Letter from the Government of Bangla Desh to the Prime
Minister of India
November 23, 1971
(Seal
of the Bangla Desh Government)
Mujib
Nagar,
November
23, 1971.
Excellency,
May we invite your kind attention to our letter of
the 15th of October, written to you on the eve of your departure for Europe and the United States of America? Our hope was that, apart
from giving consideration to our basic request for the recognition of the
People's Republic of Bangla Desh and its government, our letter would also
assist you in conveying the depth of our feelings and the increasing momentum
of our struggle for freedom to the world leaders whom you were to meet. The
reports that we received about your discussions had created the hope that the
statesmen whom you met would be able to persuade President Yahya Khan to evolve
a political solution to the problem of Bangla Desh, in consultation with our
undisputed leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and our already elected representatives.
2. Even while you were abroad describing the
realities, of the situation and emphasising the imperative necessity of a
political solution according to the declared wishes of the people of Bangla
Desh, we received definite indications that the military rulers of West Pakistan remain determined to
continue their policy of repression and brutality against our people. President
Yahya Khan's statement of the 12th of October, the increased activities of the
West Pakistani Army against the civilian population in Bangla Desh and his
rebuffs to various overtures made by the statesmen of the world urging a
rational political solution on him, confirmed our assessment.
3. Developments specially over the last two weeks
clearly show that the military rulers of West Pakistan are not open to persuasion
to return to the path of reason and face the realities of the situation.
Meanwhile, the exodus of our countrymen into India continues unabated, which
is a direct consequence of the continuing repression of our people by the West
Pakistani army. The oppression of our people is accompanied by a deceitful
policy of so-called normalisation undertaken by the military junta of West Pakistan. The defeated candidates
and quislings who constitute the so-called civilian government of East Pakistan, are sustained by a
repressive martial law regime universally, hated by the people of Bangla Desh.
Their atrocities have reached new and unimaginable dimensions in terrorising
and decimating our people in recent days. You must have seen reports about
curfews and arrests, exercises in scorched earth and mass extermination
undertaken by the West Pakistani army in Bangla Desh over the last fortnight.
Entire villages have been razed to the ground and their populations liquidated.
The West Pakistani army has acted with such systematic brutality that millions
of our countrymen wander without shelter and food within Bangla Desh. According
to our assessment, nearly five million citizens of Bangla Desh are in this
tragic and heart-rending predicament with no succour or relief. This is apart
from the ten million citizens of Bangla Desh who have already gone to India and whose number is
increasing every day. The aforesaid facts lead us to the unmistakable
conclusion that the military regime of Pakistan has embarked on a
pre-meditated and planned extermination of our race.
4. The military regime of West Pakistan still refuses negotiations
with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the Government of Bangla Desh. This has resulted
in the alienation not only of the people of Bangla Desh from the military
regime of President Yahya Khan but also of the people in other parts of Pakistan. The people of the North-West Frontier
Province and Baluchistan have expressed their dissatisfaction in a manner
which has now compelled the Government of West Pakistan to ban the National
Awami Party which had won a majority in the provincial elections in these two
provinces of West Pakistan.
5. All this only confirms our original assessment
that the people of West Pakistan were never a party to the conspiracy of
military oppression undertaken by President Yahya Khan in conjunction with a
small coterie of generals. President Yahya Khan's pronouncements and activities
over the last month gave a clear indication of his determination to suppress
the democratic aspirations not only of the people of Bangla Desh, but also of
the people all over Pakistan.
6. As we had informed you in our letter of the 15th
of October, the operations of the Mukti Bahini have been gathering momentum.
The Mukti Bahini, with the universal support of the people of Bangla Desh, has
achieved signal successes in regaining effective administrative control over
large areas of our motherland against the military oppressor. We had informed
you of our being in control of half the territory of Bangla Desh in our letter of the 15th
of October. We have great pleasure in informing you now that our effective
jurisdiction extends to two-thirds of the total area of the country. We have
not only liberated this area, but also consolidated our authority and
established increasingly effective civil administration in areas under our
control. Even in the remaining areas, the freedom struggle with popular support
has reached a stage that it has compelled the West Pakistani troops to confine
themselves to a limited number of fortified positions. Our successes as well as
the events in West Pakistan, with the passage of time, have convinced even the
people of West Pakistan of the legitimacy of our cause. The intransigence
of the military regime of West Pakistan and the pogroms being
carried out by them against our people are indicative of the vain hope which
President Yahya Khan entertains of retaining control over Bangla Desh by
coercive authority. This has only strengthened our determination to liberate
our motherland completely and we are confident of achieving our objectives. We
have become better organised and our armed forces are acting with discipline
and determination. The ranks of the Mukti Bahini have swelled with thousands of
partiotic young men, dedicated to remove the colonial bondage of the people of
Bangla Desh once and for all. It is our unalterable intention to remove the
root cause of the tragedy which we have undergone-the oppression that we have
suffered for nearly two decades, and culminating in the holocaust on March 25th
and the events following it. This is a just struggle of an enslaved people
against their exploiters.
7. It was our hope that our struggle would find
immediate and tangible support from the international community, particularly
from our great neighbour, India. Our expectations had some
basis in the eloquent resolution passed by the Parliament of India on the 31st of March, 1971, which expressed sympathy for and solidarity with
the people of Bangla Desh in their struggle for a democratic way of life.
Already, eight months have gone by. Neither international pressure nor counsels
of reason from the statesmen of the world have succeeded in persuading the
military regime of West Pakistan to negotiate a political settlement with the people
of Bangla Desh through their already elected and acknowledged leaders led by
the President of Bangla Desh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Nor has your tolerance and
restraint made any constructive impact on the rulers of West Pakistan. To the contrary, apart
from carrying out a systematic policy of genocide, violation of human rights
and repression, the military regime of West Pakistan has sought to divert the
attention of the world from the root cause of the problem by attempting to internationalise
the issue by projecting it as an Indo-Pakistan dispute. We are aware of the
consistent efforts that your Government has made to explain the problem in its
correct perspective and to direct the attention of the international community
to the realities of the situation. These attempts at a peaceful settlement of
the dispute between the people of Bangla Desh and the military rulers of West Pakistan have failed, and the recent
pronouncements and activities of President Yahya Khan provide little hope for a
political solution. In this context, it has surprised and even perturbed us
that India should continue a policy of
caution and restraint against the oppressive military regime of West Pakistan.
8. The people of Bangla Desh are conscious of the leading
role that India played in eradicating the
evil of colonialism from the Afro-Asian region. It was India's eloquent advocacy and
consistent stand in favour of the oppressed peoples of the world which made it
the leading political force accelerating the process of de-colonisation. Your
Government and your people have always raised their voice where human dignity
was in danger and liberties and freedoms of peoples threatened. Your consistent
support to the just struggles for liberation and freedom movements of the
oppressed people of the world is well-known. India has been a leading exponent
of the cause of freedom and upholder of liberty for those who are oppressed and
deprived of their fundamental rights. You have shown unflinching support to the
principles of democracy, secularism, socialism and a non-aligned foreign
policy. The proclamation of independence of the People's
Republic of Bangla Desh and subsequent
pronouncements by the Government of our country have given clear indication
that we share these ideals and aspirations. We should like to reiterate here
what we have already proclaimed as the basic principles of our State policy,
i.e. democracy, socialism, secularism and the establishment of an egalitarian
society, where there would be no discrimination on the basis of race, religion,
sex or creed. In our foreign relations, we are determined to follow a policy of
non-alignment, peaceful co-existence and opposition to colonialism, racialism
and imperialism in all its forms and manifestations. Against this background
of this community of ideals and principles, we are unable to understand why the
Government of India have not yet responded to
our plea for recognition.
9. On a more practical plane, we are conscious of
the burdens imposed on your country by the massive influx of the citizens of
Bangla Desh in the face of the terror which they face in their own country. We
share your anxiety regarding the tensions which the presence of millions of our
countrymen on your territory can generate. The economic burden and the
socio-political tensions which the large number of Bangla Desh refugees in India can create are and should
be the common concern of both the Governments of India and Bangla Desh. With
our effective control over our territory and with the establishment of
organised civil administration, we are anxious that all our fellow citizens who
were forced to leave their hearths and homes after the
25th of March, 1971, and who are now living in your country in adverse conditions despite
your generosity, return to their homeland at the earliest possible date. We are
also now in a position to resettle and rehabilitate them in their own homes in
conditions of safety, dignity and honour. In view of the onset of winter, time
is of essence in this matter. The health and welfare, especially of the women,
children and the aged, can be safeguarded only if the arrangements for their
return to Bangla Desh are expedited. We would like to assure you of our
Government's full co-operation in organising the expeditious return of the
refugees back to their home. Let it not be said that we failed them in their
hour of need.
10. Your extending recognition to the Government of
Bangla Desh seems an imperative requisite to us to relieve the tensions and
strains which the people of Bangla Desh and India had to bear over the last
eight months. The early achievement of our common objectives would also depend
on your giving not only political and moral support to us, but also all
essential material aid to the freedom struggle. We are convinced that your
according recognition to us and giving substantive content to this recognition
by co-operation in all aspects of our mutual relations would expedite a lasting
solution to the problem of Bangla Desh.
11. We are grateful for the continuing support that
you have given to our cause and the efforts you have made on this behalf with
the international community. We feel it is now necessary to give formal
political content to your support, in order that our struggle is rewarded with
speedy success and our existence as a free society is recognised by the world
at large. Recognition by you would give an impetus to and would be an
acknowledgement of our aspirations and free existence. It is also our
considered assessment that the granting of recognition by the Government of
India to the People's Republic of Bangla Desh is a most necessary and important
step not only to stabilise the situation on the sub-continent but also to
ensure peace, progress and stability to South-East Asia. May we, therefore,
reiterate the request which we made in our letter of 15th October that you
accord immediate recognition to the sovereign People's Republic of Bangla Desh?
Please accept, Excellency, the assurances of our
highest esteem.
(Sd.) SYED NAZRUL ISLAM
(Sd.)
TAJUDDIN AHMAD
HER
EXCELLENCY MRS. INDIRA GANDHI,
Prime
Minister of India,
New Delhi.
Source: Bangladesh Documents, vol – II, p. 583 - 586