Monday, 3 September 2012

Defence NOT Victory


Defence NOT Victory


6 September, 1965 ki ALAS-SUBAH, Hindustan nay baghair ailan-e-jang, Pakistan per, Lahore ki janib se hamla kar diya
[Translation – In the wee hours of 6 September, 1965 Hindustan launched an attack on Pakistan from Lahore without a prior declaration of war]
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Or so read the text-books of the consolidated subject of Pakistan Studies, that I read, and coming generations would be forced to read too. Please note the deliberate use of “Hindustan” instead of the 23 constitutionally recognized official names of India, a term charlatan historians and lackeys of the old apparatus use to distinguish the Hindu-Muslim existence of the two nations. (Urdu newspapers in India also use Hindustan instead of the official Jamhuriya-e-Bharat, it’s a cultural adaptation immersed in the language).

This single sentence in our text books covers more than just the launch of a war. It is emblematic of the perpetual lies that have been spread in our history books, symbolic of how adventurism, mostly failed, has been covered up so that the adventurers could continue to claim moral and intellectual superiority and is representative of a major flaw that ails our society. A common anecdote, often written down too, is that Brigadiers from the Indian Army had planned to have breakfast at Barki. The history books, the accounts on television, the anecdotes, the verbal recitals from right wing “intellectuals” goes that the war was ostensibly thrust upon Pakistan by cunning, nefarious, hungry India. When it was not!
Unfortunately, we are the nation who is constantly playing with our history. Even what they are teaching to our new generation is extremely wrong and one sided. History from making of Pakistan to current era, everything is now biased and one sided. In grade 5, we read that when Mohammad bin Qasim attacks debal, this act was first brick in the making of Pakistan. With respect, I didn’t agree with this statement. Attack of Mohammad bin Qasim on Sindh was against Raja Dahir. Not for forming Islamic state.
Same happened with 1965 war. Pakistanis celebrate it like as they won the battle. Although officially, 6th September is declared as DEFENCE DAY. But we celebrated it like we won that battle. Even in our history and course books, it’s written that Pakistani armed forces defence very well etc etc. But it’s not mentioned that what was the conclusion of WAR? Who won it or loss it? Even it’s not mentioned that UN intervened in it. This is extremely wrong. Same is with 1971 WAR & Fall of Dhaka. Even discussing Fall of Dhaka is like sin. I personally think that we should let our generations know that what we have done with East Pakistan (Bangladesh). No one remember Operation Gibraltar. That was Disaster, (something our books fail to remember of course).
General Ayub khan prepared to send in the “Gibraltar Force” to wage a guerrilla war in Kashmir. Colonel S G Mehdi, the commander of the SSG just before the start of the war said about Gibraltar, “the plan was so CHILDISH, so bizarre as to be unacceptable to logical, competent, professionally sound military persons anywhere in the world” and Mehdi’s reward was being posted out of the SSG for disagreeing with the “competent” assessment of his seniors (he said the plan would have been “a fiasco greater than the ‘Bay of Pigs’ operation”).
The Army’s closest version of an official historian, Maj Gen Shaukat Raza, has amongst others tried to put all the blame of the 1965 war on Foreign Minister Bhutto and Foreign Secretary Aziz Ahmed. Bhutto’s warring habits – again in contrast to being socially liberal – do not even require debate, but to imagine that a Minister and a bureaucrat could push an entire military apparatus, a Field Marshal/President, a General and the entire GHQ, to war is unimaginable and laughable. After all, it was the GHQ’s job to make realistic predictions about the success of an armed invasion and to prepare for a response from the enemy. If they could not do their own job, and were relying on a civilian and a bureaucrat to do that, one wonders what it says about their own capabilities. A funny fiction created remains that Bhutto assured the generals that India would never attack from the Lahore sector either. One wonders what the creators of these fictional stories think about us, the people, that we are willing to blame Bhutto for the war hearing these stories, and not wonder what it says about the ability and command performance of our “only institution”. The reality is that the war was as much a product of DGMO Gul Hasan and Akhtar Husain Malik’s, as it was Bhutto’s and Ahmed’s.
Pakistan’s intelligence failures, having come to spotlight recently in Kakul, PAF airbase, Kamra etc and have a long history to them too. In 1965, it was the DG IB, the legendary Aijaz Baksh Awan, who was relied upon to deliver a message about the invasion and start of guerrilla war to Sheikh Abdullah and garner his support (which Ayub decided against later). Pakistan’s intelligence apparatus, the ISI and the MI, completely failed to give accurate analyses of the level of support armed intruders would enjoy. When the planned guerrilla war failed, and All India Radio played the interviews of some of the raiders, DG MI Brig Irshad is reported to have said, “The bastards have spilt the beans”. It was a miracle that Pakistan survived 1965, much credit to the PAF’s legendary operations, after we were caught unaware and off guard in the Lahore sector. Brig Irshad even dismissed a crucial piece of evidence that could have pointed towards India’s approaching tank divisions in Sialkot. A military dispatcher caught on the Jammu-Pathankot road was carrying information about the approaching attack. Summarily sent to MI HQ via a Cessna L19, it was dismissed as an Indian deception and plant and we continued to imagine the 1st Armoured Division to be at another location entirely. It was our luck that Indian commanders mistook a tank regiment for a tank division at Chawinda even after we were unable to locate a tank division where the convoy is reported to have been at least a hundred mile long, from head to tail. The news of the imminent attack at Lahore was caught from a Radio Jammu transmission (brilliant intelligence source, I must insist), and all forward formations having retreated to the cantonments, the Punjab Rangers were the only ones left to confront the Indians and DG Rangers went around alerting formations in his sleeping suit.
Ayub Khan had meanwhile manufactured a cult around him and his figure loomed large over the government. But the self-styled Field Marshal was an incompetent soldier to the core. Gohar Ayub has tried to fudge history by lying that Ayub was an active soldier during World War II with the Assam Regiment. In fact, Ayub never had any war experience in his entire career and a below par record. During WWII, he was with the Chamar Regiment that was disbanded soon after war. During the War of 1947-8, he was in East Pakistan, far away from the war. He was made the Commander in Chief (CnC) only after the man selected to succeed the British general was killed in an air-crash and he was selected above others like Maj Gen Nazir and Maj Gen Majid because of his closeness to Iskander Mirza, who was Defence Secretary. Ayub would later get Nazir involved in the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case on flimsy evidence and force him into retirement. With Mirza, he would later formulate our policies of the Cold War, twist and manipulate the politics of the land, and ultimately exile him and take over. He was, all historians conclude, not a proponent of war with India during his rule, but this was due to a host of reasons including the fact that he was a poor decision maker when it came to the subject of war. His own handpicked CnC, Gen Musa Khan’s terrible command performance during 1965 is available for all to read. Ayub was a man of such impeccable morals that besides rigging the election against Fatima Jinnah, in an already manufactured franchise, he called her an Indian agent. The moral superiority is for all to witness.

I know what I have written in this BLOG is extremely disappointing for many. But unfortunately it’s true, a Bitter Reality. What I tried to focus is on reality which is forcefully hided from us. OR we are forced not to discuss those facts. If we really want to make Pakistan, a prosper country; first we should maintain & remember our REAL HISTORY.

(Ref: Tariq Rahman)

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