Eight days after Indira Gandhi was elected Prime Minister for the third time on March 17, 1971, a major crisis, simmering for a long time, erupted in East Pakistan.

Elections had been held to Pakistan National Assembly in December 1970. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, leader of the Awami League, swept the polls entitling him to be the Prime Minister of Pakistan. This was resisted both by the military dictator Yahya Khan and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whose Pakistan People’s Party lost to the Awami League by a huge margin.

Advised by Bhutto and Punjabi, Sindhi- dominated Army and bureaucracy, Yahya Khan ordered a crackdown on East Pakistan on March 25, 1971.

Within hours, hundreds of intellectuals, poets, writers, students and teachers were pulled out and slaughtered in cold blood. Two months earlier, an Indian Airlines flight had been hijacked from Srinagar and blown up in Lahore (without passengers and crew). India had retaliated then by banning Pakistani flights, which had to go around the Indian peninsula for connectivity between West & East Pakistan ,with a fuel halt at Sri Lanka.

As Pakistan’s atrocities in East Pakistan increased, Indian opinion was clamouring for action, especially amongst the media and in West Bengal. But the great daughter of a greater father kept her cool, and publicity stated "a wrong step or even a wrong word, have an effect, different from a desired one."

Refusing to make warlike noises, even while realising war was becoming unavoidable, Indira Gandhi gave primacy to the issue of terrified refugees from East Pakistan who were pouring in from West Bengal like a tsunami. In a matter of months, their numbers rose to nearly 10 million. Here, the mother in Indira Gandhi, typical of an Indian mother’s nature, came to the fore. She ensured, with all her authority in command, that the refugees were provided shelter and well-looked after with sufficient food and medical aid, while being cautious they remain isolated from the local population. This would facilitate all refugees to return after the crisis was over, and no one would be allowed to stay back.

Mrs Gandhi appealed to world leaders to prevail upon Pakistan to stop its brutal repressions and promote a political settlement, so that all displaced persons could go back. India, she said, was unable to bear the tremendous financial and physical burden the problem had imposed on India. However, it was becoming increasingly clear that India would have to tackle the problem herself, militarily if need be. If so, she was advised to plan the Army operation in winter months. Was it the Army chief Sam Manekshaw or her civilian advisers, led by PN Haksar who gave this crucial input? Differences exist between the Army and military historians.