1965: A view from the Other Side of the Hill

Review of 'Memoirs of Lt. Gen. Gul Hassan Khan'

https://medalsandribbons.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Final-Consolidated-pdf-MR-July-2025.pdf, pp. 114-119

https://www.thecitizen.in/in-depth/1965-a-view-from-the-other-side-of-the-hill-1165545

Brigadier Gul Hassan Khan was Pakistan Army’s Director Military Operations (DMO) during the India-Pakistan 1965 War. He had been in the chair for the preceding four years, so was privy both to the preparations during the run up and the conduct of operations. His Memoirs, that cover his professional career, carry his observations of the 1965 War. Since the Memoirs are of a forthright officer and written in a straight forward manner, his account of the War, from the unique vantage of a DMO, can be taken as reasonably fair.

Its treatment of the War is reminiscent of Palit’s War in High Himalayas, since Palit was Indian DMO during India’s China War of 1962. Whereas Palit’s is an entire book with his side of the story, Gul Hassan devotes only a portion of his book to 1965, with another substantial section covering his role in the 1971 War as Chief of General Staff (CGS), having both operations and intelligence directorates under him.

Besides Gul Hassan proving to be an engaging author, one with a keen sense of humour, his book is ‘unputdownable’ also because of his sketch of the Pakistan army in its formative years and attaining maturity on the anvil of successive wars with India. Not self-exculpatory, but being more a scathing critique of the army, the book is a valid source on understanding India’s long-time foe.

This article presents Gul Hassan’s version of the 1965 War.

Getting to the know the author

Gul Hassan got to being DMO by sheer dint of professional capability. A product of the Prince of Wales Royal Military College, Dehra Dun, he was commissioned into the Infantry from the Indian Military Academy during the Second World War. The highlight of his war years was in action he witnessed when temporarily with a Rajput battalion deployed in the vicinity of the famous tennis court at Kohima. Later, more substantially, his appointment as aide to ‘Bill’ Slim during the impressionable years of service had a lasting influence on his military life. He observed at firsthand what leadership is and generalship at the operational level is all about. Later, after Partition, as aide to Qaid-e-Azam Jinnah, he imbibed an abiding sense of probity and secularism.

Transferred to the armoured corps, he joined the Probyn’s Horse. Pakistan being member of an American-led anti-Soviet pact, professional growth of officers of Hassan’s generation benefited by the exposure to United States’ (US) training and hardware. Hassan did a tank course in the US and gained an understanding of mechanized warfare that stood him in good stead as a tank regiment and independent armoured brigade group commander. This background placed him well to take over as DMO in January 1961.

The pre-War years

On his very first meeting with his boss, CGS Yahya Khan - later of 1971 infamy - Gul Hassan was given the task of revamping the war plans in light of changes in the capabilities of both sides, India and Pakistan, and terrain changes from canal building. With its American connection deepening by late fifties, Pakistan had adopted the New Concept of Defence, involving greater frontages held by firepower, releasing manpower for raising additional formations, such as the raising of 11 Division for the Kasur sector. Equipped with two light machine guns, a section in defensive role could now hold a wider frontage. The drawback was that frontages were lightly held, which was problematic in face of the higher numbers India could bring to bear in attack.

The revised plans were eventually approved by President Ayub Khan, who though heading the country, also kept tabs on the military side. In essence the plans involved creation and tasking of a counter offensive capability, such as an additional, 6 Armoured Division, being raised. As it turned out, India was not able to keep track of this formation with telling results on outcome in the Sialkot sector. Even so, there was a shortfall of two divisions and a corps headquarters, for which sanction for new raisings was proceeded with but neither materialized by war outbreak.

The reserves created were earmarked for operations respectively in the corridors to north and south of the River Ravi. Gul Hassan was proponent of an early start to offensive operations. To him, the weaker side compensated by seizing the initiative and keeping the stronger side – India - off-balance. To Army Chief, General Musa, this was against the government policy of not initiating a war. A compromise was arrived at in that instead of an offensive, an early counter offensive would be launched on initiation of operations by India.

Even as the plans were upgraded, the DMO kept abreast of developments heralding war. Emerging from its defeat by China in 1962, India was expanding its military. The growth of its air force was seen as particularly threatening. Alongside, political activity with changing the status quo in Kashmir was ongoing, eventuating in the unrest in Kashmir in late 1963 over the episode of Holy relic at Hazratbal. Alerted to an opportunity, Pakistan stepped up to stoke it.

Pakistan army trained and launched volunteers into Kashmir. The aim, conjured up by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto-led foreign ministry was to ‘defreeze’ the Kashmir issue with application of ‘pressure’. A Kashmir Cell was set up with the foreign secretary chairing it. Since the Indian army got the better of the irregulars sent in, a concerted plan was drawn up for guerrilla activity by ‘Azad Kashmir’-deployed 12 Division, Operation Gibraltar. Operation Grandslam was prepared, yet again by 12 Division, to be launched as contingency in support of Operation Gibraltar. To the DMO, such support could only be in the form of the military crossing the Ceasefire Line, which could only provoke Indian response, including across the border. However, the foreign ministry was convinced that the operations would be restricted to Kashmir, leading to Pakistan adopting the policy: ‘Do not provoke. Do not escalate.’

Alongside, the Kutch incident broke out at the other end of the border in early 1965. Hassan records being unimpressed by Tikka Khan – later famous as the Butcher of Dacca - whose 8 Division was not only slovenly in mobilizing from Quetta but also did not exploit success after its attack. Even so, the Kutch outcome encouraged the Pakistan army, though it lost some posts in the Kargil sector to Indian action soon thereafter. The two sides mobilized during the incident and remained watchful thereafter.

The War through the DMO’s eyes

The irregulars were making no progress in Kashmir, not having received the support from the locals as they were led to believe. Operation Gibraltar was readied hastily in May after the Kutch crisis had subsided, and launched in August with little preparation. Some troops of the reserve division, 7 Division, now being commanded by Yahya Khan, were also sucked in. The DMO was not involved in its intricacies, but with India gaining the upper hand, prospects of launch of Operation Grandslam heightened. Just as India took Bedori and linked up Uri and Poonch, the DMO supported the bid of 12 Division for the urgent launch of Grandslam to snap Indian communication lines at Akhnur. However, dithering at the higher level – that of CGS Sher Bahadur, Army Chief Musa and President Ayub Khan – delayed that launch to 1 September. Though it got off to a rapid start, it bogged down midway with a change in command between the commanders of 12 Division, charismatic and innovative Akhtar Malik, and 7 Division’s Yahya, an inexplicable pause from which the thrust was not allowed to recover by Indian firming in.

On 4 September, getting early warning of Indian preparation for operations across the entire front, the DMO alerted all formations. Though after the Kutch engagement, there had been a disengagement, and troops had been permitted some leave. But by 6 September, most formations were at battle stations when India crossed the border in the plains sector. Though cautioned, 10 Division, opposite Lahore, had not quite deployed fully. Even so, forward zone elements bought them enough to avoid a critical situation developing. This complacency perhaps explains how 3 Jat got a foothold across the Bambanwala-Ravi-Bedian (BRB) canal, popularly in India, the Ichhogil Canal. Later, 10 Division launched a counter attack with limited forces, but could not fully retrieve the area lost up to the border.

Alerted to the outbreak of operations in the Sialkot-Sharkargarh sector by the confused beginning of fighting in Jassar sub-sector, the DMO was not overly concerned when India’s 1 Armoured Division made its appearance in the sector on 8 September. In anticipation, Pakistanis had placed its 6 Armoured Division in the area, which gave battle in a defensive role. Though some penetration was achieved by the Indians, the fierce battles around Chawinda ensured no dent in the main defences in Sialkot sector. Much further south, the Pakistanis had a brigade each at Sulaimanki and lower Sindh, whose performance was relatively independent of intimate oversight by the General Headquarters; thus, with greater operational leeway, the two were more successful.

The highlight of 1965 War was the Pakistani counter offensive by its 1 Armoured Division from Kasur. The aim was to seal off the Beas-Sutlej corridor by, maximally, seizing the bridge at Beas, or, minimally, to force the Indian thrust towards Lahore to recoil by threatening its rear along the Barki axis. Alongside, it would thwart any outflanking move by India from the south of Lahore. The plans for the counter offensive had been made earlier, with the DMO urging the 11 Division and 1 Armoured Division commanders to coordinate their respective roles. 11 Division was to establish a bridgehead across Rohi Nallah for the armoured division to breakout across it. It was in the execution of the operation that the Pakistanis faulted, with the major tactical error being the withdrawal by night to laager, on two successive nights, by the armoured division’s leading elements of 5 Armoured Brigade. This allowed time to India to seal off that thrust line, where Havildar Abdul Hameed is credited for his immortal deed. On the operation fizzling out, some elements of the armoured division were moved to Sialkot sector under a new commander - one for the first time from the armoured corps - for a counter attack, but were not in a fit enough condition to be launched before the ceasefire came into effect.

The DMO’s reflections

Gul Hassan reflects on both counter offensives failing. Grandslam failed due to the delay in its launch, which should have coincided with the capture of Hajipir, and the untimely change-over of command just after the initial phase. The operations of 1 Armoured Division were under a constraint of limited armoured infantry availability. 7 Infantry Division, that was to the infantry component of the reserve with 1 Armoured Division for the Ravi-Sutlej corridor, had already been sucked into the two operations in Kashmir. Also, 11 Division was not able to spare infantry, though with the offensive across its frontage, it was secure enough to have spared some. This showed up the shortage of a Corps headquarters, that had been bid for but not provisioned timely. It was only set up in the following year. The DMO blames the higher military leadership, Musa, for not pressing the case with the government, which in the event, was also led by a military man, Ayub. Apparently, Musa pointed to a poor economy as excuse against pressing for the filling up the gap.

Though history has it that the showing of both armies was credible and the War itself was a draw of sorts, the DMO is unsparing in his criticism of the Pakistani showing. True for both armies is gallantry at lower levels. However, structural, organizational and cultural factors need an accounting.

Gul Hassan, inter-alia, dwells on lack of felicity in armoured warfare. The leading armoured brigade commander of 1 Armoured Division was a cavalry officer, and had been an instructor at Quetta staff college. Gul Hassan speculates that had he placed himself right behind the leading elements for intimate control, the break out could not have been stanched. The bridgehead itself was in a rather clustered space, not allowing logistics elements room enough to replenish forward. A natural crossing downstream was not exploited but a new bridge was launched when the only crossing was damaged by a tank. However, Gul Hassan’s major grouse is in the leadership of 1 Armoured Division. He is categoric that the first three commanders not being cavalrymen, they lacked mechanized expertise and a bent for auftragstaktik and therefore could not impart a maneuver culture to their command. The incumbent commander, though having commanded an armoured brigade, was not capacitated enough to merit the appointment.

Gul Hassan’s dissecting of the shortcomings of the Pakistan army has instructive value universally, and on that count must make for a mandatory reading at war colleges. While it is true that the Pakistan army has professionalized much since then, the snapshot he provides of it in the sixties is valid for any army anywhere that departs from professional standards and roles.

He rightly begins at the top. Since Ayub Khan was forced to shepherd the country after politicians and bureaucrats proved self-centered, he placed tractable generals in the key positions in the army. Consequently, the army leadership lost its professionalism. A direct consequence was of decline in training standards, with tactical exercises without troops finding favour since it is easier to push large bodies off troops across a map or sand table. A divide opened up between the senior and junior leadership and groupism made an appearance. The staff was increasingly demanding of units, while reports and returns up the chain were unwarrantedly rosy, especially - and tragically as it turned out - on state of equipment. The security apparatus got a ballast at the cost of trust, to the extent that the outbreak of the War caught the air force by surprise! Most significantly, the institution of the Commanding Officer, the most important link in the command chain, stood devalued.

Incidentally, such straits were not markedly different from that of the Indian army, in light of the relegation of the military in the national consciousness through the fifties. Recall also that the glut of vacancies in higher ranks had resulted in speedier promotions into higher ranks, with some not even having commanded battalions. However, the 1962 War was a timely wake up call, making the government and the army, quickly pull up their socks. So, when War broke out, Indian army had an opportunity to exorcise 1962.

The aftermath

The following year Gul Hassan went on to command 1 Armoured Division, turning it into a cracking formation. He was then back to the GHQ, this time as CGS, an appointment in which he witnessed the run up to the 1971 War and the disaster there – though playing no part in the atrocity crimes that occurred. As CGS, he was a vociferous advocate of the defence of East Pakistan lying in the West and for a speedy offensive to undercut Indian operations in the East before it had time to revert to the West. As CGS, he had pushed for the Eastern Command under Niazi – who he likens to an over promoted company commander – to concentrate early for the defence of Dacca, knowing fully well that a late withdrawal would not be possible in light of Indian outflanking thrusts and the insurgency peaking. However, as is well known, Niazi held the periphery and strong points, intending to prevent loss of a portion of East Pakistan on which the Bangladeshi flag could be hoisted. As a result, he lost the whole. For his part, Yahya’s procrastination over an offensive in the West squarely led to the colossal defeat.

At the bottom of the defeat was not so much the Pakistani army, but the dismal state of politics in Pakistan, personified by Bhutto. Having spent some time with the Qaid-e-Azam, Gul Hassan was aware of the gulf that existed in the standards of political leadership set by Jinnah and the political reality in Pakistan. He saw the role and culpability of Bhutto in goading Ayub into the 1965 War; in bringing about a political impasse in early 1971; and, finally, how post ’71 War, Bhutto tried to degrade the Pakistan army. Having been elevated by Bhutto to Army Chief after the 1971 War, Gul Hassan was unable to stomach the shenanigans of Bhutto. He was forced to resign, but compensated with an ambassadorship in Europe.

Gul Hassan did not get to have a combat command experience, though he appears to have a yen for command. An interesting counter-factual is if he had been in command of 1 Armoured Division, what might have been the showing of the division in battle. Another could well be, if he had been in command in Dacca, what might have been the outcome in ’71.

(Incidentally, encyclopedic Hamid Hussain, the ‘military archaeologist of Pakistan’, informs of Gul Hassan’s refusal of the offer of command in Dacca. A contemporary and fellow school mate, Yakub Khan, resigned from the assignment in dissent against the policy of suppression of Bengali nationalism. History could have been different.)

Personalities matter. For that reason, it is important that higher military leadership is chosen well. We need look no further than Manekshaw for evidence. The major takeaway from the book then is that military leaders must stay apolitical to stay professional and the political class must enable this. Not doing so is sure recipe for a drubbing as Pakistan has found to its great cost in 1965 and more so in 1971.

Book Review: Gul Hassan Khan, Memoirs of Lt. Gen. Gul Hassan Khan, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993, ISBN 978-0-19-574329-2, pp. 438, Rs. 395.

 https://www.thebookreviewindia.org/speaking-truth-to-power/

Book Review

Anuradha Bhasin, A Dismantled State: The Untold Story of Kashmir after Article 370, Gurugram: HarperCollins, ISBN 978-93-629-608-4, pp. 386, Rs. 699/-.

Anuradha Bhasin hit the national headlines with her challenge in the Supreme Court on the government disconnecting Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) from India and those living there from each other by turning off the internet as part of its massive crackdown to usher in Naya Kashmir with the evacuation of Article 370 of all meaning. It was a courageous standing up to authoritarianism by Bhasin, a senior editor distressed by her inability to pursue her professional calling as a consequence of all communication conduits lapsing between her and her team in Kashmir. The government won that round, only reluctantly and in ‘due course’ allowing light back into and on Kashmir, and that too only in fits and starts.

Bhasin does the Indian nation another favour in writing up this book, a body blow to the government’s narrative on Kashmir. Even though one and half crore tourists visited the region last year and the statistics of those meeting a violent deaths in the insurgency there are comparatively negligible, no one is under the illusion that the situation in Kashmir has stabilized. No wonder the government advisedly keeps the security forces in places that it had pumped in prior to its move on Article 370.

It has rightly been said, ‘there are lies, damned lies and statistics.’ Bhasin unsparingly exposes the grand lies on Kashmir. How bad the situation is can best be put in her own words:

The Indian government can use all its power to subjugate and suppress the local peoples in J&K and their multiple and complex aspirations for now, but it cannot sustain this till eternity (p. 295)…. Breathing beneath the behemoth of silence is a deceptive volcano, which could erupt in a chaos of different forms and varied voices. What would be its dominant articulation – frightening, violent rage or a kaleidoscope of ideas and vision? That moment is yet to come.

Assuming that the landslide victory in the national elections on the back of the Pulwama-Balakot episode had given the government the backing for widespread change, Narendra Modi used the moment to hammer home the long standing pledge of the right wing: to ‘integrate’ Kashmir into India. This to the Hindu nationalist government meant ending the special relationship signified by Article 370 that J&K maintained with the rest of India. While Article 370 allowed J&K relative autonomy and Article 35A permitted protection of its land and livelihood of its people, the two were nullified through a parliamentary procedure that has yet to face judicial accountability.

While the Supreme Court dallies on when to take up the raft of challenges to the neutralisation of Article 370 on both procedural and substantive grounds, the government has gone on to walk the talk on integration. Knowing that is would be unpopular, it has maintained its dragnet, toting up statistics on Kashmiri youth killed for futilely taking to the gun in despair. Bhasin’s is a blow by blow account of how the State is going about its scheme and the implications of the changes being taken by fiat and absolutely no reference to the people. This holding of democracy in abeyance is lamented, as are the consequences of political arrogance and bureaucratic vandalism on the Rule of Law and the very laws themselves.

Bhasin’s critique covers the whole gamut: political, security, legal, social and economic. With three decades of experience in journalism behind her, Bhasin is able to tap not only the strategies of political leaders but also the sentiment in common folk. She spices up a narrative that could otherwise get dull - it traverses legal details - with the human element, using the voice of the marginalized to tell of the impositions and hardships Hindutva’s liberation of Kashmir has wrought them. The hopes and fears of Gujars and Bakarwals, of lower caste Hindus, of those living along the Line of Control, of shikara paddlers and forgotten Kashmiris come alive through her pen.

Though as a strategy the government has momentarily shifted Kashmiri demands away from meaningful autonomy to statehood, that it continues to dither on conceding the latter shows that its intent is not problem solving or conflict resolution inspired, but merely to pile on humiliation. In a post Article 370 scenario, restoration of statehood by inclusion of another subclause to Article 371 is the way to go. However, with the government denying Sixth Schedule status even to Ladakh, it is unlikely to oblige. The impetus for such strategy-defying logic is in an ideological animus that makes Kashmiris doubly-damned, their being Muslim too.

Bhasin engages also with the development aspect, since it is the legitimizing plank of the government. She cites data to reveal how land laws are being tweaked to acquire land and evict those settled on it. As a native of Jammu, she worries how the developmental model of the plains – based on road building and widening and siting of industrial centers – will impact the fragile environment. Joshimath had not happened by when she wrote the chapter. It’s a pity that the juggernaut will role on since that’s the model in the rest of India, into which Kashmir is being integrated.

The book has copious end notes, doing credit to her current status as a fellow at Stanford University. The only glitch spotted is where she dates the Mumbai terror attack to 2007 (p. 222). Its chapterisation is logical, allowing for a comprehensive coverage of the past three years in Kashmir. A quote from this reviewer also finds mention (p. 114), making it only fair to disclose that Bhasin as editor of Kashmir Times oversaw some 100 opinion pieces by this reviewer over the years. Her book informs that the archives of her newspaper have since gone missing in the cyber world, no doubt part of information operations executed by the State.

The book is a recommended read, particularly for non-Kashmiris. What is happening in Kashmir is a negation of the democracy. It is already visibly and painfully getting clear that jackboots on democracy anywhere endanger democracy everywhere. The book must also be prescribed reading for those in the counter insurgent State apparatus on how not to do counter insurgency. It is true that they are hampered by the preceding political prong Their self-congratulations shall prove rather premature when trends identified by Bhasin in her book eventuate in their logical conclusion.

We can only thank her parents, to whom the book is dedicated, who taught Bhasin to write and to speak the truth fearlessly. She has done them proud, and, in the bargain, done India a national service in bringing to light the ‘untold story of Kashmir’ in face of an authoritarian State’s massive propaganda effort to efface reality. That with such truth telling she opens up herself to paying a personal price is to her credit.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 https://www.thebookreviewindia.org/footprints-to-follow/

Book Review

Geeta Mohan (ed.), Nothing is Impossible: Eight Inspiring Profiles (Illustrated by Saurabh Pandey), New Delhi: Children’s Book Trust, 2020, ISBN 978-93-88157-26-1, pp. 86, Rs. 80/-

Naveen Menon (ed.), Kusum Lata Singh (translator), Abhootpurv Prerak Vyaktitva, New Delhi: Children’s Book Trust, 2020, ISBN 978-93-88157-27-8, pp. 78, Rs. 80/-

The first book is a collection of eight prizewinning entries in the category Creative Non-Fiction for children in the 9-12 year bracket of the Competition for Writers of Children’s Books organized by the Children’s Book Trust (CBT). Seven of the profiles are of Indians, while one is of a Kenyan, Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai. The seven Indians are of varied background: a soldier, Param Vir Chakra winner Albert Ekka; Everester Arunima Sinha; solo-forest planter Abdul Kareem; Hockey Olympian Dilip Tirkey; visually impaired Jawahar Kaul; ‘India’s James Herriot’, Vet Dr. Naveen Kumar Pandey and sand artist Sudarsan Pattnaik.

The book in Hindi is a compilation of winning entries from the children’s literature writing competition with the topics, Bharat ka Ratna and Shunya se Shikhar Tak. Two additional profiles in the book are respectively of Infosys founder and chairperson of Infosys Foundation, Engineer Sudha Murty and Bharat Ratna Engineer Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya.

The Children’s Book Trust has been doing yeoman’s service since its founding by renowned cartoonist, Shankar, in 1957. Its significance has increased exponentially in the internet era when the reading habit is tapering off and books, of paper and held in the hand, are on the verge of extinction. That it continues on the frontlines of preserving a way of life based on accessing knowledge and cogitation is evident from its contribution, as its website has it, in the ‘area of children’s education and entertainment through multi-faceted activities hosted under its various wings’. Its various activities include the dolls’ museum, Shankar’s Academy and a reading room and library. These preserve old-world simplicity and modesty that ought to characterize life, howsoever difficult this is living under the assault from materialism and ostentation.

The two books introduce children not only to reading but in so doing to a set of achievers. The lives recounted leave an impression. The inclusions are thoughtful and the range of their contribution wide. The protagonists of these stories have talent, but, more importantly, a will to fulfill their destinies. They have a vision and endure. Selfless, they are socially mindful. Their footprints in the sands of time shall surely serve as guide for today’s children reading about them, who are the youth of tomorrow. None of the heroes was born with a silver spoon in the mouth, but are now household names. Children get to know how to identify and live up to life’s purpose.

Tales of bravery are in following Albert Ekka in his battle field exploits, how as a junior tactical leader he extricates his squad from a tight spot at the cost of his life, and in Arunima’s mountaineering exploits on overcoming her loss of a leg on being thrown off a train by robbers. Quiet courage is evident in the life of Jawahar Kaul, who goes on to help blind people after himself losing his eyesight at a young age. Pandey’s adventures as a vet take him from Darjeeling to Kutch, while Dilip Tirkey’s hockey wizardy sees him showcase his skills for the national team from Busan to Athens. Self-taught sand artist Sudarsan, winner of international competitions dedicates his craft to Lord Jagannath. Abdul Kareem pioneers a citizen’s forest, creating one out of an empty patch of land. Wangari Maathai’s story ends with her narration of a story, of a hummingbird making trips with water in its beak to stanch a raging forest fire, signifying that though individually puny, we collectively make a difference. The two additional stories in Hindi, of Murthy and Visvesvaraya, each a distinguished engineer, who go on to leave a wider societal imprint through their dedication.   

To keep children hooked, the books have colourful covers, are well illustrated in shades of grey, are of non-intimidating length and are reasonably priced. Now that Covid is over, hopefully, CBT books and products will find their place at book fairs. May its stalls fill up with children browsing, and not scrolling down that enemy-of-eyesight, a computer screen.

A drawback is the distressingly difficult Hindi used in the Hindi edition. It’s almost as if Hindi is only for grown-ups and those with it as a first language. Thoroughly off-putting for a non-native Hindi speaker, this does disservice to a language with ambitions to be a nationally connecting one. Hindi must not ride on the coat tails of Sanskrit, but preserve the cadence of languages it is displacing, Hindustani and Urdu.

 https://www.thebookreviewindia.org/stories-across-space-and-time-from-the-pen-of-an-indian-spymaster/

A LIFE IN THE SHADOWS: A MEMOIR by AS Dulat HarperCollins, Gurugram, 2023, 256 pp., ₹ 699.00

The book review india, MARCH 2023, VOLUME 47, NO 3

AS Dulat is reported to have put out, the book under review has been written without taking clearance from current-day intelligence minders. An earlier government order had it that those serving and retired from intelligence services were required to take such clearance prior to publishing anything related to their work. Dulat, former Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) head and Intelligence Bureau (IB) officer, has cocked a snook at the order with good reason. On the surface, there is nothing in the book that should see him fall afoul of powers-that-be. In other words, there is little upfront in the book for a reviewer to encourage readers to get a copy. The book however says much, if read between the lines.

A major point that the author puts across in his seemingly casual manner is that there is a hard-line operational in Kashmir and against Pakistan. This owes in part to a streak of ruthlessness in the personality of National Security Adviser, Ajit Doval. Dulat devotes the better part of a chapter to get us familiar with his ‘friend’ and former IB colleague, Doval. To Dulat, Doval is the ideally suited security manager for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who enjoys the reputation of a strong man publicized assiduously since his days in Gujarat and now as the Prime Minister taking ownership of surgical strikes.

But it is not only the personality factor responsible for the situation, but the frame is provided by the tussle between the two security paradigms: realism and liberalism. Though a liberal himself, he is realist enough to understands that force has a role to play in managing internal conflict. His liberal orientation however makes it obvious to him that dialogue is the answer in such circumstance.

As a Sikh, he was witness to how the Khalistani insurgency was tackled. There too the liberal-realist tussle played out in the contrasting approaches of policing heroes, Julio Ribeiro and KPS Gill. While Ribeiro’s was a people friendly approach, Gill was unapologetic about strong arm methods. To Dulat, even if effective, as was the case in Punjab, such rough and ready methods have an avoidable price in societal alienation.

He applies his finding to Kashmir and concludes that the policies of suppression operational there are counter-productive. He rues the inability or unwillingness of the State to resort to readily available political means such as reaching out to both the mainstream regional political parties. He believes even the Hurriyat is ripe for engagement, the security dragnet having suitably tamed its separatism. Pakistan has also sensibly kept its distance, warned off by India’s public lowering of its threshold for violent retaliation in surgical strikes.

Being witness to the hard-line is painful for Dulat, who has had a long professional association with the Kashmir issue. While he was the intelligence services’ pointsman for Kashmir for the initial decade and half of the insurgency, he developed a deep understanding of and affiliation with Kashmiris. That the Kashmiris have been facing the rough end of the Indian stick lately troubles him. The book thus serves a purpose of a reasoned and timely critique of Modi’s policies in Kashmir.

Dulat’s is a voice that can credibly do so. He was the intelligence hand in Kashmir at the outbreak of the insurgency. Later back in Delhi he headed the Kashmir desk, while Doval was in the field in Kashmir reporting to him. He became acquainted with Doval’s tough line back then, but reasons that so long as the cat caught mice, there was no quibbling over its colour. After the stint as head of the R&AW, he was absorbed into Vajpayee’s prime ministerial office as adviser on Kashmir. The episode of the Kandahar hijack is an evocative read, with Doval’s role recounted being particularly interesting since it shows how Doval reacts under pressure.

Vajpayee was a votary of a soft-line in Kashmir and in regard to Pakistan. Dulat has recounted his experience then in his other book, Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years, recorded on the dust cover of this book as a bestseller. Unfortunately, Dulat’s efforts at conflict resolution by bringing the Hurriyat onboard for talks with the Home Minister Advani could not be taken to culmination by the next government of Manmohan Singh.

While Singh carried forward the dialogue, it lost its way - as did India’s Pakistan rapprochement strategy - with 26/11 Mumbai terror attack writing the epitaph. Dulat nevertheless persisted in his peace-making efforts, this time at the Track II by participating in a conclave of intelligence chiefs of both sides. His interaction with Pakistani spy chief General Durrani is carried in his other ‘bestseller’, The Spy Chronicles.

The book reviewed here is in part Dulat’s latest effort in this noble, if thankless, cause. His chapter on Farooq Abdullah is advocacy for the government to use Abdullah’s good offices in steps out of the quagmire it has got India into in Kashmir with its wanton jettisoning of the Article 370 jugular that linked Kashmir to India. The book gives us insight as to why Dulat is indefatigably on this course, trying to end a protracted conflict.

The first chapter is about his family background, suggestive of an elite upbringing with old school values that have increasingly got out of place in New India. The book is in the form of a collection of vignettes from his eventful life, covering his association with President Giani Zail Singh and, as the spook in-charge of security of visiting dignitaries, with significant political personages of late last century, such as Margaret Thatcher and Lee Kuan Yew. Of interest to professionals and faculties in security studies would be his dilation on the ‘trade’, as the world of spooks is known, and his foreign stint in Nepal. Significant is Dulat’s revelation of how during his tenure as the IB head in Bhopal, that included the response to the gas tragedy, he was rudely reminded in a mob attack on a train he was embarked on during the anti-Sikh pogrom that he was ultimately, Sikh.

Though Dulat presents himself as a laid-back, cricket-playing chap who enjoys his drinks and conversation, he nevertheless comes across as a serious security practitioner. He deliberately eschews trying to impress his reader with any insider knowledge and highfalutin jargon. It’s almost as though he has exhausted his analytical thrust in his official missives.

The good that accrues is that the book then is an accessible one for students of security and peace studies. The bad part is that it appears there is much unsaid in the book in a self-censorship that relegates the book to a travel companion to be picked up at an airport bookstore. Even so, the book is a useful addition in parts to the books by diplomats – such as Satinder Lambah - that have contributed to the understanding of the intractable India-Pakistan conflict and to books by reputed journalists - as Anuradha Bhasin - on the Kashmir conflict.

 

 

 

 

 

 https://www.thebookreviewindia.org/sino-indian-entente-a-distant-dream/

two book reviews

Sino-Indian Entente–A Distant Dream?

UNDERSTANDING THE INDIA CHINA BORDER: THE ENDURING THREAT OF WAR IN THE HIGH HIMALAYAS by Manoj Joshi HarperCollins Publishers India, Gurugram, 2022, 289 pp., 599.00

THE LAST WAR: HOW AI WILL SHAPE INDIA’S FINAL SHOWDOWN WITH CHINAby Pravin Sawhney Aleph Book Company, New Delhi, 2022, 390 pp., 999.00

Both authors need no introduction to the public attentive to strategic matters. Between them, they have fifty years of engagement with strategic affairs. Both have past publications that place them in good standing as readers appraise whether they should pick up their latest wares. While Joshi’s landmark book was on Kashmir – The Lost Rebellion - in the nineties, Sawhney’s co-authored one - The War Unfinished - was on the India-Pakistan crisis of early this century. Both have been deeply immersed in the subject of the two books – India-China strategic relations – ever since. While Joshi was on the panel of a defence reform committee some ten years back, Sawhney has been founder editor of a respectable publication on defence issues over past twenty years. Both justify their credentials in their respective books under review.

The subject itself is very topical. China has been breathing down India’s neck for some ten years now, beginning with intrusions of temporary duration exactly ten years back, building up to a wholesale intrusion three years ago. It can reasonably be speculated that had Covid not intervened, the two countries might have come to fisticuffs. Their respective No First Use pledge notwithstanding there is no guarantee the outcome could have been benign for either.

Therefore, understanding what happened is important, particularly when even Foreign Minister S Jaishankar, a China-hand, has admitted to being nonplussed by the Chinese action. The Chinese continue to be present on India-claimed territory and the two sides are poised to weather their third winter in a continuing face-off in the high Himalayas. Both books provide a vantage point towards understanding how the Southern Asian neighbours got to this pass. While Joshi’s provides context to the Chinese action, Sawhney’s explains why the Chinese cannot be militarily evicted.   

Joshi’s is a readable survey of history of the border going back into the British Indian period. He shows how Independent India, as the successor state, took to preserving its inheritance. The coincident advent of revolutionary China on the world stage, witnessed the scramble for Tibet. While India conceded Tibet to China, it perhaps hoped that in return its claims on the border would find recognition by China in reciprocation. Though not Joshi’s interpretation, in the event, the two thieves fell out – complicit in depriving Tibet of statehood they could not agree on the spoils.

Joshi - along with some other recent books - offers a start point for possible resolution in recounting the unilateral fixing of India’s border by prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. This enables flexibility to the present government, that wastes no opportunity to denigrate Nehru, to negotiate the border. However, that it is refrains from doing so owes to its nationalist credentials. It cannot be seen as discussing the border from a position of disadvantage, when Chinese troops sit in a threatening posture. This explains Jaishankar’s refrain that Chinese need to sheath the sword before normalcy obtains.

Joshi’s coverage of India’s leaning on the United States (US), as part of external balancing, indicates that China will not let up the pressure either. A security dilemma appears to be driving the two neighbours apart. The US is gainer in its competition with China for global hegemony, with expectations of an Asian Century in a Sino-Indian entente are dashed. That the two sides are wary of coming to blows is evident from military talks yielding up ideas as buffer zones to resolve the impasse.

Sawhney takes up where his other co-authored book on China – The Dragon on our Doorstep - left off just prior to the Doklam episode, when China was surprised by Indian muscle flexing and resolved to outdo India. Ladakh resulted, prompted in part by the political reshuffling in Jammu and Kashmir with the amendment to Article 370. This upset the status quo over the status of Ladakh, giving China an opportunity to try and do India down preemptively before its apprehended competition with the US heats up and the Taiwan issue boils over.

Sawhney paints a cautionary picture in advocating that India not rise to the bait. His prognosis is that China has lately built the capability to deal a 1962-like blow to India through its military modernization. Pitching itself as competitor of the US, China has exerted to redress the asymmetry it started off its military reforms with. It studied US’ military trajectory since the Gulf War, drew the right lessons and has built up its capabilities and in some domains of war, drawn ahead of the US. This has enabled it to get the better of India in any confrontation, given – as Sawhney rues – India has not done a similar exercise in aping its peer militaries.

To Sawhney, India’s military chose instead to get immersed in Kashmir and distracted in staying ahead of a weaker military, Pakistan. It was thus distracted by the immediate threat rather than one over the horizon. The result is for all to see in Ladakh, where it has had to scramble to not only ward off the threat, but to go about a military reset. To Sawhney, this is bolting the barn after the horse has fled.

Sawhney therefore pitches for arriving at a modus vivendi with China – and Pakistan. This will allow the military to buy time to get to grips with twenty first century warfare. Sawhney is particularly informative on what the new character of war is all about. This portion of the book might interest the military – even if it is miffed by his view that it is liable to suffer defeat in a mere 10 days in any fisticuffs today - but will certainly be engrossing – even if a tedious read for non-technical readers - for defence studies faculties and lay military buffs.

Sawhney hints that a military reverse is likely so long as the Indian military brass does not return to the professional straight and narrow, devoting a chapter to the ‘politicisation’ of the Indian military. Hopefully, the military will not, on this count, throw the baby out with the bathwater – especially since this reviewer has also made the same point - on military politicization.

The problem with the recent plethora of publications on the crisis and the border problem have been chary of dwelling on possible solutions. They advocate managing the issue till India has grows the teeth to come to grips with it – so that concessions inevitable in border negotiations are not seen as from a position of weakness or disadvantage. The problem with this is that gaining a position of strength is to chase a receding horizon.

Consequently, it’s better that the government – that has the singular advantage of having the numbers and being nationalist to boot – be encouraged to make the compromises necessary. The government appears to be on the right track in downplaying the border incidents, including Galwan, in order not to have hyper-nationalism tie its hands. It needs to be bold to go a step further. This does not need to await first arriving at military symmetry with China. China would do well to incentivize India down this route by letting up military pressure – lest it in its overkill it pushes India into the expectant arms of the US. The two books lay the ground work for furthering such heretical – if not seditious – thinking and on that count are a recommended read.

 

 

 https://www.thebookreviewindia.org/books-in-brief-11/

THE 24TH MILE: AN INDIAN DOCTOR’S HEROISM IN WAR-TORN BURMA by Tehmton S. Mistry HarperCollins, 2021, 323 pp., 599.00

ESCAPE FROM PAKISTAN: THE UNTOLD STORY OF JACK SHEAby Debora Ann Shea Penguin, 2021, 224 pp., 599.00

DECEMBER IN DACCA: THE INDIAN ARMED FORCES AND THE 1971 BANGLADESH LIBERATION WARby KS Nair HarperCollins, 2022, 264 pp., 699.00

Rajpal Punia & Damini Punia, Operation Khukri: The True Story Behind Indian Army’s Most Successful Mission as part of the United Nations, Penguin Random House, India, 2021, ISBN (hardcover): 9780143453369

Anuj Nayyar, The Tiger of Dras

Hisila: From revolutionary to first lady

DECEMBER 2022, VOLUME 46, NO 12

There is much in common between these six books. They all carry a subtitle, are inexpensive and light reading, though about a rather heavy topic; are tales simply told; and are about the lesser remarked aspects of war. Other than the one by Hisila, they have been penned by people other than the respective protagonists, with Punia having his daughter along as co-author. All are of stories in southern Asia, other than Punia’s which is situated in West Africa.

However, the most significant factor that compels clubbing them together here is that they are stories of high, pulsating adventure. Consequently, they are recommended reading for youth, who in times of internet have lost the yen for reading. The six can leave behind a constructive hobby for in their coverage of war time settings of the adventures they narrate, they help educate. The adventures themselves serve to inspire, since all the central characters are memorable, having distinguishing character traits that not only mark them out but also help them cope with the adventures that befall each.

Reviewing them chronologically here, we begin with Mistry’s portrayal of the adventures of his uncle by marriage, Dr. Jehangir Anklesaria. The good doctor was posted as port medical officer in Rangoon when the Japanese struck at Pearl Harbour. The Japanese—‘runts’ in the racist prototype held before they overran South East Asia—were at Rangoon’s doors within six months. The British empire’s outpost there scrambled to get out of the way along with the retreating armies of the empire over which the sun never set. The book follows Jehangir as his familiar world crashes about him and his family.  He hastily dispatches his family to Kolkata and readies to help 50,000 refugees, mostly Indian, making their way via the land route back to India. Jehangir’s challenge was to prevent cholera outbreak at a major transit point, lest it spread to the 30,000 British, Indian, Chinese and Burmese troops and sap morale. The book follows him from Rangoon, across the Irrawaddy and the Chindwin, through the refugee transit camp at Monywa and, finally, in the last leg of the arduous journey through the malarial 24th Mile. Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse, the monsoon hits the serrated edges of the Arakan Yoma ranges as the good doctor struggles alone over the leech-infested and snake-lined pass between Tamu on the Burma border and Palel in Manipur: a 24 Mile eternity-long gap. The author rightly brings out that we owe our second language English to the likes of Dr. Anklesaria, else it could well have been Japanese.

The second book finds us in the independent era with India in the midst of yet another war, its second with Pakistan. The 1965 War finds the family of Jack Shea in Karachi, then capital of Pakistan. Jack is the naval attaché at the High Commission. The author—daughter of Jack Shea—writes of the carefree days before the war, with fishing in the Arabian Sea as Jack’s way not merely to spend time, but to keep an eye on the maritime happenings around Karachi port. The book reveals how Jack was central to the ‘escape from Pakistan’ of an undercover police officer. The agent had spied on Pakistan, resulting in—among other factors—Pakistan losing the war. Since Pakistan’s army wanted revenge for being tripped up, they were narrowing down on the agent. Jack stepped up his plan to send him back to India. The cloak-and-dagger stuff and the adventure of the police officer as he trudges on camel back through the southern Sindh desert to the India border makes for fascinating reading. Clearly, his cool head and valiantly facing up to the undiplomatic consequence were rightly rewarded with a distinguished service medal, a rare award at his rank.

The third book is about India’s next war, the 1971 War. The book, released to coincide with the year-long observation of the fiftieth anniversary of the war, appears intended to transmit tales of derring-do in the war to the next generation. This book is different from the others in that it is not about one individual’s adventure, as much a collage of a set of individuals. Nair is a self-confessed war aficionado, who puts his school-boy enthusiasm to good use in communicating the exploits of soldiers, airmen and sailors to the younger generation that has not seen war. Nair intends the book to recapture the empathy with which India intervened in East Pakistan. His penchant for details, particularly of air battles and technology, however, leave him word space only for making his point, more as an assertion than as a refutation of the argument that India had other motives, principally strategic, that prompted its intervention. Whereas India did end genocide as Nair records, Nair neglects the possibility that India’s interference partially precipitated the genocide in the first place. Since he believes India’s altruistic reason, he is severe on the United States for being double-faced. The book is a good start point for young enthusiasts to explore not only this war, but also move on to India’s military history–that is increasingly in nationalism-charged times coming in for much revision.

The fourth book is about an interesting, if not controversial episode, in India’s UN peacekeeping experience. Punia was the senior company commander of two subunits–his infantry company and one mechanized one–deployed in a remote corner of an anarchic country, Sierra Leone. The book follows Punia inducting into the country and deploying at the location. How he uses the Indian Army’s well known tools of counter insurgency to ‘Win Hearts And Minds’, WHAM, is well described. Lucky for him, the period was in the era of peacekeeping amateurism; else if done today, he’d have an inquiry sitting on how he distributed UN provisioned food for WHAM. But what is most striking in the book is the self-confession of sorts by him of what could be possible violations of international humanitarian law or war crimes. The Indian contingent was entrapped in a hostage situation by the rebels. The author reveals how he arrived at a plan to shoot his way out of a hostage situation. Its implementation in Operation Khukri arguably amounts to war crimes. While shooting their way out of their encirclement, they leveled the village they were located in, killing civilians in the process. From the narration, it is uncertain if civilians were collateral damage. From this narration though, it is clear that instead of a highpoint in Indian peacekeeping success, the book only succeeds in bringing the operation under a cloud.

The fifth book is of a war hero, Captain Anuj Nayyar, authored by his mother and assisted by a well-meaning member of civil society and a biker group that went around the country felicitating families of departed war heroes. The war heroes from the Kargil War have acquired a national profile already, some have had films made on them or figured in films on the war. The book fills out the spirited youth Anuj, showing what goes into the making of heroism. Take his stewardship of the boxing team at the academy. Though not a known boxer himself, since there were no takers for the task, he took it up. Anuj was no spit-and-polish soldier either, who smoked and kept a motorcycle while at the academy. Though not a swashbuckler, he had a girlfriend. On the book cover, showing him with captain’s stars on his shoulder, it is clear he was no budding martinet. The book follows him through the tempering of the steel at the two academies and its being unleashed on an equally redoubtable enemy high on the Kargil ridgeline. Since Anuj’s action is taken as ‘all in a day’s work’ for India’s young officers, it should also prompt the question, what then is the role of the junior leadership in the other ranks. Perhaps, the non-officer leaders build the teams that at the cusp of the moment allow such award winning heroism. The book does well to include 15 pages of mention of such junior leaders, who carried Anuj to immortality on the back of their invisible contribution in wars.

The last book reviewed here is very different from the others. It is about a war alright, but a civil war in India’s vicinity, Nepal. It’s a memoir of Hisila Yami. That she has retained her name shows that she cannot be reduced to merely being wife of Baburam Bhattarai–revolutionary Prime Minister of Nepal. The book shows her in her various identities as a feminist, revolutionary, architect, mother, wife and politician at various times. Yami’s has been a full life, well compressed in a simply told 300 plus pages. What makes the book interesting is also the description of ten years she spent as a revolutionary in a people’s war. The book captures the innocence of a revolution, with participants ready to die and kill for causes such as equality, federalism, socialism and fraternity. Though Nepal is an intimate neighbour and Nepalis are very evident in our neighbourhoods, there is much we are unaware of about their lives and concerns. The book is a good read, introducing us not only to a very sprightly lady, Hisila, but also to a significant part of our region. Together the books can make younger readers not only take to reading as a hobby but to a life of adventure beyond known confines and comforts.