The End of the Third Indo-Pakistani War. 16 December 1971. The Italian Press and the Birth of Bangladesh

After the Second World War, the situation in Southern Asia was not considered of key importance by Italian governments. Likewise, the Italian daily press devoted little space to the internal political dynamics of the Indian subcontinent. Coverage of the end of the Third Indo-Pakistani War and the independence of Bangladesh in Italian newspapers reflected a traditional Eurocentric ‘orientalist’ point of view and the Italian press failed to grasp the major changes in international relations brought about by the recent globalisation process: the events that led to the birth of Bangladesh were presented as an offshoot of the so-called Cold War and not as a major rupture in South Asia’s own history.