The India Bangladesh connect - history at a glance
The India Bangladesh connect - history at a glance
The world cup T-20 finals in Bangladesh is certainly not a good experience for Indians. But the host country where India lost the coveted title shares a very remarkable and important historical equation with India.
Bangladesh is one neighboring country which is considered to be the friend of friends for India and both the nations have shared a very strong bond since the beginning.
So, what is that old connect with Bangladesh? Why is it so that it has been always soft for India and vice versa? Well, here is the answer:
Bangladesh was a part of undivided India during British rule. It became a part of Pakistan after the partition of India in 1947 and was known as East Pakistan. Though East Pakistan was predominantly a Muslim province, its culture, language and value system were different from the rest of the Pakistan.
In the National assembly elections and provincial council held in 1970 the East Pakistan based political party Awami League (currently the ruling party of Bangladesh) won the majority but the rulers of Pakistan refused to hand over political power to Awami League. This resulted in large scale popular agitation against the government.
The government of Pakistan allowed the reign of terror and suppression of the basic rights of the people. People now wanted nothing less than full independence from Pakistan. A large number of people from East Pakistan crossed the border and stepped into India to take the refuge and escape the terror rule. This created problems for Indian government as it was not financially sound enough to support the livelihood of huge number of refugees. The Indian request to control the flow of refugees by that time PM Indira Gandhi was not given any heed by Pakistan.
Pakistan was more than convinced that the uprising in East Pakistan was supported by India. The US was a close ally of Pakistan and it wasn’t happy with the independence of India’s foreign policy. Here Indian PM Indira Gandhi by now had decided to support the revolt of East Pakistan and thus she also held a helping hand for Sheikh Mujabir Rehman, the leader of Awami League who was the most popular in East Pakistan.
Pakistani forces launched a full scale war in the western sector but Indian forces were prepared for any eventuality. The Indian forces were lead by Filed Marshall Sam Manek Shaw, whose 100th birth anniversary was marked on 3rd April 2014. In two weeks long war, Indian forces defeated Pakistani army on December 17, 1971, which surrendered in Dhaka.
The defeat of Pakistan in the popular India Pakistan 1971 war resulted in the independence of East Pakistan, which was renamed as Bangladesh as a independent nation.
It is after the defeat of Pakistan, that India had captured around 90,000 soldiers of Pakistani Army and later the famous Shimla Pact between India and Pakistan was signed by Indira Gandhi and Ayub Khan, the Pakistani President.
Although, Indira government is criticized for not taking the advantage of Pakistani soldiers in the pact to resolve the Kashmir border row yet the independence of Bangladesh and defeat of Pakistan irrespective of American support was commendable. It is widely believed that Pakistan eyes Kashmir because India disintegrated Bangladesh from its territory.
So, next time you see any cricket tournament in Bangladesh, rejoice about the fact that Bangladesh existed because of Indian support and our nation had the guts to support what was right and stand against the terror rule, a single match defeat doesn’t matter that much, right?
