USS Enterprise steams into Bay of Bengal

11 December 1971 began on the tail end of the preceding day, when Governor Malek sent a message to the UN representative in Dhaka calling for a ceasefire. The proposal was given detailed shape by Major General Rao Farman Ali, the military adviser to the governor, the principal feature of which was that the governor was inviting the elected representatives of East Pakistan to form a government, peacefully, in Dhaka.

Obviously, it was the Awami League the governor was referring to, but it was rather late in the day. Having waged a guerrilla war against the Pakistan army for nine months and clearly sensing victory, the lawmakers elected to the National and Provincial assemblies a year earlier would reject the proposal with disdain.

Among other proposals from the governor were those related to the repatriation of the Pakistan army and all West Pakistani civilian personnel and their families to West Pakistan, along with a guarantee that there would be no reprisals against them in Bangladesh.

General Yahya Khan in Rawalpindi was infuriated that Governor Malek had gone beyond his brief and had not consulted Rawalpindi.

As 11 December dawned, the possibility of the allied forces making a final, decisive strike on the capital Dhaka appeared very real. As matters stood, it was not yet clear what sort of resistance the bruised Pakistan army would put up as a last desperate move to ensure its survival. The chances of the army surviving against the odds were few, and circumstances only worsened for the Pakistanis when in the afternoon of 11 December a parachute brigade of the Indian forces was dropped in Tangail a few miles outside Dhaka.

Across the country, as one town after another fell to the allied forces, the idea of Bangladesh taking concrete shape began to assume the form of reality. The fall of Dhaka was what the nation waited for.

Despite its imminent defeat, the Pakistan army conveyed the fiction of being on top of the situation, to the extent of conducting house-to-house searches for the Mukti Bahini in Dhaka. Fears began to grow among the population of pitched battles for the capital should Pakistan's forces refuse to capitulate before the advancing Indian and Bangladesh forces.

Meanwhile, with the Soviet Union worried that President Nixon and Henry Kissinger could send in forces as a last resort to save Pakistan in the east – measures had already been taken to have Task Force 74, which included the USS Enterprise, move from the coast of South Vietnam to the Bay of Bengal – the Indian authorities went out on a limb to reassure the Soviet leadership that Delhi had no desire to destroy Pakistan in the western theatre.

The Soviets had been rather concerned that Washington might move in with force to prevent a final allied victory in Dhaka and also come to the rescue of West Pakistan. DP Dhar, a leading adviser to Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, left for Moscow on the morning of 11 December with a message from the Indian leader for Soviet Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin.

Mrs Gandhi was clear in outlining her government's intentions. As she wrote to Kosygin, "We have no design on the territory of others nor do we have any desire to destroy Pakistan." She insisted that Indian forces would readily withdraw from Bangladesh if the ruling junta in Pakistan arrived at a political settlement with the Bengali leadership (which, however, increasingly did not look like an option any more, given the rapidity of the Indian military advance in Bangladesh).

Arriving in Moscow, Dhar handed over Mrs Gandhi's missive to Kosygin, who wanted to know of India's overall intentions. It was clear that with the USS Enterprise steaming into the Bay of Bengal, Moscow was worried lest it be drawn into the conflict through armed intervention.