Tuesday, 01 February 2022 | Raj Kanwar
Of the many books that have lately been published on India’s current history, Shiv Kunal Verma’s 1965: A Western Sunrise stands out as one of the best. Some critics opine that the book provides the most lucid and in-depth account of the 1965 war, and “sets the bar in military history writing”.
“While India was still licking its wounds from the disastrous 1962 war against the Chinese, the belligerent Pakistan decided to wrest Kashmir from India. To test the waters, they launched their first military probes into the Rann of Kutch between February and May of 1965; India strongly responded,” Verma writes in the introduction. However, by the end of July, India gave in to the dictates of the UN and stood down the troops it had mobilised in the Punjab and Kargil sectors in response to the Rann of Kutch ‘skirmishes’. Pakistan then launched its masterstroke – Operation Gibraltar – in Kashmir in August 1965. Nearly 12,000 trained Mujahids were covertly deployed in multiple groups, each named after historical plunderers of the sub-continent. Confident that they had the superior armour, better fighter planes and better submarines than India, the Pakistanis expected that in the event of an expanded war, the Indians would collapse just as they had against China in NEFA three years previously.
But contrary to the Pakistan’s expectations, India repulsed the attack, and cut off its entry and exist points into the Kashmir Valley by capturing the Haji Pir Bulge. Operation Gibraltar thus fizzled out. Stung by its reverses, Pakistan then launched Operation Grand Slam in September 1965 in Chhamb and Jaurian. The resultant Indian counter-attack saw the focus shift to various other sectors – Lahore, Barki, Kasur, Fazilka, Sialkot and Barmer – on the international border. With the two Air Forces getting involved almost simultaneously, the armed ‘skirmishes’ turned into a full-scale war.”
Continuing the narrative Verma writes, “As they had in 1962, the junior officers and men of the Indian Armed Forces admirably acquitted themselves despite the on-the-fly reorganisation of forces, lack of intelligence, obsolete equipment, and lackluster military leadership. What could have ended in victory instead culminated in a stalemate. Official Indian figures put the total number of causalities at 12,714, out of which 2,763 were killed, 8,444 wounded, and 1,507 missing. An estimated 2,000 casualties occurred after the Ceasefire, raising questions about the effectiveness of the UN as a global Peacekeeping body. Neutral observers put Pakistani deaths at over 5,000. The conflict ended when the Tashkent Agreement was signed by the Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and President Ayub Khan on 10 January 1966, agreeing to observe the ceasefire lines and withdraw their respective armed personnel to positions that they had held before 5 August 1965.”
What makes the book a great read is the author’s versatility in matters military, and his long standing conviviality with its officers. He is on first-name terms both with many of the serving and retired generals and middle rank officers and enjoys their confidence.
Considered in the context of the multiple factors like the wounds of the Partition, chronic disagreements over Kashmir, the interviews the author has had with the soldiers, officers, bureaucrats, and others who have had a first-hand view of the conflict and his own research of the terrain, there is no gainsaying that 1965: A Western Sunrise provides a definitive account of the 1965 war between India and Pakistan.
(Kanwar is a veteran journalist & author based in Dehradun)
