Yahya Khan graduated first in his class from the Indian Military Academy at Dehra Dun. He went on to teach at the Pakistan Army’s Command and Staff College in Quetta. At 34, he became the army’s youngest brigadier and at 49 its commander-in-chief.
When president Ayub Khan faced amass revolt, he asked Yahya, who was the army chief, to declare martial law. General Yahya agreed on one condition, that Field Marshal Ayub, his mentor and confidante of many years, step down as president.
Justifying his takeover on March 25, 1969, Yahya declared,”Strikes and violence have become a daily routine and the country has been driven to the edge of an abyss. The nation has to be pulled back to safety and normal conditions have to be restored without delay.”
Wanting to be portrayed as someone who listens to the people, he held general elections in 1970, which many regard as the fairest in the history of Pakistan. The Awami League won majority seats, which were located in East Pakistan.
After calling Mujib the ‘future prime minister’, Yahya demurred. Sensing the looming confrontation between east and west, in February 1971, China advised Yahya to settle the issue politically. However, he ignored the well-intentioned advice and cancelled the session of the National Assembly.
In its place, on March 25, 1971, exactly two years after he seized power, he launched Operation Searchlight. According to Yahya, the law and order situation would soon return to normal in East Pakistan and he would transfer power to the elected representatives of the people, but he never acted on this. Moreover, Yahya once boasted that he knew East Pakistan “like the back of his hand,” by virtue of having served there as G.O.C. fourteenth Division. He refused to visit the east and continued living in denial, telling Nixon that the situation would soon return to normal.
Yahya authorised the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) to attack Indian Air Force (IAF) bases. The IAF had anticipated the attack and dispersed its aircraft and India got the excuse it needed to attack East Pakistan. The day of reckoning for Pakistan arrived in less than two weeks
However, he got a rude awakening, as he realized that India’s attack was eminent. Yahya pressed Nixon and Zhou for military assistance. The United States (US) moved the USS Enterprise, an aircraft carrier, into the Bay of Bengal.
Yahya further aggravated India, by making drivers in West Pakistan put’Crush India’ stickers on their bumpers, and went on to stir war hysteria by calling Mrs. Gandhi names and ridiculing General Sam Manekshaw.
On December 2, Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington requested US military assistance, invoking Article I of the 1959, bilateral agreement between the two countries. He was told that the agreement did not apply to an Indo-Pakistan war.
Undaunted, Yahya authorised the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) to attack Indian Air Force (IAF) bases. The IAF had anticipated the attack and dispersed its aircraft and India got the excuse it needed to attack East Pakistan. The day of reckoning for Pakistan arrived in less than two weeks.
West Pakistan was stunned to learn that the eastern garrison had surrendered on December 16, and East Pakistan was jubilant. Yahya reassured the West that all was not lost, even though “fighting had ceased on the eastern front due to an arrangement between the local commanders”, the war with India would continue. However, on the next day, realising that West Pakistan would not survive a full-scale Indian invasion, he agreed to a ceasefire.
Gary Bass, author of ‘The Blood Telegram’,said that Yahya was one of the few people that Nixon liked, since he had provided him with the long-awaited opening to China. But Kissinger concluded that Yahya, despite his British affectation and bluster, was a moron; asa point of no return had been reached and the east was going to secede even without an Indian invasion.
Kissinger knew that neither Yahya nor his generals had the intellect to understand why East Pakistan wanted to secede. They remained oblivious to the threat of an Indian invasion until the very end. Yahya kept telling Nixon that ‘normal life’ would soon return to East Pakistan.
In 1971, he had even more reason to mourn the partition of Pakistan. When the denouement took place, he was wearing three hats that of the president, the army chief and the chief martial law administrator. Therefore, he was blamed a 100 percent for the debacle.
Yet, in sworn testimony before the Hamoodur Rehman War Commission, Yahya maintained that Pakistan’s defeat was not “a military debacle at all or a surrender of forces in strictly military terms.”
This was an empty statement, as no defeated general likes to admit his own failure. Moreover, in 1979, General Zia, another dictator, released Yahya from confinement, after a year of which he died, unmourned.
The writer is a defence analyst and economist. He has authored Rethinking the National Security of Pakistan (Ashgate Publishing, 2003). He writer can be reached at [email protected]
Published in Daily Times, September 18th 2018.