The anti-China demonstration in New Delhi during the G20 Summit on September 8, 2023, uncovered how India reap its multifarious interests by using foreign refugees sheltered in its soil.
It is understandable. India sponsored this demonstration to attract the attention of high-level foreign dignitaries to the Tibetan problem and create an anti-China sentiment around the world, though it continues its forcible and illegal occupation in Kashmir, Khalistan, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Assam, Tripura, Hyderabad, Sikkim, etc.
India uses the refugees as one kind of business for its monetary as well as geo-political interests. We Bangladeshis have some bitter experiences in this respect. During our war of independence against Pakistan in 1971, some Bangladeshis took shelter in India, when it was the poorest of the poor of third world countries.
The international community led by the UN donated huge humanitarian aid for the Bangladeshi refugees in India, which included food grains, clothes, medicines, tents, and housing materials. Various types of light weapons were sent to India for us from the then communist countries. India used less than 10 percent of all types of materials for the Bangladeshis and pocketed the remaining portion.
According to US declassified documents, India got about $5 billion from different sources for the Bangladeshi refugees in 1971 but spent for the sheltered Bangladeshis about $333 million. Besides, this huge amount, India captured all the arms and ammunition of the Pakistani armed forces.
Let me mention the amount of monetary assistance that India received from some major countries through UN: $8, 91, 57,000 (US); $3.81,12,132 (UK); $,202,60, 307 (Canada); 20,00,00,000 (Defunct), Dahami (Oman) and 68 member-countries of the UN jointly provided $5,74,126 (Shamsul Arefin, Miktizuder Prekhapaty Bektir Abostan, P.452, Shomoy Prokashon, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2012)
Martin Wallacott reported in the Guardian of January 21, 1972:
“Systematic Indian Army looting of mills, factories, and offices in Khulna area has angered and enraged civil officials here. The looting took place in the first few days after Indian troops arrived in the city on December 17.”
In a protest note sent by the Deputy Commissioner of Khulna to Mrs. Gandhi, the estimate of the Khulna loot was put at $30 million. Later, it was found that most district administrators had similar stories to tell.
An Indian Weekly puts the value of the entire loot consisting of arms, resources of food grains, raw jute, cotton yarn, vehicles, ocean-going ships, industrial machinery, industrial plants and spare parts, durable consumer goods, etc. at $1 billion (Aneek, December 1974). Although this appears as an underestimate, on the basis of the above, the value may be put at $2.2 billion, which the Indian troops took away to India. We may accept this figure in the absence of any other estimate.”
Major Mohammad Abdul Jalil, the Commander of 9th sector during the liberation war of Bangladesh was arrested by the Indian Army with the consent of the Bangladesh government when he opposed them in smuggling billions of dollars of weapons and ammunition to India from Bangladesh. The Indian Army carried everything from the window covers, pillow covers, bed sheets, chairs, tables, electric wires, light bulbs, kitchen staff and bathroom fittings. It means they took everything they found. Indian soldiers smuggled all the sophisticated and relatively new armaments purchased from the US and China, which belonged to the Pakistani forces. They did not allow any Bangladeshi soldier to enter the cantonments and freely looted whatever they wanted.
Indian soldiers raided the markets and supermalls of the towns and cities, residential houses, machineries of jute mills, textile mills, paper mills, sugar mills, other factories and their raw materials, railway engines and wagons, ships, and launches, furniture, and even blackboards of educational institutions, hospitals, and laboratories. They even dismantled and took away the machineries of the Joydebpur Machine Tools Factory, Chittagong Steel Mill and Eastern Refinery.
The then value of those materials, according to Major General Fazlur Rahman (Retd.) was Tk. 60 thousand crores at that time, when $1 was equivalent to Tk.4.50.
According to one estimate based on actual deployment of the Pakistani Army during 1971, Indian troops transferred arms, including 87 guns, worth $750 (Sen, A, 1974, 202).
The nasty deed India intentionally and deliberately did was that they did not allow General M. A. G. Osmani, the Joint Chief Commander of the Allied Forces, to attend the surrender ceremony held at the Race Course of Dhaka on December 16, 1971. India did it to justify and show the world that the Indian Army defeated the Pakistanis, and the Bangladeshis and their freedom fighters had no contribution in the liberation of Bangladesh.
But the reality was that Pakistani soldiers were morally and psychologically defeated within the first six months of the 9 months of the war. Bangladeshi Freedom Fighters freed vast areas of East Pakistan before December 3 of 1971 which forced the Pakistani Forces to take shelter in the cantonments and big cities. Most of the towns were freed without Indian soldiers. When India declared war against Pakistan, Indian soldiers only encircled, attacked, and bombarded only mainly on the cantonments and some other locations where the civilian unarmed Biharis were living.
It is imperative to mention that India violated the treaty which it signed with Bangladesh in late November of 1971, prior to India’s direct military participation in our war of liberation. Major General Fazlur Rahman, a freedom fighter, and the former DG of Bangladesh Rifles told me on September 20, 2023, that India violated that treaty. He said that according to the treaty, the Indian Army would act as an auxiliary force, as a part of Bangladesh-Bharat Moitry Bahini. But India, without the consent of the then exiled government based in India, deliberately entered Bangladesh, just like an occupation force, which facilitated it to loot and plunder Bangladesh.
India is still permanently and immensely benefited militarily due to the disintegration of Pakistan and emergence of Bangladesh. India does not need to deploy its armed forces along the Bangladesh border, where it had to deploy at least 12 divisions of land forces along the East Pakistan border before 1971. India’s border with Bangladesh is the longest one (4,096 kilometers) among all her neighboring countries. India now exposes itself as a superpower by exploiting Bangladesh through unilateral business, as if it is a colony or an occupied territory of India.
The fate of the Tibetans will be worse than that of Bangladeshis. Tibetan refugees entered India in 1959 and India started to get monetary and many other types of assistance from the UNHCR, agencies and countries since then. India now uses the Tibetans as its footmen but does nothing to liberate Tibet. Even if Tibet is liberated, it will be a part of India and not an independent sovereign country. On the other hand, due to its land-locked geographical character, independent Tibet will not be able to survive without India’s assistance to reach seaports, which India will never do. India already inserted Tibet in the map of Akhand Bharat. So, the liberation movement of Bangladesh is an example for us. We will never be an independent and sovereign country.
One Tibetan who uses his title Thapa opened my inner perception about how India is using foreign refugees to enrich its shaky economy. While walking along the streets of the Woodside area of Jackson Heights on September 9, 2023, I incidentally came across a Tibetan follower of the Dalai Lama, the highest religious leader of Buddhism.
It is an open secret that India is the perpetrator of this demonstration. To attract the attention of the democratic world, India organized it. Knowledgeable sources believe India used the G20 Summit as an opportunity to create an anti-China sentiment around the world.
India’s hidden goal of sheltering the Tibetan refugees is not to liberate them, but to use them to get UN assistance and that of the pro-independence countries and organizations. The UNHCR and UN-member countries and humanitarian organizations continuously send through India all types of assistance for the Tibetan refugees, the lion’s share of which India uses to develop its own country. It is also what India did in the case of Bangladesh in 1971.
Some enlightened Tibetans, who now live in New York, say the dream of an Independent Tibet is a utopian one. They say that they are enjoying India’s shelter from 1959. If in the distant future their generation can beat out China, their part of Tibet will remain under Indian domination and occupation. Tibet is naturally landlocked, and India will never allow Tibetans to have an independent and sovereign country. Rather, India uses the opportunity to serve its own interests. India’s role since 1959 proves this reality.
*The contributor is a journalist and researcher.
September 21, 2023
The viewpoints expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions, viewpoints and editorial policies of Aequitas Review.
