Kashmir, nothing came of it. He had no intention of altering his stance that the current cease-fire line in Kashmir should be turned into an international border. This was unacceptable to Pakistan, which demanded a plebiscite, as Nehru had agreed initially. Nehru considered revising his policy on Kashmir only when massive anti-India demonstrations took place in Srinagar in December 1963.
His release of the Kashmiri leader Shaikh Muhammad Abdullah from jail in the spring of 1964 and Abdullahâs flight to Rawalpindi to meet Ayub Khan showed promise. But Nehru died of heart failure in May, while Abdullah was in Pakistan. With that died the prospect of a satisfactory resolution of the Kashmir conundrum during Nehruâs lifetime.
Overall Nehruâs inflexible stance on Kashmir for seventeen years had stoked frustration among Pakistani leaders. When they could no longer contain it, they tried to change the status quo through force. Given Indiaâs military superiority, these attempts would fail. The setbacks in Kashmir altered Pakistanâs history radically, with the 1965 war leading to the secession of East Pakistan, and the 1999 Kargil conflict resulting in the termination of democracy. The Pakistani leadership also tried to achieve its aim by using armed infiltrators to destabilize Indian Kashmir. Delhireacted with a ferocious response, using torture and extrajudicial killings on an industrial scale. After 9/11, however, as a victim of cross-border terrorism, India gained widespread Western sympathies, which improved its diplomatic clout.
Second Indo-Pakistan War
In the aftermath of the Sino-Indian War, Anglo-American military aid to India started tilting the balance of power in South Asia in Indiaâs favor. Ayub Khan used force to expel India from the 48 percent of Jammu and Kashmir it occupied.
The strategy he deployed was a repeat of what Ali Khan had done eighteen years earlier. Under Operation Gibraltar, Pakistan-trained militias infiltrated Indian Kashmir in August 1965, followed by the involvement of regular troops invading Indian Kashmir on September 1. The three-week-long armed conflict, which spread to Pakistani and Indian Punjab, ended with a UN-brokered cease-fire. The fear of China opening a front on Indiaâs eastern frontier was an important factor in Delhi accepting the truce.
There were substantial losses in men and military hardware on both sides. By frustrating Pakistanâs objective to alter the status quo in Kashmir, India scored a success. The domestic consequences of Ayub Khanâs failure were far reaching. During the conflict people in East Pakistan, lightly defended by their troops, were exposed. Their fear and helplessness increased their alienation from West Pakistan and boosted Bengali nationalism, which achieved its aim in the form of the sovereign state of Bangladesh, created out of East Pakistan. The controlled media in Pakistan had made people believe that their armed military was doing wonderfully well. If so, why did Ayub Khan accept the UN cease-fire resolution?, most Pakistanis wondered aloud. The military dictatorâs credibility plunged, paving the way for his exit in 1969.
But his successor, General Yahya Khan, failed to honor the result of the general election held October through December 1970 in Pakistan under universal suffrage, which entitled the Bengali nationalist Awami League leader Shaikh Mujibur Rahman to premiership. Instead he unleashed a reign of terror in East Pakistan.
The subsequent crisis caused by the flight of millions of East Pakistanis provided the government of Indira Gandhi with an opportunity.Through adroit moves in diplomacy, training of guerrillas to undermine East Pakistanâs government, and superb military tactics, combined with breaking the Pakistani armyâs code, Gandhi brought about the signing of the surrender document by General Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi in Dacca on December 17, 1971.
The predominantly Hindu
His release of the Kashmiri leader Shaikh Muhammad Abdullah from jail in the spring of 1964 and Abdullahâs flight to Rawalpindi to meet Ayub Khan showed promise. But Nehru died of heart failure in May, while Abdullah was in Pakistan. With that died the prospect of a satisfactory resolution of the Kashmir conundrum during Nehruâs lifetime.
Overall Nehruâs inflexible stance on Kashmir for seventeen years had stoked frustration among Pakistani leaders. When they could no longer contain it, they tried to change the status quo through force. Given Indiaâs military superiority, these attempts would fail. The setbacks in Kashmir altered Pakistanâs history radically, with the 1965 war leading to the secession of East Pakistan, and the 1999 Kargil conflict resulting in the termination of democracy. The Pakistani leadership also tried to achieve its aim by using armed infiltrators to destabilize Indian Kashmir. Delhireacted with a ferocious response, using torture and extrajudicial killings on an industrial scale. After 9/11, however, as a victim of cross-border terrorism, India gained widespread Western sympathies, which improved its diplomatic clout.
Second Indo-Pakistan War
In the aftermath of the Sino-Indian War, Anglo-American military aid to India started tilting the balance of power in South Asia in Indiaâs favor. Ayub Khan used force to expel India from the 48 percent of Jammu and Kashmir it occupied.
The strategy he deployed was a repeat of what Ali Khan had done eighteen years earlier. Under Operation Gibraltar, Pakistan-trained militias infiltrated Indian Kashmir in August 1965, followed by the involvement of regular troops invading Indian Kashmir on September 1. The three-week-long armed conflict, which spread to Pakistani and Indian Punjab, ended with a UN-brokered cease-fire. The fear of China opening a front on Indiaâs eastern frontier was an important factor in Delhi accepting the truce.
There were substantial losses in men and military hardware on both sides. By frustrating Pakistanâs objective to alter the status quo in Kashmir, India scored a success. The domestic consequences of Ayub Khanâs failure were far reaching. During the conflict people in East Pakistan, lightly defended by their troops, were exposed. Their fear and helplessness increased their alienation from West Pakistan and boosted Bengali nationalism, which achieved its aim in the form of the sovereign state of Bangladesh, created out of East Pakistan. The controlled media in Pakistan had made people believe that their armed military was doing wonderfully well. If so, why did Ayub Khan accept the UN cease-fire resolution?, most Pakistanis wondered aloud. The military dictatorâs credibility plunged, paving the way for his exit in 1969.
But his successor, General Yahya Khan, failed to honor the result of the general election held October through December 1970 in Pakistan under universal suffrage, which entitled the Bengali nationalist Awami League leader Shaikh Mujibur Rahman to premiership. Instead he unleashed a reign of terror in East Pakistan.
The subsequent crisis caused by the flight of millions of East Pakistanis provided the government of Indira Gandhi with an opportunity.Through adroit moves in diplomacy, training of guerrillas to undermine East Pakistanâs government, and superb military tactics, combined with breaking the Pakistani armyâs code, Gandhi brought about the signing of the surrender document by General Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi in Dacca on December 17, 1971.
The predominantly Hindu
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