Back at the front

 

 

Ever since its creation, Pakistan has been obsessed with the capture of Jammu and Kashmir by any means whatsoever. They attempted it in 1947 by deploying the Pathans of northwest Pakistan and they failed. The then Prime Minister Pandit Nehru declared a unilateral cease fire with the result that whatever Pakistan had captured at that point of time remains with them even today. It is sad that decisions like this are taken unilaterally without consultation of the cabinet and the armed forces.

In 1965, Pakistan received approximately two billion dollars of aid from America in the form of tanks, ammunition and aircraft. At our end, Lal Bahadur Shastri was at the helm of affairs and in Pakistan, President Ayub Khan had come to power wishing to consolidate his position. Those people thought they could take Jammu and Kashmir by force, not before planning a trial run with the equipment by launching an operation in Kutch to test their weapons, test the Indian resolve to fight them. They also hoped that some forces from J&K side and Punjab would be shifted to the Rajasthan front, thus creating gaps in our side of the border around J&K, making it easier to attack. When they did, we were not prepared. We only had the police forces. However, we sent the reinforcement and managed to stop them.

At that time, the Commonwealth Conference was due in London and British Prime Minister Harold Wilson brokered the peace agreement between Pakistan and India. The trusting persons in India were foolish perhaps; they did not suspect it had only been a trial run and that the basic aim was to take J&K by force. So a couple of months later, Pakistan re-launched the offensive – this time they used people trained in Pakistan, led by NCOs and JCOs and other officers from the Pakistan army. And I say this with absolute confidence because when we captured them, they were officers from their army. They of course deny that they had any armed forces taking part in this war. Fortunately for us, Lal Bahadur Shastri declared that any attack on J&K would mean an attack on us and we would feel free to take any action wherever we want. This is exactly what we did; they lost the second front in Lahore. A war was then fought in Lahore and the forces which had planned to cut J&K and Pathankot from the hills had to be diverted to meet the threat in Lahore that we had created. The battle of Dograi was a fantastic one where a battalion reached the outskirts of Lahore and Pakistan didn’t know what to do.

Pakistan even disobeyed the UN convention by using NAPALM bombs which are not supposed to be used in war, and in the process, my second in command was burnt alive. At Poonch, we managed to destroy many infiltrating groups and capture JCOs and NCOs who had served the Indian army when it was undivided. In the process, we suffered a large number of casualties. Zoru Bakshi captured Haji Pir and that shook Pakistan completely. Unfortunately, we lost some territories in the area of Chhamb and so, this Haji Pir area had to be returned to get back the areas we had lost, something nobody understands, including people higher up. Criticising the decision is easy, but we had no options but to exchange.

In war, there are no winners and there are no victories. We need to be strong, have proper weapons and we need good young officers to lead from the front. People of the right calibre for the security of the country are of utmost importance. My officers have always done a great job but my only regret is that my country does not recognise it. All the icons in this country are either people from Bollywood or cricketers…and the media should take this up.