Remembering 6th 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
September 6th 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
skirmishes to divert people’s
attention. The real Indian
problems are always hidden
under the dirty carpet of anti-
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 6th 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,
”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)
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
“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)
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.
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 .
President Muhammad Ayub Khan’s historic speech on 6th
of September, 1965, here’s the link:
***********
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.