| I was invited to attend a Symposium on Indo-Pak War 1965 (IPW 1965 hereafter) organized by VIF and presided over by Gen. NC Vij, ex-COAS. It was attended by a battery of retired Lt. Generals, Air Vice Marshals and Vice Admirals etc. They were the officers who had fought the war in their younger days as Captain / Major / Lt. Col. / Comm. etc. It was also attended by a few retired diplomats and Foreign Secretaries who chipped in often with their own experiences. For the knowledge of all, I am sharing some of the conclusions drawn / facts revealed by them unknown hitherto while leaving aside operational details.
IPW 1965 was entirely brain-child of their Foreign Minister ZA Bhutto. While Pak. Dictator Field Martial Ayub Khan was ambivalent, their Army Chief Gen. Musa was entirely averse to the war, Operation Gibralter as they called that.
Bhutto was acting on the assumptions that Nehru was dead, PM Shastri was spineless, Dhotiwala dwarf (as he used to call him) would not be able to stand up, Indian Army was out of shape after China debacle and lastly, India did not have guts to open other fronts apart from Kashmir. Pak economy was booming with US assistance, China was drifting closer to Pak and Bhutto was burning with the ambition to annex Kashmir and become immortal in Pak history books.
Every assumption of Bhutto was terribly wrong. After 1962 setback, modernization of Army had started on a war footing which Pak did not know or did not pay attention to that. Defence Minister YB Chavan was hyperactive during those days and he had been addressing every requirement of Armed Forces seriously.
Pak did not know, PM LB Shastri was a man of steel nerves. Few days before they launched the war, LBS had declared in Ramlila Maidan, Delhi that arms would be met with arms. Even that Pakistan did not take seriously. Every speaker in the symposium declared PM Shastri as the real hero of that war.
When Pak invaded Akhnoor and made inroads, LBS immediately ordered to open other fronts too. That order shocked Pakis to no limits and fled Lahore !! When Indian Army entered Bata factory of Lahore, they did not find even a single worker / supervisor / manager !!
Bhutto heavily banked upon the assumption that Kashmiris would rise in revolt, so convinced Ayub Khan. Almost the opposite happened. Pakistan was badly defeated and suffered heavy losses on men and machine. Ayub Khan demanded to know from Gen. Musa Khan as to how Pak lost when they have been claiming one Pak soldier is equal to 10 Indian soldiers. He replied, “We lost because 11th Indian soldier entered suddenly.” !!! Owing to this treachery, Bhutto has later hanged by Zia-ul-Haq.
India had no friends abroad even after so much of foreign policy exercises by Nehru !! USSR was neutral while British PM Harold Wilson was looking for a opportunity to stab in the back of India. Then Indonesian President Sukarno was talking about grabbing Car Nicobar islands as he thought, India was weak after 1962 and that was the golden moment to reckon. There was an intelligence input that Pak planned to bombard Bombay. Defence Minister YB Chavan ordered second best warship INS Mysore to guard Car Nicobar islands as INS Vikrant was under repairs and almost six warships surrounded Bombay to ward off any Pak attack. The attack did materialize but not on Bombay but Okha in Gujarat. Casualties announced were just one cow, a few goats and an old, discarded railway line was mangled !!
AVM Arjun Subramanium said, IAF did a marvelous job and deserved more credit though PAF was superior to IAF. Indian Hunters and Gnats outperformed their sophisticated Canberras owing to excellent leadership and very high morale in IAF.
LB Shastri was killed in Tashkent. He is a martyr. When a Pakistani broke the news to Bhutto, “The bastard is dead”, Bhutto exclaimed, “Which bastard ? Ayub or Shastri ??” !!!
All Generals accepted that IPW 1965 was a great learning experience and in absence of that, 1971 war would not have been won so gloriously. The dare-devilry shown by many of them, particularly Maj. RS Dayal (who was Maj.Gen. during Operation Bluestar) in Pir Panjal was hair raising.
PM Modi decided to celebrate IPW 1965 in a big way because Pakistan had been telling around the world for so long, they thrashed Indians in 1965 !! And previous Congress Govts. were not bothered to counter that.
Finally, one of the Commanders recalled, WW II hero General Montgomery had once commented, “Indians know how to die for their country but do not know how to win for their country.” and hoped, he must have changed his views about Indians after 1965, 1971 and Kargil wherever his Soul may be.
Entire symposium was an absorbing experience. |
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