A quick historical recap of the '65 war
Ahmad Faruqui
Pakistani soldiers fought with gallantry and distinction in 1965, even though they deserved better generals. The Pakistan Navy kept the sea-lanes open against a much bigger enemy. But it was the PAF that excelled in all respects
In December 1964, New Delhi absorbed Kashmir into the Indian Union. Sensing that the Indian military had begun a massive programme of rearmament after its humiliation at the hands of the People’s Liberation Army in 1962, Pakistan’s then-foreign minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, convinced President Ayub Khan that a ‘now or never’ window of opportunity had opened up to reactivate the liberation struggle in Kashmir.
Ayub initially rejected Bhutto’s plan to infiltrate irregular fighters into Kashmir, fearing that it would place Pakistan’s survival at stake. But after witnessing the Pakistan army’s successful performance in the Rann of Kutch in April, he changed his mind. While in New York for medical treatment toward the end of his life, he would confide to G W Choudhury that this was his worst presidential decision. However, in the summer of 1965, he talked about how ‘Hindu morale would not stand a couple of hard blows at the right time and place.’
Operation Gibraltar, named after Tariq bin Ziad who conquered Spain in the year 711 with 10,000 Moroccans, was launched on August 5/6. Seven thousand fighters crossed the ceasefire line (as the Line of Control was then known) in Kashmir with a simple mission: spark a wild fire in the Vale of Kashmir and bring to a satisfactory conclusion the unfinished business of partition. But it was soon evident that the fighters were insufficiently trained in guerrilla warfare and were in no condition to lead a revolt against Indian rule.
On August 7 the irregulars attacked Kargil, which would gain notoriety 34 years later. By mid-August, they had roused the ire of the Indian army and Pakistan was forced to commit regular troops to keep the fight from dying out. By August 21, the Indian forces had routed the irregulars and by the end of the month, most of them had been killed or captured. The situation was eerily similar to President Kennedy’s fiasco in the Bay of Pigs in 1961, when the US landed 1,400 Cuban exiles on Cuba’s south coast, hoping to trigger a revolt against Fidel Castro. In two days of fierce fighting, 114 were dead and 1,200 captured. A chastened Kennedy called off the attack.
At this point in history, Ayub too had the opportunity to call off the dogs of war. Instead, he chose to up the ante. Switching metaphors from Islamic history to the card game of bridge, the Pakistan army launched Operation Grand Slam on September 1. The objective was to capture Akhnur within 72 hours, cutting off India’s line of communication with Srinagar and forcing it to the negotiating table. The first stop along the way, Chamb, was taken in a day, as Indian forces withdrew under the weight of the Pakistani offensive. Four Indian Air Force (IAF) Vampires brought in to stop the onslaught were shot down by the PAF, leading to the withdrawal of 128 Vampires from the IAF line-up.
Then the attack stalled and Pakistan’s General Headquarters changed commanders in the heat of battle, allowing the Indian army to re-gird its defences of Akhnur. On September 5, General Musa, the Pakistani army chief, impatiently told his troops, ‘You have got your teeth into him. Bite deeper and deeper until he is destroyed.’ However, Akhnur was to remain a town too far for the Pakistan army.
On September 6, the Indian army launched a three-pronged attack on Lahore. This came as a shock to Ayub, since Bhutto had convinced him that India was not in a position to risk a war of unlimited duration against Pakistan. Bhutto had argued that Pakistan had relative military superiority against India, and while the latter might wage a general war of limited duration, it would not be along the Punjab frontier.
Pakistani army units successfully fought off the Indian attack by blowing up 70 bridges along the BRB canal. As the front stabilised, Pakistan launched a counter-offensive on September 10 in Khem Karan with its mailed fist, the 1st armoured division. Unfortunately, the sophisticated Patton tanks raced ahead of their supporting infantry units. Soon they found themselves bogged down in sugarcane fields near the village of Asal Uttar, where the Indians had breached a canal that did not exist on Pakistani maps. Indian hunter-killer teams armed with jeep-mounted recoilless rifles took out 40 Patton tanks in one day. On September 11, Pakistan’s vaunted 4 Cavalry ceased to exist, effectively dashing Islamabad’s hopes of winning the war.
Next, India opened up another front around Sialkot. Pakistan’s 6th Armoured Division fought tenaciously and with tactical skill, blunting the Indian offensive. However, it was running out of fuel and its 155 mm howitzers were put on a daily ration of five rounds per gun. The soldier in Ayub knew the game was over and he began to seek a diplomatic solution to the conflict.
The people of Pakistan, who had been expecting an imminent victory over India, listened in disbelief as a ceasefire was announced over Radio Pakistan on September 23. Ayub visited the US in December and was told by President Johnson that the special relationship between the two countries was over. In January Ayub signed the Tashkent Agreement, which restored the pre-war boundaries and provided no new mechanism for resolving the Kashmir dispute.
Pakistani soldiers fought with gallantry and distinction in 1965, even though they deserved better generals. The Pakistan Navy kept the sea-lanes open against a much bigger enemy. But it was the PAF that excelled in all respects. On one day it shot down 11 IAF fighters. In a single encounter, Squadron Leader M M Alam shot down five IAF Hunters in less than two minutes over Sargodha. It is no wonder that John Fricker chose to entitle his history of the air war the “Battle for Pakistan,” no doubt inspired by the Battle for Britain waged by the Royal Air Force during the Second World War and designed to evoke Winston Churchill’s effusive comment, ‘Never have so many owed so much to so few.’
For Pakistan, the war produced a bitter harvest. Ayub and Bhutto presumed that Kashmir was ripe for an uprising, and that Indian forces in the state — which numbered five infantry divisions — would be unable to hold out against a single Pakistani division. Worse, they presumed that India would not launch a counter attack along the international border. Their erroneous presumptions resulted in some 25,000 men being killed or wounded on both sides. Ayub lost his job because of this war. Worse, the war triggered insecurities in East Pakistan that ultimately led to its secession in 1971.
Dr Ahmad Faruqui is an economist and author of “Rethinking the National Security of Pakistan”. He can be reached at [email protected]