US forces had orders to target Indian Army in 1971

NEW DELHI: A set of freshly declassified top secret papers on the 1971 war show that US hostility towards India during the war with Pakistan was far more intense than known until now.

The documents reveal that Indira Gandhi went ahead with her plan to liberate Bangladesh despite inputs that the Nixon Administration had kept three battalions of Marines on standby to deter India, and that the American aircraft carrier USS Enterprise had orders to target Indian army facilities.

The bold leadership that the former PM showed during the 1971 war is well known. But the declassified documents further burnish the portrait of her courageous defiance.

The documents show how Americans held back communication regarding Pakistan's desire to surrender in Dhaka by almost a day.

That the American establishment had mobilized their 7th Fleet to the Bay of Bengal, ostensibly to evacuate US nationals, is public knowledge. But the declassified papers show Washington had planned to use the 7th Fleet to attack the Indian Army.

They also show that Nixon administration kept arming Pakistan despite having imposed an embargo on providing both Islamabad and New Delhi military hardware and support.

They suggest that India, exasperated by continuing flow of American arms and ammunition, had considered intercepting three Pakistani vessels carrying war stores months before the war. The plan was dropped against the backdrop of the Indian foreign ministry's assessment that the interception could trigger hostilities.

The pro-Pak bias of the then US President Richard Nixon and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is vividly brought out by their decision to keep three battalions of Marines on standby: a decision which has so far not found mention in any record of the 1971 war.

A six-page note prepared by India's foreign ministry holds Nixon responsible for the pro-Pakistan tilt.