Nishikant Khajuria
JAMMU, Sept 1: Maintaining that the silent majority in Kashmir has had been with India, the General Officer Commanding (GOC) of Tiger Division, Major General Sanjeev Narain today said that there were only a few noisy people in the Valley who speak about Pakistan.
“There are a few noisy people in Kashmir who speak about Pakistan, but the silent majority is with us (India),” he said while addressing in a seminar, organized at Jammu University in connection with celebrating 50 years of Indian victory in 1965 Indo-Pak war, here today. The seminar was organised by the JU Department of History in collaboration with the Tiger Division of Indian Army.
Appreciating the role of Kashmiris in 1965 war, the GOC recalled how Pakistan initially wanted to give aggression the colour of uprising in Valley as it had pushed in a large number of intruders. “Hats off to the people of Kashmir who foiled the enemy plans and fought against Pakistan during the war,” he said and added that even now a silent majority of the people of the Valley are with India.
Terming the war as a national effort, the Army Commander exuded confidence about the continued support of the compatriots and added that the Army would meet any challenge with fortitude. “India does not believe in aggression but we are always prepared to take on the aggressor with full might,” he stressed.
Major Gen Narain said that Kashmir is an unfinished agenda of Pakistan since the partition and 1965 war was the outcome of its (Pakistan) ‘obsession’ with Kashmir. He stressed for analyzing history in right perspective and said that 1965 war was a “misadventure” of Pakistan due to its “wrong assessment” as the neighbouring country underestimated India’s strength following the 1962 war with China. “Military command of Pakistan as well as its political leadership made various wrong assessments about the India’s strength that resulted into misadventure on its part. First, Pakistan thought that Indian Army had not recovered from the defeat of 1962 from China. They also thought that they had better equipment as compared to India”, he elaborated.
Further, he added, Pakistan had never thought that India would open up the front along International Border (IB) as it had believed that the war would be restricted to Line of Control (LoC) and Rann of Kutch. “Pakistan also wanted to test its newly-acquired Patton Tanks and Khemkaran sector proved to be the grave of those tanks, where over 400 tanks were either destroyed or captured by us,” the GOC said.
“The 1965 war transformed in a big way the Indian Army, which at that time was recovering from the defeat of 1962. This Army, a few years later, made 90000 troops of Pakistan to surrender in 1971, which resulted in the creation of a new country called Bangladesh”, he said and added that the 1965 war also changed diplomatic scenario of the country and gave more importance to India-Russia ties. He also recalled how the Pakistan was proved “aggressor” in 1965 by a UN team which also concluded that the India’s action was in “self-defence”.
Earlier, JU Vice-Chancellor Prof R D Sharma in his opening remarks, recalled the moments of 1965 when the Army and the nation under the leadership of the then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri stood as a single entity to fight nefarious designs of Pakistan.
Prof Shailendra Singh Jamwal, HOD History, spoke on Strategic Environment, National Threat and Kashmir.
Brigadier Arvind Yadav, spoke passionately on the strategic response by the Indian Army during the 1965 Indo-Pak War while Prof Baljeet Singh, former Director, Department of Strategic Studies and Prof Nagenrdra Rao, Department of Political Science, DDE, also spoke on the occasion.
Dr Munir Alam, Department of Strategic Studies, presented his view on the strategic craft of the war.
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