Demolishing India’s War Myths about Pakistan
By Riaz Haq
CA
While outwardly claiming to dismiss Pakistan as a defeated and failed state, the Indians continue to show by their actions that they are paranoid about their much smaller neighbor to the west by maintaining most of their troops close to the border with Pakistan.
For example, twenty-four of the thirty-three Indian infantry divisions are near Pakistan’s borders. All three of India’s armored divisions are poised against Pakistan. All three of India’s mechanized divisions are positioned on Pakistani borders.
If the Indians have such an impeccable record of successes against Pakistan in past wars, why is it that, in practice, they are so fearful of their little neighbor? Why are they planning to increase defense spending by 50% to spend $40 billion, 33% more than the entire 2009-10 Pakistani budget of $30 billion, on defense in 2009-10? Could it be that, in their heart of hearts, they really do not believe their own propaganda and their claims of victory over Pakistan are really hollow?
Let’s examine this reality in a little more detail:
With the special exception of 1971( where Indira exploited the political follies by Bhutto and Mujib and RAW infiltrated the Awami League), Indian military has not scored any clear victories over Pakistan.
Even in 1971, Pakistanis inflicted heavy damage on Indian military.
“This airforce(the PAF), is second to none”
“The air war lasted two weeks and the Pakistanis scored a three-to-one kill ratio, knocking out 102 Russian-made Indian jets and losing thirty-four airplanes of their own. I’m certain about the figures because I went out several times a day in a chopper and counted the wrecks below.
“They were really good, aggressive dogfighters and proficient in gunnery and air combat tactics. I was damned impressed. Those guys just lived and breathed flying.”
-General (Retd.) Chuck Yeager (USAF), Book: Yeager, the Autobiography).
In 1965, Pakistanis really whipped India’s rear end.
“ Pakistan claims to have destroyed something like 1/3rd the Indian Air Force, and foreign observers, who are in a position to know say that Pakistani pilots have claimed even higher kills than this; but the Pakistani Air Force are being scrupulously honest in evaluating these claims. They are crediting Pakistan Air Force only those killings that can be checked from other sources.”
- Roy Meloni,
American Broadcasting Corporation
September 15, 1965 .
The London Daily Mirror reported in 1965:
“There is a smell of death in the burning Pakistan sun. For it was here that India’s attacking forces came to a dead stop.
“During the night they threw in every reinforcement they could find. But wave after wave of attacks were repulsed by the Pakistanis”
“ India”, said the London Daily Times, “is being soundly beaten by a nation which is outnumbered by four and a half to one in population and three to one in size of armed forces.”
In Times reporter Louis Karrar wrote:
“Who can defeat a nation which knows how to play hide and seek with death”.
Yoichi Shimatsu, a Japanese journalist and former editor of Japan Times, wrote as follows about LeT and Kargil:
Blaming the Lahore-based Lashkar is all-too easy since the outfit was once the West Point of the Kashmir insurgency. The Army of the Righteous, as it is known in English, was a paramilitary force par excellence that routinely mauled the Indian Army along the Himalayan ridge that forms the Line of Control of divided Kashmir. In an attack on the strategic town of Kargil in late spring 1999, Lashkar broke through India’s alpine defense line and came close to forcing New Delhi to the negotiating table.
Along the sawtooth LoC, Lashkar is respected by professional soldiers on both sides. A Pakistani hero who fought on the Baltistan heights, Corporal Ahmed, told me of his admiration for the stoicism of these jihadis, who wore sandals to battle in the snow. At a checkpoint in Indian-controlled Kargil, an army captain wearing a Sikh turban said frankly that nobody in the Indian Army could fight man-to-man against Lashkar.
Lashkar earned its reputation in clean-fought mountain warfare, pitting lightly armed guerrillas against Indian armor and superior firepower.
In its finest hours, these fighters would never consider the dirty tactics used against civilians in Mumbai, for example, the gangland-style executions using a shot to the back of a kneeling captive’s head. That is more typical of the Mumbai underworld.
Respected American South Asia expert Stephen Cohen of Washington’s Brookings Institution recently told his audience: “Not a few Indian generals and strategists have told me that if only America would strip Pakistan of its nuclear weapons then the Indian army could destroy the Pakistan army and the whole thing would be over.”
These remarks sharply contrast with the volumes being written in the West, particularly in the United States, about Pakistan’s “obsession” with India. Pakistan is being incessantly lectured by the Western leaders and media to stop worrying about the security threat from India and focus exclusively on its western frontiers and the Taliban. Ignoring the past and current realities, these positions are often echoed by some of the liberal media editorials and commentators in Pakistan as well, in spite of substantial evidence to the contrary.
The facts on the ground speak louder than words. These facts clearly show that Indians are far more obsessed with Pakistan than Pakistan is with India.
Having numerically and physically a much smaller military, Pakistan does have greater reason to be paranoid of Indian military intentions, and be prepared to deal with them. www.riazhaq.com
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