There are moments in a soldier’s life that divide time into before and after. For young 2nd Lieutenant V. K. Singh such a moment arrived in the aftermath of the Bangladesh War of 1971, when he was sent to investigate what was vaguely called a ‘race improvement camp’. There, he witnessed a scene for which no amount of military training could have prepared him.
The Bangladesh War is recounted well and often in terms of its operational brilliance leading to the surrender of Pakistan and the birth of a new nation. However, in these retellings, the reason that compelled India into war that year is entirely overlooked. In 1971: The Genocidal War, General V. K. Singh attempts to define the systematic massacre in East Pakistan as genocide, a term long denied to it.
Based on General V. K. Singh’s first-hand accounts, this book describes in detail the events that preceded the war: the hapless human tide of refugees that started flowing into India in the early months of 1971, the rise of fragile makeshift camps across the frontier and the diseases that followed, India gearing up for hostilities amid strained resources and immense psychological pressure, and the creation of the Mukti Bahini that often worked in conjunction with the Indian Army.
The collapse of Pakistani forces was swift and surrender ceremonies were conducted on 17 December. Yet, the military victory did not erase the mass violence that had preceded it. Both factually meticulous and evocative, this book makes a poignant effort to restore dignity to a tragedy largely erased from history.
General Vijay Kumar Singh, PVSM, AVSM, YSM, ADC, commissioned into 2 Rajput just months before the 1971 war, witnessed history from the frontlines before rising to become India’s 26th chief of army staff. A soldier of rare conviction and integrity, he has remained steadfast in his pursuit of institutional honesty and national purpose.
Born into an army family (his father, Major General Verma, was a captain with 2 Rajput in 1962), film-maker and military historian Shiv Kunal Verma has worked with all three arms of the Indian armed forces over the last two and a half decades. From flying extensively with the IAF while making Salt of the Earth and Aakash Yodha to the filming of the Naval Dimension and the Kargil War, Verma has had a ringside view of matters military. His film on the National Defence Academy—The Standard Bearers—is considered a classic. He is the author of the highly acclaimed Northeast Trilogy (that documented the entire region
and its peoples) and The Long Road to Siachen: The Question Why. His acclaimed works include 1962: The War That Wasn’t and 1965: A Western Sunrise.