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GARY JONATHAN BASS, The Blood Telegram. Nixon, Kissinger and a Forgotten Genocide. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013. XXIV, 499 pages, $30.00. ISBN 978-0-307-70020-9
NAMRATA GOSWAMI, Just War Theory and India's Intervention in East Pakistan, 1971. (PSP Monograph 1). New Delhi: Academy of International Studies / Jamia Millia Islamia, 2014. 90 pages, Rs250.00. ISBN 978-93-83649-18-1
SRINATH RAGHAVAN, 1971. A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 2013. 358 pages, $29.96. ISBN 9780-674-72864-6
The war of 1971 that led to the creation of Bangladesh is subject of three new publications by Gary J. Bass, Namrata Goswami and Srinath Raghavan. The first author is professor of international politics at Princeton University, the second research fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses in New Delhi and the third senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, and at King's College, London. Their concerns are why the USA did not interfere (Bass), whether India's intervention was justified (Goswami) and the geopolitical constellations that determined the most important actors in their actions and non-actions (Raghavan).
The books by Bass and Raghavan were reviewed and praised right after their release; the booklet by Goswami - a product of her PhD thesis on just war theory and humanitarian intervention - came out more recently. None of the authors is old enough to have followed events in the media in 1971. At times especially Raghavan and to some extent Goswami refer to contemporary affairs. Bass restricts himself discussing his main source, the telegraphic messages of Archer Blood, the US Consul General in Dhaka, to the State Department, hence the title of the book.
The authors follow different approaches: Bass chose a chronological order, starting with the cyclone of 1970 that interrupted the elections. The military government's failure to respond to the worst natural disaster of the century led to the overwhelming victory of the Awami League (160 out of 162 seats in East Pakistan and a total of 300 seats in the National Assembly, respectively). His grim tale of events ends with the unconditional surrender of Pakistani troops in East Pakistan and the emergence of Bangladesh as an independent country by the end of 1971. Goswami starts with just war theory, before turning to the...