East Pakistan With the
partitioning of India on 15 August 1947, the territory constituting modern Bangladesh was
partitioned from the province of
Bengal as
East Bengal which joined
Pakistan. Ethnic and sectional discrimination prevailed in various sectors of the state. Like other government sectors, Bengalis were under-represented in the Pakistani military too. Officers of Bengali origin in different wings of the armed forces made up just 5% of the entire military by 1965. West Pakistanis believed that Bengalis were not "martially inclined" unlike
Pashtuns and
Punjabis; the "
Martial Races" notion was dismissed as ridiculous and humiliating by Bengalis. The
East Bengal Regiment was formed on 15 February 1948 following Pakistan's independence and transition from post British rule, composed exclusively of men from the western part of the country. The first East Bengal Regiment was composed of Bengali members of the
British Indian Army Pioneer Corps and
Bihar Regiment of the abolished
British-Indian army. Between 1948 and 1965, a total of eight battalions of EBR were raised.
Bangladesh War of Independence s used by the
Mukti Bahini Following the victory of the
Awami League in the 1970 elections, then-president General
Yahya Khan refused to appoint its leader
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as the
prime minister and launched a brutal attack named
Operation Searchlight on the Bengali nationalists of the then East Pakistan, using the
Pakistan Army to repress political movements. The number of people killed by Pakistani forces vary from a minimum of around 300,000 to a maximum of around 3 million. Responding to Mujib's call for rebellion, many students, workers and other civilians mutinied against Pakistan and raised the
Mukti Bahini, a
guerrilla force. Later on, many Bengali officers and units from the Pakistan Army and
East Pakistan Rifles mutinied against their West Pakistani counterparts and joined the Mukti Bahini. On 17 April 1971,
M. A. G Osmani took oath as the commander-in-chief of Mukti Bahini. While the war raged on, the necessity of a well-trained armed force was always felt. During the first Bangladesh Sector Commanders Conference, held from 11 to 17 July 1971, the
Bangladesh Forces started its journey composed of the revolting Bengali members of the Pakistan Army and
EPR. In this historic conference the field command structure, sector reorganization, reinforcement, appointment of field commanders and tactics of warfare were decided upon and carried out. On 21 November 1971, the Bangladesh Forces was divided into three separate services as
Bangladesh Army,
Bangladesh Navy and
Bangladesh Air Force. The Bangladesh Forces received modest assistance from the Indian Government soon after the start of the war, On 3 December 1971, the
India-Pakistan war broke out and Indian troops entered Bangladesh allied with the Bangladesh Armed Forces. On 16 December 1971, the
Pakistani military surrendered to the joint Indian and Bangladesh forces.
Post-independence The newly formed Bangladeshi armed forces incorporated some of the units and guerrillas of the Mukti Bahini. Gen. Osmani, who had led the Mukti Bahini was appointed the
General of the Bangladesh armed forces. For many years, there was active discrimination in favour of the inductees from the Mukti Bahini against those Bengali officers who had continued service in the Pakistani armed forces or had been detained in
West Pakistan. A group of angered officers
assassinated the president Sheikh Mujib on 15 August 1975 and established a regime with politician
Khondaker Mostaq Ahmed as
President of Bangladesh and new
army chief Maj. Gen.
Ziaur Rahman. Under the presidency of Ziaur Rahman, the military was reorganised to remove conflicts between rival factions and discontented cadre. However, Ziaur Rahman was himself overthrown in a
1981 coup attempt, and a year later, Lt. Gen.
Hossain Mohammad Ershad took power from the elected government of president
Abdus Sattar. The military remained the most important force in national politics under the regimes of Ziaur Rahman and later Hossain Mohammad Ershad until democracy was restored in 1991. Several projects and schemes aiming to expand and modernize the Bangladeshi armed forces were launched by the government of former Prime Minister
Begum Khaleda Zia.
Forces Goal 2030 was launched by the government of Prime Minister
Sheikh Hasina to secure new equipment for the Bangladeshi military.
Bangladesh-Myanmar border Standoffs have occasionally occurred at the
Bangladesh-Myanmar border, including in 1991 and 2008. Most of the standoffs took place, when Myanmar attempted to force
Rohingyas into Bangladesh. In 2008, the two countries deployed warships after Myanmar attempted to explore a disputed Bay of Bengal seabed for oil and gas. The dispute was resolved at an international tribunal in 2012. Bangladesh and Myanmar have also conducted
counter-insurgency operations on the border. •
2008 Bangladesh–Myanmar naval standoff •
2015 Bangladesh-Arakan Army border clash ==Medals and decorations==