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In this article, I examine the 1971 war (better known as the war for the liberation of Bangladesh) from a western Indian perspective. I argue that this war between India and Pakistan—while it focused overtly on the independence of East Pakistan—had some significant consequences for the western border between Kutch (in Gujarat state) and Sindh (in Pakistan). I suggest that this military conflict and the subsequent brief Indian occupation of Tharparkar in Sindh allows for a significant re-thinking of questions of citizenship, identity and belonging that were sparked off in 1947 and that have been re-ignited in the context of recent debates over the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), enacted in December 2019. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1971 war between India and Pakistan, the latter was defeated not only politically and militarily but also in the media, which ultimately led to the creation of Bangladesh. This study examined the role of national and international media in shaping the nature of conflict. The study used qualitative research method of document analysis to understand the role of media in the conflict. The study concludes that Pakistan's policy of expelling international media from East Pakistan and censoring of West Pakistan's media resulted in a vague depiction of the ground realities. Pakistan's tacit defensiveness and confusion in explaining the military operations put it at political disadvantage both internally and externally. Contrarily, India welcomed the exiled international media and offered place to work. India manipulated Mukti Bahini as well as the national media in its propaganda campaign against Pakistan to achieve the desired strategic goals. Bengali nationalists, with the Indian assistance, used media as a tool to spread propaganda against the Pakistani leadership and its armed forces. The study argues that the unsubstantiated media sensation about military operations in East Pakistan was story-driven, and it selectively targeted the Pakistani army ignoring the atrocities committed by the Bengali nationalists with Indian backing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the emergence of India and Pakistan as independent states following the end of British colonial rule in 1947, the two countries have been at loggerheads and fought three wars in 1947, 1965, 1971 and a limited war in 1999. They have been engaged in one of the world's most complex and sharply contested rivalries. These two countries became ideological rivals despite the fact that both countries shared a common history, cultural roots, geography, economic systems and strategic environment for centuries. The rivalry between India and Pakistan dates back to the colonial period and has continuously overshadowed their bilateral relationship till date. This paper attempts to examine the two major irritants between India and Pakistan: Kashmir and terrorism. Then it discusses how the inflexible attitude adopted by the two nuclear neighbours towards the resolution of these issues has created perpetual regional instability in the South Asian region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines decision-making mistakes made by U.S. President Nixon and national security advisor Kissinger during the 1971 India-Pakistan crisis and war. It shows that Nixon and Kissinger routinely demonstrated psychological biases that led them to overestimate the likelihood of West Pakistani victory against Bengali rebels as well as the importance of the crisis to broader U.S. policy. The evidence fails to support Nixon and Kissinger's own framing of the 1971 crisis as a contest between cool-headed realpolitik and idealistic humanitarianism, and instead shows that Kissinger and Nixon's policy decisions harmed their stated goals because of repeated decision-making errors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on issues regarding Kargil War 1999 between India and Pakistan and conflict in the spring of 2019 in response to a deadly attack on Indian military forces by the Pakistan-backed terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed. Topics discussed include lessons and implications for future India-Pakistan relations and Kashmir's liberation a central foreign policy objective, Indian airpower had been used against Pakistani forces since the 1971 war and disparity in the size of nuclear forces between two crisis participants. It mentions inadvertent use of nuclear weapons.

The article discusses the reasons behind India's testing of a nuclear device in Rajasthan in 1974 despite the nation's opposition to the development of nuclear weaponery. About three percent of the nation's needs is provided by its nuclear energy program. Since 1974, nuclear explosions for peaceful purpose have not been made by the nation. Indian strategic thinking had been affected by the 1962 border war with China. After the 1971 war with Pakistan, the possibility of a Sino-Soviet rapprochement made India to take a strategic position enhanced by the possession of a nuclear weapon.

This study investigates the four major wars between India and Pakistan in the past 52 years in one Pakistani popular and one elite newspaper. Through the textual analysis technique, it was found that Pakistan print media applied nationalistic and highly patriotic approaches instead of doing professional and objective reporting on the four wars in the past. While India was criticized for war-mongering and jingoism, the warring policies of the Pakistani governments were eulogized. Though the key thematic strategies identified in this study like 'Kashmir being an integral part of Pakistan, India being the sole enemy and the need for unity among Pakistanis' remained consistent in the discourse, the role of UN and invocation of religion saw significant shifts since the 1965 war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India-Pakistan conflict is one of the most complicated and protracted conflicts in modern time, clouded by historical, ideological, religious, and political sentimentality. Beyond these, the diplomatic uncertainty between the two countries has proven to be capable of being transnational and international. Following the Indo-US strategic alliance, there is a growing perception that New Delhi is increasingly demonstrating and deepening its hegemonic designs in South Asia and beyond. Under the BJP government, such hegemonic proclivity has exacerbated the mistrust and the gulf of understanding between New Delhi and Islamabad. With the blessing of Washington, the BJP government has changed the dynamic of the mistrust. To this end, the paper addresses the current dynamics twofold. The first part of the paper looks at Modi's effort geared at isolating Pakistan, the second discusses the mutual effort of Modi and Trump to politically and diplomatically ostracise Pakistan within the comity of nations. The last part of the paper discusses the three ways Pakistan should respond to the individual and combine efforts of Modi and Trump. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within South Asian politics and society, events of the year 1971 with the bloody military crackdown on East Pakistan, the third India-Pakistan war, and subsequent emergence of Bangladesh as an independent country, still hold a living and outsized presence. Most popular historical accounts of the events argue that the separation of the two halves of Pakistan was not an inevitable outcome but a product of contingency, world historical developments, and choices made by political actors. In this paper, I argue from a perspective of Neoclassical Realist theory of international policy-making that not only the separation of the two halves of Pakistan was highly predisposed but also a violent parting was highly likely. 1 also argue that contingent and individual choice-based accounts of the events in 1971 help perpetuate misperception and friction in current politics of the subcontinent. Accepting the inevitability of the emergence of Bangladesh would go a long way in normalizing relations between the three large countries of South Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will define South Asia as the states included in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC); Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, the Maldives, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. India and Pakistan are the only two states in this regional subsystem that possess nuclear capabilities. This paper will use process tracing to determine how the development of nuclear weapons has stabilized the region over time. This phenomenon is best observed through the role nuclear weapons have played in the Indo-Pakistani dispute over Kashmir, which has been the main destabilizing conflict in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authoritative account provides an excellent overview of reflections on Indo-Pakistan 1971 war through theories of war and peace. He is of the view divergences of East Pakistan began to surface with West Pakistan soon after independence, when a group of students protested the Quaid-i-Azam's speech in Dacca in 1948, making Urdu the national language. Two years later in 1950, the East Pakistan Muslim League asked for maximum autonomy. Then in 1954, after elections in East Pakistan, the United Front, which won with overwhelming majority, asked for a complete autonomy according to the Pakistan Resolution. A West Pakistan dominated central government's manipulation to deny power to the elected majority in East Pakistan added to the accumulating grievances. Delays in constitution-making and holding national elections exacerbated East Pakistan's sense of deprivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the historical and social aspects of the comic strip "Bhatul the Great" by Narayan Debnath. Particular attention is given the realism used in Debnath's illustrations as well as the accuracy and clarity used to incorporate facts and events of the Indo-Pak War. The article also examines how the comic strip promoted Bengali nationalism through its heroic figure.

The article examines India as of November 1972. Bangladesh is considered as one of the world's most horrible man-made disasters. Admirers and critics of the December war between India and Pakistan as a watershed in Asian politics. A stable India-Pakistan relationship rests on two factors: an upheaval in West Pakistan would be more disastrous than the war in Bangladesh, and the future of the U.S. military aid and sales relationship with the subcontinent. The U.S. military assistance to Pakistan, though limited in quantity, has caused unnecessary friction between India and the United States.

The article discusses the legality of humanitarian intervention in relation to international law and the policies of the Indian government as of 2015, and it mentions the Bangladesh war in 1971 involving India and Pakistan, as well as war atrocities and India's approach to human rights.

Based on recently declassified materials from the Indian government archives and on the private papers of the principal secretary to the Indian prime minister, this article investigates how India formulated its response to the 1971 East Pakistan genocidal crisis that culminated with the third Indo-Pakistani war. India's victory changed the balance of power in South Asia: Bangladesh emerged as a new independent state, while Pakistan was significantly reduced. The 1971 war is cited in the international literature as one of the first cases of humanitarian intervention in world history. The Indian official position, recently reinforced by a new major publication, highlights the ‘humanitarian’ character of the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war, depicting a reluctant India compelled to intervene by international inactivity towards the atrocity. This article contests this interpretation and argues that humanitarian considerations were only one side of the picture. Clear political interests drove the actions of New Delhi, which autonomously formulated a specific strategy aimed at making capital out of the dramatic humanitarian crisis. In advancing this argument, this article contributes to the complex debate about humanitarian intervention by observing that the inability of the UN system to intervene is bound to open the way to two possible outcomes: one is the continuation of the genocidal massacres; the other is the unauthorized humanitarian armed intervention by a regional power, which is likely to act according to its own interests. The specific case under review demonstrates that unauthorized armed intervention cannotper sealways be branded as deplorable, since in certain cases such a scenario is better than no intervention at all. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For more than six decades, the geopolitics of South Asia have been shaped by a symbiotic and triangular relationship involving India, Pakistan, and China. A succession of interstate conflicts has created two fundamental and enduring security structures, one rooted in India's partition and subsequent Indo-Pakistan wars (the “1947 structure”) and the other in a persistent and often antagonistic Sino-Indian rivalry, including a border conflict in 1962 (the “1962 structure”). During the Cold War, exogenous powers, including the United States and Soviet Union, sought to use or manipulate these structures to advance their political objectives. In the long term, however, the 1962 structure is likely to become the dominant security architecture in the region, a trend that can be attributed to China's growing military and economic power, Beijing's increasingly intimate relationship with Islamabad, and the Chinese navy's expanding reach into the Indian Ocean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims at investigating the correlative relationship between Pakistan's national security and its nuclear capability. In this endeavor, the prism of neorealism has been employed to logically explore and describe the character of Pakistan's national security aspirations with nuclear weapons. Subsequently, this proposed correlative relation has been tested against four empirical accounts. Soon after its inception, Pakistan began to experience grave external security threats to some of its core values - political independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity. Pakistan employed various security tools of internal and external balancing other than nuclear weapons to protect its core values against the threats of war and coercion of India. But, it could not secure the intended results. For example, three major wars with India: 1948, 1965 and 1971 (disintegration of the country and creation of Bangladesh) challenged national security of Pakistan immensely. Further, post India's Peaceful Nuclear Explosion (PNE) of 1974 strategic environment decisively influenced Pakistani decision-making elite to exploit the utility of nuclear weapons as a credible tool of internal balancing. Since the configuration of nuclear weapons in its national security policy, Pakistan has successfully neutralized the Indian strategies of war and coercion. For example, the accounts of Brasstacks Exercise of 1986-1987, Kashmir Crisis of 1990, Kargil conflict and military standoff of 2001-2002 demonstrate the centrality of the nuclear weapons viz-a-viz national security of Pakistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines from a comparative perspective, as a case study, how two key personalities, i.e., President John F Kennedy and President Richard Nixon, dealt with South Asia on the key issues. The paper is an attempt to show how the "misreading of the crisis" (the 1971 India-Pakistan War) by the Nixon-Kissinger team had not only contributed to alienating a democratic and secular India from the US, but had also invited the Soviet strategic presence in South Asia. The paper reviews and evaluates a host of critical issues such as Kashmir, 1962 India-China War, and 1971 India- Pakistan War, by taking into account geopolitical, personality, psychological, bureaucratic and systemic factors. The paper concludes that President Kennedy was seen as an architect, injecting a renewed hope and optimism into India-US relations, while President Nixon was perceived as a ruiner of the New Delhi-Washington relationship, mainly due to the Nixon administration's well-entrenched pro-Pakistani psyche and strong biases against India, as validated by his administration's misapplication of global geopolitics to the 1971 India-Pakistan War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a story about the War of Liberation that gave birth to the new state of Bangladesh on December 16, 1971. The relations between the two provinces of the state of Pakistan, created in the wake of the British departure from India in 1947, deteriorated steadily. This was due mainly to the exploitative regime set up in the eastern province (now Bangladesh) by West Pakistan. The general election of 1970 had given the people of East Pakistan an overwhelming majority, but instead of transferring power, the military and political cliques of West Pakistan put into action a diabolical plan to subjugate the Bengalis through a military crackdown and ethnic cleansing, which began on March 25, 1971. The people of East Pakistan organised as liberation forces under a unified command. These forces were called the Muktibahini and were joined by guerrilla freedom fighters from all walks of life. It is estimated that 3 million Bengalis (and other ethnic groups living in the eastern part) were massacred in the war by the Pakistanis and 300,000 women raped. The following story starts with the war and goes on to depict symbolically the subsequent turbulent events in the new state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article outlines a functional model for thinking about Kashmir, India and its future, what might perhaps be styled a hydro-political model. The waters of the India river system are part of the Kashmir dispute. An event bearing considerable importance for the river source futures in India and Pakistan has occurred. The event was the turning over to the governments of India and Pakistan the final and binding decision of a neutral expert to the Baglihar Hydroelectric Plant. The dispute over Baglihar dam highlights the importance of water resources in India-Pakistan relations and argues for a definition of the Kashmir dispute.

The article analyzes peace agreements in regions with a history of ethno-religious conflicts to determine if there are correlations between the form and substance of the agreements and their successful implementation. For purposes of comparison, the author examines several agreements between India and Pakistan, the agreement between Israel and Egypt, and the Darfur Peace Agreement. He applies the legalization theory articulated by Kenneth Abbott, et al., to test the explanatory power of the obligation-precision-delegation matrix. The author concludes by arguing that India and Pakistan should aim for hard legalization to solve the Kashmir dispute and that they must learn from the painful experience of the Darfur Peace Agreement.

Based upon recently published American documents, this article examines the United States's policy towards the crisis which led to the breakup of Pakistan and the formation of Bangladesh at the end of 1971. President Richard M. Nixon and his national security advisor, Henry Kissinger, deliberately kept this policy closely under their control and were guided more by geopolitical than by moral considerations. In particular, they were anxious to forge a new relationship with communist China and the contribution of the Pakistani president, Yahya Khan, in facilitating contacts between the US and China were greatly appreciated by the two men. Nixon's visceral dislike of the Indian prime minister, Mrs Indira Gandhi, also contributed to a degree of myopia and misperception regarding India's objectives and their possible consequences. As the conflict between the rebels in East Pakistan (Bangladesh) and the central government deepened and Indian involvement on the side of the rebels grew, Nixon and Kissinger saw another threat in the shape of Soviet military and moral support for India. An Indian victory would not only increase India's prestige and position vis-à-vis those of Pakistan, but tip the global balance of power towards the Soviet Union and away from the United States. Frantic diplomatic efforts, combined with scarcely veiled threats, finally succeeded in preventing the total disintegration of Pakistan, but there is some doubt as to whether this was likely in the first place and whether US policy was successful in relation to either China or the Soviet Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]