The Forgotten Flotilla that Helped Birth Bangladesh
Though many know about the Concert for Bangladesh, one group risked their lives to stop weapons shipments to West Pakistan.
On the morning of July 14, 1971, a “nonviolent navy” gathered in the Baltimore Harbor in Maryland. The group — a mishmash of over 50 Quakers, Bengalis, and other concerned citizens — had assembled to stop a $1.2 million U.S. weapons shipment to West Pakistan. Police officers and reporters watched the unlikely coalition closely, waiting to see if they would execute the plan they had shared.
Despite police warnings of arrest if they entered the water, the “nonviolent navy” did exactly what they had promised. They commandeered 10 canoes and paddled toward the Padma, a Pakistani freighter, to prevent it from docking.
While most Americans remained unaware of their government’s role in supplying weapons to West Pakistan, which had committed genocide only months before by killing an estimated 3 million Bengalis, this disparate group chose to make their protest visible. Yet, few remember this movement — an important chapter in nonviolent, South Asian activism in the U.S. and one that would seal Bangladeshi victory — today.