Pakistan's Wars: An Alternative History

383 Pages·2022·2.779 MB·English

by  Tariq Rahman

PAKISTAN’S WARS
This book studies the wars Pakistan has fought over the years with India as well
as other non-state actors. Focusing on the first Kashmir war (1947–48), the wars
of 1965 and 1971, and the 1999 Kargil war, it analyses the elite decision-making,
which leads to these conflicts and tries to understand how Pakistan got involved
in the first place. The author applies the ‘gambling model’ to provide insights
into the dysfunctional world view, risk-taking behaviour, and other behavioural
patterns of the decision makers, which precipitate these wars and highlight their
effects on India–Pakistan relations for the future. The book also brings to the fore
the experience of widows, children, common soldiers, displaced civilians, and
villagers living near borders, in the form of interviews, to understand the subaltern
perspective.
A nuanced and accessible military history of Pakistan, this book will be
indispensable to scholars and researchers of military history, defence and strategic
studies, international relations, political studies, war and conflict studies, and South
Asian studies.
Tariq Rahman, Distinguished National Professor and Professor Emeritus, Quaid-
i-Azam University, and Dean of the School of Education, Beaconhouse National
University, Lahore, Pakistan.

PAKISTAN’S WARS
An Alternative History
Tariq Rahman
Cover image: @ Getty Images
First published 2022
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 Tariq Rahman
The right of Tariq Rahman to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-032-15458-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-18459-3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-25464-5 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003254645
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Dedicated to Conscientious Objectors to Wars of Aggression

CONTENTS
Preface and Acknowledgements ix
Notes on Naming xiii
List of Abbreviations xiv
Glossary xvii
1 Introduction 1
2 The Military in Decision-Making 21
3 The Kashmir War 1947–48 47
4 The 1965 War: Decision-Making and Consequences 71
5 The 1971 War: The Pakistani Experience 97
6 The 1971 War: The Bangladeshi Experience 137
7 Siachen and Kargil 175
8 Low-Intensity Operations 197
9 War and Gender: Female 230
10 War and Gender: Male 262
viii Contents
11 Transcending Hatred and Vengeance 293
12 Conclusion 309
Annexures 323
Bibliography 330
Index 351
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It was the year 1955 and I was a child of six living in the Pakistan Military Academy
in Kakul when I first heard of the war in Kashmir. The man who told the grim
story to myself and my mother was our old cook, Qalandar Shah; he said he had
personally seen Pathans with bags full of the ears of women with gold earrings in
their ears. He shook and shivered when he said that lifting his hands to his ears and
saying ‘tauba, tauba’ (I repent, I repent). This was my first encounter with war as a
real event in human life.
My second encounter with war came in 1971 when, in April 1971, I was admit-
ted to the CMH Rawalpindi. There I met some young officers who had just been
repatriated to West Pakistan from the Eastern Command. One of them told me
about the military action in Dacca and the rest of the country in lurid and shocking
detail. He talked of the burning of villages, the killing of people—he called them
‘rebels’—and the rape of women. I was commissioned in an elite armoured regi-
ment and was not posted to the Eastern Command, nor was my regiment launched
in the war between Pakistan and India on 3 December. So, if I wanted job security
and the privileges of an officer’s life in the Pakistan Army, I could have continued to
bide my time. However, I became and remain a conscientious objector to wars of
aggression, colonialism, and exploitation. Strangely enough, my colleagues in the
army, with perhaps one exception, remained friendly and remarkably accommo-
dating. I think they did not know about my views or dismissed them as being naïve.
Anyway, in April 1978, I eventually resigned my commission when I was in
another elite regiment after eight years when all my attempts at staying on the
army failed at the altar of my conscience. Later, in 2013, Bangladesh gave me the
Friends of Bangladesh War of Liberation Award which I accepted because it was
for conscience. However, since I had never suffered because of my views, which
were possibly more because of naivety than bravery, I never thought I deserved
such a unique honour. Since then, I have often thought of writing about what