A story of the Bangladesh war

The Vortex: The True Story of History’s Deadliest Storm and the Liberation of Bangladesh

Author: Scott Carney & Jason Miklian

Publisher: HarperCollins

Pages: 528

Price: Rs 599

In November 1970, a catastrophic cyclone tore through the erstwhile East Pakistan, killing 350,000 — 500,000 men, women and children. The following year, the Pakistani army unleashed a reign of terror on the people of Bangladesh that dwarfed the impact of the cyclone. Before the end of that year, the people of Bangladesh succeeded in freeing themselves of Pakistani rule, with the friendly assistance of India. American journalists Scott Carney and Jason Miklian provide a vivid and captivating account of the dramatic events leading up to the liberation of Bangladesh.

The USP of the book is the eyewitness accounts of Bangladeshis Hafiz Uddin Ahmad, Mohammad Hai and Malik Mahmud, and Americans Candy and Jon Rohde. The three Bangladeshis hailed from Manpura island in the Sunderbans, 75 per cent of whose residents lost their lives in the cyclone. All three ended up as freedom fighters playing an active role in the liberation of their country. The American couple played exemplary roles in providing humanitarian aid in the wake of the cyclone and, later, mobilising political support for the Bangladesh cause. Their vivid accounts of the situation at ground level provide new insights and make the book a real page-turner.

The opening scene in the book is a Pakistan versus USSR football match in Dhaka in 1968. The spectators break into thunderous cheers and cries of Joi Bangla as Hafiz Uddin Ahmad, a Bengali, scores a goal. Similar feats by his West Pakistani teammates are greeted with dead silence. The fans could not “forget that West Pakistan treated East Pakistan like a colonial province”. When East Pakistan is devastated by the cyclone, Yahya Khan refuses to declare it a disaster area. Callous West Pakistani officials fail to arrange distribution of relief supplies pouring in from foreign countries. It is left to foreign relief workers, like the Rohdes, to bring succour to the victims. When Yahya finally deigns to visit one of the devastated islands, instructions are sent to “gather up a few dozen dead bodies and drag them over to the landing zone” for the cameras, in order to spare the dictator a walk!

The sections dealing with policymaking at the highest levels are no less vivid and absorbing but, in several instances, their historical accuracy is open to question. Take the chapter on the Shah of Iran’s visit to Islamabad in May 1970. According to the authors, Yahya was not to be found when the Shah arrived at the President House for negotiations. Yahya’s procuress, Rani, came to the visitor’s rescue, leading him to the President’s bedroom, where he was engaged with the fading actress, Noor Jahan. Opening the locked door with her private set of President House keys, “Rani slid into the room to find Jahan fellating Yahya. She pulled Jahan off Yahya’s bulging midsection and helped him put his uniform on so that he would be fit for a diplomatic visit”. It is difficult to believe that even the priapic Yahya would ignore an appointment with the Shah of Iran in order to pursue his amorous interests. And would the visiting monarch actually pursue his host into his bedroom?  Who recorded the precise state of play between the Pakistani dictator and his new mistress at that moment in history?

Or take the story concerning another of Yahya’s mistresses, a Mrs Hussain. Learning that she was with another man in the Islamabad InterContinental Hotel, “Yahya raced from President House to the five-star hotel with a pistol in his hand…Yahya rushed upstairs and banged on the door, screaming for the scoundrel sleeping with his mistress to face him man to man”… “The door opened revealing his son, Ali.”

The source of these lubricious tales appears to be a little-known Indian publication. Their authenticity is, at the very least, open to question but the authors do not allow historical accuracy to stand in the way of a good story.

To cite some other examples, Mao did not “succumb to Yahya’s silver tongue” when he agreed to open a secret line of communications with the US. Scholars have shown that Mao’s was an independent and well-considered decision.  Nor was Nixon’s China initiative aimed at “opening up new trade opportunities”. Nixon’s aims were geopolitical, not economic. The statement that Mujib raised the Joi Bangla  slogan for the first time in March 1971 is incorrect. In fact, the slogan was raised at virtually every Awami League rally in the 1970 election campaign. India did not airlift “Tiger” Niazi to Islamabad after the surrender ceremony . Niazi was sent to a POW camp in India and subsequently repatriated to Pakistan across the land border. The USS Enterprise  did not sail “up the Bay of Bengal”. From the Malacca Straits, it sailed west towards Colombo, not north towards Chittagong. Nor did “global nuclear brinkmanship” feature in the 1971 crisis. This is clear from the memoirs of Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, Jr, the commander of the US Task Force.

In short, the book offers a vivid and highly entertaining account of the events leading up to the liberation of Bangladesh. However, its historical accuracy is questionable on several counts.

The reviewer is a retired Indian foreign service officer, who has served in Bangladesh. He is author of India and the Bangladesh Liberation War: The Definitive Story (Juggernaut, 2021)