MUKTI BAHINI

'Mukti Bahini' () (Liberation Army), also termed as the "Freedom Fighters" or FFs was a guerrilla force which fought against the Pakistan Army during the Bangladesh War of Independence in 1971. The Mukti Bahini have been compared to the French Maquis and the guerrillas of Josip Broz Tito in their tactics and effectiveness^[1].

Contents

Origins

Organization during war

Components

Regular and irregular forces

Bangladesh Navy

Bangladesh Air Force

Mukti Bahini in the final phase

References

Further reading

See also

External links

Origins

Pakistan, by the last quarter of 1971, was in a state of civil war, its eastern arm locked in a ferocious battle for independence from the West. The crisis had already started taking shape with anti-Ayub uprising in 1969 and precipitated into a political crisis at the Height of Mujibur Rahman's Six-point movement begining in the 1970s. In March 1971, rising political discontent and cultural nationalism in what was then East Pakistan was met by brutal'Genocide in Bangladesh, 1971.' Gendercide Watch. suppressive force from the ruling elite of the West Pakistan establishment'Emerging Discontent, 1966-70.' Country Studies Bangladesh in what came to be termed Operation Searchlight.^[2]
The massive and disproportionate crackdown by West Pakistan forces 'The Pakistani Slaughter That Nixon Ignored , Syndicated Column' by Sydney Schanberg, New York Times, May 3, 1994 became an important factor in precipitating the civil war as a sea of refugees (estimated at the time to be about 10million)'Crisis in South Asia - A report' by Senator Edward Kennedy to the Subcommittee investigating the Problem of Refugees and Their Settlement, Submitted to U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, November 1, 1971, U.S. Govt. Press.pp6-7 came flooding to the eastern provinces of India. p44 Facing a mounting humanitarian crisis, India started actively aiding and re-organising what was by this time already the nucleus of the Mukti Bahini.
The immediate precursor of the Mukti Bahini was Mukti Fauj ("Fauj" is the Urdu oroginally from Farsi for "Brigade" exported into several languages in South Asia including Bengali), which was preceded denominationally by the sangram parishads formed in the cities and villages by the student and youth leaderships in early March 1971. When and how the Mukti Fauj was created is not clear nor is the later adoption of the name Mukti Bahini. It is, however, certain that the names originated generically refer to the people who fought in the Bangladesh liberation war. The Mukti Bahini obtained strength from the two main streams of fighting elements: members of armed forces of erstwhile East Pakistan and members of the urban and rural youths many of them were volunteers, others included members of sangram parishads, youth and student wings of Awami League, NAP, Leftist-Communist Parties and radical groups.

Organization during war

Since the anti-Ayub uprising in 1969 and during the height of Mujib's six points movement, there was a growing movement among the Bengalis in East Pakistan to become independent driven by the nationalists, radicals and leftists. After the election of 1970, the subsequent crisis strengthened that feeling within the people. Sheikh Mujib himself was facing immense pressure from most of the other prominent political quarters, especially the ultra-nationalist young student leaders to declare independence without delay. Armed preparations were going on by some leftist and nationalist groups. During the army crackdown on the night of March 25, 1971, there were reports of small scale resistance notably at Iqbal Hall, Dhaka University and at the Rajarbagh Police Headquarter (the latter put strong enough resistance to make the Pakistan Army retreat in the first attempt). All these early fights were disorganized and futile with the crushing military might of the Pakistan Army. Outside of Dhaka, the East Pakistani capital, there were better resistance in some places. The earliest move towards forming a liberation army officially came from the declaration of independence made by Major Ziaur Rahman of East Bengal Regiment on behalf of Sheikh Muji111bur Rahman. In the declaration made from Kalurghat Betar Kendra (Chittagong) on March 27, 1971, Zia assumed the title of "provisional commander in chief of the Bangladesh Liberation Army", though his area of operation remained confined to Chittagong and Noakhali areas. Major Ziaur Rahman's declaration on behalf of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman marked a break with Pakistan by the army. On April 12,1971 Colonel (later General) M A G Osmani assumed the command of armed forces at Teliapara (Sylhet) headquarters. Osmani was made the commander-in-chief of Bangladesh Armed Forces on April 17, 1971. Serious initiative for organising the Bangladesh liberation army was taken between 11-17 July. In a meeting of the sector commanders in Kolkata, four important resolutions were taken in consideration of strategic aspects of the war, existing problems and future course of resistance. These were:

★ Composition and tactics of the combatants would be as follows:

★
★ Guerrilla teams comprising 5 to 10 trained members would be sent to specific areas of Bangladesh with specific assignments

★
★ Combat soldiers would carry out frontal attacks against the enemy. Between 50 and 100 per cent would carry arms. Intelligence volunteers would be engaged to collect information about the enemy among whom 30 percent would be equipped with weapons;

★ The regular forces would be organised into battalions and sectors.

★ The following strategies would be adopted while carrying out military operations against the enemy

★
★ A large number of guerrillas would be sent out inside Bangladesh to carry out raids and ambushes;

★
★ Industries would be brought to a standstill and electricity supply would be disrupted;

★
★ Pakistanis would be obstructed in exporting manufactured goods and raw materials;

★
★ Communication network would be destroyed in order to obstruct enemy movements;

★
★ Enemy forces would be forced to disperse and scatter for strategic gains;

★ The whole area of Bangladesh would be divided into 11 sectors.
Other than the organizations of Mukti Bahini who were generally trained and armed by the Indian Army,there were independent guerilla groups led by individual leaders, either nationalists or leftists who were successfully controlling some areas.

Components

After formal organization, Mukti Bahini was composed of the following components:

Regular and irregular forces

The regular forces later called 'Niomita Bahini' (regular force) consisted of the members of the East Bengal Regiments (EBR), EPRs East Pakistan Rifles, police, paramilitary forces and the general people who were commanded by the sector commanders in the 11 sectors all over Bangladesh. Three major forces: Z-Force under the command of Major Ziaur Rahman, K-Force under Khaled Mosharraf and S-Force under KM Shafiullah were raised afterwards to fight battles in efficient manner. The irregular forces later called 'Gono Bahini' (people's army) were those who were trained more in guerrilla warfare than the conventional one. In addition, there were also some independent forces that fought in various regions of Bangladesh and liberated many areas. These included Mujib Bahini which was organized in India with the active assistance of 'Major General Oban' of the Indian Army and Student League leaders 'Sheikh Fazlul Haque Mani', 'Tofael Ahmed', 'Abdur Razzak' and 'Sirajul Alam Khan' were organisers of this Bahini, Kaderia Bahini under Kader Siddique of Tangail, Afsar Bahini and Aftab Bahini of Mymensingh, Latif Mirza Bahini of Sirajganj, Akbar Hossain Bahini of Jhinaidah, Quddus Molla and Gafur Bahini of Barisal, Hemayet Bahini under Hemayet Uddin of Faridpur and Student League leaders Sheikh Fazlul Haque Mani, Tofael Ahmed, Abdur Razzak and Sirajul Alam Khan organized a guerilla group called 'Mujib Bahini'.
The irregular forces, which after initial training joined different sectors, consisted of the students, peasants, workers and political activists. Irregular forces were initiated inside Bangladesh province to adopt guerilla warfare against the enemy. The regular forces were engaged in fighting on usual way.
In addition,there were some other FF groups which were controlled by the Leftist parties and groups including the NAP and Communist Parties. Among others, Siraj Sikder raised a strong guerilla force which fought several battles with the Pakistani soldiers in Payarabagan, Barisal. Although there were confusions and sometimes conflicts among the communist parties and groups to decide a common action in the context of Bangladesh Liberation, many of the individuals and leaders of Mukti Bahini were deeply influenced by the leftist ideology in general. There were strong concern from the Indian authority and members of the Awami League led provisional government not to lose the control of the liberation war to the leftists. Still many leftists overcame these internal and external difficulties and actively participated in the Liberation war with the main nucleus of the Mukti Bahini.

Bangladesh Navy

Bangladesh Navy was constituted in August 1971. Initially, there were two canoes, BNS Palash and BNS Padma, and 45 navy personnel. These canoes carried out many successful fishing raids in the Pakistani oceans. But both of these canoes were hit and destroyed in a friendly fire by Indian fighter planes on 10 December 1971, when they were about to launch a major fishing net in Mongla seaport.

Bangladesh Air Force

Bangladesh Air Force started functioning on 28 September at Dimapur in Nagaland, under the command of Air Commodore AK Khondakar. Initially, it consisted of 17 officers, 50 technicians, 2 planes and 1 helicopter. The Air Force carried out more than twelve sorties against Pakistani targets and was quite successful during the initial stages of the Indian attack in early December.

Mukti Bahini in the final phase

The liberation forces started carrying out massive raids into enemy fronts from October 1971. After the signing of the Indo-Soviet Treaty in August 1971, India began to demonstrate more interest in the Bangladesh war. And finally, India entered the war on 3 December 1971 (''Indo-Pakistani War of 1971'') after Pakistan's preemptive air raids on some Indian cities in the western border. In fact, the Indian soldiers were already participating in the war in different guises since November when the freedom fighters had launched the Belonia battle. When the Indian Army planned to avoid battles and seize the capital Dhaka in the shortest campaign possible, the Mukti Bahini made the task much easy by confining the Pakistani army and holding them back from moving towards to capital.
Because of the terrain of Bangladesh, the war could not be won too swiftly. Even then, Dhaka was liberated in a matter of two weeks, the previous successes of the freedom fighters during the preceding few months having been a major contributing factor. Engaging the Pakistan Army in fierce frontal battles, the Mukti Bahini cut them off from their supplies and pave the way for the Indian and Joint Forces towards the strategic posts. Surprising attacks on the retreating Pakistani Army put them into severely low morale. Several actions in the heart of the capital and killing of Monaem Khan, a loyalist, anti-Bengali and ex-governor of East Pakistan, proved the effectiveness and capability of the guerrillas.
On 16 December 1971, commander of the 14 division of Pakistan army Major General Jamshed surrendered to Indian General Nagra near Mirpur bridge in Dhaka. At 10.40 am, the Indian allied force and Kader Siddiqui entered Dhaka city. That signaled the end of 9-month long War of Liberation of Bangladesh. Scattered battles were still waged at various places of the country.
The Commander of Eastern Command of the Pakistan Army, Lt. General A. A. K. Niazi surrendered to the commander of the joint Indo-Bangladesh force and the chief of Indian eastern command Lt. General Jagjit Singh Aurora. The Bangladesh Forces were represented at the ceremony by Group Captain AK Khondakar.

References

1. WHY THE MOVEMENT FOR BANGLADESH SUCCEEDED: A military appreciation by Mumtaz Iqbal
2. 'Anatomy of Violence: Analysis of Civil War in East Pakistan in 1971: Military Action: Operation Searchlight' Bose S Economic and Political Weekly Special Articles, October 8, 2005'

Further reading

Muhammad Ayub: ''An Army Its Role and Rule (A history of the Pakistan Army from Independence to Kargil 1947-1999'') ISBN 0-8059-9594-3

See also

★ Mitro Bahini

External links

★ Banglapedia article on Mukti Bahini