Fall of Dacca

Re:kaal and arjun

Its a matter of choosing the lesser evil. We Indians enjoy any spectacle where the pak army or the establishment is in trouble, given that we have a legacy of rivalry with them. However, lets give the devil his due. For all the rivalry of the pak army and establishment, they are far better than any taliban type outfit that may take over Islamabad some day. Its not as far-fetched as it sounds since it is quite possible that the pak army can itself fracture along the US vs jihadi faultlines as well as ethnic faultlines. While we may get the satisfaction of seeing pakistan collapse, it may lead to a far worse situation on our borders.

Its a historical legacy of the subcontinent to see two desi neighbors fight each other, only to see some third party come over and take the spoils. Most of the time, that third party is terrible for everyone. Remember Prithivraj vs Jaichand and how Ghauri benefited from that feud? These jihadis are the new Ghauris. The Pakistanis pretend to be Islamists but in reality are the same as us.

Re:kaal and arjun

The other thing to keep in mind is that Pak army has given up all ideological posturing and has now become a mercenary outfit that is more interested in its own perks and privileges than anything else. It will fight for whoever is the highest bidder. The way the US controls the levers in Islamabad is an eye opener.

Given that we have the same interest as the US in terms of controlling jihad and we are not exactly lacking in economic means any more, why shouldnt we hire them to fight on our behalf and keep things under control in our neighborhood?

If Pakistan collapses and jihadis run riot, our army would have to go in there and clean things up. That would be far, far more expensive than putting the pak army on our payroll.

If for a moment we accept that separation of East Pakistan was a political failure, we must then ask how? Surely it was the military at the helm of political affairs and therefore must accept the singular responsibility for this surrender. It has been far too long that the military has hid itself behind this smokescreen sometimes blaming Mujeeb and sometimes Bhutto. The fact is that the military came to patrol the society early and will be responsible for even bigger blunders if the march on its own citizens and society is not arrested. It carries a disproportionate bias on national security and views everything through a military periscope. Yet this periscope failed miserably in 1971. It and its elite institutions have failed to comprehend that, ‘national power rises from a relatively stable platform of geography to the fleeting opportunities of national character and morale’ and that military power in itself is a very small contributor in averting rather than fighting wars, so much so that even a nuclear capability has left us feeling more vulnerable. Why this happened and continues to happen is because the military has not metamorphosed through an intellectual revolution. The cadre of elite General Staff has its own periscope, view and perspective of security matters and enforces it as such on all matters related to operational planning and training.

The army learnt to patrol society early by taking over the Kashmir war of 1948, followed by a series of military interventions and conflicts with India and Afghanistan. It developed a mindset where war invariably dictated policy and not vice versa. Hence 1965 was ill planned resulting in back rolling the entire development years of MAP. Similarly, there was not real effort at seeking political solutions in 1971. Kargil was planned and executed in a political vacuum and has shrouded the Kashmir Cause. Now its closest allies are forcing it to fight its own people in its heartland.

Capacity of military strategy and higher direction of war is limited. War is not seen in the realm of a political paradigm, but is assuming that politics must take a back seat when hostilities commence. The Clauewitzian principal of, ‘war as an instrument of policy in concert with other means’ is meant to just mean ‘war an instrument of policy’. Over the years, the army has learnt to study this great philosopher of war through a pathetic essay written by J F C Fuller in his book ‘Conduct of War’. Similarly other cardinal principals like ‘Friction, Centre of Gravity and Trinity’ have neither been understood nor an effort ever made to dilate them.
The General Staff is stuck with clichés like, ‘Defence of East Lies in the West’, ‘Strategic Depth’ and ‘Politico-Economic Corridor’ etc and Andre Baufre’s saying like, ‘Strategy is a dialect of two opposing wills’.

Plagued with such shortcomings in the higher direction, it will continue to blunder as it has done repeatedly in East Pakistan, Afghanistan and now. They will always listen and think; and then feel convinced they are right.

As for BanglaDesh, as I commented in a previous post, separation of East Pakistan was a foregone conclusion 1913, when the UP Lobby disgraced Nawab Salim Ullah of Bengal. Later the Bengalis were excluded in the official language, unicameral 1956 constitution, and 1962 Constitution. Based on the premise of martial race, they were considered bad soldiers but fought a civil war.

It is bad on part of Pakistanis who think that past is pirogue. It remains a very bad chapter of our history and the notion of a united Muslim nation our politicians created immediately after 23March 1940.
Cheerios

jinnah once said, muslims in india are a separate culture in comparison with hindus! i donot have jinnahs brains, im just a kid whos curious, but what is the connection between a kerala mappilla muslim and a punjabi muslim, other than faith?
one is dravidian, dark & short, eats rice & fish, the other is caucasian, fair & tall and eats chapathis & mutton.
one lives in a matriachal system, the other is patriachal.
one speaks malayalam and the other urdu?
faith alone cannot unite, biggest example is east pakistan.

Re: # 35
Gul Sahib,
What were you expecting from people who were failures in their younger days? Had they done better in school/college, do you think they would end up in the armed forces and/or in madarssahs?

Re: # 19 Pavocavalry
Hats off to you Amin Sahib. I can clearly see why you didn't last in the army. A person of your conscience and intelligence cannot survive in an institution essentially teeming with blockheads.

If Pakistanis do not reign in the army, it will destroy whatever is still left of Pakistan.

In genereal, in all these episodes, hatred of
Hindus was so intense, that evreything else took
backseat.

Now that Hinjews are out of the equation, all these
faults are suddenly visible and causing damages
and resentment and fissures.

ranjit, I too think that the Indian/Hindu blood is not yet completely dried up among Pakistani elite. So their first choice is to let others - mostly, the powerless - actually follow Islam. But in their approach to their religion, are they - someone like Musharraf, for instance - basically just like us? I am not sure.

Americans have been aligning and cooperating with Pakistani army and the elite and the liberals for a very long time? Do you think they have gotten anywhere? In fact, have Pakistanis and Americans EVER had an identity of purpose and/or motivation?

#36 Posted by wileythecoyote on December 16, 2007 10:54:04 am


the other is caucasian, fair


I saw the paki team on TV...I have news for you..you'all are "niggers" too..no amount of fair and lovely or paint from sherwin williams is going to change that..

#34 Posted by Ranjit on December 16, 2007 10:27:03 am


more interested in its own perks and privileges than anything else.


The kashmir jihad was about raising the indian bogey and giving abdul paki a dream..kashmir banega pakiland..and in the process, accumulating all the power in pureland...

now that the heat has gone up and a couple of stone age threats have been made, they are doing things differently..

if the paki army had the testicular fortitude, they would have openly attacked india to take what they considered theirs..

kashmir was just a way of keeping a national cause alive that would rally people behind them and make them give their powergrab a free pass...remember..most pakis were happy that nawaz was dismissed because they thought the martial army was about to take kashmir and nawaz chickened out..

#33 Posted by Ranjit on December 16, 2007 10:10:16 am


Its a matter of choosing the lesser evil.


there's nothing to choose...let the pakis kill each other..india can't do anything to hasten that or prevent it from happening..

I'm enjoying every moment of it..especially the new phase..the jihadis targeting the children of the paki army officers..the very paki army officers who sent the jihadis to kill indian women and children..

I am still looking for my old writing on this issue

which mysteriously disappeared from the CHOWK archives.

Close to 100,000 people were killed in 1971's Bangladesh

war.

The truth has been a major casualty in this conflict.

A few people in the know in Pakistan and Bangladesh today

are aware of this truth.

I do not know if the details will ever be revealed!

Ras

I suggest that people, especially the Indians, read Brig. Z A Khan's memoirs, The Way It Was, to get an idea of the scale of the fighting in March/April 1971. He was CO of the Commando Battalion in E. Pakistan then and, by S. Asian standards, a brutally honest narrator in his autobiography. Excerpts of it are available online at Defence Journal (http://www.defencejournal.com/sept98/wayitwas1.htm).

A Mukti Bahini OrBat is available at: http://orbat.com/site/history/historical/bangladesh/muktibahini.html. You will notice that there are 8 regular infantry battalions listed (East Bengal Regiment; the only single class battalion of the Army) which mutinied virtually en masse and killed most of their W. Pakistani Officers, JCOs, and NCOs and their families. Eight Battalions total at least 6,000 fully armed and trained soldiers, plus an unknown number of under-training recruits at the Regimental Centre and the training staff there. To this one must add all of the men (and equipment) of the East Pakistan Rifles and the Bengali police. Some years ago I gave the Pakistan Army casualties from March to November 1971 (from the Indian Official History of the 1971 War) which makes it clear that the PA was fighting a full-scale insurgency by well-armed and trained men, not just rampaging through the country killing civilians.

Many Bengali officers stayed loyal and fought till the bitter end for "their" country. I knew of one Pakistani officer who, just before the surrender, wrote in his unit's war diary that he suspected that the Bengalis were passing information to the Mukti Bahini, so as to enable the Bengali elements to 'show' their loyalty to Mujib ur Rehman.

What actually happened, and why, in East Pakistan in 1971 is far more complex than the simplistic picture painted by Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. However, facts are of no use to Indians or Bangladeshis or Pakistanis. We all have our 'truth' that we prefer to cling to.

BTW, Major Amin is wrong. Between 1948-69, 10 Battalions of the EBR were raised, not two.

I think, it was good for Pakistan to be separated from Bangladesh. India had made a tactical blunder. They should have made a pact with Pakistani Military, by which, they will push moslems/specifically from UP & Bihar from India and take away the non-moslems from Bangladesh. That would have created a permanent problem for Pakistan. Now, Bangladesh is more friendly towards Pakistan than India. Furthermore, Pakistan does not need to bear the economic burden of Bangladesh (Look at the recent cyclone in BD). Like Kashmir, Bangladesh would have been vulnerable point of Pakistan, which India could exploit any time. Indira Gandhi was kind of illiterate lady. So, the decision she has taken along with Soviet Union, was more of flexing muscle and stopping the attrocity than looking for better solution. Russia was always against Pakistan and Israel ( so was India). Pakistan should be grateful to India now.India has gained nothing in long run from creation of Bangladesh. The refugee problem created by moslem attrocity against non-moslems continued after 1975.

Re:nkg#46
"India had made a tactical blunder."

On the contrary, India did the right thing. From a psychological point of view, it destroyed the myth that hindus could never defeat muslims in war. In 1971, when Pak army was losing, the GHQ in Rawalpindi was confident that something or someone would intervene to help muslim forces against non-muslims, such was their belief in that myth. The defeat crushed that myth along with the ambition that several pakistani elite, especially the mohajirs, had about hoisiting the pak flag on the red fort.

From a material point of view, it split up muslims in the subcontinent into 3 entities, while hindus are consolidated in 1 country. Effectively it implies that muslims can never again get political supremacy in the subcontinent, while hindus would enjoy the lion share of the subcontinent with no challenge to their way of life. The moth-eaten pakistan of 1947 became half of even what Jinnah got. So it ended any possible competition between India and Pakistan to be the top dog in the subcontinent. Earlier Pakistan was one quarter of India's size, now it was one-tenth.

Yes, bangladesh is not exactly India's best friend, but it is quite manageable. The current situation in the subcontinent is the perfect scenario for India, which is why it is developing so quickly in all aspects. It is also the reason why India will hang on to this status quo and do its best to keep things the way they are right now. Therefore, now is the best time to buy the pak army up. Once the pak army becomes our proxy, there is no stopping India from becoming a superpower.

Re: # 38 All government jobs are for sycophants.In Pakistan Defence Services are all about making DHA where they can play with real estate.Now you see what is the professional worth of these paper tigers in Waziristan ?