Subroto Chattopadhyay

Author: Bangladesh — Humiliation, Carnage, Liberation, Chaos. Leadership · Strategy · Culture · History. Chairman, The Peninsula Studios

[Subroto Chattopadhyay @CitizenSubroto]

Sagat Singh liberated Goa in 1961. He liberated Dacca in 1971. The decade between was not empty. It was the preparation. Commanders are built across decades. The crisis reveals what the peacetime years deposited.

@AnilPDere62
@StudioTPS

#Bangladesh1971

[Subroto Chattopadhyay @CitizenSubroto]

@andymukherjee70 Eta bouncer noe, Beamer - shobar maathar upor theke beriye jabe 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[Subroto Chattopadhyay @CitizenSubroto]

@AnilPDere62 Maj Gen @AnilPDere62 Absolutely. Watching the officers step into the decision-makers’ chair and engage so deeply with the dilemmas was one of the most rewarding aspects of Mhow. A memorable experience.

[Subroto Chattopadhyay @CitizenSubroto]

Thank you, Army War College, Mhow, for the opportunity to present Vision to Victory. The future leadership performed brilliantly in the decision-makers’ chair. AWC is a fine institution — we need institutions of such quality to shape the leaders of tomorrow. @ia_awc @AnilPDere62

[Army War College Mhow @ia_awc]

#AWCIndia hosted a thought provoking session for Mhow station titled “Vision to Victory”, revisiting India’s historic 1971 victory. Maj Gen Anil P Dere (Retired) and Shri Subroto Chattopadhyay brought alive the Strategic, Operational and Leadership lessons of the campaign through archival narratives and battlefield experiences.
#Leadership

[Subroto Chattopadhyay @CitizenSubroto]

@ia_awc Thank you, Army War College, Mhow, for the opportunity to present Vision to Victory. The future leadership sat brilliantly in the decision-makers’ chair, exploring the choices that shaped 1971. AWC makes us proud — an institution that sets a very high bar.

[Subroto Chattopadhyay @CitizenSubroto]

@AnilPDere62 @StudioTPS Mujib immediately dismissed the people who had actually won the war. The symbol of a liberation and the architect of it are almost never the same person.

#BangladeshHCLC
#Bangladesh1971

@AnilPDere62
@StudioTPS

[Subroto Chattopadhyay @CitizenSubroto]

Mujib emerged from Pakistani prison in January 1972 as a messiah. He had been in solitary confinement for nine months. He knew nothing of what had happened. He returned to a hero's welcome.

#BangladeshHCLC

@AnilPDere62
@StudioTPS

[Subroto Chattopadhyay @CitizenSubroto]

Lieutenant Colonel Osmani told his Bengali recruits: 'You are not going to polish the shoes of Punjabi officers.' That speech was the first act of the liberation war. The shooting started years later. Every liberation war begins in the barracks.

@AnilPDere62

#Bangladesh1971

[Subroto Chattopadhyay @CitizenSubroto]

Tikka Khan disarmed Bengali soldiers in the East Pakistan Rifles before the crackdown. The act of distrust created the thing it feared: a Bengali military force that had nothing left to lose and everything to fight for.

@AnilPDere62
@StudioTPS

#Bangladesh1971

[Subroto Chattopadhyay @CitizenSubroto]

@madversity 🤣brilliant

[Subroto Chattopadhyay @CitizenSubroto]

2hrs 21mins @manujosephsan @smitaprakash a conversation that set me thinking. Good show

https://t.co/S1EJxVdn2f

Worth a watch, watch it. @paritoshZero @TheBrownBeagle @AnilPDere62

[Subroto Chattopadhyay @CitizenSubroto]

Delighted that @thetribunechd has captured what #VisiontoVictory, presented at the @IIC_Delhi, has always tried to do — recreate #1971 through the voices, photographs and testimony of the people who lived it.
Aditi Tandon @anshumalini3. @AnilPDere62
https://t.co/0lmtQM5X5B

[Subroto Chattopadhyay @CitizenSubroto]

@AnilPDere62 @StudioTPS The official description of any military operation and the testimony of those who saw it are always different documents. Both are in the archive.

#BangladeshHCLC

@AnilPDere62
@StudioTPS

[Subroto Chattopadhyay @CitizenSubroto]

There were no rebels and no weapons. Only poor country folks, mostly women and old men.' The words of a Pakistani officer who witnessed Operation Searchlight from inside.

#BangladeshHCLC

@AnilPDere62
@StudioTPS

[Subroto Chattopadhyay @CitizenSubroto]

A song can outlive its film. Sometimes, it can outlive an entire generation.
Divas Ke Deevane directed by @SitaRaina goes back to the women whose voices made those songs part of our lives.
Tollygunge Club was an important stop.
To host it, WhatsApp [phone]. @AnilPDere62

[Subroto Chattopadhyay @CitizenSubroto]

There were no written orders for the covert operation that trained the Mukti Bahini. There is, however, one document that should not exist — a single page that survived when everything else was destroyed. The book names it and its location.
@AnilPDere62
@StudioTPS
#Bangladesh1971

[Subroto Chattopadhyay @CitizenSubroto]

The written plan for the liberation of Bangladesh took 10 days to produce. The people, networks, relationships, and trained forces to execute it had been built across years. The plan was the last step, not the first.

@AnilPDere62
@StudioTPS

#Bangladesh1971

[Subroto Chattopadhyay @CitizenSubroto]

@AnilPDere62 @StudioTPS It is studied in Pakistan's Staff College. It is a case study in America's war colleges. The country that won it is the one that chose not to learn from it.

#BangladeshHCLC

@AnilPDere62
@StudioTPS

[Subroto Chattopadhyay @CitizenSubroto]

The war India won in 1971 — the most decisive military campaign of its post-independence history — was then systematically forgotten. It is under-studied in India's own staff colleges

#BangladeshHCLC

@AnilPDere62
@StudioTPS

[Subroto Chattopadhyay @CitizenSubroto]

Kissinger's China card in 1971 was a card that couldn't be played. China had the Lin Biao crisis internally and a million Soviet troops on its border. India's intelligence knew China couldn't move. Kissinger apparently didn't.

@AnilPDere62
@StudioTPS

#Bangladesh1971