Scott Carney & Jason Miklian's 'The Vortex' is based on the wild theory of a cyclone splitting Pak

Sandeep Dikshit

When does a climate crisis cause regime change and nations to fragment? Nearly always, claims a school of thought. ‘Vortex’ is a book that began as an investigation into the Great Bhola Cyclone of 1970 and how Pakistan army’s attitude enraged an already antagonised Bengalis of East Pakistan, culminating in the formation of a separate nation.

There is an even larger body of work that says there is no easy conversion of deprivation into system change. A cyclone was, obviously, not enough to fragment Pakistan, but the authors make it the strange axis of their narrative in order to “scare people” about the climate change crises. The next Bhola could bring a wave of millions of Bangladeshis to India, they warn.

The book discovers a connection between the underplayed nuclear brinkmanship between the Soviets and the US in the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh’s war for liberation that killed 30 lakh and the devastating cyclone that left one lakh dead on the city-size islands jutting into the Bay of Bengal. Cyclones — Nargis (Myanmar), Katrina (US) and Haiyan (Philippines) — have usually caused little more than regime discomfort.

The Bhola cyclone is a useful peg to begin the tale of Pakistan army’s deadly and indiscriminate massacre of citizens that took place in the run-up to the creation of Bangladesh. The narrative, non-fiction style, puts the reader in that moment through about 20 sharply delineated, all-too-human characters even if they make cameo appearances like Zhou Enlai and Mujibur Rahman.

Some are too well known, like Kissinger and Nixon; others like General Rani, Tikka Khan, AAK Niazi, Yahya Khan, Bhutto and the socialites of Dhaka and Karachi have receded in time but their alcoholism, brutality and whoring has been brought alive with the help of a legion of experts, historians, researchers, eyewitnesses and interlocutors. Some underdogs like Hafiz Uddin, Mohammed Abdul Hai, Malik Mahmud and Candy and Jon Rohde will be reading their exploits here.

The characters shift and so does the setting. Bhutto drinks champagne in Waldorf Astoria as he double-crosses a sodden Yahya by not agreeing to a ceasefire at the UN; the Shah of Iran hammers on Yahya’s door while he undergoes fellatio from a famous singer; the smell of mass death which pursues Hafiz, Hai, Malik and the Rhodes from the cyclone and Pakistan army’s Operation Searchlight, which under Tikka and Niazi meant indiscriminate slaughter and rape to subdue the Bengalis of Bangladesh.

There is the severely-underplayed tale of Nixon and Kissinger’s nuclear brinkmanship. It was meant to scare off the Indians, the Mukti Bahini and the Soviets, but toughened their resolve instead. Before the Seventh Fleet could move deeper in the Bay of Bengal, Indian Army tanks began racing across the East Pakistan countryside; Capt Hafiz and countless other Bengali army officers, who had escaped death at the hands of colleagues in Pakistan army, launched suicidal attacks on heavily-fortified Pakistani positions and a Soviet naval commander, Rear Admiral Vladimir Kruglyakov, readied his nuclear-tipped missiles to vaporise the US flagship if it closed on to Indian cities.

Right through the massacre and the battle with India, Yahya was confident of US and Chinese support as the midwife of a secret link-up between Beijing and Washington. Typical of Washington, after Yahya’s exit, they happily nominated Bhutto as their interlocutor with the Chinese.

And much before the concerts for Africa took shape, the Bengali identity that transcends borders manifested itself. Pandit Ravi Shankar, the most famous Asian of that time, teamed up with George Harrison to birth a global phenomenon: the celebrity activist and the rock and roll charity concert.

Despite the book’s redeeming features, its underlying theme seems to be similar to that of CNN Technical Director Charlie Chester, who spoke about instilling the next fear (climate change) as Covid is no longer a fear factor in controlling Americans.