Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw’s death robs Indians of a vital source of information on one of recent Indian history’s unresolved questions: Did New Delhi have secret plans to dismember Pakistan in the west after comprehensively defeating it in the east?

India’s plans in the western sector toward the close of the 1971 war over Bangladesh have long been a matter of controversy and speculation by historians and others.

American declassified documents say President Richard Nixon and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger believed Prime Minister Indira Gandhi wanted to dismember West Pakistan.

Equally, some Russian commentators have said they dissuaded her from doing so. But some leading Indian — as well as Pakistani — diplomats and strategic experts say if Gandhi had wanted to march in to Pakistan, she could have done so. They attribute the American and Russian claims to interventionist zeal.

The hero of the 1971 war, Manekshaw, was a garrulous man. But he never spoke publicly about the issue.

The divided opinion found an echo at a recent conference on India and Pakistan organized by the Tehelka media group in London.

"Gandhi never had a territorial ambition, but she did want to finish off Pakistan’s military capability," former Pakistan foreign secretary Tanvir Ahmad Khan told IANS.

"But that would have ultimately led to the break up of Pakistan. There would have been chaos," he added.

Khan’s assessment is similar to that of the late Nixon and Kissinger, who is a prominent commentator in the US media.

Declassified US documents claim that details of a briefing given by Gandhi to members of her cabinet in early December 1971 were leaked to US intelligence agencies.

A summary of the documents by the State Department says: "Gandhi outlined her war aims. She would not accept a settlement until Bangladesh was liberated, the ‘southern area of Azad Kashmir’ was liberated, and the Pakistani armoured and air force strength was destroyed to prevent any future challenge to India.

"Nixon and Kissinger took this as proof that India planned not only to foster the independence of East Pakistan, but to use the opportunity of the crisis to inflict a crushing military defeat on Pakistan, which would lead to the break-up of West Pakistan. Kissinger attributed to the Gandhi government the goal of Balkanizing West Pakistan."

With the Bangladesh war seen in Cold War terms by the Americans and Russians, exchanges between Nixon and Kissinger sometimes bordered on the paranoid.

Whether Indira Gandhi ever contemplated such action, or whether the claims were part of an elaborate Cold War drama played out by the Americans and Russians is something that still awaits clarity.

And Sam Manekshaw isn’t telling. He never did tell.