Pakistan dragged India into the war for the third time since independence. The people of
East Pakistan rebelled against the way they were dominated and exploited by West Pakistan.
To crush this upsurge of Bengali nationalism, General Yahya khan, head of West Pakistan's
military junta unleashed a reign of terror. Thousands of men and women were massacred in
cold blood. About ten million East Pakistanis came to India as refugees, to escape the
atrocities. When it became a serious problem, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi appealed to the
nations of the world to stop the genocide in East Pakistan and to help her government
feed, clothe and house the millions that had sought shelter in India. But her appeal fell
on deaf ears. Pakistan declared war on India on December 3, 1971 and in a surprise move
bombed Indian airfields and border territories in the west. The Indian armed forces acted
swiftly to blunt the attacks of the aggressor on land, on sea and in air. To help the
Mukti Bahini(freedom fighters), the Indian army entered East Pakistan. For Pakistan, the
results of the 14-day war were disastrous on both the fronts. 93,000 Pakistani soldiers
were taken prisoner in East Pakistan and an independent country of Bangladesh was born.
The Pakistani army was given a severe beating on the western front. An entire Pakistani
tank regiment was wiped out by the Indian Air Force, in Punjab, in the famous battle of
Longewal. The Indian Navy's missile attacks on Pakistani naval ships at Karachi were so
successful that to commemorate the victory, 4th December is observed as Navy Day all over
the country.
On May 18, 1974, India conducted its first nuclear test successfully at Pokharan in the
Rajasthan desert. Normally, an explosion breaks the earth around the device but India's
implosion took place 100 km below the surface of the earth. The soft sandy soil
effectively sealed all vents of radioactive gases, so no animal or human life was
destroyed, except for a solitary crow. The implosion caused a crater of 150 meter's in the
diameter in the ground. The experiment demonstrated India's capability in nuclear power
and paved the way for harnessing nuclear power for peaceful purposes. India thus became
the sixth nuclear power in the world.
On April 19, 1975, the first Indian Satellite Aryabhatta was launched, from the Soviet
Cosmodrome at Baikonur. Named after the great Indian astronomer and mathematician.
Aryabhatta, who lived about 1,500 year ago, the satellite was designed and fabricated by
space scientists and engineers of the Indian Space Research Organisation centre at
Bangalore. Its signals were received at the ground station at Sriharikota in Andhra
Pradesh. The Satellite survived in orbit beyond its life of six months.
In June 1975, a court in Allahabad found Indira Gandhi guilty of using illegal practices
during the 1971 parliamentary election campaign. Her opponents demanded her resignation as
a Prime Minister but she refused to step down. Instead, Indira Gandhi persuaded President
Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed to declare a national emergency, which empowered her to do whatever
she considered best for the country. Indira Gandhi imprisoned her political opponents
after clamping the emergency. The crackdown and jailing of worker and students was so
brutal that many died in prison. Censorship was imposed on the Indian press. Indira's
younger son Sanjay Gandhi became the power behind the throne. The emergency came to an end
in February 1977 and made Indira Gandhi unpopular.
After the lifting of the emergency, the congress party was voted out of power, at the
general elections in 1977. Indira Gandhi too suffered a crushing defeat. The newly formed
Janata Party comprising all non-congress political parties formed the government with
eighty-one years old Gandhian Morarji Desai as the Prime Minister. He and his colleagues
took the oath of office, at Mahatma Gandhi's samadhi at Raj Ghat. The Janata government
had minister with widely different ideologies whose common objective was to fight against
economic corruption and political repression of the congress government. Janata government
could not last even three years though Morarji Desai was an experienced and able
administrator. This was because of internal squabbles and the ambition of the other
ministers to become Prime Minister.
