Under Ayub as Commander in Chief, the Pakistan Army might well have been a page taken from the pre-independence, colonial army — the same uniform, same mess culture and same language (English for officers and a sort of Roman Urdu for others). An officer’s personal deportment was judged nearly as much by his social standing and mess culture as by his professional calibre and proficiency. The study of military history served as a plus point in his annual confidential reports (ACRs).
Ayub’s first five years in command might have been the halcyon days of professionalism and force modernisation. Kashmir had nevertheless cast a shadow, long and dark, on the psyche of the rank and file. For the high command an uneasy ceasefire line (CFL) and unnecessary political/diplomatic exploitation of the Kashmir issue by the civilian leadership, underlined the role of the army as the principal guarantor of national security.
Internationally, the army chief, General Ayub, emerged as Pakistan’s man of the moment — of ‘destiny’ — as he had envisioned himself to be. The US state department and the Pentagon looked up to him as the architect of the US-Pak relationship supported by SEATO, the Baghdad Pact (later CENTO) and mutual security agreements.
The military image under Ayub, essentially secular, stayed much the same as the pre-independence colonial army’s. Mess and club bars were open and the ‘koi hai?’ (is anybody there?) generation, though diminishing, still dominated the middle and senior cadres of the officer corps.
Officers (majors and above) and JCOs still wore the British crown on their badges of rank. The word ‘royal’, where authorised, was prefixed to various regiments and services (e.g. Royal Pakistan Service Corps, Royal Pakistan Medical Corps, etc) and the navy and air force respectively were known as the Royal Pakistan Navy (RPN) and Royal Pakistan Air Force (RPAF).
In 1956, Pakistan shed its dominion status and became an Islamic republic to drop the symbols and insignias of British royalty. The British crown was replaced by the Islamic crescent and star. Uniforms, by and large, remained much the same, from the workday khaki to the blue patrols and monkey jackets, etc.
On October 7, 1958, President Iskander Mirza put the country under martial law with Ayub as the CMLA. Ayub embarked on the secular path, dropping even the prefix Islamic from the Republic of Pakistan. Between 1958-1964, the jihadi theme played out in a low-key manner in the army without exactly deviating from it as the dominant note on Pakistan’s jihadi scale.
In October/November 1964, a popular uprising took place in Kashmir, with its centre of gravity in Srinagar and vibrations across the state, in the aftermath of the theft of the sacred hair of the Prophet (PBUH). The uprising took an aggressively violent turn when the Indian government called paramilitary militias and elements of the Indian army to aid civil power.
Waiting for just such an opportunity, the Pakistan Army sprang into action in the Neelum Valley at the brigade level under Brigadier Khilji. The operation was little more than a flash in the pan. After a week or so of some hectic engagements, it came to a close as abruptly as it had begun. In psy-war terms, however, it revived with a vengeance the muted jihadi mantra and the resolve to have it out with India once and for all.
The year 1965 opened with Ayub’s pyrrhic victory in the presidential elections. His rival happened to be Quaid-e-Azam’s sister and lifelong companion, Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah. This electoral exercise was the shame of a severely limited electoral process with just 80,000 voters — 40,000 from each wing. Massive rigging of the ballot reduced it to a complete farce.
Ayub needed nothing less than a military victory to live down the electoral blemish and shame. He initiated a divisional size operation in the howling, swampy desert of the Rann of Kutch. The Pakistan Army gained some tactical advantage in the operation to bring the national propaganda machine feverishly into action. Besides, it served to glorify the young officers and their men as mujahids after Mohammad bin Qasim, the first soldier of Islam to have invaded Sindh and defeated the ruler Raja Dahir (712 AD). Sindh was promptly named Babul Islam (gateway to Islam) as a prelude to the re-conquest of Hindu India by the Muslims.
From Kutch onwards, Islamic jihad became the marching tune of the Pakistan Army — a wakeup call for the muhajid (Pakistani solider): “Ai Mard-i-Mujahid jaag zara abb waqt-e-shahadat aa pohancha” (O soldier, it is time to wake up because the time for martyrdom has come upon us). There was no stopping the Pakistan Army after the Rann of Kutch. Its strategic goal was to impose a humiliating defeat on India. “Allah ke waade ka Mujahid ko yaqeen hai. Woh Fathe-musin, Fathe mobin hai. (The mujahid is assured of Allah’s promise to grant him final victory).
Between May and August 1965, India-Pakistan relations went through a dizzying rollercoaster ride and mind-boggling highs and lows — from a deceptive truce in Kutch to a sudden general flare-up in September. In the first week of August, Operation Gibraltar, a guerrilla type effort, was launched by army regulars masquerading as guerrilla mujahideen fighters. The operation collapsed even on the launching pad.
It was followed impulsively by a divisional size (12 Infantry Division) operation Grand Slam supported by couple of tank regiments (mainly the French AMX’s) and 4 Corps artillery.
What with overoptimistic planning and a mystifying change of command (Major-General Agha Yhaya Khan vice Major-General Akhtar Malik), the grand slam failed to mobilise the enormous firepower (four corps artillery) and mobility (two tank regiments) that the two commanders — Akhter Malik/Yahya Khan — had at their disposal. It had been tardily heading on towards the Indian garrison town, Akhnoor, when India struck all along the international line (West Pakistan) to initiate the first undeclared ‘treacherous and cowardly’ general war on September 6, 1965 against Pakistan.
(To be continued)
The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army