https://www.thecitizen.in/opinion/keep-walking-general-oberoi-1315746

 https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/general-oberoi-on-one-leg-and-a-prayer

General Oberoi: On One Leg and a Prayer

In a ‘personal mini account’ penned a decade back, Lt Gen Vijay Oberoi recounted his life in uniform and out of it. Its fullness was testified by the title, No Commas; No Pauses; No Full Stops. The details were to follow in a fuller biography, which he was reportedly working on with assistance of his grand-daughter, recently returned with a Masters’ degree from King’s College London. Since the ‘mini account’ whets the appetite for more, the forthcoming book can be expected to further illumine the trajectory India’s post-Independence military.

Given the historical shortage of access to official thinking - routinely made available in public archives in other democratic countries - biographies are one way to tap into India’s strategic turning points. While this route may suffer the drawback of selective and partial perspective, regrettably the attentive public will soon be deprived of even this vestige. The regime’s threat to turn off pensions is out to stifle even sanitized recollections. The outcome will be fewer resources with levels of General Oberoi’s blunt-speak, allowing space for strategic mythologizing to take over.

General Oberoi will be known for many things – not least of which is his post-retirement stewardship of the War Wounded Foundation. He along with three contemporaries – Lt Gen ‘Yogi’ Sharma, Lt Gen Pankaj Joshi and Maj Gen ‘Kartoos’ Cardozo - rose through the ranks despite the war-attributable disability, or rather because of it spurring each on to super the challenge. While this shows the army in good light, each had to contend with individual sceptics making each journey remarkable.

A significant innings of the general was his appointment as founder-director of the Center for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS). His credentials as a ‘soldier-scholar’ were the right mix to take the Indian army into the twenty-first century. Operation Parakram had just wound down and an early lesson learnt was that the limited war window - espied first after the Kargil War - needed to be exploited. Following the footsteps of the air force, the army set up CLAWS with a view to take forward doctrinal thinking. The second edition of the official army doctrine was articulated even as the center was set up. General Oberoi, as head of the Army Training Command (ARTRAC) had overseen the writing up of its first doctrine in 1998. He was thus a default choice. Interestingly, the general rues the pretension that the 2004 doctrine was the first iteration of doctrine!

Outstanding in his ‘soldier’ credentials is that as an infantry officer he was picked to convert a mechanized division into an armoured division, becoming only the second infantry officer to lead one; Sundarji being the first. His three-star commands were of a strike corps and of the Command tasked for offensives, the Western Command. Besides, he had headed the operations branch and had overseen it as vice chief.

He conceptualised the map exercise portion of Exercise (Ex) Brasstacks, receiving the second highest distinguished service medal, rare at one-star level. He later participated in its final version – exercise with troops – as a brigade commander. He followed through as the operations chief with Ex Brahm Astra and, later when at Chandimandir, with Ex Divya Astra. Since the nuclear shadow loomed larger in the period pockmarked with crises ranging from Kashmir to Kargil, conventional doctrine had to delicately keep pace with strategic developments. The general, along with contemporaries as Lt Gen ‘Shammi’ Mehta, thus helped birth the current limited war doctrine, which in its latest avatar has Rudras and Bhairavs at vanguard.

The scholar part of his ‘soldier-scholar’ tag is equally significant. This feature of his personality was noticeable early with his figuring on the prestigious competitive list of the top twenty for the year-long defence staff course. He underwent the National Defence College-equivalent course meant for budding brass-hats at Carlisle. Earlier, he’d tenanted the horizon-widening post as defence attaché in Malaysia. He had a longish tenure at Shimla, heading the training command, since his generation of general officers was lucky to have their years in service extended by two years. This spared him the usual merry-go-round that the ARTRAC chair usually witnesses, allowing him time for reflection.

This author was witness to two instances of the general’s eye for innovation in the period. One was his interest in the infantry assault technique to unlock deliberate defences such as exist in the obstacle-ridden terrain along the Pakistan border. The technique harks back to the German storm troopers of the First World War. In the Indian context the technique was perfected by an officer who had served under the general in his battalion command days (incidentally the first company commander of this writer). It was put out as an ARTRAC training note. Co-incident with the Kargil War, a just-in-time pamphlet on multipronged assaults in mountains adapted the technique to the terrain.

The second instance was in regard to a paper I wrote on educating army officers. Fresh from sabbatical, I pompously advocated that the liberal arts and science educational curriculum at the academies be substituted with hard-core military studies (p. 62). He called me up to Shimla for presenting the paper to the concerned staff. Gratifyingly, and testimony of his attention to detail, some advocated subjects soon started figuring in professional military education curriculum, such as international humanitarian law which was includ by when I underwent the senior command course at the war college. Now, of course, the emphasis is on technology, though one hopes this is not at the cost of understanding war through the more befitting political science lens.

His character-building legacy for officers is of forthrightness. He’d demonstrated this repeatedly, once requesting to be replaced in a senior appointment in military operations directorate, owing to a run-in with someone at headquarters. Later, as military operations head, he yet again bid to be posted out. He stepped down at CLAWS too after contesting restrictions on the autonomy of the fledgling institution. No details of the disagreements figure in his biography prequel, held in reserve for his intended (now posthumous) biography.

From his trenchant critique of the bureaucracy, it can be reasonably surmised that his tiffs were with defence ministry bureaucrats, who - at the time - were known to have authority without responsibility, a characterization by one of their own, ‘Subbu’ Subrahmanyam. To the general, the bureaucracy suffers a ‘feeling of inadequacy or fear their lack of knowledge will stand exposed.’ Today’s incorporation of the military into the ministry and the nascent concept of fusionism owe in part to the fulminations of the military veterans on the bureaucracy forming an intervening layer between the military and the political leadership, redefining civilian control away from political control.

The current generation of brass-hats must contend with the downside of the resulting proximity: the ideological adhesive inherent in fusionism. It has already led to a manipulative and transactional relationship with the military, expanding grey areas on roles such as of a recent tasking of the air force for distributing exam papers. This gives rise to the question if military is signalling ideological compliance, such as by tweaking dress codes, going overboard on perception management or in rhetorical genuflection to viksit’ism, to receive a bounty of sorts?

His legacy on this in his own words, is: ‘There is a moral somewhere here; if you feel strongly about a wrong, do not keep mum and hesitate because of a perceived notion that you are deliberately inviting harm to yourself. One should take action and if there are adverse consequences, so be it!’

An ongoing debate, the general participated in – if not quite precipitated - is on jointness. In his book, he recalls a heated debate with Air Marshal Vinod Patney – who as the most decorated military officer ever was no spring-chicken in the art of repartee. At the Western Command war game in the presence of a bemused defence minister, the debate on the respective roles of land and air forces in prosecuting war can be credited with kicking off the impetus to ‘think purple.’

On the nuclear aspect, the general breathed fire. As an armoured warfare exponent, he required a water-tight nuclear umbrella allowing mechanized pincers to do their thing. To this end, he favoured the official nuclear doctrine, that promises visiting down annihilation for any nuclear first use. Inherent in this is the risk of conventional provocation of indeterminate nuclear thresholds. This threat has receded somewhat lately with operationalization of the limited war doctrine, keeping off nuclear redlines by relying mostly on stand-off delivery of ordnance by drones and missiles. Recent reports on a set of operationally-ready nuclear warheads have set off calls for a doctrinal revision. If conventional war is subject to limitation, surely nuclear war – decidedly more dangerous - also merits like attention.

His military thinking rested on firm foundations laid with the legendary Jangi Paltan, with which right on commissioning he participated in liberating Daman. Come 1965, he was injured in the leg while chasing Pakistani infiltrators in the Dachigam forest near Srinagar. His fellow officer on that patrol, Lt Raut, was fatally injured; testifying to the two sticking to the well-regarded dictum for young officers: lead from the front. The leg amputated, only further energised him into higher endeavour.

As a middle-piece officer, he was the first second-in-command of a new raising. He earned his first distinguished service award in command of the same unit, a rare distinction. The unit’s record has been such as to earn it a tenure at the Rashtrapati Bhawan, where it looks to belatedly celebrate its golden jubilee (full disclosure: it is the unit this author was commissioned into). He went on to tenant the appointment of ‘colonel of the regiment,’ an post threatened with obsolescence under the decolonizing rationale. Both a good and successful officer, he validates the motto most Indian officers live by: ‘karam hi dharm.’

Finally, in the context of the times, it is worth mention that the general was a model secular being. Not only did he court and win his wife, Daulat - herself a product of an inter-religious marriage - but though exposed to the travails of Partition as a young boy, he did not allow its memory to becloud his humanity. He was scathing on prejudices that are at full tide today.

The general walked into the sunset last week. As a privileged recipient of a signed copy of the limited edition No Commas…, I can only pass on the exhortation personally inked by him: ‘Keep Walking!’

 

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.