Who was General Niazi, the protagonist of the fall of Dhaka?

More than half a century has passed since the fall of Dhaka, but the scene is still scarred in the hearts and minds of Pakistanis today, when the commander of the Eastern Command, Lt. Gen. Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi, surrendered to the Indian Lt. Gen. Jagjit Singh Arora. Signed the document.

Today is the 18th anniversary of the same General Niazi.

Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi was born in 1915. In 1932, he joined the British Army as a soldier. In 1942 he was awarded the King’s Commission. In World War II, he was awarded the Military Cross on the battlefield for his gallantry on the Burma front and was given the title of ‘Tiger’ by Brigadier DFW Warren, commander of 161 Infantry Command.

In 1947, he joined the Pakistan army and won the Hilal Jarat twice.

Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi was appointed as the Commander of the Eastern Command of Pakistan and the Chief Martial Law Administrator of East Pakistan on 3 September 1971. He was holding the same posts when India invaded East Pakistan on 22 November 1971. On 16 December 1971, he surrendered to Lieutenant General Jagjit Singh Arora, the head of the Joint Eastern Command of India and Bangladesh, on the orders of the Commander-in-Chief and President of Pakistan, General Muhammad Yahya Khan.

After surrendering, General Niazi was taken prisoner of war. In December 1971, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto appointed a commission under the leadership of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Hamudur Rahman, to examine the causes of the fall of Dhaka after taking over the presidency. Chief Justice of the Punjab High Court, Justice Anwarul Haq was included.

The scope of the commission was kept very limited and it was said that the commission would investigate the circumstances in which the commander of the Eastern Command and members of the armed forces under his command surrendered. This commission submitted its interim report to the President of Pakistan on 12 July 1972. It was said that the final report will be submitted when the return of prisoners of war from India is completed and the statements of important generals imprisoned there will be recorded.

On April 30, 1974, this return of prisoners of war was completed. The top name in the last group of prisoners of war to return home was that of Lt. Gen. Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi. The Hamudur Rehman Commission recorded the statements of these prisoners of war and submitted its final report to the President. However, this report was not released to the public until 2000, even in August 2000, excerpts from the report were published in the Indian newspaper India Today, after which the government of Pakistan was also forced to release the report.

The Hamud-ur-Rehman Commission report stated that General Niazi was not ordered to surrender at Kodhaka, but he was given permission to surrender if he considered it necessary and if he believed that he could defend Dhaka. If they can, they can also violate any such order. He had a force of 26,400 soldiers in Dacca with the help of which he could hold off the enemy for at least two weeks. Meanwhile, if General Niazi had lost his life, he would have become a part of history and future generations would remember him as a hero and a martyr.

The report also said that General Niazi’s behavior during the surrender ceremony and agreement was also shameful.

On December 12, 1971, Lt. Gen. Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi announced that the enemy would have to drive tanks on my chest to reach Dhaka. He said this at the Dhaka airport in front of expatriates who had gathered here to evacuate Dhaka. To a question about surrender, he said that our army will live with honor or die for its cause, but what happened just four days later that they were forced to surrender to India?

A quarter of a century after the fall of Dhaka, Lieutenant General (R) Ameer Abdullah Khan Niazi’s book was published under the name The Betrayal of East Pakistan. The Urdu translation of this book was published under the name of ‘The Tragedy of East Pakistan: The Other Side of the Image’. Even before the publication of this book, General Niazi had been telling in various interviews and statements that the spirit of him and the army under him was very high. On December 13, he ordered ‘last shot, last man’, which is a death warrant for a soldier.

He says that ‘all my colleagues had agreed to this, but on this occasion the chief of the army, General Yahya Khan, did not support his decision and that night I received an order from General Hameed that West Pakistan was in danger. Surrender, if there is no West Pakistan then what will we do with East Pakistan, so as a soldier, it was my duty to obey the orders of the head of state.’

General Niazi also used to say that 45,000 troops were allocated for the defense of 3,000 square miles in East Pakistan, while they faced 500,000 Indian troops, on the contrary, there were 450,000 troops in West Pakistan. A five-division army was kept so that it would be sent to East Pakistan when needed, but this turn never came.

General Niazi said that if I had got only two divisions out of this five division army, I would have shown it by conquering Assam as well as defending East Pakistan better. When India invaded East Pakistan, I held back the Indian army for 26 days. West Pakistan, which had the largest army, did not attack India for 13 days. He didn’t even go to the United Nations, he wanted to lose East Pakistan. It was not a military but a political defeat.

The report of the Hamud-ur-Rehman Commission suggests that the situation in Dhaka was not so desperate as to warrant an immediate surrender. It was possible that the Indian army could have been held back for a few days, but the condition of the Pakistani army in the whole of East Pakistan was not such that it could be saved from defeat.

The Mukti Bahini had become very active in the rear of the Pakistani army and even the civilian population had become convinced that the Pakistani army was going to be defeated, as a result of which their attitude had become aggressive towards the army. There was no way for the Pakistani army to escape the trap that the growing Indian army would place around its neck in the next few days. The forces on the borders had retreated to the fort and the Indian army had blocked all their routes.

In this situation, the Commander Eastern Command (General Niazi) had only two options either he would fight to the last soldier and the last bullet and make a name in history or he would accept defeat and surrender.

The first decision was certainly very dignified and dignified and this is our past tradition, but Commander Eastern Command took the other way. His army had been fighting the enemy for the past several months and was exhausted. They neither had the support of the local population nor any country in the world was ready to help them. He was completely cut off from the outside world, his morale badly affected. At that time, if it was decided to fight to the last soldier, it would have resulted in total destruction.

Between the night of 13 and 14 December, they received the final signal from GHQ, saying that they had reached a stage where there was no more human resistance and nothing but more loss of life and destruction. will, so now you should take all possible measures to save the lives of the army and its affiliates as well as those who support Pakistan.

On 15 December 1971, the BBC announced that India had agreed to a ceasefire on 16 December at the request of Lt Gen Niazi.

On the afternoon of 16 December 1971, the Jewish Chief of Staff of the Eastern Command of the Indian Army, Major General Jacob, arrived in Dhaka on the instructions of the Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army, General Mankshaw. He was welcomed by his Pakistani counterpart Brigadier Baqir Siddiqui. The Jewish general brought with him a document known as the Instrument of Surrender. General Niazi liked to call it the Armistice Draft.

Jacob handed over these papers to the Pakistani authorities. General Farman said, ‘What is this joint command of India and Bangladesh’? We do not recognize it.’

General Jacob said, ‘I have no authority to change it.’ Colonel Khera of Indian Military Intelligence, who was standing by, snapped, ‘This is an internal matter between India and Bangladesh, as far as you are concerned you are just surrendering to the Indian Army.’

General Jacob said in an interview given much later that ‘I told Niazi and his colleagues that we have made you this very good offer and cannot offer better. We guarantee the safety of you and your families, but if you do not accept this offer, then we have no liability. He did not give any answer to this.’

General Jacob added that ‘I told them that I give you 30 minutes, if you don’t comply, I will give the order to start the war again and bombard Dhaka. After saying this I went out and thought in my heart what have I done, I have nothing and they have 26400 soldiers in Dhaka and we have only 3000 and that too 30 kilometers from Dhaka. Outside, what am I going to do if they don’t.’

General Furman sent the papers to General Niazi. General Niazi, who was listening to the entire conversation, remained silent. This silence was considered as their complete consent.

There was little space left for the ceremony within the crowd of people where General Jagjit Singh Arora and General Niazi signed the document of the fall of East Pakistan, sitting on a small table. After that, Niazi took out his revolver and presented it to Arora and thus sealed the fall of Dhaka.

A little later, Niazi went to Dhaka Airport to pick up Lieutenant General Jagjit Singh Arora, the commander of the joint India-Bangladesh Eastern Command, the Indian commander who had brought his wife with him in celebration of his victory. As soon as the couple got off the helicopter, Bengali men and women took them by the hand. Garland them with flowers, embrace them, kiss them and welcome them with feelings of gratitude. General Niazi saluted in military fashion, then shook hands. It was a very heartwarming scene. The conqueror and the conquered stood facing each other.

General Niazi and General Arora reached the Ramna Race Course ground from there, where a public surrender ceremony was held for General Niazi. Thousands of Bengalis were present to witness the ceremony and were prevented from coming forward by Indian soldiers.

There was little space left for the ceremony within the crowd of people where General Jagjit Singh Arora and General Niazi signed the document of the fall of East Pakistan, sitting on a small table. After that, Niazi took out his revolver and presented it to Arora and thus sealed the fall of Dhaka.

On this occasion, General Arora inspected the guard of honor of the Pakistani soldiers, which was a sign that they are now the guard and the bearer of honour.

That same evening General Yahya Khan addressed the nation and said: ‘A temporary retreat on one front does not mean that the fight is over. Now this war will be fought in fields, factories and homes, the final victory will be ours, God willing.’

Life after the fall of Dhaka

After returning from India, General Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi took an active part in political activities and formed his party under the name of ‘Jamaat-i-Alia Mujahideen’. His party contested the March 1977 national elections with the turban as its election symbol. He got a ticket for the National Assembly election from the quota of Jamiat Ulema Pakistan of which he was the vice president. When the National Alliance started the movement against the Bhutto regime, General Niazi used to be present on the stage with a Mianwali style turban on his head. He repeatedly demanded his court martial. No National Alliance leader ever said that the general was responsible for the defeat in East Pakistan, but they all praised his bravery.

General Niazi repeatedly requested that he be court-martialed so that he could inform the public about the real reason for this war and his surrender and who was really responsible for this defeat, but his request was rejected every time. Bar overruled. In 1998, he wrote a book, The Betrayal of East Pakistan, in which the reasons for this defeat are described. The Urdu translation of this book by General Niazi has also been published under the title ‘The Tragedy of East Pakistan: The Other Side of the Image’.