The Longest August

by Dilip Hiro

  Meanwhile, at the Security Council the United States and the Soviet Union worked together to draft a resolution. As a result, Resolution 211 secured a swift and unanimous passage on September 20.21 It called for a cease-fire at 0700 hours GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) on September 22, 1965, negotiations to settle the Kashmir dispute, and a subsequent withdrawal of “all armed personnel” to the positions held before August 5. India accepted the resolution on September 21. Addressing the Security Council on September 22, Bhutto described the resolution as unsatisfactory but accepted it for the sake of international peace. The guns fell silent at 0330 hours on September 23, Indian Standard Time (IST)—2200 hours GMT on September 22.

  Unsurprisingly, the claims made by Delhi and Rawalpindi regarding their losses and gains were out of sync. According to Pakistan, 8,200 Indians were killed or captured, and 110 of India’s aircraft and 500 of its tanks were destroyed or seized. Herbert Feldman, an academic specialist on Pakistan, put India’s losses as follows: fatalities, 4,000 to 6,000; tanks, about 300; and aircraft, 50. The statistics for Pakistan were 3,000 to 5,000 dead and losses of 250 tanks and 50 planes.22 Delhi admitted a loss of 75 aircraft, which chimed with neutral observers’ figure of 60 to 76. But their estimate of India losing 150 to 190 tanks was well below Feldman’s. Whereas Delhi claimed that 5,260 Pakistanis were killed or captured, the neutral commentators settled for 3,800. And their estimate of Pakistan losing 200–300 tanks was in line with Feldman’s 250. India’s claim of destroying 43 to 73 Pakistani aircraft was way above the neutral observers’ 20.

  According to David Van Praagh, a Canadian academic, India gained 710 square miles of Pakistan, including a third of the total in Azad Kashmir. By contrast, Pakistan acquired 210 square miles of the Indian soil, all except 19 square miles being in Kashmir.23 Pakistan’s gain in the Indian Punjab was restricted to the environs of Khem Karan.24

  What was the end result of the war? This question is best answered by stating the primary objective of each protagonist. The aim of Pakistan, the instigator, was to change the status quo in Kashmir by force. It failed to do so. India’s objective was merely to frustrate its adversary’s goal. It succeeded. In a way, Delhi won by not losing. In stark contrast, Rawalpindi gained nothing from a war it initiated. Indeed, catastrophic results came to pass in domestic politics. This armed conflict set in motion trends that culminated in the downfall of Ayub Khan’s regime, followed by the breakup of Pakistan, with its eastern wing seceding to form the sovereign state of Bangladesh.

  When the Guns Fell Silent

  Most Pakistanis could not figure out why their generals had signed a cease-fire when they were vaunting glowing victories on the battlefield. The credibility of Ayub Khan’s government suffered a precipitous fall from which it never recovered, even though the president addressed several gatherings rationalizing his decision.

  His defensive posture contrasted sharply with Bhutto’s. “Pakistan will fight, fight for a thousand years,” he declared at a press conference in October. “If India builds the [atom] bomb, we will eat grass or leaves, even go hungry, but we will get one of our own. We have no alternative . . . bomb for bomb.”25 Bhutto’s statement was a signal to India that Pakistan was aware of its clandestine nuclear weapons program. He had garnered that information from Munir Ahmad Khan, a senior technician at the eight-year-old International Atomic Energy Agency, a UN watchdog, during Bhutto’s visit to Vienna earlier in 1965. Later, during Bhutto’s presidency in 1972 Ahmad Khan would be appointed head of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission.

  During the three-week conflict with India, East Pakistanis realized to their consternation that their province was woefully short of troops to assure their security. Whereas the military consumed 60 percent of the nation’s budget, only 7 percent of its ranks came from East Pakistan, which accounted for 54 percent of the country’s population.

  In India there was disgruntlement among its soldiers, who would have preferred to keep on destroying Pakistan’s armor. After flamboyantly posing for cameras on top of a captured Patton tank, Shastri addressed the troops at the garrison border town of Ferozepur. He explained that he agreed to a truce because of pressure from America, on which India was dependent for food and economic aid.26 This would become abundantly clear later in the year, when a steep drop in US economic aid forced Delhi to liberalize its restrictions on foreign trade and devalue its currency by a staggering 57.5 percent.27

  After the cease-fire no progress was made on the belligerents’ withdrawal to their positions of August 5 as required by Resolution 211. This situation required mediation by a great power. Kosygin repeated his earlier proposal for an Indo-Pakistan summit in Tashkent in his letters on November 21. Shastri responded positively. In Rawalpindi, the wily Bhutto finagled an immediate invitation for a state visit by the Kremlin as a means to pressure the United States before the scheduled December 10 Ayub Khan–Johnson meeting in Washington. Ayub Khan and the president dashed to Moscow on November 23, and two days later Ayub Khan accepted Kosygin’s proposal.

  Soviets’ Success as Peacemakers

  On January 4, 1966, the Tashkent Conference at the grand municipal hall opened with an address by Kosygin, a sixty-two-year-old leader with deep-set eyes and sparse graying hair. Besides officials from India, Pakistan, and the Soviet Union, his audience included three hundred representatives of the international media.

  The Indian delegation, headed by Shastri, wanted the restoration of the prewar cease-fire line, except the mountain passes its army had seized in the Haji Pir, Poonch-Uri, and Kargil regions, and the signing of a no-war pact with Pakistan. Its counterparty, which included the pugnacious Bhutto, had no intention of ceding the mountain passes, which were the main infiltration points into India-held Kashmir, or entering into a no-war agreement.28

  When the Indian side insisted on a no-war pact, the Pakistanis responded that they would agree only if there were a built-in mechanism to discuss resolving the Kashmir issue. Reiterating that Kashmir was an integral part of their country, the Indians refused. A stalemate ensued.

  In his private talks with Shastri, Kosygin told him that if India refused to withdraw fully from the captured territories completely, as demanded by Resolution 211, the Kremlin would not use its veto against possible UN sanctions against Delhi. That softened up Shastri. At the same time Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko convinced the Pakistani delegates that it was futile to try to achieve gains at the negotiating table that they had failed to obtain on the battlefield.29

  As the last throw of the dice, on the morning of January 9 Kosygin took Ayub Khan on an unscheduled tour of the vast warplanes manufacturing plant in Tashkent, aware that Washington had cut off supplies of military hardware to Pakistan. Ayub Khan, a lifelong soldier, was impressed—all the more as he was bombarded by Kosygin with jaw-dropping statistics of the number of tanks and warplanes the Soviet Union produced annually. A bond grew between the two leaders. Kosygin adroitly interweaved his narrative with his viewpoint that, lacking resources, developing countries like Pakistan and India should avoid resolving their differences through use of force. Ayub Khan got the message.30 In the evening the nine-point draft of the Tashkent Declaration was finalized.31

  “They [The prime minister of India and the president of Pakistan] reaffirm their obligation under the UN Charter not to have recourse to force and to settle their disputes through peaceful means,” read Article 1 of the Tashkent Declaration, signed on January 10, 1966. “They considered that the interests of peace in their region . . . were not served by the continuance of tension. . . . It was against this background that Jammu and Kashmir was discussed, and each of the sides set forth its respective position.” Two other articles specified a February 25 deadline for the armed personnel of the two countries to be withdrawn to the positions they had held prior to August 5, and “both sides shall observe the cease-fire terms on the cease-fire line.” The last article stated that “both sides will continue meetings at
the highest and at other levels on matters of direct concern to both countries. Both sides have recognized the need to set up joint Indian-Pakistan bodies, which will report to their Governments in order to decide what further steps should be taken.”32 A day earlier, answering a question by Bhutto, Kosygin replied, “Jammu and Kashmir is disputed and naturally you have a right to bring this up under Article 9.”33

  The absence of a reference to a plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir seemed to satisfy the Indian delegates. “The Indians were jubilant and smiling,” wrote Air Martial Asghar Khan, a member of the Pakistani delegation. “Tashkent Declaration was for Pakistan a statement of surrender. The Indians were all over the room shaking any hand that they could grasp. It was as if India had defeated Pakistan in hockey at the Olympics.”34

  Khan was unaware that the head of the Indian delegation, Shastri, was hardly in a buoyant mood. His consultations first with Kosygin on the text of the declaration and then with his foreign and defense ministers to judge how the joint communiqué would be received in India had dragged on until three am on January 10. His sleep was brief—too brief for his ailing heart.

  Death in the Line of Duty

  During the morning of January 10 Shastri held a series of meetings with his ministers and senior bureaucrats as well as Soviet officials to fine-tune the declaration, and also work on his speech. He signed the historic document in the afternoon. Then, turning immediately to the accompanying Indian press corps, he said: “I am in your hands; if you write favorably, the country will accept it.”35 In the evening he attended the farewell party given by the Soviet hosts.

  The journalists accompanying Shastri retired to their rooms in a hotel located some distance from the dacha where Shastri and his party were lodged. “‘Your Prime Minister is dying’”: that was what Kuldip Nayar, part of the Indian press team in Tashkent, heard the Russian female concierge saying as she tried waking up the journalists on her floor. Nayar and the Indian press attaché rushed to Shastri’s dacha by taxi. “At the dacha, we met Kosygin, a picture of grief,” wrote Nayar. “He could not speak and only lifted his hands to indicate that Shastri was no more.”36

  After the farewell reception, Shastri had reached his dacha at about ten pm. “Shastri told [his personal servant] Ram Nath to bring him his food which came from Ambassador [T. N.] Kaul’s house, prepared by his cook, Jan Mohammed,” continued Nayar. “He ate very little: a dish of spinach and potatoes and a curry.” Venkat Raman, one of Shastri’s personal assistants in Delhi, called him to say that the general reaction to the Tashkent Declaration in the capital had been favorable, except by opposition leaders, who objected to the withdrawal of Indian troops from the Haji Pir Pass. Keen to know the reaction of his close family members, Shastri phoned to know the opinion of his eldest daughter, Kusam. She replied in Hindi, “We have not liked it.” Shastri asked, “What about [your] Amma [Hindi: mother]?” She too had not liked it, came the reply. This upset Shastri. “If my own family has not liked it, what would outsiders say?” he remarked.

  Agitated, he started pacing the room, something he often did while giving interviews to the press. He drank some milk as a preliminary to retiring to bed. But he could not sleep, and resumed pacing the room. He asked for water, which Ram Nath served him from the thermos flask on the dressing table. Soon after midnight he asked Ram Nath to retire to his room and rise early for a flight to Kabul.

  In another room Shastri’s personal secretary, Jagan Nath Sahai, and two stenographers finished packing their luggage at 1:20 am. Suddenly they found the prime minister standing at their door. “Where is the doctor sahib?” he inquired with some effort. Astonishingly, there was no emergency bell or buzzer in Shastri’s spacious room. Dr. R. N. Chugh was sleeping at the back of the room. Sahai woke up Chugh. While the doctor dressed, Sahai and the stenographers helped Shastri to walk back to his room. (In retrospect this was a fatal move by someone who had suffered a severe heart attack, according to Nayar in his book India: The Critical Years. Shastri had previously survived two mild heart attacks.)

  In his room, a racking cough convulsed him. He was given water to drink and put to bed. After touching his chest, he fell unconscious. Dr. Chugh arrived, felt his pulse, gave him an injection in the arm, and later put the syringe needle into his heart. There was no response. He then gave the dying Shastri mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but it failed.

  Chugh said to Sahai, “Get the local doctors.” The security guard at the dacha acted promptly. A Soviet doctor arrived within ten minutes, with others following. They declared Shastri dead. The exact time of his death on January 11 was 1:32 am Tashkent time, or 2:02 am IST.

  Ayub Khan was informed instantly, and he arrived at Shastri’s dacha at four am. He looked downcast. “Here is a man of peace who gave his life for amity between India and Pakistan,” he remarked. Later he would tell Pakistani reporters that Shastri was one Indian leader with whom he had hit it off. “Pakistan and India might have solved their differences had he lived,” he remarked.37 When Aziz Ahmad, the foreign secretary of Pakistan, called Bhutto to inform him of Shastri’s death, Bhutto was half asleep and grasped only the word “died.” “Which of the two bastards?” he asked;38 the other “bastard,” according to him, being Ayub Khan.

  Any opposition to the Tashkent Declaration in India died with Shastri. Parliament endorsed it. Indira Gandhi, the forty-nine-year-old minister of information and broadcasting, was installed as prime minister by Congress Party barons as a stop-gap measure. The sole, but largely neglected, child of Jawaharlal and Kamala Nehru, Indira had grown up as an insecure and defensive woman. With her long, sharp nose and a broad forehead, she was a cross between the refined, sinewy features of her father and the bloated visage of her mother. She fell in love with an outgoing, articulate Zoroastrian intellectual and Congress Party activist named Feroze Gandhi. At the age of twenty-five, disregarding the opposition of her father and Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi, she married Feroze Gandhi according to Hindu rituals. Since Zoroastrianism does not accept converts, there was no question of Indira adopting the religion of her husband. Following the breakdown of her marriage after Indian independence, she ran her father’s household. Using his unchallenged power and personality, Nehru got her elected president of the Congress Party in 1959. That was how she was parachuted into mainstream Indian politics. The ruling party’s presidency gave her insight into the weaknesses of the main political players, an asset she would successfully use later to outmaneuver those who had earlier privately derided her as a “dumb doll” (Hindi: goongi guddia).

  Ayub Khan Passes on the Ruler’s Baton

  The state-controlled press in Pakistan was inhibited from airing the public letdown about the Tashkent Declaration. Even then popular anger burst into street demonstrations. The protestors felt that their president had sold Kashmir to the Hindu babus (Urdu: petty clerks) and warlords and that he had given away his battlefield gains in the negotiations. Police gunfire killed two protesting students in Lahore. Angry demonstrators, marching along the main thoroughfare of Karachi, set ablaze the US Information Service Library.

  Referring to the disturbance in his radio broadcast on January 14, Ayub Khan said, “There may be some amongst us, who will take advantage of your feelings and will try to mislead you.”39 He was referring to his political adversaries, whose ranks and temper had been bolstered by Bhutto’s undisguised opposition to the Tashkent Declaration. Indeed Bhutto resigned as foreign minister five months after the signing of this declaration, and started planning the birth of a political party of his own.

  However, a more robust opposition was growing in East Pakistan with material as well as cultural causes. Under Ayub Khan’s presidency, power became concentrated in the hands of the military, bureaucratic, and commercial-industrial elites, among whom Bengalis were only marginally represented. The war in Kashmir, in which they had minimal interest or attachment, was thrust on them without consultation. During the seventeen days of its duration,
they remained helpless observers. In March 1966, they were shocked to hear Bhutto state, during a National Assembly debate in Dacca,40 that during the Indo-Pakistan War the government had confidently assumed that, in the event of an attack on East Pakistan, China would come to its defense.41 If, in the final analysis, Beijing was responsible for the defense of East Pakistan, then there was no advantage in the eastern wing remaining a part of Pakistan. As an independent nation, most Bengalis concluded, they might be able to safeguard it more effectively. These factors swelled the ranks of the Awami League, led by Shaikh Mujibur Rahman. Its six-point platform, centered around a federal Pakistan, envisaged a weak central government, lacking taxation powers and control over external trade, with its jurisdiction reduced to foreign affairs and defense.

  Looking back, Ayub Khan regretted his decision to go to war with India. In April he told his cabinet: “I want it understood that never again will we risk 100 million Pakistanis for 5 million Kashmiris—never again.”42 But the plunge in his popular standing proved irreversible.

  Four months after resigning from the cabinet in June 1966, Bhutto announced the creed of his forthcoming Pakistan People’s Party (PPP): “Islam is our Faith; Democracy is out Policy; Socialism is our economy. All power to the People.” While serving as a cabinet minister for eight years, he had impressed his colleagues with his extensive knowledge, wit, and brilliance, and had acquired a base of his own. He expanded it by coopting leftists in West Pakistan with a sprinkling of communists from East Pakistan to establish the PPP in Lahore in November 1967. Notably, its founding charter referred to “jihad against India” because of its continued refusal to hold the promised plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir. A prematurely balding man with a sharp nose in a buttery face, he was charismatic and glib, with a penchant for catchy slogans. His slogan “Bread, Clothing, and Shelter” for all clicked with the public, as did his cries of “Down with zamindars [landlords]” and “Equal rights for peasants.” Through seductive demagoguery and awe-inspiring self-confidence, he rapidly built up popular support for the PPP.