Comments on: 1965 War: A Different Kind of Legacy?

By: sharjeel khan

sharjeel khan — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 14:05:50 +0000

1965 war has significance but more significance i give to tashkent declaration which,due to ayub khan, gave away all the land that we gained in the war back to india. it doesnot matter if it was a barren dessert in sindh rajhastan border because recently huge coal reserves are found in sindh desert. It would be a pain which indian leaders would rather forget,especially indira gandhi, who might have died when she heard it.

By: Anwar

Anwar — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 17:26:31 +0000

1965 war was a foolish war from the very start. In UK, experts had predicted that both countries could not continue with the war for more than 18 days (economic/capital reserves) if fought at that level. And that turned out to be fairly accurate.
Propaganda of victories only strengthened the “Jehadi” resolve and false pride of martial race that was shattered in 1971.
Kargil was another one dimensional thought process.
Pakistan has spent too much on keeping the Kashmir issue alive and also lost a lot. It is about time a political settlement is reached with India and mark permanent boundaries to finally work for the prosperity and education of the masses.
Regarding ZAB - he was Machiavellian character not rooted in the soil and no different from his father who loaded trains with his wealth and migrated from Junagarh to settle in the new country.

By: Rehmat Yazdani

Rehmat Yazdani — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 15:01:59 +0000

I think ‘murder of history’ is very normal in an un-democratic state like Pakistan. I still can recall all that rubbish which I was forced to read at school about Pakistan. I at times wonder, If a mediocre Pakistani after reading all that distorted version of history at school would be able to listen to anything that differs from what he/she has read / is asked to believe. There are people in Pakistan who consider Ayub Khan [ for 1965 war, we celebrate 6th September every year because of the created general impression that Pakistan had won the war ] and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto [ because he ran his political campaign on socialist principles of Roti, Kapra aur Makaan although he forgot about his slogans and accommodated feudals after winning election ] as national heroes because they are not fully aware of Pakistan’s political history. I agree with Athar that Z A Bhutto was a close adviser to / real influence on Ayub Khan during 1965 war and that Indian attack on Pakistan was an aftermath of covert operation Gibraltar initiated by Pakistan. I here would like to add Rann of Kutch [April 7, 1965] attack. At that time Ayub Khan was in Moscow and was notified by a telegram which simply explains how much aware was Ayub Khan of that attack. As far as covert operation Gibraltar is concerned, Ayub Khan was not in favor of that and he had rejected it initially. But as has been discussed by Athar, the ‘hawkish’ foreign minister Z. A. Bhutto convinced Ayub Khan to infiltrate in Kashmir and thus we had the 1965 war.

Schofield, J. (2000). Militarized Decision-Making for War in Pakistan: 1947-1971. Armed Forces & Society, Vol. 27, No. 1, pp. 131-148.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/indo-pak_1965.htm

By: Jehanzeb

Jehanzeb — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 03:56:03 +0000

Salam Athar
If you are implying BRB was the major factor in helping Pakistan Army defend Lahore, perhaps no army in the world should have conquered any major city throughout the world ever. (The point being almost every major city is situated alongside a river, and in the bygone days cities, forts etc were built with rivers constituting an essential part of defensive strategy)

Regards
Jehanzeb

By: Sohaib Athar

Sohaib Athar — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 07:00:05 +0000

@Bahadur
Good point. I’m sure they have a lot of other belongings at stake besides their skins.

I wish I still had the books from my 8th class for reference. I had to switch from a Cambridge system to the local Matriculation system in 8th class, and the switch from the relatively unbiased Oxford Univ. Press history books in English to the Punjab Text Book Board Muasharati Aloom books was shocking to say the least. Until then, I was completely unaware of the level of enmity India and Indians held against us.
Does anyone remember the Nishan-e-Haider series of stories in our Urdu text books? I happened to talk to a few of the army guys who actually knew a couple of the recipients, and the version they told had more to do with happenstance and getting killed rather than selfless bravery. Abraham Lincoln is Lincoln to the Americans, yet Jinnah will always be Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah Rehmat-ullah-Alaihe to us. Any Pakistani soldier killed is a shaheed, all our national heroes are demigods, and God is always on our side. Come to think of it, there’s not much difference there with the average American mind.
Thankfully, I managed to grow up with a mostly neutral (rather than jingoistic) mindset, but there are millions of gullible kids who grew up and were brainwashed that Zia era with such propaganda, and are now adults. With the dish culture, the intensity of the hatred and hero-worship seems to have eased, and Hopefully, thanks to the internet and efforts like this project, the coming generations will have access to all versions of information to counter the propaganda.

By: Waheed

Waheed — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 14:30:54 +0000

Some more references on 65 war:

New Book Exposes the Failure of Operation Gibraltar
http://www.satribune.com/archives/sept04/P1_habook 1.htm

Read the para on 1965 war
http://www.muslimedia.com/archives/special01/pak-a rchiv.htm

baithak
http://baithak.blogspot.com/2005/11/general-akhtar -malik-sat.html

Relevant para
http://pakistandrift.blogspot.com/2005/03/book-rev iew-news.html

SURPRISE, SURPRISE
http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/LAND-FORCES/Army/His tory/1965War/Surprise.html

By: Adnan Gill

Adnan Gill — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 05:31:59 +0000

Dear Osama Sahib,

Very informative and well written article. Thanks for sharing.

I agree with almost all of your article with couple of exceptions.

1. I disagree with your following statement, “Unless you define victory as being able to defend oneself during an offensive operation — hardly a definition indeed.” And here is why:

During the Vietnam war, by any account, the US caused more damage and casualties, and ran over the North Vietnamese time and again, but at the end they had to leave in a disgraced manner without achieving their objectives. Once again, even today the US is causing unimaginable losses and casualties upon the Iraqi resistance, but strategically they are losing. People are already calling the Iraqi war as a loss for. Why? Because, the US has failed to achieve its objectives.

Last summer, Israel reduced the southern Lebanon into rubble along with killing at least 1000 Lebanese at the cost of losing couple of hundred Israelis, but whole world, including Israelis, credit Hezbollah with the victory. Why? Because Israel miserably failed in achieving its stated goals.

Therefore, I would dare to say, sometimes merely coming out of a conflict or war alive is considered a victory. In other words, when a superior aggressor/offender fails to achieve its stated goals, they fail.

It can be argued, that since Kashmir was and to this day is a disputed territory, technically, Pakistan did not commit any aggression by entering into a territory that it claims to be its own. Therefore, Pakistan did not start the war.

On the other hand, India first crossed the international borders into the internationally recognized Pakistani territory, therefore, they invaded Pakistan and not the other way around. However, there is not much of a dispute on who or what forced India to cross the international borders.

Since Indians failed to capture Lahore (or drink tea in Gymkhana), a stated Indian objective/goal, India lost.

In technical terms, to me, it wasn’t even a war, because if I’m not mistaken, neither countries’ parliaments officially declared a war, nor (I believe) they signed a mutual treaty declaring end of the war.

2. I think Kargil was a very timely and appropriate tactical oppression had it succeeded. If it was not of Nawaz Sharif’s cold feet there was a very good chance that Pakistanis would have won despite their lack of vision to prepare on diplomatic and propaganda/information fronts too.

Had Nawaz Sharif stalled for another month or two Kargil was a done deal with the exceptions of handful peaks. This would have brought India to negotiating table and Siachin issue would have been settled by now. It was an excellent message that India made a blunder by showing its nuclear cards. It would have also reinforced our nuclear doctrine by proving that India indeed respects the power of nuclear weapons, and in the foreseeable future will think thrice before interfering into Pakistani interests.

In addition, it would have automatically placed us in a better bargaining position with the US after they told us, either ‘you are with us, or against us.’

Sincerely,

Adnan Gill

By: Bahadur Ali

Bahadur Ali — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 05:31:54 +0000

Actually, I think celebration of the 6 and 7th September comes with the rise and fall of military’s fortunes in Pakistan. I come from an Army family so I remember during Zia’s days how this used to be a major event in our home. I went to the airforce academy so I also know how 7th September is a major celebration in PAF circles and, for that matter, those in and around the bases.

These days, thanks to Mr. Musharraf’s ill-deeds, it is not really a good time for our defense forces who are trying more to save their skins than to display their uniforms. I too, noticed how even newspapers haven’t carried much coverage of the day.

Lets hope that some day respectability and honor will once again return to the men and women in uniform and that they’ll learn to use it wisely. .

By: Sohaib Athar

Sohaib Athar — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 01:21:17 +0000

I didn’t ‘celebrate’ the day - did you?