The surprise Pakistani attack on India on December 3, 1971 codenamed Operation Chengiz Khan, started a 13-day decisive war that brought a nine-month long Liberation War to its culmination in the emergence of Bangladesh on December 16.
In Dhaka, the war was fought in the sky as Indian MiG-21s were engaged in dog-fights with Pakistani F-86 Sabre jets and did short work on the airfields so that the Pakistani Air force remained grounded. That strategy worked. The Indian Air Force had mounted regular attacks with their MiG-21s and Su-7s rocketing various targets including Mohsin Hall where I went to see some friends and we were caught into an air attack in broad-daylight. The fire and the heat from the rockets were too close for comfort as we took shelter under the stairways.
I was both excited and afraid. The fear of falling victim was overpowered by the joy of impending independence.
Indian planes were dropping leaflets urging Pakistani forces to surrender. I vaguely remember seeing a leaflet suggesting that “if you surrender now you can return to your families in Pakistan” and it also stated that there was no point fighting until death as your senior commanders were going to surrender.
Then there were radioed announcements from General Sam Manekshaw giving assurances of safety and humane treatment to the Pakistani forces if they dropped their guns.
Yet, a last battle was not off the table. That created a sense of total fear as I was living with my uncle and aunt in old Dhaka on Abul Khairat Road. My uncle, a professor of English and a generally peaceful person, made us battle ready. We were prepared with boiling water in the event of an attack. Those were the days of fear and hope.
The rumours had it that there would be a door-to-door fight and the invaders were the Urdu-speaking Biharis and Razakars who in a last-ditch effort would kill as many Bengalis as they could. So, my uncle guided us to fight back with whatever we had. Such attacks, to our relief, never came. The rumours remained rumours, and the faint echoes of battle cries receded.
Recently, my friend Badal, who was sheltering in Bangsal -- not too far from my own old town hideout -- told me that in the last days, Bengali Razakars in his neighbourhood assured them that we would fight the non-Bengalis to protect our Bengali mothers and sisters.
Sometimes, wars made enemies friends and friends enemies.
I was not thrilled by the prospect of a hand-to-hand fight, rather the idea of a fight numbed me with fright. I never saw myself as a fighter. I was by then spoiled by reading Gandhi and was imbibed with the mantra of non-violence. I was more of a chronicler of the war than a freedom fighter. In fact, I recorded the day-to-day sorties –– how many occasions the Pakistani Air force engaged Indian planes in dog fights, and rather soon, Dhaka skies were the playgrounds of the Indian Air Force. I recorded December 7, 10am, three Indian Su-7s were in the Dhaka sky attacking with rockets. They flew at low altitude as there was no fear of Pakistani fighter jets as the latter were unable to fly from a bombed-out airfield.
Based on my detailed notes, I wrote a paper, titled “Eagles Over Dacca (Dhaka)” -- imitating the title of a war movie Eagles over London -- by hand and gave it to Masud, a fellow student at Dhaka University from political science who was planning to publish a magazine. The magazine never came out and my chronicle of the air war on Dhaka perished. I had no other copies, and my notes were lost. My fascination with the Air Force was sparked by my elder brother's career in the Pakistan and later, Bangladesh Air Force. Interestingly, he later executed a daring escape from Pakistan in early 1972, reminiscent of a plotline from a James Bond movie.
On December 16, as it was declared that the Pakistani army under Lt General Niazi would surrender to Lt General Jagjit Singh Aurora at the then Racecourse, I proceeded to witness that historic moment. I met Yusuf Babu, a fellow student at Dhaka University’s history department (and a cricket star), who lived nearby. We were on our way to the racecourse. We saw some people running back near the central jail who warned us not to go beyond that point as Pakistani soldiers were returning to the Racecourse and on their way they were occasionally shooting at random.
We abandoned our goal to witness a history-making episode.
The following day, I found myself at the outer stadium, where legendary Banga Bir Kader Siddiq delivered an impassioned speech. He introduced a man on stage, asserting that the individual had fallen victim to a robbery. Kader Siddiq clarified, "no, he did not commit the robbery; he was the victim. The robber -- I took care of him on the spot." His choice of words, particularly "I took care of him," sounded remarkably casual and matter-of-factly, serving as an early sign of the post-independence challenges the new government would face. Those were days of joy -- utter joy of liberation after nine agonizing months -- yet tinged with anxiety.
Habibul Haque Khondker is a sociology professor at Zayed University, Abu Dhabi who previously taught at the National University of Singapore.
