On February 3rd 1971, Awami League Leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman said, “India should not be trusted by any means and the existence of Bangladesh(East Pakistan) will not be sustainable if we separate from West Pakistan.”

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Sheikh Mujibur Rahman talks with journalists upon his arrival in London from Pakistan on Jan.8, 1972. TIME magazine correspondent Dan Coggin, who claimed he had interviewed Mujib in Dhaka, told State Department officials in mid-January 1972 that the Bengali leader wanted to “establish some sort of link between Bangladesh and Pakistan” in an attempt to forestall any possible move by India to annex Bangladesh. Mujib was suspicious about India’s ultimate intention.

When Sheikh Mujibur Rahman met the British Prime Minister in London on 9 January in 1972, the Bengali leader informed Edward Heath that Z. A. Bhutto, Pakistan’s prime minister, had appealed to him to keep a loose federation between Bangladesh and West Pakistan. Mujib wanted no formal link with Islamabad. He had told Bhutto the “time for this had passed.” He emphasized to Heath that “any political link with West Pakistan was impossible and would result in another guerrilla war in Bangladesh.”

“In this, he has confirmed the position of the Bangladesh authorities in Dacca and our own assessment of the state of affairs in the East. However, although he spoke with understandable bitterness of the actions of the previous Pakistan regime, he showed no rancor towards Bhutto, and said that he wished to establish good relations with West Pakistan,” the British leader informed U.S. President Richard Nixon in a letter on Jan. 13, 1972. “The new partition should be, in his words, ‘a parting as of brothers,’ ” but Bhutto must acknowledge Pakistan’s division. Relations between “Bangladesh and India would, of course, be much closer,” Heath added, quoting Mujib, who had been in prison in West Pakistan during the nine-month Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971.

CONFUSION IN WASHINGTON:

Despite Mujib’s expressed opposition to having any ties with West Pakistan, the Americans got confused when TIME magazine correspondent Dan Coggin informed them in mid-January 1972 that the Bengali leader did, in fact, want to “establish some sort of link between Bangladesh and Pakistan.” He wanted to do so in an attempt to forestall any possible attempt by India to annex Bangladesh. Mujib was suspicious about India’s ultimate intention. He feared that the domineering Hindu neighbor could someday seek to annex Muslim Bangladesh. State Department officials initially ignored Coggin’s assertion. But Coggin conveyed the same message again to the U.S. Consulate General in Kolkata on 19 February 1972. He claimed his information came directly from Mujib, whom he had interviewed in Dhaka, and Yusuf Haroon, former West Pakistan governor and once a Mujib ally, whom Coggin had met in New York. While he made his wish known to Coggin, Mujib feared an attempt on his life if his position became known to the public.

He asked Coggin to tell the U.S. government that he wanted American economic aid to lessen Bangladesh’s dependence on India and the Soviet Union. He could get considerable aid from India and Russia. But he did not wish to do so because that would make Bangladesh too dependent on those nations. In passing, Mujib revealed that India was trying to convince him to sign a 100 million rupee contract to repair railway bridges in Bangladesh in an attempt to boost the Indian engineering industry.

Coggin also reported to U.S. officials that Haroon, then vice president of Inter-Continental Hotels in New York, was responsible for Mujib’s decision to go to London from Pakistan after his release from prison. Haroon had flown to London and talked with Mujib about the future of Bangladesh and Pakistan. It was there that they first discussed the possibility of Mujib’s assassination. They decided that although the risk was great, the need for Mujib’s presence in Dhaka outweighed initial fears.

Haroon belonged to one of the twenty-two wealthiest families of Pakistan whose assets had been confiscated by the Bhutto government. He had longstanding enmity with Bhutto. Still Mujib looked upon him as a reliable channel to Islamabad, possibly because of his credentials. Haroon worked closely with Pakistan’s founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah as his personal secretary. He was active in the movement against the British Raj to create the Muslim nation, as was Mujib.

YUSUF HAROON ADVISED MUJIB :

Coggin informed the consulate that both Mujib and Haroon were “interested in the re-establishment of some sort of link between Pakistan and Bangladesh.” They told Coggin of their plans to bring the people of Bangladesh in favor of their idea within six to twelve months. They also told him that the re-establishment of ties was necessary for Bangladesh’s survival as an independent country. But they knew there was considerable opposition from Tajuddin Ahmed, war-time prime minister of Bangladesh, and his supporters on the one hand and India on the other. “Both men [Mujib and Haroon], according to Coggin, feared that their efforts could result in the assassination of Mujib by an ‘Indian agent.’ Nonetheless, they believed the risk should be taken for the future of Bangladesh. Otherwise, it would soon end up as another Indian state,” the consulate reported to Washington on 24 February 1972.

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman speaks at the Brigade Parade Ground in Calcutta in 1972, with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi seated on the stage. During a secret meeting with Shaukat Hyat Khan, opposition leader in the Pakistan National Assembly, in Malaysia in 1973, Mujib denied he caused Bangladesh’s separation from Pakistan. Rather, he insisted, Bangladesh was “pushed…away by a conspiracy.” The next day, on 25 February, the State Department advised the consulate general that it had received “very similar information” from Coggin in mid-January. “At that time, we discounted Coggin’s belief in Mujib’s support for a possible link since it ran counter to other available evidence, such as reports of meetings with Heath. We have subsequently received no information which would suggest the possibility that Mujib intends or would be able to bring the Bangladesh public to look with favor on the re-establishment of ties.”

When the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi received this message, it also dismissed Coggin’s claim. On 28 February, the New Delhi mission informed the State Department that “we have no reason from our perspective to believe Mujib could or would seek to re-establish ties with Pakistan within six to twelve months.”

The mission also questioned the authenticity of Coggin’s story. “While we can appreciate Mujib might wish to keep all options open, it is difficult to understand why he would air with an American newsman any such hypothetical as well as politically and, according to Coggin, personally dangerous notion.” The embassy further reported that the Yugoslav charge d’affaires told the U.S. deputy chief of mission that Mujib assured Prime Minister Indira Gandhi that he had no intention of establishing a Dhaka-Islamabad link of any kind. Gandhi responded that she had no desire to interfere in any Bangla-Pak talks to restore normal relations.

The U.S. Consulate General in Dhaka went one step further in dismissing Coggin’s information. “Coggin has been absorbed, almost to the point of obsession in our opinion, with East Pakistan, Bangladesh affairs, for the past few months, and he has shown signs of loss of balance and critical judgment.” The consulate noted that neither Sydney Schanberg of The New York Times, nor Lee Lescaze of The Washington Post, who had equal or superior access to Mujib, found anything to indicate that the Bengali leader wanted a link with Pakistan. “Both their views and our own observations were diametrically opposed to Coggin’s views, and we were inclined to discount those,” Consul General Herb Spivack wrote on 28 February 1972.

Mujib possibly sent out the feeler through Coggin to elicit reactions from different quarters. His secret talks with Bhutto and other Pakistani leaders, including Shaukat Hyat Khan, opposition leader of the Pakistan National Assembly, in subsequent years only indicate his earnest desire to keep close ties with Islamabad. Mujib secretly met Hyat in Malaysia in 1973. He told Hyat he did not cause the separation of Bangladesh from Pakistan. Rather, Bangladesh was “pushed…away by a conspiracy.”

Whatever his other failings, and there were many, Mujib was a master in the art of Bengali political maneuver. Mujib was never a devotee of Bangladesh’s independence, even as late as March 1971. Like his mentor, H. S. Suhrawardy, he knew an independent East Bengal would be completely overshadowed by India. The events of 1971 changed the situation and confronted him and his country with the fact of Indian power. So keen was Mujib’s sense of the immediacy of power that he consistently pursued a policy of close official friendship with Delhi. Simultaneously, India faced growing howls from many levels of Bengali society.

India’s image in Bangladesh had worsened to a point within a short time after the new nation was born that even Delhi felt it would be wiser to let Mujib pursue a more openly independent course. Mujib never encouraged his countrymen’s antipathy toward India, but he had seen the advantages of greater flexibility it offered him. He had profited from the paradox. Mujib had always been a capable tactician, but he never got the chance to prove if he was as capable a strategist.

U.S. officials believed that given New Delhi’s intelligence resources, the “general coup plotting over the last eight months was certainly known to” the Indian government. Samar Sen, Indian high commissioner to Bangladesh when the new nation’s founding president was assassinated, disputed this notion. India’s foreign office, however, admitted having some vague knowledge of the August 1975 putsch in which President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was assassinated along with most of his family members. Near the end of 1974, India started worrying that Bangladesh’s economic difficulty could lead to a gradual breakdown of political and administrative systems.

Sen explained that India lacked foreknowledge of the coup because it had no intelligence agents in Bangladesh. India had stopped spying in Bangladesh at Mujib’s request. He wanted them out because RAW agents were monitoring his followers and keeping in touch with opposition politicians, at the same time. Near the end of 1974, India started worrying that Bangladesh’s economic difficulty could lead to a gradual breakdown of political and administrative systems. Indian officials could not identify an agent for change. They did not think Mujib faced serious threat from his party or the opposition. They also dismissed the military as a threat because it was too divided. Extremist groups were too small and isolated.

On top of all this, the Bengalis were known for their proverbial ability to absorb great economic hardship. Thus, they were left with an inchoate concern that somehow things might begin to fall apart. India was directly concerned with two possible byproducts of turmoil in Bangladesh.

First, anarchy in Bangladesh might ultimately throw up an anti-Indian regime or invite involvement of others. Second, the ten million Hindus in Bangladesh might be affected disproportionately. The Hindus would be squeezed hard and even physically threatened, forcing them flee to India as they did in 1971. Such an outcome would severely strain both Indo-Bangla relations as well as Hindu-Muslim relations in India.

However, Indian officials as a whole were not yet overly concerned about the either situation. Officials willing to speculate predicted India would intervene at Mujib’s request to save him from a real threat. U.S. diplomats in New Delhi agreed with this assessment.

During Mujib’s rule, according to the U.S. assessment, Indian policies in Bangladesh did not conflict much with those of the United States. “India has come to appreciate our stance of non-interference in subcontinental bilateral problems and the low profile we maintain in Bangladesh.”

India was not concerned about Bangladesh having diplomatic relations with Pakistan and China. In fact, it had recommended this to Mujib. Its concern was that the new government would change its policy toward Islamic extremism.

Things were, however, entirely different a year later. On 7 October 1975, Y.B. Chavan, India’s external affairs minister, expressed concern about the Bangladesh events when he met U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in Washington.