OPERATION GIBRALTAR AND THE 1965 WAR

The bulk of literature written about 1965 India – Pakistan war abounds in controversies, misconceptions and contradictions about the genesis, conduct and final outcome of the war. This study gives a critical analysis of the genesis of Operation Gibraltar and provides some rational and plausible explanations of the phenomena agitating the mind of public in general and students of Pakistan’s politics in particular. There are five questions central to this study. Was ‘Operation Gibraltar’ President Ayub’s own decision or else, did he become a victim of some conspiracy hatched by foreign office and GHQ? Though General Mohammad Musa and General Akhter Hussain Malik, Commander 12 Division had both conveyed President Ayub Khan the prospects of India starting a full scale war against Pakistan including time and space calculations. Second question deals with the issue of GHQ feeding stories of imaginary victories against fictitious foes prior to 1965 in the Kargil sector. Third question critically examines the cause of halting Operation Gibraltar and the change of command from General Akhter Hussain Malik to General Yahya Khan. Next question deals with the issue of much publicized version of India achieving a total surprise in attack on Lahore on 6 September 1965. The truth of course lies somewhere between the two extreme contentions. Finally, the study explores that was the decision to accept ceasefire based on political or military considerations. President Ayub’s perceived acquiescence to the foreign powers completed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto the them Foreign Minister to ask the president to disassociate him from the Tashkent parleys, Ayub then refused to accept his resignation. Altaf Gouhar comments over the drifts between Ayub abd Bhutto that, “when Ayub was relating how Shastri” kept saying that he was answerable to the people Bhutto interrupted him and said quite sharply but you too are answerable to the people. You don’t have a heavenly mandate”. 1 Thus by the end of 1960’s one of the central issues was the nature of relationship between empirical task of a reorientation of Pakistan’s foreign policy and mobilization of means and ends for its implementation. Thus, was the rulership in Pakistan at that time willing to undertake policy revisionism? Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s pleadings as Foreign Minister remained unheeded. He mentioned it as a personal fact that “witnessing a drift in Pakistan’s policy and finding fruitless my expositions of bilateralism, I resigned as Foreign Minister in 1966”.2 Had Ayub accepted the advice of his Foreign Minister could it be possible for him to be a national hero. Notwithstanding controversies, Bhutto transformed the government and people into an organic whole by launching his ‘People’s Party in December 1967’.