53 Years after the Fall of Dhaka: History Chronicles. Geopolitical wounds and reflections on national transformation.
Fall of Dhaka Left Bitter Past for Pakistan and Bangladesh
December 16, 1971, marks a critical moment in the timeline of South Asian geopolitical history.
Fifty-three years after the separation of East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, the historical wound continues to resonate deeply within national memories.
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Political Dynamics
The political dynamics were complex and had led to separation, with India playing a very strategic role in the eventual partition.
Former Pakistani Foreign Secretary Johar Saleem has his view on this moment of history, saying that national tracks are never set in stone: “The rise and fall of nations are not constant, and future paths are smoothed by learning from experiences.”
Mukti Bahini
Leading to the separation, politics was complex with India having a strategic role in the final partition.
A whole strategy of complex geopolitics in the 1971 war had been designed by India in using the Mukti Bahini, a terrorist group who had been systematically trained at six specialized camps in Indian territories.
Under the tutelage of RAW and Indian military intelligence, 100,000 terrorists were readied to fight within East Pakistan, though officers of the Indian Army clandestinely participated in their effort wearing civilian clothes.
These operations, designed strategically to break Pakistan’s internal unity, included systematic targeting of patriotic Pakistanis, including Muslims and Biharis, through calculated terror tactics that were used to destabilize the region.
Oppression on Biharis – 53 Years after the Fall of Dhaka: History Chronicles
The Bihari community became a tragic test of resilience and unwavering national loyalty in Indo-Pak war.
It uncovered the barbarous methods adopted by Mukti Bahini, such as extreme torture for enforcing compliance, at the same time showing the commitment of Pakistan Army towards the vulnerable section of people.
Atrocities unprecedented and media manipulation, Bihari community still held onto Pakistan and rejected all the external narratives against the historical allegiance.
The new political scenario in Bangladesh has given another dimension to this history.
In August 2024, a major political shift occurred when the pro-India government was overthrown, forcing Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to flee the country—an event that would have likely intrigued former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who famously declared the “two-nation theory” effectively “drowned in the Bay of Bengal” during the 1971 conflict.
Its psychological impact remains profound. Of course, it is a territorial loss, but it also reflects the story of national trauma in some other way. In fact, December 16 has a terrible similarity in the case of the Peshawar Army Public School massacre in 2014, which has made national pain all the more intense.
53 Years after the Fall of Dhaka: History Chronicles. Geopolitical wounds and reflections on national transformation.
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