India’s decisive military victory against Pakistan in 1965 — the first in which our troops crossed the international border in the Lahore, Sialkot, and Barmer sectors — does not receive the kind of celebratory hosannas accorded to the anniversaries of the 1971 war, or even Kargil, the Balakot strike, and Operation Sindoor. Yet it is significant for many reasons.
India had achieved all her three strategic objectives. Kashmir was absolutely safe. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions lent weight to India’s charge that Pakistan was the aggressor state. And India’s contention that 5 August 1965 — the date of Pakistani infiltration into Kashmir under Operation Gibraltar—was the effective date of commencement of war was also accepted, both by the UNSC and later in the Tashkent Agreement.
However, as Lt Gen (retd) Ata Hasnain said at a 9 September VoW-CRF seminar commemorating 60 years of the war, India’s then political establishment had failed to build the narrative of victory.
Also Read: MSP under Shastri began as a crisis response. Now India must ask what role it should play today
Debacle-to-resurgence moment for India
The 1965 war marked a “debacle to resurgence” moment— not just for the Army, but also for a nation recovering from the setback of the India-China war of 1962. The Indian defence forces, with the full backing of Defence Minister YB Chavan and Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, were able to resurrect the honour and glory of the nation.
Second, the entire nation, literally from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, was united in its resolve to defend her frontiers. Every political party — from the RSS-backed Jan Sangh (the predecessor of the BJP) to the Communist, Socialist, and Swaraj parties — extended their support to Shastri and his clarion call of Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan. Pakistan’s efforts to wrest Kashmir from India — first through infiltration under Operation Gibraltar, and then an outright attack on Akhnur — were frustrated.
India’s first surgical strike
India’s decision to open the Punjab and Rajasthan fronts took Pakistan unawares, as they had harboured the assumption India would not cross the ceasefire line, whatever the provocation. This was, in fact, our first surgical strike. The photograph of the tricolour flying over the Burki police station in Lahore, along with the parade of surrendered Patton tanks, captured the visual imagination of the nation.
The outpouring of support was reflected in the voluntary contributions to the Defence Fund, the cheering crowds at victory rallies, and the welcomes at railway platforms whenever a train with jawans chugged into the station. India also decided that while it would not approach the UN for mediation, it would be willing to consider ceasefire proposals if they were aligned with its war goals. At the same time, Prime Minister Shastri made it clear in his speeches that India harboured no ill will toward the people of Pakistan and was not interested in capturing any part of Pakistani territory.
Also Read: Indira Gandhi gets credit for Punjab formation. It was Lal Bahadur Shastri who paved the way
Learning from Pakistan’s failure
It is also important to learn from the reasons for Pakistan’s failure.
Unlike Shastri, who drew his strength from the national consensus, Pakistan’s President Field Marshal Ayub Khan, was overly dependent on support from alliance partners, notably the US-backed CENTO and SEATO, and their newfound friendship with China.
The Pakistani leadership also expected that Islamic nations such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Malaysia would back them in their misadventure against India. This was not to be, for it soon became clear that every nation extends support only to the extent that it meets their own strategic objectives. While China made all the right noises, its advice to Pakistan was that rather than accept the UNSC-mandated ceasefire, it should go in for a long and protracted war against India.
The second lesson is regarding the danger of ‘unwarranted advice’ from quarters not directly in the professional chain of command. India had learnt this the hard way in 1962, when an Army Service Corps officer, Lt Gen BM Kaul, was made the Corps Commander of the hastily raised 4 Corps at Tezpur to take on the battle-hardened PLA of China.
In 1965, army generals in Pakistan were chafing under the undue influence of Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was busy pursuing his own agenda regardless of ground realities. Commander in Chief Muhammad Musa Khan was quite resentful of this interference, and wrote so clearly in his memoir My Version: India-Pakistan War, 1965. Incidentally, Musa also complained he was often kept out of the strategic decision-making loop by the Sunni Ayub Khan, as he was a Shia.
The third lesson is from the impact of sectarian divisions on a fighting force.
General Akhtar Hussain Malik, who achieved notable success under Operation Grand Slam by capturing the town of Chhamb and marching toward Akhnur, was abruptly removed from command because Pakistan did not want to credit an Ahmadiyya with this victory. He was hastily stripped of his command and replaced by Yahya Khan. Even Malik’s request to serve as second-in-command to Yahya was rejected. Bhutto himself is said to have remarked: “Had General Akhtar Malik not been stopped in the Chhamb-Jaurian Sector, the Indian forces in Kashmir would have suffered serious reverses, but Ayub Khan wanted to make his favourite, General Yahya Khan, a hero.”
This was certainly an advantage to India. It delayed the march to Akhnur and gave the Indian Air Force an opportunity to neutralise Pakistani fighter planes. It also lent the Western Command under Gen Harbaksh Singh time to move troops to Punjab. Incidentally, the pan-Indian Army comprised officers from all faiths and sects — Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Parsis, and Anglo-Indians. Jawans from across the country saluted their officers with Jai Hind— the stirring slogan coined by Subhas Bose for the soldiers of the Indian National Army.
The fourth lesson is that attempts at manipulation of the media often backfire.
Even before the launch of Operation Gibraltar (which collapsed almost immediately when infiltrators were arrested by Punjab and J&K Police), the Pakistani Information Directorate had already issued headlines and news copy for the next six days to Dawn and other newspapers. The collapse of Gibraltar, therefore, came as a great shock, for the public had been primed to believe that Kashmir was firmly in Pakistan’s grip. There were assurances that the sanctity of the Golden Temple would be preserved even as Pakistani forces crossed Amritsar on their march to New Delhi, where Ayub Khan would deliver his victory oration from the ramparts of Red Fort!
The legacy
In the aftermath of the war, Shastri was hailed as a national hero, and his stirring slogan of Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan reverberated in every rally.
In contrast, Ayub Khan, who had been the poster boy of the West, began to lose his sheen. His own foreign minister, ZA Bhutto, and his chosen general, Yahya Khan, eventually ousted him from power.
However, rather than engage with the people and build political consensus on national goals, Pakistan continued to use military force to neutralise popular upsurge. The next India-Pakistan war was one of the most decisive in the history of the subcontinent — but the groundwork for it had been laid in 1965.
Sanjeev Chopra is a former IAS officer and Festival Director of Valley of Words. Until recently, he was director, Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration. He tweets @ChopraSanjeev. Views are personal.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)