Wednesday 7 October 2015

Look back on Indo-Pak War 1965 (2 of 2)

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Indo-Pakistani War of 1965

Indo-Pakistani War of 1965

Assessment of losses

India and Pakistan make widely divergent claims about the damage they inflicted on each other and the amount of damage suffered by them. The following summarizes each nation's claims.
Indian claims[17]Pakistani claims[85]Independent Sources[1][86]
Casualties – –3,000 Indian soldiers, 3,800 Pakistani soldiers
Combat flying effort4,073+ combat sorties2,279 combat sorties
Aircraft lost59 IAF(official), 43PAF.[10] In addition, Indian sources claim that there were 13 IAF aircraft lost in accidents, and 3 Indian civilian aircraft shot down.[11]19 PAF, 104 IAF20 PAF, 60-75 IAF; Pakistan claims India rejected neutral arbitration.[87][88]
Aerial victories17 + 3 (post war)30 –
Tanks destroyed128 Indian tanks, 152 Pakistani tanks captured, 150 Pakistani tanks destroyed. Officially 471 Pakistani tanks destroyed and 38 captured[89]165 Pakistan tanks[dubious ][citation needed]
Land area won1,500 sq mi (3,900 km2) of Pakistani territory250 sq mi (650 km2) of Indian territoryIndia held 1,840 km2(710 sq mi) of Pakistani territory and Pakistan held 210 sq mi (540 km2) of Indian territory

Neutral assessments

There have been several neutral assessments of the losses incurred by both India and Pakistan during the war. Most of these assessments agree that India had the upper hand over Pakistan when ceasefire was declared. Some of the neutral assessments are mentioned below —
The war was militarily inconclusive; each side held prisoners and some territory belonging to the other. Losses were relatively heavy—on the Pakistani side, twenty aircraft, 200 tanks, and 3,800 troops. Pakistan's army had been able to withstand Indian pressure, but a continuation of the fighting would only have led to further losses and ultimate defeat for Pakistan. Most Pakistanis, schooled in the belief of their own martial prowess, refused to accept the possibility of their country's military defeat by "Hindu India" and were, instead, quick to blame their failure to attain their military aims on what they considered to be the ineptitude of Ayub Khan and his government.
  • TIME magazine reported that India held 690 mi2 of Pakistan territory while Pakistan held 250 mi2 of Indian territory in Kashmir and Rajasthan. Additionally, Pakistan had lost almost half its armour temporarily.[90] The article further elaborates,
Severely mauled by the larger Indian armed forces, Pakistan could continue the fight only by teaming up with Red China and turning its back on the U.N.
  • Devin T. Hagerty wrote in his book "South Asia in world politics"[20] –
The invading Indian forces outfought their Pakistani counterparts and halted their attack on the outskirts of Lahore, Pakistan's second-largest city. By the time United Nations intervened on September 22, Pakistan had suffered a clear defeat.
  • In his book "National identity and geopolitical visions",[91] Gertjan Dijkink writes –
The superior Indian forces, however, won a decisive victory and the army could have even marched on into Pakistani territory had external pressure not forced both combatants to cease their war efforts.
In three weeks the second Indo-Pak War ended in what appeared to be a draw when the embargo placed by Washington on U.S. ammunition and replacements for both armies forced cessation of conflict before either side won a clear victory. India, however, was in a position to inflict grave damage to, if not capture, Pakistan's capital of the Punjab when the cease-fire was called, and controlled Kashmir's strategic Uri-Poonch bulge, much to Ayub's chagrin.
  • In his book titled The greater game: India's race with destiny and China, David Van Praagh wrote[7] –
India won the war. It gained 1,840 km2 (710 sq mi) of Pakistani territory: 640 km2(250 sq mi) in Azad Kashmir, Pakistan's portion of the state; 460 km2 (180 sq mi) of the Sailkot sector; 380 km2(150 sq mi) far to the south of Sindh; and most critical, 360 km2 (140 sq mi) on the Lahore front. Pakistan took 540 km2 (210 sq mi) of Indian territory: 490 km2 (190 sq mi) in the Chhamb sector and 50 km2 (19 sq mi) around Khem Karan.
  • Dennis Kux's "India and the United States estranged democracies" also provides a summary of the war,[93]
Although both sides lost heavily in men and material, and neither gained a decisive military advantage, India had the better of the war. New Delhi achieved its basic goal of thwarting Pakistan's attempt to seize Kashmir by force. Pakistan gained nothing from a conflict which it had instigated.
  • BBC reported that the war served game changer in Pakistani politics,[94]
The defeat in the 1965 war led to the army's invincibility being challenged by an increasingly vocal opposition. This became a surge after his protege, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, deserted him and established the Pakistan People's Party.
  • "A region in turmoil: South Asian conflicts since 1947" by Robert Johnson mentions[8] –
India's strategic aims were modest – it aimed to deny Pakistani Army victory, although it ended up in possession of 720 square miles (1,900 km2) of Pakistani territory for the loss of just 220 square miles (570 km2) of its own.
  • An excerpt from William M. Carpenter and David G. Wiencek's "Asian security handbook: terrorism and the new security environment"[95] –
A brief but furious 1965 war with India began with a covert Pakistani thrust across the Kashmiri cease-fire line and ended up with the city of Lahore threatened with encirclement by Indian Army. Another UN-sponsored cease-fire left borders unchanged, but Pakistan's vulnerability had again been exposed.
  • English historian John Keay's "India: A History" provides a summary of the 1965 war[96] –
The 1965 Indo-Pak war lasted barely a month. Pakistan made gains in the Rajasthan desert but its main push against India's Jammu-Srinagar road link was repulsed and Indian tanks advanced to within a sight of Lahore. Both sides claimed victory but India had most to celebrate.
  • Uk Heo and Shale Asher Horowitz write in their book "Conflict in Asia: Korea, China-Taiwan, and India-Pakistan"[97] –
Again India appeared, logistically at least, to be in a superior position but neither side was able to mobilize enough strength to gain a decisive victory.
  • Newsweek magazine, however, praised the Pakistani military's ability to hold off the much larger Indian Army.[98]
By just the end of the week, in fact, it was clear that the Pakistanis were more than holding their own.
Conflict resumed again in early 1965, when Pakistani and Indian forces clashed over disputed territory along the border between the two nations. Hostilities intensified that August when the Pakistani army attempted to take Kashmir by force. The attempt to seize the state was unsuccessful, and the second India-Pakistan War reached a stalemate.

Ceasefire

The United States and the Soviet Union used significant diplomatic tools to prevent any further escalation in the conflict between the two South Asian nations. The Soviet Union, led by Premier Alexei Kosygin, hosted ceasefire negotiations in Tashkent (now inUzbekistan), where Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and Pakistani President Ayub Khan signed the Tashkent Agreement, agreeing to withdraw to pre-August lines no later than 25 February 1966.
With declining stockpiles of ammunition, Pakistani leaders feared the war tilting in India's favor. Therefore, they quickly accepted the ceasefire in Tashkent.[100] Despite strong opposition from Indian military leaders, India bowed to growing international diplomatic pressure and accepted the ceasefire.[100] On 22 September, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed a resolution that called for an unconditional ceasefire from both nations. The war ended the following day.
India's Prime Minister, Shastri, suffered a fatal heart attack soon after the declaration of the ceasefire. As a consequence, the public outcry in India against the ceasefire declaration transformed into a wave of sympathy for the ruling Indian National Congress.[101] The ceasefire was criticised by many Pakistanis who, relying on fabricated official reports and the controlled Pakistani press, believed that the leadership had surrendered military gains. The protests led to student riots.[102] Pakistan State's reports had suggested that their military was performing admirably in the war – which they incorrectly blamed as being initiated by India – and thus the Tashkent Declarationwas seen as having forfeited the gains.[103]Some recent books written by Pakistani authors, including one by ex-ISI chief titled "The Myth of 1965 Victory",[104] allegedly exposed Pakistani fabrications about the war, but all copies of the book were bought by Pakistan Army to prevent publication because the topic was "too sensitive".[105][106]
India and Pakistan accused each other of ceasefire violations; India charged Pakistan with 585 violations in 34 days, while Pakistan countered with accusations of 450 incidents by India.[107] In addition to the expected exchange of small arms and artillery fire, India reported that Pakistan utilized the ceasefire to capture the Indian village of Chananwalla in the Fazilka sector. This village was recaptured by Indian troops on 25 December. On 10 October, a B-57 Canberraon loan to the PAF was damaged by 3 SA-2missiles fired from the IAF base atAmbala.[108] A Pakistani Army Auster was shot down on 16 December, killing one Pakistani army captain and on 2 February 1967, an AOP was shot down by IAF Hunters.
The ceasefire remained in effect until the start of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.

Intelligence failures

Strategic miscalculations by both India and Pakistan ensured that the war ended in a stalemate —

Indian miscalculations

Indian military intelligence gave no warning of the impending Pakistan invasion. The Indian Army failed to recognize the presence of heavy Pakistani artillery and armaments inChumb and suffered significant losses as a result.
The "Official History of the 1965 War", drafted by the Ministry of Defence of India in 1992, was a long suppressed document that revealed other miscalculations. According to the document, on 22 September when theSecurity Council was pressing for a ceasefire, the Indian Prime Minister asked commanding Gen. Chaudhuri if India could possibly win the war, were he to delay accepting the ceasefire. The general replied that most of India's frontline ammunition had been used up and the Indian Army had suffered considerable tank losses. It was determined later that only 14% of India's frontline ammunition had been fired and India held twice the number of tanks as Pakistan. By this time, the Pakistani Army had used close to 80% of its ammunition.
Air Chief Marshal (retd) P.C. Lal, who was the Vice Chief of Air Staff during the conflict, points to the lack of coordination between theIAF and the Indian army. Neither side revealed its battle plans to the other. The battle plans drafted by the Ministry of Defence and General Chaudhari, did not specify a role for the Indian Air Force in the order of battle. This attitude of Gen. Chaudhari was referred to by ACM Lal as the "Supremo Syndrome", a patronizing attitude sometimes held by the Indian army towards the other branches of the Indian Military.[17]

Pakistani miscalculations

The Pakistani Army's failures started with the supposition that a generally discontented Kashmiri people, given the opportunity provided by the Pakistani advance, would revolt against their Indian rulers, bringing about a swift and decisive surrender of Kashmir. The Kashmiri people, however, did not revolt. Instead, the Indian Army was provided with enough information to learn ofOperation Gibraltar and the fact that the Army was battling not insurgents, as they had initially supposed, but Pakistani Army regulars.
Telegram from the Embassy of the United States in Karachi: "Continuing propaganda regarding achievements of Pak forces seems to have convinced most that only Pak forbearance saved the Indians from disaster."
The Pakistani Army also failed to recognize that the Indian policy makers would order an attack on the southern sector in order to open a second front. Pakistan was forced to dedicate troops to the southern sector to protect Sialkot and Lahore instead using them to support penetrating into Kashmir.
"Operation Grand Slam", which was launched by Pakistan to capture Akhnoor, a town north-east of Jammu and a key region for communications between Kashmir and the rest of India, was also a failure. Many Pakistani commentators criticised the Ayub Khan administration for being indecisive during Operation Grand Slam. These critics claim that the operation failed because Ayub Khan knew the importance of Akhnur to India (having called it India's "jugular vein") and did not want to capture it and drive the two nations into an all-out war. Despite progress being made in Akhnur, General Ayub Khan relieved the commanding Major General Akhtar Hussain Malik and replaced him with Gen. Yahya Khan. A 24-hour lull ensued the replacement, which allowed the Indian army to regroup in Akhnur and successfully oppose a lackluster attack headed by General Yahya Khan. "The enemy came to our rescue", asserted the Indian Chief of Staff of the Western Command. Later, Akhtar Hussain Malik criticised Ayub Khan for planning Operation Gibraltar, which was doomed to fail, and for relieving him of his command at a crucial moment in the war. Malik threatened to expose the truth about the war and the army's failure, but later dropped the idea for fear of being banned.[109]
Some authors have noted that Pakistan might have been emboldened by a war game – conducted in March 1965, at the Institute of Defence Analysis, USA. The exercise concluded that, in the event of a war with India, Pakistan would win.[110][111] Other authors like Stephen Philip Cohen, have consistently commented that the Pakistan Army had "acquired an exaggerated view of the weakness of both India and the Indian military... the 1965 war was a shock".[112]
Pakistani Air Marshal and Commander-in-Chief of PAF during the war, Nur Khan, later said that the Pakistan Army, and not India, should be blamed for starting the war.[113][114]However propaganda in Pakistan about the war continued; the war was not rationally analysed in Pakistan,[115][116] with most of the blame being heaped on the leadership and little importance given to intelligence failures that persisted until the debacle of the 1971 war, when then East Pakistan was invaded by India and seceded from West Pakistan, leading to the creation of Bangladesh.

Involvement of other nations

Pakistan and the United States had signed an Agreement of Cooperation in 1959 under which the United States agreed to take "appropriate action, including the use of armed forces" in order to assist the Government of Pakistan at its request.[117]However, following the start of the 1965 war, the United States was of the view that the conflict was largely Pakistan's fault and therefore, it cut all military supplies to the country.[19] However, Pakistan did receive significant support from Iran, Indonesia and People's Republic of China.[19] Support given by Indonesia to Pakistan is seen as a major failure of India's International Policy considering that the Indonesia was one of the founding members of Non-Aligned Movementalong with India.[118] In the 1965 war with India, Pakistan received support from Indonesia, Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia in the form of six naval vessels, jet fuel, guns and ammunation ,and financial support, respectively.[119] China also became a foreign patron for Pakistan and gave Pakistan $60 million in development assistance in 1965.[120]
Both before and during the war, the People's Republic of China had been a major military associate of Pakistan and had invariably admonished India, with whom it had fought a war in 1962. There were also reports of Chinese troop movements on the Indian border to support Pakistan. As such, India agreed to the UN mandate in order to avoid a war on both borders.
India's participation in the Non-Aligned Movement yielded little support from its members. Despite close relations with India, the Soviet Union was more neutral than most other nations during the war and even invited both nations to talks that it would host inTashkent.[121][122]

Aftermath

India

Despite the declaration of a ceasefire, India was perceived as the victor due to its success in halting the Pakistan-backed insurgency in Kashmir.[123] In its October 1965 issue, theTIME magazine quoted a Western official assessing the consequences of the war[124] —
Now it's apparent to everybody that India is going to emerge as an Asian power in its own right.
In light of the failures of the Sino-Indian War, the outcome of the 1965 war was viewed as a "politico-strategic" victory in India. The Indian premier, Lal Bahadur Shastri, was hailed as a national hero in India.[125]
While the overall performance of the Indian military was praised, military leaders were criticised for their failure to effectively deploy India's superior armed forces so as to achieve a decisive victory over Pakistan.[126]In his book "War in the modern world since 1815", noted war historian Jeremy Black said that though Pakistan "lost heavily" during the 1965 war, India's hasty decision to call for negotiations prevented further considerable damage to the Pakistan Armed Forces. He elaborates[127] —
India's chief of army staff urged negotiations on the ground that they were running out ammunition and their number of tanks had become seriously depleted. In fact, the army had used less than 15% of its ammunition compared to Pakistan, which had consumed closer to 80 percent and India had double the number of serviceable tanks.
As a consequence, India focussed on enhancing communication and coordination within and among the triservices of the Indian Armed Forces. Partly as a result of the inefficient information gathering preceding the war, India established the Research and Analysis Wing for external espionage andintelligence. Major improvements were also made in command and control to address various shortcomings and the positive impact of these changes was clearly visible during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 when India achieved a decisive victory over Pakistan within two weeks.
China's repeated threats to intervene in the conflict in support of Pakistan increased pressure on the government to take an immediate decision to develop nuclear weapons.[128] Despite repeated assurances, the United States did little to prevent extensive use of American arms by Pakistani forces during the conflict, thus irking India.[129] At the same time, the United States and United Kingdom refused to supply India with sophisticated weaponry which further strained the relations between the West and India.[130] These developments led to a significant change in India's foreign policy – India, which had previously championed the cause of non-alignment, distanced itself further from Western powers and developed close relations with the Soviet Union. By the end of the 1960s, the Soviet Union emerged as the biggest supplier of military hardware to India.[131] From 1967 to 1977, 81% of India's arms imports were from the Soviet Union.[132]After the 1965 war, the arms race between India and Pakistan became even more asymmetric and India was outdistancing Pakistan by far.[133]

Pakistan

At the conclusion of the war, many Pakistanis considered the performance of their military to be positive. 6 September is celebrated asDefence Day in Pakistan, in commemoration of the successful defence of Lahore against the Indian army. The performance of the Pakistani Air Force, in particular, was praised.
However, the Pakistani government was accused by foreign analysts of spreading disinformation among its citizens regarding the actual consequences of the war.[134] In his book "Mainsprings of Indian and Pakistani foreign policies", S.M. Burke writes[20] —
After the Indo-Pakistani war of 1965 the balance of military power had decisively shifted in favor of India. Pakistan had found it difficult to replace the heavy equipment lost during that conflict while her adversary, despite her economic and political problems, had been determinedly building up her strength.
Most observers agree that the myth of a mobile, hard hitting Pakistan Army was badly dented in the war, as critical breakthroughs were not made.[135] Several Pakistani writers criticised the military's ill-founded belief that their "martial race" of soldiers could defeat "Hindu India" in the war.[136][137] Rasul Bux Rais, a Pakistani political analyst wrote[138] –
The 1965 war with India proved that Pakistan could neither break the formidable Indian defenses in a blitzkrieg fashion nor could she sustain an all-out conflict for long.
Pakistan airforce on the other hand gained a lot of credibility and reliability among Pakistan military and international war writers for successful defence of lahore and other important areas of Pakistan and heavy retaliation to India on the next day. The alertness of the airforce was also related to the fact that some pilots were scrambled 6 times in less than an hour on indication of Indian air raids. Pakistan airforce along with the army is celebrated for on Defence day and Airforce day in commemoration of this in Pakistan (6 and 7 September respectively).[139][140]
Moreover, Pakistan had lost more ground than it had gained during the war and, more importantly, failed to achieve its goal of capturing Kashmir; this result has been viewed by many impartial observers as a defeat for Pakistan.[141][142][143]
Many senior Pakistani officials and military experts later criticised the faulty planning ofOperation Gibraltar, which ultimately led to the war. The Tashkent declaration was also criticised in Pakistan, though few citizens realised the gravity of the situation that existed at the end of the war. Political leaders were also criticised. Following the advice ofZulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan's foreign minister, Ayub Khan had raised very high expectations among the people of Pakistan about the superiority – if not invincibility – of its armed forces,[144] but Pakistan's inability to attain its military aims during the war created a political liability for Ayub.[145] The defeat of its Kashmiri ambitions in the war led to the army's invincibility being challenged by an increasingly vocal opposition.[94]
One of the farthest reaching consequences of the war was the wide-scale economic slowdown in Pakistan.[146][147] The war ended the impressive economic growth Pakistan had experienced since the early 1960s. Between 1964 and 1966, Pakistan's defence spending rose from 4.82% to 9.86% of GDP, putting a tremendous strain on Pakistan's economy. By 1970–71, defence spending comprised a whopping 55.66% of government expenditure.[148] According to veterans of the war, the war greatly cost Pakistan economically, politically, and militarily.[149]Nuclear theorist Feroze Khan maintained that the 1965 war was a last conventional attemptto snatch Kashmir by military force, and Pakistan's own position in the international community, especially with the United States, began to deteriorate from the point the war started, while on the other hand, the alliance with China saw improvements.[149] GeneralTariq Majid claims in his memoirs that Chou En-Lai had longed advised the government in the classic style of Sun Tzu: "to go slow, not to push India hard; and avoid a fight over Kashmir, 'for at least, 20-30 years, until you have developed your economy and consolidated your national power'."[149]General Majid maintained in Eating Grass that the "sane, philosophical and political critical thinking" was missing in Pakistan, and that the country had lost extensive human resources by fighting the war.[149]
Pakistan was surprised by the lack of support from the United States, an ally with whom the country had signed an Agreement of Cooperation. The US turned neutral in the war when it cut off military supplies to Pakistan (and India);[1] an action that the Pakistanis took as a sign of betrayal.[150] After the war, Pakistan would increasingly look towards China as a major source of military hardware and political support.
Another negative consequence of the war was growing resentment against the Pakistani government in East Pakistan(present day Bangladesh),[112] particularly for West Pakistan's obsession with Kashmir.[151]Bengali leaders accused the central government of not providing adequate security for East Pakistan during the conflict, even though large sums of money were taken from the east to finance the war for Kashmir.[152] In fact, despite some Pakistan Air Force attacks being launched from bases in East Pakistan during the war, India did not retaliate in that sector,[153] although East Pakistan was defended only by an understrengthed infantry division (14th Division), sixteen planes and no tanks.[154]Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was critical of the disparity in military resources deployed in East and West Pakistan, calling for greater autonomy for East Pakistan, an action that ultimately led to the Bangladesh Liberation War and another war between India and Pakistan in 1971.

Military awards

Battle honours

After the war, a total of number of 16 battle honours and 3 theatre honours were awarded to units of the Indian Army, the notable amongst which are:[155]

Gallantry awards

For bravery, the following soldiers were awarded the highest gallantry award of their respective countries, the Indian award Param Vir Chakra and the Pakistani award Nishan-e-Haider:
India
Pakistan
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