REMEMBERING 6TH SEPTEMBER, 1965

Remembering 6^th September, 1965

Pakistan’s Thanksgiving Day

We Defended The Motherland

And I Was There!

(Part 1 of 2)

(M. Javed Naseem)

إِنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُواْ يُنفِقُونَ أَمْوَالَهُمْ لِيَصُدُّواْ عَن سَبِيلِ ٱللَّهِ

فَسَيُنفِقُونَهَا ثُمَّ تَكُونُ عَلَيْهِمْ حَسْرَةً ثُمَّ يُغْلَبُونَ

وَٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوۤاْ إِلَىٰ جَهَنَّمَ يُحْشَرُونَ

“The Unbelievers spend their wealth to hinder (man)

from the path of Allah, and so will they continue to spend;

but in the end they will have (only) regrets and sighs;

at length they will be overcome; and the Unbelievers

will be gathered together to Hell.”

(al-Quran 8:36)

‘Defense of Pakistan’ Day:

September 6^th is commemorated as the “Defense of Pakistan Day”. It should be celebrated as Pakistan’s “Thanksgiving Day”. On that day we defended our homeland from the open aggression of a 5-times bigger enemy – India. We were only 100-million people then and were marching comfortably with tons of confidence on the road to industrial and economic progress. I was 19 years old, hunting jobs and studying for my B.A. degree.

Pak military lacked manpower and we worked with them during the war as volunteers at Lahore Cantt. Ordnance Depot for loading and unloading the arms and ammunition on the trucks; and wherever the army took us to assist them. At night, we worked as Civil Defense volunteers and patrolled the streets of our neighborhoods in small teams of two each. We tried to catch the enemy spies, commandos and agents who, sometimes, roamed the streets as beggars and mentally retarded. We lived near North Cantt. Police Station, just a few km from the Wahgah border. The city of Amritsar (Indian Punjab) was only 7 miles from there.

It’s September again and

India has started border

skirmishes to divert people’s

attention. The real Indian

problems are always hidden

under the dirty carpet of anti-

Pakistan, anti-Muslim rhetoric.

And it works every time!

The Indian attack was extremely unexpected (although there were constant LOC violations and cross-border firing cases in Kashmir) during the whole month of August. In response, when Pak troops and militia groups made some serious inroads in Kashmir (a disputed territory), the Indian army tried to relieve some pressure from Kashmir and shifted to mainland Pakistan. Attack on Lahore on the 6^th of September, 1965, in the very early morning was the major strategic move in this direction.

A sovereign country was attacked without a warning, without declaration of war and without any announcement violating all international laws. Pakistanis were not prepared for that and they were shocked.

وَلاَ يَحْسَبَنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُواْ سَبَقُوۤاْ إِنَّهُمْ لاَ يُعْجِزُونَ 
“Let not the Unbelievers think that they can

get the better (of the godly). They will never

frustrate (them)”.

(al-Quran 8:59)

Indian army benefited from the element of surprise (shock), entered a couple of km inside Lahore and kidnapped a double-decker bus of the Lahore Omni-bus Service (a govt. transport) parked at the terminal at Jallo near Wahgah. Indian media always show its image as their victory sign.

 أَمْ يَقُولُونَ نَحْنُ جَمِيعٌ مُّنتَصِرٌ

سَيُهْزَمُ ٱلْجَمْعُ وَيُوَلُّونَ ٱلدُّبُرَ
”Or do they say: We are acting together victoriously?
Soon will their multitude be put to flight,

and they will show their backs.”

(al-Quran 54:44-45)

Pakistan’s response came in time to thwart Indian attack. Pak Air Force immediately took action and supported the ground forces inflicting heavy losses on Indian troops. The next 17-days saw the mortar shelling, machine-gun rattling, smoke from the air strikes, noise of explosions and the warning sirens.

And we were the eye-witnesses to the ‘dog-fight’ between the fighter planes of Pakistan Air Force and the Indian Air Force. When the skies offered the video-game like jet-fighting, the Lahorites always came out in the open to watch the ‘dog-fights’. We saw M.M. Alam destroying enemy fighter planes. When an Indian plane was hit and engulfed in flames and heavy smoke, it started to fall and the pilot ejected with parachute. The Lahorites ran to catch the pilot and find the crashed plane. In the 1965 war, the PAF flew a total 2,364 sorties while the IAF flew 3,937 sorties.

Two days later on 8th September, India launched its main attack against Sialkot using its armored division and other strike formations. What ensued has been described as the largest tank battle since the WW-II. It was a hard and bitter struggle fought over many days and nights resulting in casualties on both sides. In the end the Indian main attack was held and severely mauled. Its armored division was forced to withdraw owing to very high losses in men and material.

In the ‘65-War, Pakistan had made serious inroads in Kashmir and came very close to settle the issue for ever. They stopped near Akhnoor bridge on the river Chenab in Kashmir. This bridge was the only road-link between India and Kashmir.

They gained thousands of km area in Punjab and Rajasthan too. They crippled Indian air force and ground forces, especially armored corp. This forced India to go to the UN Security Council and asked for ceasefire. Pakistan had the upper hand and did not want to stop. And then it happened what happens in wars – betrayal through conspiracies. We were warned by Allah but we did not care:

يَـۤأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ لاَ تَتَّخِذُواْ ٱلْيَهُودَ وَٱلنَّصَارَىٰ

أَوْلِيَآءَ بَعْضُهُمْ أَوْلِيَآءُ بَعْضٍ وَمَن يَتَوَلَّهُمْ مِّنكُمْ

فَإِنَّهُ مِنْهُمْ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لاَ يَهْدِى ٱلْقَوْمَ ٱلظَّالِمِينَ
“O you who believe! Take not the Jews and

the Christians for your friends and protectors.

They are but friends and protectors to each other.

And he amongst you that turns to them (for

friendship) is of them. Verily, Allah guides not

a people unjust.”

(al-Quran 5:51)

Pakistan used to buy all its military hardware from Anglo-American power block. This block wanted to pressurize Pakistan to accept the UN-proposed ceasefire. So they blocked Pakistan’s supplies. They refused to continue the shipments of arms and ammunition to Pakistan unless Pakistan accepted the truce. It turned out that India, the champion of Non-Aligned Movement, had a secret pact with America, therefore, America could not help any country at war against India.

The irony was that Pakistan was a member of SEATO (South-East Asian Treaty Organization) and CENTO (Central Treaty Organization) – a NATO like body for Asia. America was obligated to help Pakistan in case of foreign aggression. But it was forced to accept the truce and things returned back to zero-point. Later, Pakistan left SEATO and CENTO.

During the 1965 war every citizen of the country was solidly united behind the government, although it was a military one, of Field Marshal Ayub Khan. The national priorities were clear and unambiguous in those days, any danger to the country called for unity and unstinted support to the government and the armed forces. There was no question of any political party or leader taking advantage of the war to berate the government for political or personal gain. This came much later when President Ayub’s health suffered a set back and personal ambitions of those he had brought into prominence (like Z.A.Bhutto) came to the fore.

Pakistan emerged from the September 1965 war with India, a strong and self-confident nation, proud of itself and its armed forces. With the nation’s support the Armed Forces of Pakistan repulsed India’s naked aggression across the international border and made her pay a price for it by capturing four times more territory than India. It was certainly their finest hour of glory and a day to be remembered by future generations of soldiers and civilians.

After the September 1965 Indo-Pakistan war and the Tashkent Agreement Pakistan relaxed, as peace had been restored. But India prepared for revenge, and six years later in 1971 again attacked across the international border, this time in the Eastern Wing of the country and succeeded in dismembering Pakistan while the World and the United Nations stood by and watched. A couple of Pakistani politicians (Z.A.Bhutto and Sh. Mujibur Rahman, etc.) were the principal players who conspired to gain power by any means, even if they had to lose half of the country!

Lt.-Gen. (retd.) F.S. Lodi recalls:

‘The Indian Army Chief, Gen. J. N. Chaudhry was so confident of defeating the Pakistani troops guarding the area and capturing Lahore that he announced that he would have a large peg of whisky at the Lahore Gymkhana Club in the evening of the 6th. He had reason to be confident as he was known in India as the ‘conqueror of Hyderabad in Deccan’. It was 17 years earlier that Gen Chaudhry had attacked the princely state of Hyderabad in Deccan, at the head of an armored division. This was part of India’s multi-pronged attack by three divisions, in spite of a stand-still agreement that India had signed with the state. But Nehru’s (the first Prime Minister of India) new-India had started to proclaim that her agreements and commitments, national and international, could be violated at will to suit her purpose.

South of Lahore, Pakistan launched its own counter attack and captured India’s Khem Karan region and beyond. This posed a serious threat to the rear of Indian troops facing Lahore.

During the operations India captured about 400 square miles of Pakistan territory but lost around 1600 square miles of its own to Pakistan. The war ended with the mediation effort of the USSR and a peace agreement was signed at Tashkent.

(Courtesy: http://www.defencejournal.com/sept99/spirit-6thsept.htm)

President Muhammad Ayub Khan’s historic speech on 6^th of September, 1965, here’s the link:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2bz18p_gen-ayub-khan-rare-speech-on-6-september-1965_news

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