Daily Times

Farooq Bajwa begins his retelling of the 1965 war by detailing five political compulsions in the country that made war inevitable. He then follows this up with a narration of the war’s military operations, and concludes with psychoanalysis of the major actors in Pakistan, who believed that victory was guaranteed. According to Bajwa, the story behind the 1965 war began in 1962 when India and China fought a border war in which India fared badly. The military hawks in Pakistan took that to be a sign of Indian weakness. The second factor that led to the war was the decision by the US to arm India to forestall a future Chinese invasion. Following this move by the US, the then Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, convinced President Ayub Khan that Indian defences would soon become impregnable. The third factor was Indian Prime Minister Nehru’s death in 1964 and his replacement by the diminutive Shastri, who Pakistanis mistook to be a weakling. The fourth factor was Ayub’s fear of losing the general elections of January 1965 to Fatima Jinnah, the founder’s confidante and sister. Ayub decided to exploit the Kashmir issue to redeem his sinking popularity. The fifth factor was the limited Indo-Pakistan conflict over the salty marshes in the Rann of Kutch in April 1965. India performed poorly and that was taken to be the much needed confirmation that Pakistan would prevail over Indian militarily.

One factor was Ayub’s fear of losing the general elections of January 1965 to Fatima Jinnah, the founder’s confidante and sister. Ayub decided to exploit the Kashmir issue to redeem his sinking popularity

Once Ayub had won the general elections, a plan to take Kashmir was presented to him in February. In May of that year, Ayub decided it was time to reinvigorate the Kashmir conflict. He did this at the urging of Bhutto, and over the objections of the army chief, General M. Musa. The army and naval chiefs were not consulted, nor was the cabinet. In July Ayub issued a memorandum laying out the mission and the die was cast. In August, about 5,000 poorly trained “freedom fighters” were sent into Kashmir. They were divided into detachments named after Muslim heroes such as Ziad, Khalid, Ghaznavi and Qasim. ‘Operation Gibraltar’ failed to mount a revolt and ‘Operation Grand Slam’ supported by tanks and aircraft was launched. But just when victory was in hand, divisional commanders were switched, from Malik to Yayha, who had begun “hitting the bottle” as he felt left out. It’s not clear why the switch was made. It could have occurred because Yahya was Ayub’s favorite general, or because Ayub feared that the operation would fail just like Gibraltar, or because Ayub feared that capturing Akhnur would cause India to retaliate in Punjab. Bajwa says that the original divisional commander, Malik, had expected India would retaliate. No one listened to him and he was moved to a non-command position in the army academy. Thus, the army was caught with its pants down when Indian executed a three-pronged attack on Lahore on the 6th. The army was not even close to a war footing and a quarter of the troops were on leave. Senior generals did not even know war had broken out, nor did the naval or air chiefs. It’s a tribute to the courage and bravery of the soldiers that Lahore was saved. The British high Commissioner noted that a “jingoistic euphoria” swept Pakistan as triumph seemed to be around the corner. He also informed Her Majesty’s Government that the war was led by a band of adventurists, Bhutto, Aziz Ahmed and Altaf Gauher, who seemed totally oblivious to the risks of the operation. Bajwa provides an in-depth discussion of why Pakistan’s First Armored Division failed to cut the GT Road from Amritsar to Delhi. He says that India was unaware of the division’s deployment. But other sources suggest the division’s identify was discovered when it was hiding in the Changa Manga forest close to the border. An Indian Canberra bomberflew over that area on a reconnaissance mission and encountered aggressive anti-aircraft fire, revealing the deployment of a massed formation in the forest. Furthermore, when the division’s tanks lined up to cross a bridge, one of the tanks fell off the bridge, causing a massive pileup that exposed all the tanks to Indian aircraft fire. While the CIA was getting detailed intelligence about the discussions in Ayub’s cabinet and GHQ, in the field the army’s senior and junior commanders were having difficulty communicating with each other. The war concluded unceremoniously when Ayub was informed that supplies of artillery ammunition and starter cartridges for the fighters were approaching depletion in just two weeks of combat. He declined to take China’s advice about fighting a long guerilla war with India. Unsurprisingly, there was much political turbulence on the streets when the cease-fire was announced with no tangible gains in Kashmir. Neither the US nor Britain wanted the war to continue and they were more than happy to let the Soviets mediate peace.

The army was not even close to a war footing and a quarter of the troops were on leave. Senior generals did not even know war had broken out, nor did the naval or air chiefs

US President Johnson told his cabinet that he would just “hide behind the Russian log.”Johnson’s positive relationship with Ayub, created when he had visited Pakistan as vice president, had disappeared. He told his advisors that Pakistanis were much more likable than Indians but relations between countries could not be based on personal likes or dislikes. The agreement in Tashkent only mentioned Kashmir in the briefest manner possible, and greatly displeased the Pakistanis, most notably Bhutto who would make that a rallying cry for launching his own political career. Bhutto talked repeatedly of revealing the secret clause in the treaty but once he had secured his political position, he never brought it up again. When Ayub was asked about the secret clause, he said the only secret was the churlish behavior of Bhutto at Tashkent. Ayub accepted the treaty to avoid alienating the Soviets and the Americans. But he was unable to save face at home. He attempted to divert people’s memory of a failed war by celebrating a decade of development. But it came to naught. His army chief seized power. Years later, a former cabinet minister asked Ayub about the 1965 war but declined to discuss it, saying that it was the weakest moment in his career. He knew that he had miscalculated India’s reaction to the invasion of Kashmir, the world’s reaction, and most importantly the American reaction. What had begun as a glorious war of conquest by a Muslim army against a Hindu army had ended in ignominy. In 1971, Bhutto would incite the army to act against the population of East Pakistan, leading to war with India. After the army’s abject surrender, he would become the president and later the prime minister.

Published in Daily Times, September 17^th 2018.