“When the (Pakistan) army stuck on the fateful night of 25th March, Bangladesh was born.” Only someone with the perfect understanding of South Asia’s geopolitics and mindset could have predicted this with such precision, and that too in August 1971 when much of the world was still against Pakistan’s breakup. But U.L. Baruah, who then headed the External Services Division of All India Radio, had the ability to foresee history with a stamp of finality. 

This is an invaluable collection of the now late Baruah’s broadcasts made during a tumultuous period when, on the strength of a guerrilla war, later backed by India, East Pakistan seceded and became a free country called Bangladesh. The 13-day India-Pakistan war ended in the humiliating surrender by over 90,000 Pakistani soldiers, other security forces and their militia backers to the Indian Army and Mukti Bahini. All through the guerrilla war and after the surrender, Baruah kept broadcasting, at times giving sage counsel to the Pakistanis, who could have changed the course of history with a little bit of accommodation and give and take. 

In a hard-hitting broadcast on June 20, 1971, Baruah detailed the atrocities committed by the Pakistani military on the civilian population in its eastern wing and wondered what India and the world community would do to end the genocide. East Bengal’s tragedy, he said, underlined the danger inherent in keeping power with trigger-happy soldiers and the near impossibility of replacing the existing power structure in Pakistan. 

Bangladesh is for real! 

Baruah was clear (July 7) that it was the Pakistani army crackdown “which precipitated the disintegration of Pakistan”. He went on to say that the army’s reluctance to part with power is the real cause for the continuing crisis in Pakistan. Amid escalating Mukt Bahini attacks, Baruah asked West Pakistan to give up its habit of blaming India for everything happening in East Pakistan “and see the reality about freedom fighters in Bangladesh”. 

Baruah made the broadcasts at a time when All India Radio was the chief purveyor of news for millions not just in India but in neighbouring countries as well. And so whatever he said carried weight. It is no wonder that his English language commentaries were also beamed on AIR’s Urdu, Sindhi, Punjabi, Pushtu and Bengali language services. They made a huge impact. The Mukti Bahini and Bangladeshis in general would later say that they eagerly awaited the broadcasts on AIR when the war raged. AIR drastically blunted Pakistani propaganda. 

By September 1971, Baruah understood that the ground was slipping from under Pakistan’s feet. “The Bengalis no longer want to be with West Pakistan, and now they call their land Bangladesh.” And he underlined that the identity crisis in Pakistan started with its very creation in 1947. “As far as East Bengal was concerned, the place of British masters was taken by bureaucrats and army men from West Pakistan.” 

Predicting victory 

Baruah’s understanding of the unfolding realities was remarkable because even in West Bengal support for an independent Bangladesh was subdued even when the initial news of Pakistani atrocities poured in. Baruah was from Mangaldai in Assam and joined AIR as a broadcaster during World War II. It was in 1970, a year before the war, that he was named Director of the External Services Division. 

Baruah was scathing in his criticism of Pakistani leaders Yahya Khan as well as Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. He accused Bhutto of playing a key role in bringing about the Bangladesh tragedy with his refusal to cede power to Sheikh Mujibur Rehman after elections catapulted the Awami League to power. Even before the 1971 war, Baruah urged Pakistanis to demand the release of Sheikh Mujibur. He challenged Pakistan’s claim to represent the interest of Muslims after killing lakhs of Muslim men, women and children in East Bengal. 

For his commentaries, Baruah kept a sharp eye on both the Pakistani and Western media. At a time when communication was not what it is today, he brought writings critical of the Pakistani regime in Pakistan and elsewhere into millions of homes in the Indian sub-continent. On December 2, a day before Pakistan declared war on India, Baruah pointed out that the Mukti Bahini’s successes had made the military rulers in Islamabad desperate. At the same time, he appealed to Pakhtoons and Baluchis to be vigilant in Punjabi-dominated Pakistan. 

Pakistan dug own grave 

Once Bangladesh was born, Baruah made it clear that Pakistan’s military rulers have used Islam as an instrument of oppression not only in Bangladesh but inside West Pakistan too. He said on January 22, 1972: “If Pakistani rulers had had the foresight to have a genuinely democratic structure, Pakistan despite its unnatural geographical situation with two disparate wings might have survived.” 

He went on to say that one of the banes of Pakistani politics has been over-stressing the fact that it is Muslim. (If Baruah were to come alive now, he would find that Pakistan is still the same!) “Pakistan needs a more positive basis for its nationalism, not only for internal strength but also for normalizing relations with India and the world.” 

Religion proved a disaster for Pakistan in 1971. Baruah hit the nail on the head when he said in an undated piece, probably written after the war: “The emergence of Bangladesh as a sovereign democratic republic wedded to secularism and socialism is in many ways a turning point in the history of the Indian sub-continent… Geography, history and culture proved stronger than the tenuous bond of religion… The house that (Mohammed Ali) Jinnah built has collapsed.” 

Baruah’s dispatches are worth a read today to understand the times the 1971 war was fought – and the role that the state-run All India Radio, then a hugely popular medium, played in the historic event. 

Title: A Bangladesh War Commentary: 1971 Radio Dispatches; Author: U.L. Baruah; Publishers: Macmillan Publishers and Indian Council of World Affairs; Pages: 148; Price: Rs 1,650 

(The reviewer is a veteran journalist)