Indira Gandhi & Bangladesh liberation war ✒ Jayasurya The Biafran attempt for liberation failed nevertheless not because only a few countries recognised it or the superior military might of integrity of a UN member nation were part of Nigeria. It failed for quite different reasons. The the international law. However, the newly Biafran liberation war was fought during the independent countries were not the only ones cold war when many countries in Africa, Asia, that faced the pressure of secession during the and Latin America became independent as a cold war; some of the major powers faced consequence of the process of decolonisation similar predicament as well. Thus, although no following the end of the Second World War. The nation opposed national liberation movements colonising powers left their former colonies in a based on the right to self-determination during hurry. In many of the newly independent the cold war when it came to choosing between countries, they drew international boundaries the right to self-determination and the and internal ones arbitrarily. Thus once the territorial integrity and sovereignty of a member colonial powers left, many of the newly nation of the United Natons, it was without independent countries faced tremendous question that the preference of states pressure of secession from sections within their everywhere was for the latter, not the former. national boundaries and from across their borders. That was why the Biafran war of liberation failed and to this day, Biafra is a part of Nigeria Ironically, these secessionist movements in the together with all other secessionist movements newly independent countries to which the senior during the cold war. Bangladesh’s war of political official at the PMO alluded in his liberation ended successfully because Indira Kolkata speech used the principle under Gandhi used the presence of 10 million international law, namely the right of self- Bangladeshi refugees on the Indian soil to set determination that the newly independent aside Pakistan’s argument like that of Nigeria in states themselves used to fight for their freedom case of Biafra that what was happening in from colonial powers. The right to self- Bangladesh was its internal matter under the determination in the international law had been primacy of the international law related to well established before the decolonisation sovereignty and territorial integrity of a member process started and was eventually codified in nation of the United Nations over the right to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. self determination. Indira Gandhi argued on her state visits to France, Belgium, Austria and the At the time of the cold war, particularly when United Kingdom that Pakistan by sending 10 Bangladesh was fighting its war of million refugees fleeing to its soil had committed independence, both the right to self- an act of war and that India had the right to determination and sovereignty and territorial retaliate. A TO Z INDIA ● JULY 2021 ● PAGE 13