A
A.Rahman
GUEST
Ending the Suspense
Sep. 17, 1965
At dawn one morning last week, war came to the dusty Pakistan village of Dhankeal, near Lahore. Mystère jets of the Indian air force slammed rockets into a train at the station, killing three passengers and wounding eleven. Wakened by the explosions, a young peasant named Zakaullah clambered to the roof of his mud hut. "I saw planes in the sky," he said. "And suddenly they started throwing things with fire coming from them. Then one plane started to fall. It came down with a big noise."
Near by bearded Mohammed Sharif was leaving the village mosque after morning prayer when he looked up and saw the French-built Mystères in a dogfight with U.S.-made F-86 jets of the Pakistan air force. With peasant wisdom Sharif decided, "The Indians must be losing in Kashmir. Now they are trying to bother us down here." He urged the young men of the village to arm themselves with clubs and search through the cane and cornfields for downed Indian pilots.
Smeared Dung. To the hundreds of millions of illiterate Indian and Pakistani peasants in the villages, the war may be just another disaster to add to the constant plagues of drought, flood, tornado and poverty. Not so in the cities. New Delhi crowds danced in the streets at the rumor of Indian victories. As antiaircraft guns in Amritsar opened up on Pakistani planes, citizens cheered each white puff in the blue sky, shouting "Shoot him down! Kill him! Kill, kill, kill!" Workmen put up baffle walls in offices as protection against bomb blast, shopkeepers pasted strips of paper to window panes, husbands and fathers dug slit trenches outside their homes. As hospitals were hurriedly emptied to provide beds for expected wounded, Indians queued up to donate blood. The capital's mood was reflected by a businessman who said, "We've been kicked around too often. Let us lose 200 million people if we have to, and have done with it. Our national honor is at stake."
The same air of stern determination spread through Rawalpindi. Civil servants worked round the clock, and on the desks of key officials lay a blue volume of contingency papers labeled "War Book." Auto headlights were dimmed with smears of mud and cow dung, and trucks were camouflaged with leafy branches. For three successive nights, Indian bombers struck at Karachi's harbor installations, and the wail of air-raid sirens blended with the sobbing call to prayer of muezzins atop minarets. A bitter Pakistani official said, "Let's fight it out and get it over with. Either we become slaves of India, or India accepts us as an independent state. This suspense must end."
Shimmering Dust. The major theater of war is the broad Punjab plain, which stretches flat from horizon to horizon. It is lushly green, dotted with clumps of trees, laced by canals. The days are swelteringly hot, and dust clouds shimmer in the glaring sun. It is Rudyard Kipling country, immortalized in such books as Kim and Indian Tales. And the soldiers on both sides are very like the men Kipling so deeply revered. The officers are British-trained, and many are graduates of Sandhurst. They have the British manner, right down to clipped accents, mustaches and swagger sticks. The enlisted men are also right out of Kipling's pagesââ¬âsturdy Jats and turbaned Sikhs, rawboned Pathans and sinewy Sindhis, volunteers all, whose regimental flags are inscribed with battle names ranging from Ypres and Gallipoli to El Alamein and Monte Cassino and Rangoon.
Since its army is much the larger (867,000 men to 253,000), India went on the attack in five widely separated sectors of the Punjab frontââ¬âthree columns aimed at encircling Lahore, Pakistan's second largest city, one thrust at Sialkot, and the last struck at Karachi via the town of Gadra. The Indians hoped to force the dispersion of the smaller but better-trained and -armed Pakistani forces and then chop them up piecemeal.
The strategy worked, at least partially. A Pakistani armored force that had driven 30 miles into Kashmir with the object of seizing Jammu city, and thus cutting off more than 100,000 Indian troops in Kashmir, slowed down before reaching its goal and detached tanks to defend Sialkot.
In the air, it was much the same storyââ¬âIndian quantity and Pakistan quality. Indian pilots are flying a variety of fighters, from French Mystères and British Vampires to Russian MIG-21s and Indian-built Gnats. The Pakistanis have U.S. supersonic jets, which seem to have made a spectacular number of killsââ¬âPakistani Air Vice Marshal Nur Khan claims that 108 Indian planes have been shot down. If true, that amounts to a fifth of the Indian air force.
At week's end, both armies were digging in along the Punjab plain, their battalions stretching 800 miles, from the Kashmir border to the Rann of Kutch on the Arabian Sea. New Delhi reported "very fierce fighting" around Lahore and Sialkot and said its tank forces had killed two Pakistani generals, but neither side was claiming major advances and the battle line appeared to be temporarily stable. No ground fighting at all was reported from East Pakistan, 1,000 miles from the Punjab front, although Shastri warned that Indian troops might move at any time. On the Indian side, there were innumerable reports of nightly drops by Pakistani paratroopers, but police and army patrols found no evidence that the reports were true.
Quavering Voice. When the British left India in 1947, it was commonly said that Pakistan got the military, and India the civil servants. The leaders of the two countries reflect the aphorism. Pakistan's President Mohammed Ayub Khan is a strapping six-footer who was educated at Sandhurst, fought valiantly in Burma in World War II. Before seizing control of his chaotic country in a bloodless military coup in 1958, Ayub Khan was commander in chief of Pakistan's army.
Though now a democratically elected President, Ayub Khan is still a military man and is running Pakistan's side of the war from the map room in his interim capital of Rawalpindi. He rallied his nation and his armed forces with a nationwide broadcast. In a voice quavering with emotion, Ayub declared that "the Indian rulers were never reconciled to the establishment of an independent Pakistan where Moslems could build a homeland of their own. For 18 years they have been arming to crush us." The present Pakistani commander, General Mohammed Musa, also took to the radio to praise the courage of his troops. The army had got its teeth in the enemy, said Musa, and should "bite deeper and deeper until he is destroyed. And destroy him you will, God willing."
India's Prime Minister Lai Bahadur Shastri (TIME cover, Aug. 13) is poles apart from Ayub Khan, physically, emotionally and personally. Scarcely 5 ft. tall, with a clerkish mien and a gentle, self-deprecating voice, the wonder is that Shastri ever became the head of the world's largest democratic state. But Shastri's meekness is deceptive, and, in Pakistani opinion at least, he is a determined, wily and resilient opponent.
Except for daily briefings by India's army chief of staff, tall, mustached General Joyanto N. Chaudhuri, Shastri stays aloof from the war. Explains an aide, "He feels this is a professional matter, and should be left to the professionals." Most of Shastri's day is spent with Parliament and in meetings with an emergency committee made up of five of his Cabinet ministers. Here, Shastri makes the decisions, overruling Defense Minister Yashwantrao B. Chavan, who opposed the digging of slit trenches in New Delhi for fear of alarming the population, and ordering that rationing machinery be set up in case it is needed later.
Once, as the crisis grew worse, he displayed temper, angrily denouncing the U.S. for its failure to condemn Pakistan for its infiltration of Kashmir. Railways Minister S. K. Patil calmed him down, saying "If America went to war in Guatemala or Uruguay, you would tell both sides to stop fighting. You wouldn't tell them who is at fault."
Late Lights. Yet despite the militant posture of both countries, and the lights burning late behind curtained windows in the war rooms of Rawalpindi and New Delhi, there are some curious inconsistencies in the conflict. Neither India nor Pakistan has yet declared war or even severed diplomatic relations. And the communiqués make it clear that none of the attacks represent a major effort; rarely is more than a brigade employed. So far, it has been a war of small battles between tanks, planes and artillery, with neither side trying for a quick knockout or decisive showdown. Since there have been no major infantry clashes, casualties have been less than they might have beenââ¬âperhaps 1,700 dead on both sides.
What is unclear is whether the seeming hesitancy is a result of design or poor logistics. It has always been difficult to move large bodies of troops speedily in the subcontinent. On either side of the border, the roads are miserable and usually choked with oxcarts, camel caravans and wandering cows. The railways offer the best transportation, but trainsââ¬âas at Dhankealââ¬âare sitting ducks for rocket-firing jets.
Most of the world was begging the contestants to stop. Would-be mediators ranged from Canada's Prime Minister Lester Pearson to the leaders of Russia. There were some strange alignments. The Soviet Unionââ¬âlong a supporter of Indiaââ¬âcalled for an instant truce. Britain's Prime Minister Harold Wilson did the same and urged all Commonwealth heads of state to follow suit. Red China gleefully came out for Pakistan, and on a Karachi visit last week, Foreign Minister Chen Yi pledged China's support of Pakistan in repelling "Indian armed provocation." Indonesian students in Djakarta joyfully wrecked the Indian embassy, screaming "Crush India, the imperialist lackey!"
Meager Results. At an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council, Secretary-General U Thant was authorized to seek an end to the war. With the fervent support of every Council member, Thant flew from New York to see if world opinion meant anything to the combatants. Results were meager. In Rawalpindi, Thant spent most of his time pleading with Pakistan's rabidly anti-Indian Foreign Minister Z. A. Bhutto. Bhutto made Pakistan's position clear: no cease-fire unless it was accompanied by a definite commitment to settle the Kashmir question by self-determination for the Kashmiri people. When Thant left to try his luck in New Delhi, a Pakistani government spokesman derided his peace proposals as "the same old thing: Don't be bad boys, don't fight; negotiate."
The U.S. was caught in the middle. Washington officials watched in dismay as Pakistan and India clawed at each other with U.S. weapons and planes that had been given them for the express purpose of opposing Communist aggression. The U.S. wanted only to be friends with both powers, but was roundly denounced by each. Along Karachi streets, Americans heard the old, familiar chant: "Yankee, go home!" In India, two German tourists were beaten by a mob that thought they were Americans. Washington held only one trump card and promptly used it: all military supplies to both countries were suspended. Pakistan would be the first to feel the pinch since it is wholly dependent on U.S. spare parts and, unlike India, has no real industrial base for home production of arms. Eventually, the U.S. arms cutoffââ¬âin which Britain joinedââ¬âcould ground both sides' jet planes and halt their tanks, reducing the whole affair to an infantry warââ¬âbut not before weeks have passed.
Frozen Feud. Though the air was filled with cries for peace, no one had any high hopes of getting it. The battle that has been joined on the Punjab plain has been building for hundreds of years. Ever since the 16th century Mogul invasion of India, Moslems and Hindus have fought each other for control of the subcontinent. The age-old feud was put in cold storage during the long era of British rule, but burst into flame in all its old fury in 1947 as both India and Pakistan became independent.
The hatred lies bone-deep, and is cultural as well as religious. Hindus worship cows and Moslems eat them. Hindus regard Moslems as unclean, and Moslems call Hindus caste-ridden. The great Sepoy Rebellion still rankles. When Moslem regiments revolted, Hindus helped the British to crush them.
With the coming of independence, both sides began a communal purge. Moslems slaughtered Hindus in Pakistan, and Hindus slaughtered Moslems in India. Fully 12 million refugees jammed the roads as they fled toward the nearest friendly border.
Scarcely had the riots stopped than fighting broke out again in the princely state of Kashmir. In accordance with their colonial policy of divide and rule, the British in 1846 had set up a Hindu ruling family over the 4,000,000 Kashmiris, who are 80% Moslem. About 100 years later, faced by a revolt of his Moslem subjects, the Hindu maharajah opted to join India in return for help in putting down the rebellion. As Indian troops poured in from the south, Pakistani tribesmen came down the mountains in the northwest to help their Moslem brothers.
India and Pakistan brought charges before the United Nations, accusing each other of violence and aggression. By January 1949, the U.N. succeeded in drawing a cease-fire line that gave a third of Kashmir to Pakistan and twothirds to India. Four times since, the U.N. has ordered that a plebiscite be held to determine the wishes of the people of Kashmir. Though Jawaharlal Nehru once vowed to "abide by the will of the Kashmiri people," India has always found reasons to avoid holding the referendum. Ex-Defense Minister Krishna Menon has bluntly explained why India opposes the plebiscite: "Because we would lose it." The popular Moslem leader, Sheik Abdullah, first supported union with India. When he changed his mind, the Indians clapped him in jail.
In the years since 1949, the cease-fire line has been the scene of frequent gunfire. A total of 16,000 peopleââ¬âhalf of them civiliansââ¬âhave been killed. The 45-man U.N. peace-keeping team, headed by Australia's venerable General Robert Nimmo, has had neither the mandate nor the manpower to enforce a truce.
Nehru's Heart. Everything about the Kashmir problem is deeply emotional. The land itself produces little but scenery. Kashmir's mountain rim is so impenetrable that there is only one year-round road to the outside worldââ¬âand it goes to Pakistan. Nehru was determined to keep Kashmir because it was his ancestral home and, as he put it, "a piece of my heart."
The most significant argument for Indian control of Kashmir relates to what New Delhi officials call the "fissiparous tendencies" of their country. If Kashmir could secede by holding a plebiscite, the argument runs, there would be nothing to prevent Madras or Kerala or any other state from doing the same thing. The warrior Sikhs of Punjab have long dreamed of an independent nation. In fact, a Sikh leader, Sant Fateh Singh, was scheduled last week to begin a fast that would be followed by self-immolation, to force Indian acceptance of Sikh autonomy. In deference to the war emergency, Singh has postponed both his fast and his suicide. Indians compare their situation to that of the U.S., which fought a four-year civil war for the preservation of the Union.
Asian Hitler. It is an article of faith in Pakistan that India's ultimate goal is to conquer the subcontinent by force. As Pakistan's U.N. ambassador emotionally put it last week, "What Hitler and the Nazis did in Europe, India has taken it upon herself to do in Asia."
From the first day of independence, Pakistan's foreign policy has been based on fear of India. Except for the Moslem religion, this fear is the only unifying force in the nation. Pakistan is, in fact, two countries separated by a 1,000-mile-wide corridor of intervening Indian territory. West Pakistan, an arid, sprawling land much like the American Southwest, is inhabited by 45 million tall, hardy, light-complexioned Pathans, Sindhis, and Punjabis, who dominate the government and the army. East Pakistan is small, waterlogged, and congested with a population of 55 million short, dark-complexioned Bengalis, who are usually protesting that they are ignored by the national government. In the west, Urdu is the dominant language; in the east, Bengali. They have different scripts and are completely different languages. English is commonly used in government and business.
Pakistan, which means "Land of the Pure" in Urdu, is a country without a history and with very little identity. In the west, 86% of the people are illiterate, and most are under the thumb of zamindars, or landlords. In the east, the literacy rate is somewhat better, but the population density among the highest in the world. Two men have built the nation: Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the father of his country, and Mohammed Ayub Khan, who has ruled one way or another since 1958. Under Ayub, there has been an industrial surge that looks more spectacular than it is because the original base was so small. Compared even to India, Pakistan is today an industrial pygmy. Using his system of "Basic Democracy" to keep the vote in the hands of a privileged few, Ayub rules firmly but with considerable justice; he encourages foreign investment and gives tax credits to home-grown investors. He has also done much to mollify East Pakistan with a heavy increase in government capital outlay.
Despite its large population, East Pakistan is lightly held, with a single infantry division. New Delhi's propaganda insists that there will be no invasion, that India regards East Pakistan as a friendly neutral. Pakistani propaganda similarly works hard to woo the dominant Sikhs of India's Punjab, assuring them that every effort will be made to avoid damaging their sacred Golden Temple in Amritsar and urging that they sit out the war. Neither appeal is apt to be very successful.
Wet Cement. While Nehru's India preached neutralism, Pakistan early joined every alliance in sight. It was an original member of CENTO, it belongs to SEATO, and would have joined NATO if it could have. Pakistan signed a bilateral defense treaty with the U.S. in 1954 and supplied the U.S. with the Peshawar airfield as a convenient base for U-2 spy planes flying over Russia.
Once aligned with the U.S., marvelous things happened to Pakistan. Tanks, jet planes, new weapons, experts, food poured in. By last year, Pakistan had received $1.5 billion dollars in military aid and $3.5 billion in economic aidââ¬âabout $50 per person. Relations reached their peak in 1961, when Ayub Khan rode a wave of popularity through the U.S. Speaking before a joint session of Congress, he said: "The only people who will stand by you in Asia are the people of Pakistan ââ¬â provided you are prepared to stand by them." He boated up the Potomac to Mount Vernon with the Kennedys, flew to Lyndon Johnson's Texas ranch to write his name in fresh Friendship Walk cement. Vice President Johnson had met Ayub in Pakistan earlier that year and, in a rosy, fraternal glow, saw to it that a camel driver who reached for his outstretched hand got a free junket to the U.S.
Matter of Duty. The warmth lasted until the 1962 Sino-Indian war in the Himalayas. When the Indian army abruptly collapsed in Assam, Washington and London hastily poured in weapons and military supplies. The Pakistanis were livid. Officials charged that President Kennedy had broken his promise to consult with Ayub before making any arms shipments to India.
Ayub Khan derided the Chinese threat to India, pointing out that a major attack from Tibet would leave the Chinese dangling at the end of a 1,700-mile supply line. If China wanted to gobble up India, he said, the thrust would come through the Northeast Frontier and Burma. Anyway, Ayub demanded, what possible use to China would it be to take on the care and feeding of 480 million undernourished Indians? Washington flatly disagreed, insisting that Red China was the main enemy of both India and Pakistan. Ayub Khan had already made an effort to test this theory by offering in 1959 to join Nehru in a pact for the mutual defense of the subcontinent. Cracked Nehru, "Defense against whom?" and turned down the treaty.
Ayub Khan had even less success with Nehru's successor, Shastri. After a private meeting in Karachi, Ayub said that Shastri was willing to compromise on Kashmir but felt he was not strong enough to convince his own government. Ayub added, "I told him that, as Prime Minister of India, it was his duty to build public opinion in favor of a satisfactory solution. He might be criticized by some elements, but the bulk of the Indian people would thank him for relieving them of a great anxiety." Ayub concluded that it was impossible to reach an agreement with the ambivalent and indirect Shastri. They settled into a tenuous coexistence that was punctuated by gunfire earlier this year in the border wasteland of the Rann of Kutch. Britain's Prime Minister Harold Wilson settled that one, bringing Ayub and Shastri to cautious compromise at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers meeting in London last June.
Trip to Moscow. Pakistan's relations with Red China had been cool and correct. But after Ayub Khan's recriminations against Washington, things grew warmer. Negotiations were begun to define the 200-mile border with Tibet; Peking proved generous, handing over to Pakistan about 750 sq. mi. of disputed territory. As the Pakistanis turned willing, the Chinese turned eager. Trade expanded; an agreement was reached for Pakistan International Airlines to make biweekly flights between Karachi and Canton; China advanced a $60 million credit to Pakistan.
Ayub Khan returned from a visit to Peking nearly as ecstatic as he had been about the U.S. Campaigns were launched to stamp out flies, a la China. Ayub Khan, a devout Moslem and a confirmed free enterpriser, praised the Red Chinese dedication to work.
Pakistan was making a serious reappraisal of all its international relationships. Close ties were knit with Turkey and Iran, two Moslem neighbors and fellow members of CENTO. A long and dreary border scuffle with Afghanistan was partially resolved, and Pakistan ended a two-year closing of the Afghan frontier.
Ayub Khan even went to Moscow to patch up long-dilapidated fences. The Soviet Union had for many years defended India in the U.N., even interposing its veto to prevent censure of New Delhi for its failure to hold the Kashmir plebiscite. Now Russia, as worried as the U.S. by China's cozying up to Pakistan, made a joint statement advocating "resolute support" of peoples struggling for national liberation, which Pakistan interpreted as backing its stand on Kashmir. Like many heads of state before him, Ayub Khan was learning that it is better to get aid from both sides than to be a taken-for-granted partner of just one.
But there was still no progress on the Kashmir problem. Though dear to the hearts of all Pakistanis, it was a crashing bore to the U.N. and the world. Even worse, India was moving fast to end the fiction that there was even anything left to discuss. Nehru had announced in 1954 that Kashmir was an integral part of India but had done nothing to implement his words. Prime Minister Shastri was saying less but doing more. Early this year, he quietly let it be known that Indian civil servants would take over the state administration of Kashmir. To Pakistanis, this meant that the Kashmir question had to be reopened before the world ââ¬ânow or never.
Closed Routes. The instrument used was the mujahid, or local warrior. Subsequent Indian interrogations of captured mujahids indicate that they are mostly inhabitants of Azad (Free) Kashmir, the Pakistan-occupied one-third of the state. As army veterans, they were given a brisk course of retraining, taught methods of sabotage. Last month they began crossing the porous cease-fire line with instructions to start an insurrection.
All in all, an estimated 3,000 mujahids made the trip. It seemed an obviously doomed operation. The Indian share of Kashmir is firmly held by 100,000 troops. Though most Kashmiri Moslems would undoubtedly vote to join Pakistan, few showed any inclination to die for the cause. The infiltrators were rounded up or slain with considerable ease, but the outcries from the Indian government often made it sound as if Kashmir were being invaded by hordes of warlike Huns.
In order to "close the infiltration routes," Indians in battalion strength crossed the cease-fire line and occupied a series of abandoned Pakistani outposts. There was a pause of some days, presumably to test the Pakistani reaction. When nothing happened, the Indians moved forward two weeks ago in regimental and brigade strength. Two Pakistani hilltop positions were stormed at dawn. In the Punch-Uri sector, the Indians advanced 25 miles into Pakistani territory. A large salient in the 1949 U.N. cease-fire line that bulged toward Srinagar was swiftly erased, and India announced that the occupied ground was now Indian, as were the 5,000 dazed peasants who lived there.
By last week, the world's eyes were on Kashmir. Pakistan would either have to react strongly or abandon its claims. Within 48 hours, Ayub Khan made his military answer. A rumbling column of 70 powerful Patton tanks rolled across the Kashmir border far to the south, where the land is flat. The Indian villages of Chhamb and Dewa were swiftly taken. Backed by a brigade of infantry, and with its flanks protected by patrols of mujahids, the tanks rolled on, driving Indian defenders from village after village.
Indian jet fighters streaked from the sky to smash the armored spearhead. Fearful of losing the strategic city of Jammu, the Indian high command ordered the drive on Lahore, removing the battle from Kashmir to Pakistan proper, and changing a brush-fire war into a full-scale challenge. The escalation had increased, and the suspense was over. Whatever else Ayub Khan and Shastri accomplished last week, they had noisily reopened the question of Kashmir.
Ostensibly, both armies were pursuing "defensive" advances, and always with the assurance that they were only being made to protect the national borders. New Delhi insisted that it was not at war with the Pakistan government or the Pakistan people. What then was it doing? Merely trying to convince the Pakistan army that it should not interfere with India's internal affairs, that is, Kashmir.
The same line was coming from Rawalpindi in slightly different wording. Pakistan's object was not to wage war either. Its only task was to convince India by "firmness" that it would be a good idea to let the Kashmiris have their plebiscite.
To the credit of both governments, each was doing what it could to damp down the possibility of religious massacres. Most of Pakistan's Hindus are in the East zone, so far little affected by the war. Pledges of loyalty to India came from many communities among the nation's 47 million Moslem subjects. Two Moslems sit in Shastri's Cabinet, and there are many scattered through the government and the army. Shastri has urged "internal harmony" upon his countrymen.
This was vital, since both nations are in the throes of spy scares. New Delhi offered a $100 reward for every Pakistani spy captured, and an Indian news agency put out a special notice to Delhi citizens: "Anybody having information about paratroopers or any other matter pertaining to the present emergency may convey it to the authorities by phoning 31489."
In Karachi and New Delhi, young men raced through the streets pulling strangers' beards to make sure they were not false. A freelance photographer who went to Patna to snap pictures of the Ganges River for a U.S. magazine was arrested and jailed because the police, who had never seen equipment as sophisticated as his 200-mm. :W00T: telephoto lens, thought it was an aerial camera. In Bombay, nocturnal cremations were killed lest they serve as fiery beacons for enemy aircraft.
Patna's police also spent one night cordoning off an area below a mysterious, wavering filament in the sky that they identified as a "rocket fuse." At dawn, they discovered someone had tied his paper kite to a pole, and the "fuse" was merely its fluttering string. :lmfao:
Closer Parity. Both the Indian and Pakistan governments were also dropping public hints as to the ground rules for future fighting. Each disclaimed any intention of bombing the other's jammed, slum-packed cities, which are easily flammable and prone to panic. And seemingly, neither side intends to launch a massive, win-the-war offensive with the aim of destroying the enemy's army and occupying his land.
Most military observers thought the fighting so far had gone about as expected. In the short run, Pakistan's small, highly trained army is more than a match for the Indians. But each skirmish and each day in the field reduces the efficiency of the U.S. weapons and equipment, and brings the Pakistanis toward closer parity with the Indians.
All of the Indian drives in the Punjab seem to have been stopped cold a short distance across the border. One unit attacking Lahore was severely handled and driven back into India :SNIPER: , where it has dug in in defense of Ferozepore. But should the war be prolonged several more weeks, military men think that the more numerous Indian army will begin to prevail.
Peking Laughter. There is one imponderable: China. Even a military demonstration on the Himalayan front would seriously weaken the Indian effort. A Chinese offensive on the scale of their last one in 1962 would be more than India could handle, for New Delhi is barely equipped for a one-enemy war. It could never deal with two at once.
Who knew how Red China would react? Ayub, no friend of Communism, had not asked for aid from that quarter. Also, the Chinese might recall that in the 1962 clash with India, Ayub made clear to Delhi that Indian troops could safely be transferred from the Pakistan frontier to the Himalayas. True, Peking has been mumbling about Indian "aggression" in the border area. But these noises began long before the present conflict, and have not been significantly renewed. At the present moment, China's interests are well served by letting its two neighbors waste their scanty substance in war against each other. As an Indian official said grimly, "They must be laughing hard in Peking."
Taken from TIME magzine
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