Abstract
This paper will explore factors behind the triumph of guerrilla forces in the Post-Colonial Era of Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) and Sri Lanka. Moreover, it will explore the elements in their respective guerrilla movements which led to the victory of one group, yet concluded with an overpowered compromise for the other. The primary focus of this paper is to demonstrate that the Bangladesh Liberation War (1971) and the Sri Lankan Civil War (1983-2009), although similar in nature and with common preconditions, significantly diverged in their outcomes. This will be illustrated by, first, exploring the geopolitical background of both countries to demonstrate the importance of spatiality and territoriality in guerrilla movements. Secondly, this paper will investigate the Indian involvement in both these movements and how this, despite being a common factor, led to polarising outcomes.
Keywords: guerrilla, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, geopolitics, liberation
Introduction
Guerrilla movements can be referred to as movements for the people by the people; and while they often commence with such intentions, they can also rapidly transform into violent military confrontations which stray from their original motives. In some cases, these militia-led groups manage to guide their objectives to fruition; in other instances, quite the opposite happens. Real life examples of such can be seen in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War and the 1983 Sri Lankan Civil War. It is important to mention here that guerrilla warfare will be defined in terms of the use of military tactics by non-governmental individuals in organised groups to fight against a traditional military. In the case of East Pakistan, such guerrilla tactics led to the successful formation of the state of Bangladesh. Contrastingly, the Sri Lankan guerrilla movement, although lasting 25 years longer, failed to build its own independent state. By this fact, it will be established that despite commonalities in their guerrilla movements, the state of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka experienced contrasting outcomes. Such polarity was due to differing geopolitical factors and their consequences, as well as the nature of India’s involvement in the conflicts. Geopolitical elements caused both groups to experience discrimination in dissimilar scopes. Moreover, they had diverging outcomes due to the issue of geographical contiguity. Lastly, the approach India had to the conflicts influenced the movements to drift in opposite directions.
Background
Before discussing deviations between the guerrilla movements, some insight will be offered into their conditions during that period. Bangladesh was formerly known as East Pakistan, which came out of the India-Pakistan partition of 1947. The Muslim and Hindu majority regions of British India were divided into India, West Pakistan (now known as Pakistan), and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh); although other present-day regions were divided, these are the three relevant for this paper. Ideally, such a process should have taken years to complete, however, the division was carried out in a matter of months by the British; disregarding regional, cultural, and even familial complexities. In such hastiness, India was sandwiched between West Pakistan and East Pakistan. The two regions, having no tangible proximity between them, began their post-colonial journey in a state of disconnect; one which eventually led to conflicts between them.
In East Pakistan, the Mukti Bahini led a resistance movement against the dictatorial regime of West Pakistan to successfully establish its own independent state in 1971. Sri Lankan colonial liberation had a strikingly similar pattern of mishandling. The region comprised of the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils. Initially, these two groups had practically no ethno-conflicts. However, with the introduction of British policy which alternated powers between these two ethno-groups, tensions began to rise. Since Tamils were non-native to the region and imported by the British colonists for the purpose of labour, the Sinhalese community began resenting them. Immediately after independence, the Ceylon Citizenship Act was passed, disabling Tamils from Sri Lankan citizenship. This gave rise to the guerrilla force of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) that fought for an independent Tamil state named “Tamil Eelam” . However, in May of 2009, the Sri Lankan army managed to overthrow the LTTE and restore power.
Geopolitical Background in Post-colonial Sri Lanka and Bangladesh
As mentioned, the geopolitical preconditions of Bangladesh oriented it in such a way that it was being ruled by an institution that was geographically disconnected from it. The mental repercussions of this involved a sense of detachment, severed community ties, and acute disengagement between these two groups.[1]Tangibly, such geopolitical circumstances had led to the unequal treatment of the territory by the central governing body situated in West Pakistan. Because East and West Pakistan were developing independently and in an isolated manner, their respective populations had no form of interaction with one another; making the cognitive disconnection more pronounced. In such circumstances, two extremely distinct ideologies had emerged as well. In other words, East and West Pakistan had become disassociated and developed arguably opposing senses of nationalism. For instance, the principal linking factor of nationalism —language— was completely different. With Urdu being spoken in West Pakistan and Bengali in the East, a linguistic obstacle emerged causing the Bengalis to struggle for years to get their language recognized. It was only in 1956 that Bengali was approved as an official state language of Pakistan.[2] This was primarily an outcome of the Bengali Language Movement (1952-1956). It can be argued that this movement acted as a catalyst for creating a unified Bengali identity and catapulting later nationalist movements, including the one demanding for their unalienable right to self-governance. The failure to acknowledge their native language was a much more severe and aggravating case for Bengalis than the Sri Lankan Tamils because of geopolitical factors. Bengalis had little incentive to learn the Urdu language as the possibility of interacting with the West Pakistanis was practically nonexistent given that there was no direct travel route between East and West Pakistan; as such, travelling between the two regions was uncommon during this period. The only two means of travelling were by sea, via Sri Lanka, or over India’s air corridor – a detail which will be relevant later in this discussion. All political and social processes in East Pakistan were carried out in their native language, hence why the dismissal of its recognition was far more serious. In the Tamils case, the 1956 Sinhala Only Act, in which Sinhala was deemed the only recognized language of Sri Lanka, was also antagonising.[3] However, Tamils not only interacted with the Sinhalese community, but they also inhabited the same communities as them. Hence, the use of Sinhala was an inevitable requirement and Tamils naturally shared more of a connection to the Sinhalese as compared to the East-West Pakistan case. This type of discrimination fueled the East-West Pakistan conflict and affected the East Pakistanis at a much deeper level than it did the Tamils in Sri Lanka.
Secondly, economic disparities influenced by geopolitical factors were much more severe for East Pakistanis than for Sri Lankan Tamils. East and West Pakistan had negatively correlated population sizes to their spacial numbers. Although East Pakistan was significantly smaller in land mass, it housed a population of 750,000,000 inhabitants compared to the 55,000,000 in West Pakistan.[4] At the time, the principal earning of Pakistan came from exporting jute, a natural fibre that was produced in East Pakistan. By 1970, East Pakistan became the biggest exporter of jute goods in the world. Furthermore, the export of jute largely determined the cash income and the foreign exchange earning of the country as a whole.[5] On the contrary, the per capita income of West Pakistan was 62 percent higher than East Pakistan in 1970.[6] West Pakistan, which was inhabited by a larger urban population, was the primary beneficiary of industrialization whereas in East Pakistan, 95 percent of the population inhabited rural areas and led agrarian lifestyles.[7] Consequently, East Pakistan was mostly excluded from the development process and experienced little gains in per capita income after 1950.[8] Thus, there was an evident bias by the central government of Pakistan in favour of the western wing and against the eastern one. This had become an increasingly important factor in mobilisation because East Pakistan had been completely cut off from the land that was experiencing economic gains from its labour. Because of the physical separation, it was unfeasible to receive benefits in economic development the same way as a nation geographically connected to its central governing body would, further aggravating the East Pakistanis.
In the Sri Lankan case, the primary points of conflict had arisen from the population’s lack of recognition in politics and indirect means of hindering Tamilian development, such as an unequal access to universities or ineligibility for civil service jobs.[9] Thus, while the Sri Lankan Tamils were heavily discriminated against, it was incomparable to the East Pakistanis who were facing a much harsher form of prejudice. It is also important to note that with the rise of LTTE, the Sri Lankan Tamils received close to $200 million per year through the group’s networking.[10] Since the Tamil population was receiving substantial funds to support its livelihood, the guerrilla war was able to persist for a longer period of time and altered to be less volatile. On the other hand, Bengalis were finding the “economic union with Pakistan detrimental to their well-being,” signifying that they did not have much to lose from their freedom struggle.[11] Hence, the rapid action from East Pakistan and their relatively more pronounced discomfort compared to the Sri Lankan Tamils led to a more powerful guerrilla uprising. Furthermore, an already demarcated East Pakistan was easier to break up; rather, it was more of “letting go” of the region than dividing a unitary state.
Lastly, the factor of ethnically motivated war crimes was also impacted by geopolitical differences in East Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Prior to its liberation, Bangladesh experienced a genocide led by West Pakistan’s President, General Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan. This genocide reportedly caused the deaths of 200,000 to 3 million people.[12] Moreover, around 200,000 to 400,000 women were raped, causing 25,000 pregnancies.[13] In comparison, the Tamils of Sri Lanka faced the loss of an estimated 300,000 lives during their freedom struggle.[14] Furthermore, while there are accounts of sexual violence against the Sri Lankan Tamils by Sri Lankan authorities, it is still an ongoing issue and has not been quantitatively documented enough to get the attention it needs. Reports of sexual violence have only been taken for sample sizes of less than 2,000 people to reveal that close to 13 percent of this sample population experienced sexual assault during the war.[15] Hence, from the reported numbers, the suffering faced by East Pakistanis can be deciphered as being larger in scale in comparison to the Sri Lankan Tamils. This is, to a great extent, due to the fact that the Bangladesh Genocide was not a domestic ordeal for the aggressors. Since it was happening on East Pakistani land, there was less hesitation to advance into the region. However, the Sinhalese-Tamil conflict was happening on the same soil, giving the Sri Lankan Tamils an equal opportunity to directly attack the establishment and civilian population of their rivals. This created more hesitations on both ends and limited the conflict to a point of potential reconciliation. On the other hand, the East-West Pakistan conflict exponentially evolved in terms of its atrocities to transform into a point of no return.
The India Factor
The involvement of India was a commonality in both the Bangladesh Liberation War and the Sri Lankan Civil War, having provided support for guerilla forces in both movements. Yet despite this, the outcomes of these wars were drastically different. Surprisingly, it was the Indian military and not the guerrilla Mukti Bahini who defeated West Pakistan’s forces in the Bangladesh Liberation War. The Indian Army was so involved that the war is often termed as the Third Indo-Pakistan War.[16] Moreover, considering Pakistan’s prior history with India and their ongoing antagonism, the Bangladesh war became a golden opportunity for India to weaken Pakistan’s condition, thereby putting Pakistan’s legitimacy into question. In addition, India was previously bordered by Pakistan both to its east and west. By eliminating the Eastern state, India became less vulnerable to Pakistani threats. In March 1971, K. Subrahmanyam, a prominent Indian strategic affairs analyst, expressed a similar sentiment. He stated that India needs to realise the importance of separating Pakistan and how it is an opportunity like no other for them, substantiating the fact that India’s involvement is in their best interests.[17] Furthermore, it is important to recall that one of the two routes between West Pakistan and East Pakistan was through India’s air corridor. This gave India an important advantage which it could leverage over the central government of Pakistan. To further explain, India managed to suspend its air corridor for West Pakistan, forcing it to resort to using sea routes via Sri Lanka. The sea routes, however, were much lengthier and costly. India’s plan to action to use the geographical divide between East Pakistan and West Pakistan to hinder West Pakistan’s advancements played a crucial role in Bangladesh’s ultimate emancipation. Such an advantage did not exist for India in the case of the Sri Lankan Civil War.
There was also another, often hidden, factor behind India’s entanglement in this war. Simultaneous to the Bangladesh Liberation movement, a similar movement was unfolding in the Indian state of Mizoram which bordered Bangladesh. The Mizo National Front (MNF), a local political party of the region, was seeking independence from the state of India at the time. Their movement began as a protest against the Indian government’s dismissal of a famine that was plaguing the Mizo area in Assam. Furthermore, guerrilla fighters from the region were seeking refuge in East Pakistan where they also formed their military quarters.[18] The Pakistan military in East Pakistan supported these guerrilla forces who carried out attacks against Indian forces in the region. Hence, it was another contributing factor behind India’s motivations to support the Bengalis. Evidently, India had potent self-serving and compelling motivations behind supporting the Bangladesh movement against Pakistan.
On the other hand, India was significantly less involved in the Sri Lankan civil war, especially during its final years. In fact, it came to develop motivations that supported political negotiations between the Sinhalese and Tamils. This is because India housed a large population of Tamils in its state of Tamil Nadu. These South Indian Tamils shared a similar sentiment to those of the Sri Lankan Tamils and supported their emancipation on an emotional level. India, after sending its troops to Sri Lanka during the initial stages of the war, withdrew them in 1990. This decision was motivated by the fear of separatist groups getting encouraged and commencing their own movement within the Indian State.[19] Moreover, the war kept on extending as both sides were unwilling to engage in peace talks, causing a strain on Indian resources used to get involved. It was also evident that the LTTE had become more power hungry and transformed into what many countries labelled as a terrorist organization.[20] While this is contestable, it has been reported that the LTTE caused between 3,700 to 4,100 civilian deaths and was labelled by the U.N. as a war criminal.[21] Due to these reasons, the Indian State, along with other international powers, took a back seat in the conflict and supported a political settlement over the creation of an Independent Tamilian State. The comparison between India’s involvement in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka during their guerrilla wars reveals that it played a crucial role in not just fueling their respective movements, but also determining whether their freedom struggles were realised or not. In the case of Bangladesh, the substantial role India played served them their liberation and independent state. In Sri Lanka, however, their hesitations in involvement lead to an overstretched war with objectives which were never materialised.
Conclusion All in all, the geopolitical differences and the variance in India’s involvement altered the guerrilla movements of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in drastic ways. Geopolitical factors influenced small scale issues, such as language, as well as large scale ones, such as economic disparity and the execution of war crimes. The conflict in Bangladesh was significantly accelerated due to its geopolitical composition in which the state of West Pakistan and East Pakistan were geographically dislocated. On the other hand, the absence of such a dislocation caused similar problems in Sri Lanka, but on a smaller scale that made the situation more manageable by the governing bodies. The more involved role of India also made a lasting impact in the Bengali struggle. This is because the Indian forces were the ones who managed to overcome the West Pakistani military as such an act was beneficial for their internal politics. However, the laid-back approach that the Indian state took in the Sri Lankan civil war did not give them the support that they needed to establish an independent state, and hence contributed to the failure of their guerrilla venture. From such a comparison, one can take away that several entangled factors are at play to deliver the ultimate outcomes which get documented in history. Often, a perfect push and pull of different forces is required to keep a state intact; so much so, that a single element can offset the balance and open doors for drastic outcomes.
Aroob Fatima Cheema is an undergraduate at York University double majoring in Honours Political Science and Mathematics. She is interested in Comparative Politics with a focus on development and inequality in the Global South.
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[1]. Wardatul Akmam. “Atrocities against humanity during the liberation war in Bangladesh: a case of genocide,” Journal of Genocide Research 4, no.4 (2002): 545.
[2]. Leo Kuper, Genocide: Its Political Use in the Twentieth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), 76.
[3]. Malik Ahmad Jalal, “Think Like a Guerilla: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Sri Lanka,” Harvard Kennedy School Review 11, (2011): 181.
[4]. Kuper, “Genocide,” 77.
[5]. Mustafa Kamal Mujeri. “The World Market for Jute: An Economic Analysis,” PhD thesis., (McMaster University, 1978).
[6]. Bleeding Bangladesh (New Delhi: Sagar Publications, 1971), 25-26.
[7]. Mohammad Niaz Asadullah, “Educational Disparity in East and West Pakistan, 1947-71: Was East Pakistan Discriminated Against?,” The Bangladesh Development Studies 33, no. 3 (2010): 5.
[8]. Asadullah, “Educational Disparity,” 5.
[9]. Jalal, “Think Like a Guerilla,” 182; Gemini Samaranayake, “Patterns of Political Violence and Responses of the Government in Sri Lanka, 1971-1996,” Terrorism and Political Violence 11, no.1 (1999): 113.
[10]. Jalal, “Think Like a Guerilla,” 184.
[11]. Azizur Rahman Khan, “A Quarter Century of Economic Development in Bangladesh: Successes and Failures,” The Bangladesh Development Studies 23, no.3/4 (1995): 2.
[12]. Kalyan Chaudhuri, Genocide in Bangladesh (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1972), 22.
[13]. Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men Women and Rape (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1975), 79.
[14]. Mirjam Weiberg-Salzmann, “Ending Ethnic Civil Wars: By Negotiations or by Military Defeat? Lessons on security from Sri Lanka,” Journal of Asian and African Studies 50, no.2 (2015): 136.
[15]. Richard Traunmüller, Sara Kijewski, and Markus Freitag, “The Silent Victims of Sexual Violence during War: Evidence from a List Experiment in Sri Lanka,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 63, no.9 (2019): 2015.
[16]. Willem Van Schendel, “A War Within a War: Mizo rebels and the Bangladesh liberation struggle,” Modern Asian Studies 50, no.1 (2016): 79.
[17]. Zaglul Haider, “A Revisit to the Indian Role in the Bangladesh Liberation War,” Journal of Asian and African Studies 44, no.5 (2009): 543.
[18]. Schendel, “A War Within a War,” 85-90.
[19]. Weiberg-Salzmann, “Ending Ethnic Civil Wars,” 147.
[20]. Sandra Destradi, “India and Sri Lanka’s Civil War: The Failure of Regional Conflict Management in South Asia,” Asian Survey 52, no.3 (2012): 598.
[21]. James Hawdon, The Causes and Consequences of Group Violence: From Bullies to Terrorists (Maryland: Lexington Books, 2014), 98.