprinkling it is with generous doses of the element of suspense. Yet the treatment is sensitive, full of empathy.

Though the struggle for liberation began years ago and intensified between March 1971 and December 1971, the war lasted thirteen days from December 3 to December 16. “The Bangladesh flag flew in Dacca on December 16, 1971,” writes the author. “This book tells an untold story of how India, through the BSF, supported that liberation war.”