The ‘Mukti Bahini’ (Liberation Army) of the exiled Government of Bangladesh, trained and aided by the Indian Army, entered Bangladesh from all sides and its ranks and strength swelled with the support and help of the local populace who got ready to fight the Pakistani Army. At the same time, the refugee inflow into India became acute.

Concerned with West Pakistan’s policy of unmasked suppression and military crackdown, refugees started overflowing to India’s border states of West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura. The number of displaced persons exceeded 10 million and had to be given shelter and food by the Indian Government with hardly any help from international agencies. There was acute political tension precipitating ruptures in the already strained mutual relations between India and Pakistan and any spark was adequate to lead to an armed conflict.

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The spark was provided by the Pakistan Air Force which, confident of the covert support of President Nixon who had ordered the US Seventh Fleet to move to the region, carried out a pre-emptive strike on Indian airports in Eastern India, code named Operation Chengiz Khan at a time when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was on a visit to Calcutta (Kolkata) and nearby refugee centres on a fact-finding visit. Mrs. Gandhi reacted promptly by granting permission to the Indian Armed Forces to enter Bangladesh by land, air and sea in conjunction with Mukti Bahini. The war was short and precise.

The Indian Forces surrounded Dacca under the overall leadership of General (later Field Marshal) Manekshaw, and the Pakistani Commanders were forced to surrender instead of facing certain defeat and death in case of continued resistance. The Pakistani Army commanded by Lt. Gen. Niazi surrendered to the Indian Army unconditionally. It was a moment of eternal glory for the Indian Armed Forces and the worst ever defeat for the Pakistani Army as 93,000 of their soldiers surrendered and were taken to India as prisoners of war. Mujib-ur-Rahman had a triumphant return to Dacca via New Delhi.

After his release from exile, the first thing Mujib wanted was to meet Mrs. Gandhi, whom he regarded as his ‘sister’. He wanted to meet her to convey personally his gratitude and the gratitude of the multitude of people for the liberation of Bangladesh in an unprecedented and swift move of the Indian troops and also for saving his own life enabling him to lead the newly born Bangladesh. But for Mrs Gandhi bring at the helm of affairs at that time, one wonders whether there would have been a sovereign Bangladesh! Mujib became the first head of the government of independent Bangladesh.

The newly established constitution declared Bangladesh as the Secular Democratic Republic of Bangladesh, which no Muslim country in the world did except Turkey. After fresh elections in accordance with the new constitution of free Bangladesh, Mujib became the President. Mujib was also honoured by the grateful nation as the Father of the Nation and after a few years, the National Assembly made him President for Life.

I thought Mujib, as a true democrat in thought and action, would decline the resolution to make him Lifetime President. History is replete with instances that any move like this invariably brought the downfall of the ruler. Mujib either overestimated his popularity or underestimated or ignored the threat perceptions enveloping his charisma. A simmering discontent had been growing within his own Army, his own party and among fellow freedom fighters.

The pro-Pakistani and proIslamic elements converted this discontent into conspiracies to remove him. The pro-Islamic elements did not like his style of functioning and were upset with the concept of a secular state as they wanted an Islamic Republic of Bangladesh. This was the greatest cause which they wanted to achieve at any cost, even by sacrificing the Father of their Nation. Mujib was blissfully unaware of this. But reports about danger to his life started pouring in through foreign and Indian intelligence sources.

The Indian Embassy had been sending reports, over a period of time, about dangers to Mujib’s life. One day, I was shocked to read a dispatch from the Military Attaché at the Indian Embassy quoting credible reports that a conspiracy had been hatched to murder Mujib and his family and that the attack could be imminent. I did submit this dispatch immediately on file through the proper channel to Mrs. Gandhi.

I am sure the Prime Minister, who was also holding the Defence portfolio, must have received similar reports from different sources ~ the External Affairs Ministry, RAW, IB, and so on. But no amount of such reports, warnings and India’s possible intervention could save Mujib’s life. Mujib and his entire family – his sons, daughters and grandchildren were brutally murdered by some of his Army Commanders. Three generations of the Mujib family were wiped out; only one of his daughters, Sheikh Hasina who was out of the country at that time, escaped death. The hate was so strong that they wanted to completely obliterate Mujib’s name and Mujib’s legacy.

The cruelty and brutality perpetrated on their Father of the Nation was unparalleled in history. One is reminded of a similar instance narrated in the epic Mahabharata where the Pandava’s descendents were massacred by Ashwathama, one and all, with vengeance, in the middle of the night while they were sleeping. Raman’s Astrological prediction, if I recollect, was ominously silent on what would happen to Mujib after he became the head of the state! Indira Gandhi was sad and quite shaken after this tragedy as she knew that Bangladesh without Mujib would not be so friendly towards India and might, with the rising fundamentalism, be a perpetual source of headache as our eastern neighbour; in many ways, it could be worse than Pakistan.

The hard earned freedom that we brought for them was perhaps a chimera! Mrs. Gandhi deeply felt for Mujib and both in public and private, regretted that in spite of her personal interventions on several occasions asking him to take adequate protection for himself and his family, Mujib ignored her warning and laughed it away. Every time, Mujib would dismiss such thoughts saying that they were all his brothers and sisters, sons and daughters “how can they kill me? I can’t imagine such a thing”.

But his unshakable innocence and faith in human goodness, like Mahatma Gandhi’s, helped the messengers of death to perpetrate the heinous act. Ironically, Indira Gandhi also became a victim of similar treachery in the subsequent decade when her own bodyguards gunned her down at her official residence after ‘Operation Bluestar’, ending another colourful chapter of history.

(The writer is a former Dy. Comptroller & Auditor General of India and a former Ombudsman of Reserve Bank of India. He is also a writer of several books and can be reached at brahmas@gmail.com This article is excerpted from his book Confessions of a Bureaucrat)