1965: A Western Sunrise

Title: 1965: A Western Sunrise – India’s War with Pakistan

Author: Shiv Kunal Verma

Publisher: Aleph Book Company, 2021 (First)

ISBN: 9789390652464

Pages: 509

 

Right after partition, India and Pakistan joined battle over Kashmir in October 1947. Under the guise of tribal invaders, Pakistan occupied a portion of Kashmir now known as PoK (Pak-occupied Kashmir). Indian troops soon flushed them out, but Pakistan was always on the lookout for an opportunity to present itself to renew its effort to get hold of Kashmir. Such a chance came about in 1962 when India had miserably failed to take on Chinese aggression in Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh. The reasons behind this debacle were mostly political as Prime Minister Nehru had lost all connection with the military capability of the country and his hallucinations on world peace had crippled the battle-worthiness of the nation’s military. This encouraged Pakistan to try their own tricks on the Kashmir front. But the US weighed on them in preventing the opening of a simultaneous attack theatre on the western sector. Three years later in 1965, they tried their luck in Kashmir with another invasion. India strongly retaliated under the new Prime Minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri. This book deals with the war and states that it ended in a stalemate, but it disabused Pakistan of its wishful thinking that Hindu India was incapable of putting up a fight. Six years further on, in 1971, both the countries met in another warfront. This time, there was no confusion on the outcome. Pakistan lost the war, 93000 Pakistani soldiers meekly surrendered and the country itself was split into two pieces! Shiv Kunal Verma is an Indian military historian and a documentary filmmaker who has produced many documentaries on Indian defence services. His book on the 1962 war has been reviewed earlier in this blog.

 

As a backdrop to 1965, Verma comments on the legacy of Nehru and the disaster he had wrought about when China invaded in 1962. Nehru tampered with established norms and pushed his own favourites into positions of power. He appointed V K Krishna Menon, a diehard communist, as the defence minister which set alarm bells ringing in the West. Krishna Menon carried his political agenda to the job as well and polarized the army. He conveniently ignored inputs and advice that did not suit him. Pathetic conditions generally prevailing in India during Nehru’s tenure spilled over to strategic communication also. At the height of 1962 War, China unilaterally declared a ceasefire when their forces could easily have crossed over into Assam. Nehru was totally in the dark as the Indian embassy in Beijing failed to transmit the news of the ceasefire. It was the press which finally broke the news in New Delhi. At that precise moment, Nehru and his advisers were planning a program to blow up the various oil refineries in Assam to keep them from falling into Chinese hands!

 

The book then examines how the Chinese fiasco encouraged hawks in Pakistan to try their hand banking on India’s dismal performance in Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh. Most of Pakistan started believing that Hindu India did not stand a chance against a Pakistani onslaught. Moreover, Nehru’s foolish alliance with the Soviets had driven the US to invest heavily in Pakistan’s military infrastructure. As a part of the western alliance, Pakistan was bristling with US weapon systems that gave it an edge over India both on land and in the air. President Ayub Khan and his foreign minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto then cozied up to China also, after their fallout with Soviet Union in the 1960s. As part of a boundary agreement, Pakistan coyly handed over the Shaksgam Valley in Kashmir over which China had lodged its territorial claim. This 75,000 sq.km region was a critical link between the Chinese occupation zones of Tibet and Xinjiang. As the Pakistani preparations were going on, Nehru died and the little known Lal Bahadur Shastri became prime minister. The outwardly frail and small physical appearance of Shastri fed Pakistani machismo as its President Ayub Khan towered over the dhoti-clad minuscule Indian prime minister. But they forgot that looks could be deceiving, as this same Ayub Khan was suspended from the charge of Punjab regiment battalion in 1945 for cowardice.

 

Verma puts the blame on the failure to make much headway in the 1965 war on the army general J N Chaudhuri. He was seen by most people as being brilliant in the operations room but shaky on the battleground. Besides, he was lucky to go scot-free after his bungling during the China war. As a traditional army man, Chaudhuri discounted the use of air power. He considered himself to be the sole authority who would plan and guide operations. He was senior to air force chief Arjan Singh by ten years, which in the armed forces set them apart by a generation. The army failed to make an offensive plan to target Lahore and Sialkot which would have crippled Pakistan’s morale. This muddled thinking was the direct result of India’s defensive mindset in which an offensive stance was always relatively muted instead of planning and waging an all-out war. This timidity of brigade commanders and ranks above was visible in 1962 as well. Almost all officers at the higher echelons of command were guilty of passing the buck and sacking those under their command for lapses they were guilty of (p.468). The invading troops were not given air support. No aerial photographs or tactical reconnaissance of enemy territory was available.

 

This book also narrates some peculiarities of Pakistani military practice and propaganda. It was driven home in the minds of young cadets that Hindus are cowards and they would run for their lives when they confront an Islamic army. These people had a very nasty surprise when they actually encountered the determined and multi-religious Indian army. If the Indians did not break and run for cover at the sight of the advancing Pakistani formations, they did not seem to have an alternate plan. In effect, they fell victims to their own propaganda. Verma also states that Pakistani soldiers most often did not return the respect due to an enemy soldier who is also, after all, fighting for his own country. Whether they were irregulars or regular troops, the standard practice of the Pakistanis was to mutilate the dead bodies of enemy soldiers (p.121). The Pakistan army discriminated against their own citizens who belonged to religious minorities and heterodox Islamic sects other than Sunnis. Major General Akhtar Hussain Malik was the commanding officer of Operation Grand Slam which sought to wrest control of key areas in Kashmir. However, he was transferred in the middle of the operation, when troops were literally midstream on Manawar Tawi River. The reason for this sudden shift was that Malik was an Ahmadiyya and Ayub Khan did not want him to grow too big for his boots.

 

Even though Shastri as prime minister handled the war and ensuing crisis exceptionally well, the instinct to crush the enemy was sadly lacking in him. Instead of finishing the job, he believed in forgiving the enemy and giving him one more chance to mend his ways. Needless to say, this floundered against the Pakistani mindset which originated in religious intolerance and was shaped by the inferno of partition-related violence. Shastri’s objectives to the army were modest in the extreme. It asked them to occupy only minimum Pakistani territory to achieve India’s purposes which would be vacated after the satisfactory conclusion of the war. India directed its air force not to attack PAF airfields unless they attacked IAF bases first. Compare this strategy to Israel’s blindingly devastating strikes at enemy airfields in the Six-Days War of 1967! This outlook percolated down to military officers too. Verma describes an anecdote here. An air force officer requested his superior that a military man needed to get on a civilian flight to Dhaka and come back with information pertaining to deployment of Pakistani fighter aircrafts there. His superior rejected it outright saying what he was suggesting was most ‘ungentlemanly’ and would amount to spying (p.254)! We also read about the air chiefs of both countries talking to each other over phone and promising not to engage each other in battle with their aircrafts. However, this promise was very short-lived.

 

Much of this huge book is devoted to describe the minutiae of war and its tactics. Readers who don’t know the differences between a company, platoon, brigade or battalion – people such as myself – would find it extremely difficult to appreciate what was happening and would find it very hard to proceed. Perhaps this book is better suited to military personnel. The author exhibits a thorough knowledge of Pakistani capabilities, tactics and battle formations in 1965 and provides a respectful assessment of their potential. He unhesitatingly admits their superiority in equipment but stresses that Indian army more than made up for the difference with sheer determination and courage. The book includes many photographs and illustrations of the various battle engagements. It also includes some pictures of Pakistani service personnel who performed outstanding feats of bravery. At the same time, he comes down with sharp criticism of those Indian army officers who wilted in the face of crisis and showed indecisiveness. He remarks that if those commanders had fought in the time of Stalin or Hitler, most of these gentlemen would have been shot for incompetence (p.287).

 

The book is recommended only for serious readers of military history.

 

Rating: 3 Star