While there are many books on the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan, there have been few books on the long and agonising journey of East Bengal from being an integral part of India to becoming East Pakistan and finally Bangladesh. This is one such book, though it focuses on those crucial months before the 1971 War that led to the creation of Bangladesh, and more specifically the role of Washington and its power elite. Based on over 1,300 pages of printed material and documents that have recently been declassified and made public, the two authors ? the notable Jaswant Singh and retired Major General Suraj Bhatia ? have done a commendable job of compressing this highly sensitive material into less than 300 pages. More importantly they have shown their exceptional literary skills in making it all extremely readable, in fact enjoyable, to those of us who relish history in a country like ours which sadly lacks a sense of history. Remember the critical Henderson Brookes report on the 1962 Indian debacle is still kept locked up, for fear of embarrassing the Nehru-Gandhi clan.

What emerges from all this research is that clearly the US and its policy makers ? primarily President Nixon and his Chief Advisor Henry Kissinger ? continued to believe that the mess that Pakistan?s military men had created in what is now Bangladesh, was more an illusion that India under Indira Gandhi was creating to justify India?s desire for aggression. They refused to believe ? despite strongly worded telegrams from their own envoys in Dhaka and New Delhi ? that things were out of control and the humanitarian crisis that Pakistan?s leadership had created was actually worth their serious attention. Kissinger felt that his envoys had gone native and so must be ignored!

Gandhi?s visit to Washington to drive sense into Nixon and his administration only drew snide and fowl remarks from Nixon and Kissinger who referred to her as the ?old witch?. Their main aim was clearly to protect General Yahya Khan and Pakistan from complete dismemberment. And so when the war started, with both India and Pakistan making claims and counter claims as to who initiated it all, the CIA, ?waived the evidence on 4th December 1971 and concluded that it was not possible to determine to any certainty as to which side had initiated hostilities on 3rd December.? And despite the Pakistani belief that China would come to its assistance in the event of a War ? as General Yahya Khan kept saying to his Commanders that ?wait for Yellow (China) in the North and White the US) in the South? ? Beijing (then Peking) did not care to interfere.

However, the experience of 1962 led India not to move troops away from the Sino-Indian border. The US of course eventually brought its seventh fleet into the Bay of Bengal, but by then Dhaka had fallen and the tearful Pakistani General Naizi agreed to an unconditional surrender to India, after a pipe smoking Indian General, JFR Jacob had apparently brow beaten him to accept a humiliating surrender! But what followed thereafter has influenced both India?s relations with the people of Bangladesh and Pakistan over the past three decades. Bangladeshis became disenchanted by the cocky arrogance of the Indians who strutted around like the conquerors and Pakistan has never forgiven India for the humiliation of that defeat. So the price of victory has been anger of our neighbours. It begs the question as to why India failed to capitalise politically on its military win.

This book has been possible thanks to the 30 year rule that allows examinations of classified materials. Ironically, it is co-authored by a man ? Jaswant Singh ? who can rightly be credited to have turned Indo-US relations around, after India formally announced its nuclear ambitions in 1998. And a few printers devils apart, this indeed is a collectors item and must be read to get a better perspective of how Washington tends to ignore, what it wishes not to see.The reviewer is a defence analyst