The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) is delighted to invite you for a Flagship Seminar Revisiting India’s Role in the Bangladesh Liberation War with Chandrashekhar Dasgupta on his new book, India and the Bangladesh Liberation War.

On the 50th anniversary of the Bangladesh Liberation War, this flagship seminar will revisit the historic victory achieved by India and Bangladesh in the 1971 war and also address questions that remain about India’s aims and role 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, Dasgupta dispels many myths as he sheds new light on these and other questions. Deeply researched over eighteen years, the 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.

This flagship seminar also contributes to CSEP’s “Back to the Future” series that revisits a historically important event in India’s foreign policy.

Register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_cVMhxCaTQR6xvHTIs6U2Mg

About the Author:

Chandrashekhar Dasgupta served in the Indian Foreign Service from 1962 to 2000. He was ambassador to China (1993 – 1996), and the European Union (1996 – 2000), and a member of the Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change (2007). He was elected to serve on the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights for three successive terms from 2007 to 2018. Dasgupta was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2008. He is also the author of War and Diplomacy in Kashmir 1947-48 (2002).

Discussants:

Shivshankar Menon, Distinguished Fellow, CSEP, and former National Security Advisor

Mohammed Ayoob, University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of International Relations at James Madison College and the Department of Political Science, at Michigan State University

Sazzad Zahir, Veteran, Bangladesh Liberation War, and Padma Shri Awardee

Moderator:

Constantino Xavier, Fellow, Foreign Policy and Security Studies, CSEP

Please contact nnayar@csep.org for general queries and zkazmi@csep.org for media inquiries.

All content reflects the individual views of the speakers. The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) does not hold an institutional view on any subject.