"In war, truth is the first casualty." — Anonymous Sixty years ago, Pakistan began to observe the 6th of September as Defence of Pakistan Day. It was on that day that Indian…
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"In war, truth is the first casualty." — Anonymous Sixty years ago, Pakistan began to observe the 6th of September as Defence of Pakistan Day. It was on that day that Indian forces attacked Lahore. In the official narrative, India was the aggressor. Unfortunately, there was not much truth to that assertion. As noted in an article on the BBC website, Air Marshal (retired) Nur Khan, who headed the Pakistan Air Force in 1965, in an interview with Dawn, said that the army “misled the nation with a big lie”—that India rather than Pakistan provoked the war—and that Pakistan won a “great victory”. And since the “lie” was never rectified, the Pakistani “army came to believe its own fiction, (and) has continued to fight unwanted wars,” he said. Origins of the Conflict To separate truth from fiction, we must dig deep into the historical record. Pakistan and India fought their first war over Kashmir within a couple of months of gaining independence from Great Britain in August 1947. When that war ended with the signing of a UN-sponsored ceasefire on the 1st of January 1949, one-third of Kashmir was under Pakistan’s control, and the remaining two-thirds was in India’s control. The latter territory included the capital city of Srinagar. Pakistan continued its efforts to gain control over Kashmir, saying it was a Muslim-majority area. Pakistan kept calling for a plebiscite in Kashmir, as was mentioned in the UN ceasefire agreement. But that required both countries to withdraw their forces from Kashmir, and neither country was willing to do that. The plebiscite never happened. Matters came to a head in 1965. The President of Pakistan, Field Marshal Ayub Khan, went on Radio Pakistan at 2 pm on the 6th of September and told the nation that India, in the early morning hours, had launched a multi-pronged attack on Lahore. He went on to say that Pakistan would fight India with all its strength. He acknowledged that Pakistan’s military was outnumbered by India’s military, but since “one Pakistani soldier was worth ten Indian soldiers”, Pakistan would be victorious. 79th Independence Day Reflections As the war continued, Pakistan’s government kept on making claims that India was being defeated on the land, in the air, and on the sea. Then, on the 23rd of September, the war ended abruptly. The status of Kashmir remained unchanged. Disenchantment set in across Pakistan, where the public was convinced that not only would Pakistan repel Indian forces from the international border but also gain all of Kashmir, and hoist the flag of Pakistan in Srinagar. Further disenchantment set in when a ceasefire agreement was signed in Tashkent under Soviet auspices on the 10th of January 1966, almost exactly 17 years after the UN-sponsored ceasefire between the warring siblings had been signed on the 1st of January 1949. In the years that followed, several academics, scholars, and retired senior military officers wrote books about the war. These included General Musa, the commander-in-chief of the army during the war, and Air Marshals Asghar Khan and Nur Khan, both of whom had commanded the air force before and during the war, respectively. Several others wrote as well, including Lt Gen Gul Hasan, Sherbaz Khan Mazari, Farooq Bajwa, Shuja Nawaz, Colonel Brian Cloughley, Brigadier Feroz Hasan Khan, Professor Tariq Khan, and Air Commodore Sajjad Haider, whom I interviewed on the performance of the Pakistan Air Force. What became apparent from the writings of these experts was that there is a major gap between what the government told the public and what happened on the battlefields. The Geopolitical Backdrop The origins of the 1965 war can be traced to a war that was fought between India and China in the Himalayas. It ended in a decisive military victory for China and an ignominious defeat for India. To shore up Indian defences, the US and the UK began to rush military supplies to India, even though it professed to be a non-aligned country. The Western powers wanted to prevent Communist China from prevailing in a future war with India. Paradox Of Paradise: Reflections On Gilgit-Baltistan The decision to send guerrillas into Kashmir in August was premised on five assumptions that went awry In Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was appointed the foreign minister in January 1963. He was a hawk when it came to India. He convinced Ayub Khan that the opportunity to seize Kashmir was slipping from Pakistan’s hands, since Indian armed forces were being aided and supplied by the US and the UK, and India would soon pose an insuperable barrier to Pakistan’s acquisition of Kashmir. Bhutto convinced Ayub that Pakistan should begin preparing for a second war with India. A tactical test of India’s military strength was carried out in April 1965 when Pakistani forces launched an incursion in the south-eastern territory of Rann of Kutch. Indian forces were surprised and pulled back. Pakistan took that as a sign of Indian military weakness. Debunking the Myths of 1965 On the 6th of September 1965, India attacked Lahore and a major war broke out between Pakistan and India along the international border. To this day, several myths continue to exist about that attack and what happened subsequently. Here are the top seven. First, that India was the aggressor when it was simply responding to a Pakistani attack on Indian Kashmir. The reality is that Pakistan initiated hostilities by launching Operation Gibraltar in Indian-held Kashmir on the 5th of August. It sent several thousand Pakistani soldiers disguised as Kashmiri freedom fighters into Indian-held Kashmir, hoping to arouse a rebellion in the local population. Second, that Operation Gibraltar was successful when it actually failed. The fact is that it failed to rouse the Kashmiris into a revolt against India. In fact, the Kashmiris turned in some of the Pakistani soldiers to the authorities. On radio, they confessed that they were sent into Kashmir by Pakistan. One Pakistani army officer said, “The blighters have spilled the beans.” When Gibraltar failed, Pakistan activated Operation Grand Slam on the 2nd of September with infantry and armour, supported by the PAF. 'Adam's Fire' – An Upcoming Gem Third, that Grand Slam was successful when it failed. Its objective was to capture the town of Akhnur and cut off India’s supply lines into Kashmir. Pakistani forces crossed the Munawar Tawi River and captured the hamlet of Chamb, but failed to capture Akhnur. Grand Slam failed. Fourth, that the war began on the 6th of September, when it actually began a month prior. Fifth, that Pakistan’s 1st Armoured Division won the battle of Khem Karan south of Lahore in the Indian Punjab. A picture showing General Musa on the platform of that train station was published widely in the press. But Pakistan’s strategic reason for sending in its elite armoured force of Patton tanks was not just to conquer a train station. It was to cut off the Indian supply lines from Amritsar to New Delhi. This was not achieved. Pakistan lost 90 tanks in the battle of Asal Uttar and did not even get close to the Grand Trunk Road that connects Amritsar with New Delhi. Sixth, that by bombing Dwarka, the Pakistan Navy defeated the Indian Navy. The fact is that bombing Dwarka had no military consequences. It had no real impact on the Indian Navy. Not much combat took place between the two navies. Seventh, and this is the clincher, that Pakistan won the war when in fact it didn’t. If that was the case, then why did it agree to sign a ceasefire on the 23rd of September without acquiring Kashmir, which was the sole purpose of the war? The Reality of Attrition and Illusions The fact is that just two weeks into the full-scale war with India, the army had begun to run out of artillery shells. The air force was running out of starter cartridges for the F-86 Sabre jets. When President Ayub was informed, he turned pale. He knew the game was over. His ire turned toward the US, which had imposed an arms embargo on both combatants. That explains the title of his memoir, Friends Not Masters. There is no mention of the war in the book. He expressed his misgivings about the war in his diaries, perhaps not realising they might be published posthumously. Defence At The Expense Of Development – A Quiet Crisis Undermining Global Stability Ayub was assured by his closest advisers that the war would remain confined to Kashmir. The army had not prepared itself to fight a war with India across the international border. Indeed, a quarter of the Pakistani army was on leave when war broke out. The air force and navy were not consulted before the army made the decision to send “raiders” into Kashmir. That’s why Air Force Day is observed on the 7th of September. India upended Pakistan’s furtive operations in Kashmir by attacking Lahore on the 6th of September. Pakistan’s infantry put up an incredible defence of Lahore. Aided by the PAF, it thwarted the attack. India then attacked Chawinda, threatening Sialkot. Pakistan’s infantry, backed by armour, aided once again by the PAF, successfully defended Chawinda. None of these changed the fact that Pakistan failed to acquire Kashmir. Precious lives and treasure were lost. Nothing was gained. The decision to send guerrillas into Kashmir in August was premised on five assumptions that went awry. Firstly, that Kashmiris would rise in revolt once they saw Pakistani guerrillas in their midst. Secondly, that India would not retaliate across the international border. Thirdly, that one Pakistani soldier was worth ten Indian soldiers. Fourthly, that Hindu morale would not stand more than a couple of hard blows at the right time and place. And, fifthly, that the US would take Pakistan’s side in the conflict, since it was America’s “most allied ally.” Pakistan had signed a mutual defence agreement with the US in 1954 and later signed multi-party defence agreements with the US and several regional countries called CENTO and SEATO. All of these turned out to be agreements that were not worth the paper on which they were written. When a full-fledged war broke out between India and Pakistan on the 6th of September 1965, the US placed an arms embargo on both combatants. That put a much bigger dent in Pakistan’s military capabilities than India’s because the former was almost entirely dependent on US weaponry, whereas India had a much more diversified portfolio of weapons. Unpacking The Strategic Realities Of The Makkah Joint Defence Agreement The Political Fallout A few months after the ceasefire, in January 1966, a humbled and sober Ayub signed a peace deal with India’s Shastri in Tashkent, USSR, under Soviet auspices, promising to give up whatever piece of Indian territory Pakistan had acquired. The status of Kashmir remained unchanged. In Pakistan, the letdown in expectations was huge. Ayub’s foreign minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who had convinced him to initiate hostilities in Kashmir, turned on Ayub in Tashkent. He was fired. Bhutto went on to create his own political party in 1967, becoming yet another thorn in the dictator’s side. An economic slowdown caused by the war set in. Ayub sought to deflect attention by observing a Decade of Development in 1968. Riots spread throughout the country. Rallies were held in every major city denouncing him as a “dog.” To divert the public’s attention, a desperate Ayub arrested a leading East Pakistani politician, Mujib, on charges of treason. He put him on trial in the 1968 Agartala Conspiracy case. None of this worked. So, Mujib was released and invited to attend a Round Table Conference in February-March 1969. The talks collapsed when Mujib pulled out of the conference on the 13th of March since Ayub was unwilling to accept the Six Points put out by Mujib, which would have granted substantial autonomy to East Pakistan. On the 25th of March 1969, a depressed and heartbroken Ayub confided to his hand-picked army chief, Gen Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan, that perhaps the people were tired of seeing his face. He asked Yahya to declare martial law. Yahya agreed on one condition: that Ayub hand over the presidency to him. Ayub stepped down and disappeared into the pages of history. The Road to 1971 East Pakistan had sensed its isolation in the 1965 war. Despite constituting 55% of the national population, only a single army division, the 14th, was stationed there along with a single PAF squadron. In February 1952, language riots had swept throughout East Pakistan when Urdu was declared the national language. For decades, Bengali resentment had been simmering against the national government’s economic neglect, and the fact that it was not only based in Islamabad but also dominated by West Pakistanis. The September War just added fuel to the fire. Is Missile Defence A Financial Trap Or A Phantom Shield? When Yahya annulled the results of the general elections in which Mujib’s party had secured an absolute majority, and launched Operation Searchlight on the 25th of March 1971 to pin down the rebels, a civil war broke out. Yahya insisted he would succeed in putting down the rebellion because he knew East Pakistan “like the back of his hand.” He based that pompous assessment simply on the fact that he had commanded the 14th Infantry Division in Dhaka several years prior. The civil war exploded into a full-fledged war with India in December when Yahya decided to attack Indian airfields in the West on the 3rd of December. The attack was designed to imitate the success of the Israeli Air Force during the Six-Day War of June 1967. However, the Pakistan Air Force failed to achieve the surprise that the Israel Air Force had achieved in Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. India had anticipated the attack and dispersed its aircraft. That attack boomeranged on Pakistan, since it gave India the excuse to launch an all-out attack on Pakistan’s Eastern Garrison commanded by Lt Gen A A K Niazi. His forces were outnumbered and outgunned. They were also worn out after fighting an insurgency led by the Mukti Bahini for months. Of the four infantry divisions under his command, three had been flown in from the West in haste, without their normal complement of armour and artillery. Despite claiming that Dhaka would fall over his dead body—“Indians will have to drive a tank over me”—the general who had been awarded the Hilal-e-Jurat twice surrendered to Lt Gen Jagjeet Singh Aurora of the Indian army on the 16th of December 1971. The ceremony took place in the Race Ground Dhaka and was publicised globally. Years later, he sought to absolve himself of surrendering to Aurora in less than two weeks by penning an entirely self-serving memoir. The news bulletin in West Pakistan sought to minimise what had happened. It said that “due to an arrangement between the local commanders, fighting had ceased on the eastern front.” A bigger lie could not be imagined. July 5, 1977: The Day Pakistan’s Darkest Chapter Began Gen Yahya Khan came on the radio and assured the nation that the war would continue. He knew better than anyone else that the game was over but chose to lie to the nation through the skin of his teeth. In just a couple of days, after the presidential palace was buzzed by jet fighters, he handed over the presidency to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party, which had won a majority of the seats in the National Assembly in West Pakistan. A war to acquire Kashmir ended up costing the country its eastern wing. The breakup of Pakistan was the saddest unanticipated consequence of the 1965 war. When the nation celebrates Defence of Pakistan Day on the 6th of September, it should rightfully commemorate the memories of those soldiers who fought gallantly in the war. But it should also remember that the war was entirely of Pakistan’s making, and not only did it fail to meet its military objectives, but it also unleashed forces that would eventually lead to the breakup of Pakistan.
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