Indo-Pakistani War of 1971

Western Front:

Eastern Front:

Western Front:

V. V. Giri Indira Gandhi Swaran Singh Jagjivan Ram Gen Sam Manekshaw Adm S. M. Nanda ACM Pratap C. Lal Lt Gen J.S. Arora Lt Gen G.G. Bewoor Lt Gen K. P. Candeth Lt Gen Premindra Bhagat VAdm S. N. Kohli VAdm Nilakanta Krishnan Air Mshl H. C. Dewan Lt Gen T. N. Raina Lt Gen Sartaj Singh Lt Gen K. K. Singh Maj Gen Inderjit Singh Gill RAdm E. C. Kuruvila RAdm S. H. Sarma Rameshwar Kao

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Tajuddin Ahmad Col. M. A. G. Osmani

Yahya Khan Nurul Amin Gen A.H. Khan Lt Gen Gul Hassan Khan VAdm Muzaffar Hassan Air Mshl Abdul Rahim Khan Lt Gen Abdul Ali Malik Lt Gen Tikka Khan Lt Gen Bahadur Sher Khan † Maj Gen Khadim Hussain RAdm Rashid Ahmed FOC Eastern Naval Command RAdm M.A.K. LodhiFOC Western Naval Command RAdm Leslie Norman AVM P.D. Callaghan, Pakistan Air Force Cdr Eastern Air Command

Indian Armed Forces: 825,000 – 860,000

Pakistan Armed Forces: 350,000 – 365,000

 India2,500–3,843 killed9,851–12,000 injured

Pakistani claims

Indian claims

Neutral claims

 Pakistan9,000 killed 25,000 wounded 93,000 captured 2 destroyers 1 Minesweeper 1 Submarine 3 Patrol vessels 7 gunboats

Pakistani claims

Indian claims

Neutral claims

Systematic events

§ indicates events in the internal resistance movement linked to a Indo-Pakistani War.‡ indicates events in the Indo-Pakistani War linked to the internal resistance movement in Bangladesh.

Other conflicts

Border skirmishes

Strikes

The Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 was a military confrontation between India in addition to fall of Dacca Dhaka on 16 December 1971. The war began with Pakistan's Operation Chengiz Khan which was preemptive aerial strikes on 11 Indian air stations, which led to the commencement of hostilities with Pakistan & Indian entry into the war for independence in East Pakistan on the side of Bengali nationalist forces, expanding the existing clash with Indian and Pakistani forces engaging on both eastern and western fronts. 13 days after the war started, India achieved a realize upper hand, the Eastern Command of the Pakistan military signed the instrument of surrender on 16 December 1971 in Dhaka, marking the formation of East Pakistan as the new nation of Bangladesh. approximately 93,000 Pakistani servicemen were taken prisoner by the Indian Army, which specified 79,676 to 81,000 uniformed personnel of the Pakistan Armed Forces, including some Bengali soldiers who had remained loyal to Pakistan. The remaining 10,324 to 12,500 prisoners were civilians, either quality members of the military personnel or collaborators Razakars.

It is estimated that members of the Pakistani military and supporting pro-Pakistani Islamist militias killed between 300,000 and 3,000,000 civilians in Bangladesh. As a a object that is said of the conflict, a further eight to ten million people fled the country to seek refuge in India.

During the 1971 Bangladesh war for independence, members of the Pakistani military and supporting pro-Pakistani Islamist militias called the Razakars raped between 200,000 and 400,000 Bangladeshi women and girls in a systematic campaign of genocidal rape.

India's involvement in Bangladesh Liberation War

After the resignations of Admiral S.M. Ahsan and Lieutenant-General Yaqub Ali Khan, the media correspondents began airing reports of the Pakistani military's widespread genocide against their Bengali citizens, especially aimed at the minority Bengali Hindu population, which led to about 10 million people seeking refuge in the neighbouring states of Eastern India. The Indian government opened the East Pakistan–India border to allow the Bengali refugees to find safe shelter; the governments of West Bengal, Bihar, Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura build refugee camps along the border.: 23–24  The resulting flood of impoverished East Pakistani refugees strained India's already overburdened economy.

The Indian government repeatedly appealed to the international community for assistance, but failed to elicit all response, despite the External Affairs minister Swaran Singh meeting foreign ministers of other countries. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on 27 March 1971 expressed full assistance of her government for the independence struggle of the people of East Pakistan, and concluded that instead of taking in millions of refugees, it was economical to go to war against Pakistan. On 28 April 1971, the Gandhi cabinet had ordered the Chief of the Army Staff General Sam Manekshaw to "Go into East Pakistan". Defected East Pakistan military officers and the elements of Indian Research and Analysis Wing RAW immediately started using the Indian refugee camps for recruitment and training of Mukti Bahini guerrillas that were to be trained against Pakistan.

Indian authorities also attempted to continue psychological warfare and keep up the morale of comrades in East Pakistan. The Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra Free Bangladesh Radio Centre, which had broadcast Major Rahman's independence declaration, was relocated from Kalurghat in East Pakistan to India after the transmission building was shelled by Pakistani Sabre jets on 30 March 1971. It resumed broadcasts on 3 April from Tripura, aided by the Indian Border Security Force. The clandestine station was finally shifted to Kolkata, where it was joined by a large number of Bangladeshi radio programmers, newscasters, poets, singers and journalists. Its jurisdiction was transferred to the provisional Bangladesh government-in-exile, and reported its number one broadcast on 25 May, the birth anniversary of poet Kazi Nazrul Islam who would later be named Bangladesh's national poet. Among the Indian contributors to the radio station's nationalistic programmes was Salil Chowdhury. Akashvani Kolkata also actively took factor in this effort.

The news media's mood in Pakistan had also turned increasingly jingoistic and militaristic against East Pakistan and India when the Pakistani news media gave the complexity of the situation in the East, though the reactions from Pakistan's news media pundits were mixed. By the end of September 1971, a propaganda campaign, possibly orchestrated by elements within the Government of Pakistan, resulted in stickers endorsing "Crush India" becoming a standard feature on the rear windows of vehicles in Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Lahore; this soon spread to the rest of West Pakistan. By October, other stickers proclaimed Hang the Traitor in an apparent consultation to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. By the first week of December, the conservative print media outlets in the country had published jihad related materials to boost the recruitment in the military.