| Submit your comments on this article |
| India-Pakistan |
| 'British Bomb': How India and Pakistan Made Peace at 2am |
| 2025-08-06 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Artemy Sharapov [REGNUM] "He destroys my defense, the old Indian one - in an instant. It vaguely reminds me of the Indo-Pakistani incident." Vladimir Vysotsky's humorous song is dedicated to an amateur chess player, but the reference to the "incident" in South Asia was entirely appropriate. The Soviet audience understood the reference. By 1973, when the artist wrote the song, there had been countless Indo-Pakistani incidents reported by the press. Three skirmishes escalated into full-fledged wars. The protracted conflict reminded me of itself this spring. But the "incident" that happened exactly 60 years ago, in August 1965, was perhaps the most telling. The problem with the "Indo-Pakistani incidents" is that they are perceived as a purely regional problem that has no relation to the global agenda. Two countries, albeit large and possessing nuclear weapons, are sorting something out between themselves. But in reality, these "incidents" cannot be perceived outside the context of the confrontation between great powers. The war of 1965 clearly demonstrated this. It was largely provoked by the American adventure in Vietnam. The key role in the conflict - as now - was played by Chinese participation. And the warring parties were reconciled by the USSR. KASHMIR IS 'FREE' BUT OCCUPIED It is impossible to talk about the Indo-Pakistani confrontation without mentioning the role of Britain, which, when leaving its former colonies in South Asia, planted a “bomb” that is still detonating. The civil disobedience campaign, launched in 1942 by the Indian National Congress (INC) led by Mahatma Gandhi, showed that the colonial administration could not keep the situation under control, the “British Raj” – “British rule” – would have to be dismantled. A 380-million country could have appeared on the world map (British India included the modern Republic of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh with natural satellites in the form of Ceylon and Burma). Such a subcontinental state had a serious chance of becoming one of the Asian hegemons with global ambitions. And to become, in addition, a natural ally of the USSR, which positioned itself as the vanguard of the anti-colonialist struggle. Joseph Stalin, although he scolded Gandhi and his successor as leader of the INC, Jawaharlal Nehru, for collusion with the British and local bourgeoisie, believed that independent India had a more serious chance than China of becoming a great power, “more or less developed from a capitalist perspective.” Britain acted preemptively. The All-India Muslim League, created at the beginning of the 20th century, limited itself until 1940 to demanding autonomy for the Islamic community. But on the eve of the British departure, the League “restructured itself” and was no longer talking about the community, but about the Islamic nation, which needed its own state. This plan was approved by the last viceroy of the "British Raj", Louis Mountbatten. According to the Indian Independence Act of June 1947, the country was divided into Hindu and Muslim states. The partition led to an "exchange of populations", which in reality resulted in 15 million refugees, Hindus and Muslims, and the death of 500,000 people killed in inter-communal clashes. The British prescribed a separate order for 600 "native principalities." Their maharajas could choose which of the states to join, or remain in the same relations with London. One of the largest feudal possessions was the principality of Jammu and Kashmir, which became another "mine." The principality was ruled by a Hindu dynasty, but most of its subjects were Muslim. Maharaja Hari Singh tried to maintain independence from both India and Pakistan. But the invasion of Pakistani tribal forces forced the ruler to seek help from Nehru and sign the Instrument of Accession. This led to the First Indo-Pakistani War (1947–1949). As a result, the disputed land was divided along the ceasefire line. Pakistan declared the "state of Free Kashmir" in the occupied territories, but de facto annexed these lands. Both sides continued to lay claim to the entire region, which created constant tension and "fixated" the two new South Asian powers on each other. There could no longer be any talk of Greater India's hegemony in Asia. FIELD MARSHAL DOESN'T WANT TO GO TO VIETNAM The first war merely froze the status quo, and both sides sought to turn the game in their favor. In 1958, a military coup took place in Pakistan - the first, but not the last in the history of this country. The new ruler, Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan, initially looked strictly to the United States. The Dwight Eisenhower administration viewed the regime as a bulwark against the spread of communism in Asia, and Ayub needed a powerful ally in the confrontation with India. The army of the Islamic Republic received American military equipment and weapons. Pakistan joined the pro-American military alliances CENTO and SEATO, which were directed against India, among other things. But by the mid-1960s, Ayub Khan began to play a multi-vector game. The main event of the era, the Vietnam War, played a role here. President Lyndon Johnson, under whom the United States sent troops to South Vietnam, sought to involve its allies in the campaign. Johnson pressed Mohammad Ayub Khan to send Pakistani troops to support the “American war effort.” But after several attempts to evade the proposal, the Pakistani dictator refused. Ayub Khan even told the American ambassador that he considered the Vietnam campaign a mistake. Moreover, in the spring of 1965, after a visit to Moscow, Ayub Khan declared : Pakistan is correcting the mistakes of its one-sided orientation toward the United States and deepening relations with the Soviet Union and China. This "and" sounded disingenuous. The two communist powers were then at the peak of their confrontation, Moscow and Beijing had different plans in South Asia, and Pakistan had different views on interaction with the USSR and China. NUCLEAR RACE Until that moment, Soviet-Pakistani relations had been at their worst. Moscow had not forgotten that the American U-2 spy plane piloted by Francis Gary Powers, shot down over the USSR in 1960, had taken off from Pakistan. But the Islamic Republic seemed to be intent on getting away from the Americans. This would be a good option for all of South Asia: thanks to contacts with Moscow, Pakistan would have an opportunity for reconciliation with the USSR's partner, India. The trouble was that Pakistan felt like a victorious country. Not long before, a small skirmish with the Indians in the border desert of Kutch was won outright. Ayub Khan sought to assert his power by a 'cavalry charge' by resolving the Kashmir issue. Moreover, India was locked in a full-scale conflict with China. The 1962 Sino-Indian border war in the Himalayas ended in a military draw, and Nehru was forced to keep large forces on the northern border. Mao Zedong benefited from Pakistan becoming a well-armed “enemy of my enemy.” China, it seems, has become an example for Pakistan in acquiring nuclear weapons. In 1964, China joined the club of nuclear powers. But the main thing is that it was known that India had begun to develop its nuclear program in defiance of China. The statement made by Pakistani Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on the eve of the war is well known : " If India makes its own atomic bomb, then we will have to make our own, even if it means living on bread and water or even dying of hunger. The Christians have the bomb, the Jews have the bomb, and now the Hindus have the bomb. Why shouldn't the Muslims have their own?" But the main thing was to strike before India got its own bomb. That is how the plan for the war in Kashmir was born, under the “English” name of “Gibraltar”. However, as the Pakistani military explained, this fortress in the south of Spain was remembered for another reason: in the early Middle Ages, it was the first territory in Europe captured by Muslims. "PATTON CEMETERY" On paper, the plan to invade Indian Kashmir looked promising. It was supposed to send in thousands of saboteurs who would start a Muslim uprising. It could then be presented as a struggle for local self-determination, rather than a conflict between states. On August 5, 1965, thousands of Pakistani soldiers in civilian clothes entered Jammu and Kashmir. However, the plan did not work: no uprising occurred, and Indian troops were able to quickly locate and neutralize the saboteurs. In response, India launched a counteroffensive, capturing key Pakistani positions in Kashmir. Abandoning the initial plan for combat, Pakistan launched a large-scale offensive. The objective was to take the area of the city of Aknoor (where, incidentally, fighting took place during the 2025 conflict) and cut the only road linking Kashmir to the rest of India. The operation failed, which became one of the turning points of the war. Military operations continued throughout August. In early September, the Indian Armed Forces began their offensive in the state of Punjab with the aim of drawing Pakistani troops away from Kashmir. On September 6, Indian troops crossed the border, launching an offensive on one of the country's largest cities, Lahore. This forced Pakistan to redeploy its main forces to a new section of the front. To stop the breakthrough of Indian troops, the General Staff of the Pakistan Army transferred the 1st Armored Division, equipped with American M-48 Patton tanks, to Punjab. The division's forces attempted a breakthrough in the Asal Uttar area. Indian troops had identified the threat in advance, so they flooded the surrounding fields, creating a swamp impassable for heavy tanks. Then older, but lighter and more reliable British Centurion tanks were thrown into the battle, which were able to inflict a crushing defeat on the Pakistani armored vehicles. The site of the battle was nicknamed "Patton Cemetery." PEACE AT THE GRAVE OF TAMERLANE As the war dragged on, Pakistan's former main ally, the United States, withdrew. It wasn't just that American forces were tied down by the Vietnam operation. The Johnson administration made no secret of its displeasure that "Gibraltar" had been launched without consulting the American military. Moreover, the US imposed an embargo on arms supplies to both warring parties, which had a more sensitive effect on Pakistan. If the striking force of its group consisted of Pattons and Shermans, then the Indians, in addition to the same Shermans and British Centurions, also had French AMX-13 light tanks and Soviet PT-76 amphibious vehicles. Yes, China began large-scale support for Pakistan in 1965. Beijing then allocated about $60 million ($651 million in today's equivalent) for military needs and began direct deliveries of weapons, including tanks and aircraft. But this was later, as compensation for military losses in the August-September campaign. "Here and now" Ayub Khan had to find a way out of the war. Especially since Nehru's successor, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, wanted the same. After all, the conflict had reached a stalemate: by mid-September, Pakistan had managed to occupy some areas of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, and India had taken up positions in Pakistani Punjab. But then came the grueling positional battles. And here the contacts of both sides with Moscow came in handy. Immediately after the war began, the head of the USSR Council of Ministers Alexei Kosygin appealed to Shastri and Ayub Khan to show restraint and not to escalate the conflict, especially in the immediate vicinity of our borders. In September, "signals" were already sent to Moscow from Delhi and Rawalpindi (then the capital of Pakistan). “Many hopes in Moscow were connected with the personal authority of Alexei Nikolaevich Kosygin, who had already distinguished himself from the Soviet leadership with his experience as a statesman and knowledge of international issues, and as a skilled negotiator,” recalled Foreign Ministry adviser Andrei Vavilov, a witness to the events, who was a young diplomat and translator from English, Hindi and Bengali during the period described. General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev believed that Moscow should be the negotiating platform, but Kosygin insisted on Tashkent, remembering that both Ayub Khan and Shastri had visited the city earlier. "We were amazed by the thoroughness of the restoration work in the ancient mosques of Bukhara and Samarkand. Ayub Khan prayed in front of Tamerlane's tomb in my presence," Vavilov said. In December 1965, the leaders of the warring countries agreed to attend the meeting without any conditions. In Tashkent, they were met by Kosygin, Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, and Defense Minister Rodion Malinovsky. The tall and imposing Muhammad Ayub Khan and the short Lal Bahadur Shastri were pointedly cold and did not communicate with each other. Kosygin had to shuttle between the residences of the two guests. The efforts were not in vain - the "Tashkent process" turned out to be quite fast and tactically successful. Although it required efforts from the Soviet side. "It was 15 minutes after midnight (already January 10) when Shastri confirmed to Kosygin that he agreed with the final text of the Declaration... Gromyko said that he had experienced many negotiations, but these were the most difficult. It was about two in the morning," Vavilov recalled. The parties signed a declaration according to which the troops were withdrawn to their pre-war positions, after which a peaceful settlement was to begin. Moscow stopped the full-scale conflict. But the Kashmir problem, "mined" in 1947 and still detonating, remained unresolved (and apparently not resolved). But our country's experience of participating as a peacemaker showed who is interested in the region not being shaken by further "incidents" involving armies with nuclear weapons. |
| Posted by:badanov |