Richard Nixon

Washington, June 29: From treacherous bastards and witches to brothers in arms. In three decades and a half, India has been transformed in American eyes.

Hours ahead of yesterday’s Indo-US defence pact, Washington released de-classifed state department documents that show how, in the run-up to the 1971 Bangladesh war, President Richard Nixon and aide Henry Kissinger had in private conversation aimed a torrent of abuse at India and its leaders.

The “old witch” (Nixon’s term) was Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister who wouldn’t bow to American pressure for a mutual Indo-Pakistani troops withdrawal. Indians as a whole were “a slippery, treacherous people” to Nixon and “bastards” to Kissinger, the national security adviser.

At the time, the US saw India as too close to the Soviet Union. Nixon, on the other hand, had developed a “special relationship” with Pakistan’s military dictator, General Yahya Khan.

At the height of the Indo-Pak stand-off over Bangladesh (then East Pakistan), the US conveyed to India it was “opposed to military intervention in the civil war” and threatened to cut off economic aid, the papers say.

In March 1971, Pakistan’s military had terrorised East Pakistan, which was demanding independence, driving millions into India, mainly Bengal. Delhi supported an independent Bangladesh and in August 1971, signed a treaty with Moscow that included mutual military assistance in case of war.

When Indira visited Washington to build support for India’s position, Nixon, during a “stiff” meeting in the Oval Office on November 4, asked for a mutual Indo-Pakistani troops withdrawal.

But in this and in their subsequent meeting the following day, Indira “failed” to respond to the proposal.

On November 5, when Nixon and Kissinger met at the Oval Office, the aide said: “The Indians are bastards anyway. They are starting a war there.”

But he felt “we got what we wanted too.? She will not be able to go home and say that the United States didn’t give her a warm reception and therefore in despair she’s got to go to war.”

The President agreed, saying: “We really slobbered over the old witch.”

“You slobbered over her in things that did not matter, but in things that did matter, you did not give her an inch,” Kissinger said.

When it became apparent Delhi would go to war, Nixon sent a warship to Bay of Bengal to intimidate India. But Indira, whom even the Opposition called “the only man in her Cabinet”, green-lighted military intervention.

Nixon also aired his anti-India views at a meeting on July 16, 1971. The Indians, he said, are “a slippery, treacherous people”.

He felt the Pakistanis “are straightforward and sometimes extremely stupid. The Indians are more devious.”

In a White House conversation with Nixon on June 4, 1971, Kissinger says: “Those sons-of-bitches, who never have lifted a finger for us, why should we get involved in the morass of East Pakistan? If East Pakistan becomes independent?. They’re going to become a ripe field for communist infiltration.”

Nixon’s hatred for communists, however, didn’t stop him from urging China, at the height of the war on December 10, to mobilise troops towards India, saying the US would back it if Moscow became involved. But China declined and on 16 December, Bangladesh became a free country.