Jan 20 2022 to Jan 20 2022 6:30 p.m.

EVENT HAS ENDED

Where

Bangalore International Centre

7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071

Event Description

India and Bangladesh achieved a historic victory in the 1971 war. Yet fifty years later, important questions remain about India’s  aims and policy in the war. Did India have  a prior plan to break up Pakistan? When and  why did it involve itself with the Bangladesh  freedom struggle? When did India decide to  prepare for military action? Why was no other  country prepared to support the cause of an  independent Bangladesh? How was India able  to counter the new US–China–Pakistan axis  that emerged dramatically midway through  the liberation struggle? How did India persuade the Soviet Union to shed its initial reluctance  to support the liberation war? Did India ‘win the war but lose the peace’ by signing the Simla Agreement?

Drawing on previously unexplored Indian records, eminent diplomat and historian Chandrashekhar Dasgupta dispels many myths  as he sheds fascinating new light on these and other questions through his new book. Deeply researched over eighteen years, this authoritative, lucid and compellingly narrated book also reveals why and how India  fashioned an overarching grand strategy,  employing every instrument of national power – political, diplomatic, economic and military – to help the Bangladesh freedom fighters  speedily liberate their country.

Ambassador Nirupama Menon Rao will be in conversation with Ambassador Dasgupta as they discuss the more intriguing parts of this particular chapter in the history of the subcontinent.