Author: Inder Malhotra
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: December 10, 2012
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/from-gibraltar-to-grand-slam/1042727/0

Introduction: Misinformation and the perception of a weak, shastri-led India drove Pakistan’s 1965 attempt to ;win’ Kashmir

If the massive Pakistani infiltrations into Jammu and Kashmir on August 5, 1965 were codenamed Operation Gibraltar, the September 1 armoured attack on the strategic Chamb Jaurian sector (‘Strange March to 1965 War’, IE, November 26) had a resounding codename, Grand Slam. Two important and intriguing questions about this operation, which the Indian army halted successfully, arise. The first is: How did Pakistan President Ayub Khan, who was initially reluctant to sanction even Gibraltar, later approve a much wider and highly risky military action? The answer, provided by his information secretary, confidant, biographer and alter ego, Altaf Gauhar, is simple.

Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, his trusted foreign secretary, Aziz Ahmed, and other cohorts, persuaded him that if Pakistan were to “wrest” Kashmir from India by force, 1965 was its “last chance”. It was now or never. Their arguments did seem convincing. India, they said, was “demoralised and vulnerable” because of the “humiliating defeat at the hands of the Chinese”, Jawaharlal Nehru’s death, the “palpable weakness” of his successor, Lal Bahadur Shastri, (Khan, after a brief, informal summit with Shastri at Karachi airport in October 1964, had got the same impression), a virulent anti-Hindi agitation in south India and an acute food shortage across the country.

At the same time, the votaries of war with India told Khan that the expansion and modernisation of

the Indian armed forces was in full swing. Once it was completed, the balance of power would shift back in India’s favour, and Pakistan’s “last opportunity would be lost”. The clinching argument of Bhutto and company was that “fear of China would deter India” from extending the war beyond Kashmir. This took care of Khan’s prime concern. He had once confided to some advisors: “While winning Kashmir, I don’t want to lose Pakistan.”

As Gauhar records, it was around this time that a sand-model presentation was made to Khan at Murree where he suddenly put his finger on Akhnoor on the map and asked, “Why don’t you go for the jugular?” The point was well taken because Pakistan’s occupation of Akhnoor would have cut the Kashmir Valley from the rest of India. Khan then embarked on the standard Pakistani self-delusion: The Hindus could not fight. “Hindu morale would not stand more than a couple of hard blows at the right time and right place. Such an opportunity should therefore be sought and exploited”.

When Major General Akhtar Hussain Malik, GOC of the 12th Division of the Pakistan army and the author of Gibraltar, said that occupation of Akhnoor would require more manpower and money than he had been given, the president agreed to provide both, and told all concerned to go ahead with Grand Slam. That is where the second question comes in.

From day one, Malik was commanding Operation Gibraltar, and he was also expected to command the attack on Chamb Jaurian. But at the last minute, there was a change. The command was handed to the swashbuckling Major General Yahya Khan who was later general and army chief, and, later still, president of Pakistan. Many Pakistanis are still asking why.

In his two books, Jawan to General and My Version, the then commander-in-chief of the Pakistan army, General Mohammad Musa Khan, has stated candidly that from the beginning, he was opposed to Operation Gibraltar because he knew it wouldn’t work. No preparatory work had been done among

the Kashmiri people, and even the “president of Azad Kashmir”, K.H. Khurshid, was not consulted. When the latter learnt belatedly what was afoot, he protested and landed in prison for his troubles. By this time, Musa detested Malik, and therefore took the earliest opportunity to remove him. He insists, however, that he would have appointed a different commander of Grand Slam anyhow.

Musa does not say so, but Gauhar categorically does, that the crowning irony was that while Khan was sanctioning Grand Slam he “did not know that Gibraltar had already failed”. It is noteworthy that Khan’s Man Friday recorded this long after his subject’s death. In August-September 1965, he never told his president the truth. On the contrary, his own propaganda machine churned out fairy tales about the exploits of the Mujahideen in Kashmir and the bravery of Pakistani troops “marching to Srinagar”. Consequently, the Pakistani public was confident about the imminent “liberation” of Kashmir, and India’s defeat. Evidently, the Bhutto-Ahmed line had full sway because no one was taking any notice of Shastri’s public warnings that India would fight the war “at a time and place of its own choosing”.

It must be added that Shastri had spoken out well after telling the army and air chiefs, General J.N. Chaudhuri and Air Chief Marshal Arjan Singh, to prepare to be in Lahore before any Pakistani soldier reached anywhere near Srinagar.

At first light on September 6, reality struck Pakistan like lightning when Shastri did exactly what he had said he would. He sent the Indian army in Pakistani Punjab’s heartland in the direction of the prized city of Lahore. In Gauhar’s memorable phrase in his biography of his boss, “When India attacked Pakistan, the most surprised person was Ayub Khan.” “Ayub’s surprise,” he adds, “was shared by the commander-in-chief of the army. Ayub was now facing the moment of truth”.

Here, diverting from the narrative a little, let me underscore a historical conundrum. Origins of too many wars remain disputed till today. The 1965 India-Pakistan war has the unique distinction that there is utter confusion about when exactly it began. For Pakistan, it did only on September 6 of that year, and the Pakistanis observe this date as “Defence of Pakistan Day” each year. For us in India, the war started on September 1, with Pakistan’s attack on Chamb-Jaurian. In all our writings, we call it a 22-day war.