Tikka Khan

Tikka Khan is the General Officer Commanding who accompanies the West Pakistani military deployment to Dacca in March 1971. His inconspicuous civilian dress makes the journey’s disguise visible: a campaign of force is sent eastward under the appearance of ordinary passengers.

Identity and Position

The narrator identifies Tikka Khan as the General Officer Commanding of the force dispatched to the East Wing. He is distinguished from Tiger Niazi, the officer responsible for Dacca and its eventual surrender: Tikka Khan holds the higher command, while Niazi is assigned the city and its subjugation.

Deployment to Dacca

On March 15, 1971, twenty units of CUTIA were flown to Dacca by way of Ceylon. Tikka Khan’s larger military movement took place on the same route: sixty thousand West Wing troops also traveled east by this circuitous path, avoiding Indian airspace. The narrator stresses the scale of the deployment by setting its sixty thousand soldiers against the sixty-one men of the CUTIA units.

The force’s passage was organized to conceal its military character. Before departure, CUTIA personnel were ordered to shed their uniforms and put on ordinary civilian clothing; the soldiers complied without protest. Tikka Khan likewise traveled in mufti, described in a natty blue double-breasted suit. Tiger Niazi, the officer charged with Dacca, wore a bush shirt, slacks, and a small trilby. Their clothing turns the flight into a disguise, but does not change its purpose: the troops were being moved to the East Wing for its taming and eventual surrender.

Historical and Narrative Role

The deployment occurs amid the political crisis following Yahya Khan’s offer of immediate talks with Mujib and Bhutto. The narrator places that apparent opening beside the military preparations and the president’s unreadable portrait, emphasizing the gulf between public assurances and the operation underway. The troops’ route also takes them past the celebrations of Indira Gandhi’s New Congress Party victory, which they cannot see because the flight avoids India.

Tikka Khan is characterized through command and circumstance rather than private life or dialogue. The measured contrast between the neat blue suit and the immense force under his command makes civilian appearance part of the episode’s political irony: ordinary dress masks a military operation whose destination is Dacca and whose stated end is surrender.