MY DAYS IN THE PAKISTAN ARMY 1965-1981
Maj (Retd) Saeed Z JANJUAH writes about
his years as an officer soldiering in the Army
I had just cleared my Intermediate science examinations in 1965 when war between Pakistan and India broke out in September of the same year. I was then only nineteen years old. Although this war was very short in its duration, the country became engulfed into a massive propaganda campaign whereby heroic deeds and actions of our valiant armed forces against heavy enemy odds was spread to such an extent that victory against India was declared on all fronts. The morale of the people of Pakistan was at its peak. To fight against the enemy and become a martyr by attaining shahadat' was the cry on everybody's lips.
It was in 1965 that men like Major Aziz Bhatti, Sawar Muhammad Hussain, Major Shabbir, Pilot Officer Rashid Minhas and many others by their sheer courage, convictions and sacrifice attained shahadat and were later on the recipients of the biggest gallantry awards of Nishan-e-Haider. It was because of them and many thousand unsung soldiers who laid down their lives so that the country may be saved from the treacherous enemy.
The September war was an example of chivalry, courage and gallantry. Our brave and fearless Armed Forces displayed exemplary discipline and spirit of sacrifice in defending their homeland and make their nation proud. Those who lived to tell the tales and stories of war became Ghazis. These men and the whole nation stood steadfast like a rock.
It was David against Goliath the father of the nation, Muhammad Ali Jinnah must also have made him proud in his grave. He had said of the armed forces, Everyone of you has an important role to play in strengthening the defence of the country and your watch words should be unity, faith, discipline. You will have to make up for the smallness of your size by your courage and selfless devotion to duty for it is not life that matters but the courage, fortitude and determination you bring to it.'
At the end of September war the soldier became a symbol of the hero, the valiant, the idol and the country was in the grip of a victory mania from Karachi to Khyber Pass. Petals were showered on them, song were sung in their praise. Patriotic and martial songs sung by Madam Noor Jahan and many other were enough to drive any indifferent person to commit his property, his savings, in fact his life for the defence of Pakistan. The people were full of confidence and high spirits and morale knew no bounds. The war which lasted for a few days only was full of sudden impact and aggressiveness. Pakistan Army had at places captured a lot of Indian territory and prisoners of war. At some fronts it was able to repulse Indian attacks at least three times its size. Our Air Force had virtually crippled the Indian Air Force and shot down a large number of their aircraft. It destroyed the Indian airfields deep into their territory and many people in Lahore witnessed the aerial dogfights from their roof tops and the Indian aircraft being shot out of the sky.
Our navy notwithstanding its small size also played its part by keeping our sea lanes of trade open, bombarding the enemy's coastal fortifications and stopping the enemy from coming anywhere near our coastline. The war however ended as soon as it had started and cease-fire was declared on 23 September. Victory of the 1965 war was attributed to Pakistan because it was able to stop the advance of an army three times its size and fire power, inflicting a large number of Indian casualties and capturing a large area of Indian territory. The claim of the Indian Army Chief that he was going to have a drink in Lahore Gymkhana could never materialize and he had to eat up his words in humiliation.
I had always wanted to become a doctor but in those days of September war it seemed that nothing else mattered but the armed forces. It was in this highly motivated state of mind that I suddenly decided to join the army and one day I found myself standing in the queue in front of the Army Recruiting Office at Karachi, along with a very large number of potential candidates for selection as a gentleman cadet in the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA). Getting qualified as a cadet for PMA was not an easy affair and I got the first taste of the gruesome test I had to undergo. First there was the interview test, then the physical test, the written test, the medical test, the intelligence test and so on. There were perhaps about more than 80 boys in my batch from Karachi who had applied for the commission. I think only about six of us could make it and when one day I got my call on a winter morning to report to PMA Kakul by 1st December 1965, I had at that time thought I had conquered the world.
The day arrived when I bade farewell to my family. It was the first time someone from the family was getting separated and as the train moved out of the station for the onward journey, I saw tears in my mother's eyes while my father tried to conceal his and a strange feeling of emptiness and sorrow filled my heart. The journey by train from Karachi to Rawalpindi was most uneventful but very wet and cold. From Rawalpindi to Abbottabad it was not only raining all the way but followed by very cold winds which made the journey all the more uncomfortable.
The action however started when I found myself being bundled along with other candidates who had also travelled with me on the same train into a number of army trucks waiting outside the railway station. There was lots of movement, lots of shouting, soldiers running to and fro, luggage and suitcases being loaded, orders being shouted. A uniformed tall soldier sporting big heavy mustaches and a stick in his hand seemed to be in command and his heavy booming voice through the rainy dark night was sharp and cracked like a whip. It looked as if some emergency was on and within a matter of about half an hour, the trucks were already moving towards the Military Academy few miles away.
On reaching the academy we were off loaded and directed to a barrack which had A' Mess written at the gate and although it had yet not snowed, the air was freezing cold outside. Like sheep being shepereded we were lined up inside. The mess hall however was quite warm and cosy and we had not yet got used to our bearings when all hell broke loose. Here we suddenly came face to face with the senior cadets. They seemed to be waiting for the kill or the slaughter and with their blue coloured blazers and PMA insignia on the pocket, the army style hair cut they descended on us like a pack of wolves on the innocent lost sheep. They were shouting, bullshitting, bragging and ragging of which the academy was famous for .
Which place do you disgrace from, was first question shouted at me by a tall lanky youth who was breathing down my neck with a face so full of anger and sadism, as if he was going to beat the heck out of me. Somehow the whole atmosphere inside the mess was so full of charged authority and command that everyone of us poor victims were doing exactly what the senior cadets was ordering us to do. Some of us were seen front rolling, some behaving like a cock imitiating crackling sounds, some were singing songs on top of their voices, some others were seen jumping like a frog, some were being asked to recite the national anthem and still others were rubbing their noses on the floor. In the midst of all this confusion, instructions, timetable, location of our rooms, platoon numbers etc etc and filling of a number of forms was going on. No one exactly knew what was happening and very few of us including myself could have ever dreamed of such a reception. But somehow we soon got over the first initial reaction and took it all in good spirit as part of the academy training. It is not a question of why but to do and survive seemed to be the message.
I still remember the PMA number allotted to me, Gentlemen Cadet 4490 and Salahuddin Company, platoon number 4 . As luck would have it my platoon commander was then Capt. Hakeem Arshad Qureshi from the SSG, the toughest platoon commander in PMA, who later went on to become a General. He trained us as if we were a platoon of SSG men and not gentlemen cadets.
During the next six months we went through the gruesome and tough, army training which required physical, academic and mental capabilities. The course although short was tough, both in its intensity and physical endurance and to make things worse was the terrible cold winter with its snow and heavy rains. The stay at PMA Kakul and the memories of the wonderful time spent in this army institution still lingers in my mind.
The words inscribed in INGLE. Hall It is not what happens to you that really matters but how you behave while it is happening,' left a lasting impression that still haunts me. The academy itself was very beautiful with the mountains in the background, tall pine trees lined on both sides of the road, clean, neat and tidy barracks of old British type and big ever green sports grounds.
The weather was cold and unfriendly at times but the air was fresh and the environment was very healthy. At times when I recollect the things that we had to endure as a cadet like jumping into the freezing swimming pool fully clothed or standing in our undergarment outside in the snow with a tub full of water over the head or climbing on the cupboard and pretending to be a cock, front rolling on the main PMA road dressed in our best clothes after witnessing a movie in the in-house cinema hall and such other acrobatic antics, I have a good laugh at myself. This ragging was a part of PMA training. The privilege was given to the senior cadets and it was taken in good spirit and fun. But when the course was over and the passing out parade day came, we had all forgotten the rough and tough time we had spent in the academy and proudly stood in our smartly pressed cadet uniforms awaiting for the ceremony to be over and looking forward to joining our units of the Pakistan Army, commissioned as Second Lieutenants.
I was commissioned and posted to a medium artillery unit located at Lahore. Jokingly courses commissioned soon after the 1965 war were known as Noor Jahan commission and my course was one of them. Before I joined the academy at Kakul, I had never set foot outside Karachi and now Lahore would become one of the many places I would have seen during my army service of sixteen years. My first few years in the army were really very tough. I had to undergo one training course after another in a very short period under very demanding circumstances. In Artillery, one was expected to be right all the time, to have knowledge of everything at all times, to be alert and be quick to respond at all times. The reputation of Gunners in the army was that they were KLM men. That is K for Keen as far as profession is concerned, L for Lean a regards to fitness and M for Mean to the point of sadism! Because of this atmosphere life was not a bed of roses.
During my initial six years of service I was posted three times from one artillery unit to another and in the process served at places like Azad Kashmir and Sialkot. I had the opportunity of traveling in Azad Kashmir from one end to the other and there were places so beautiful, so breathtaking that to write about these would require a whole book. Suffice to say that I enjoyed my stay in these parts and the many photographs that I have with me brings back memories of the time I spent there.
It was at Sialkot in the year 1971 while I was a Captain, that war again broke out between Pakistan and India and so on the evening of perhaps fourth December I found myself dug in my Observation Post (OP) with my observer party consisting of the wireless operator, the technical assistant (TA) and the driver of my jeep awaiting for the Indian attack across the border. The war on the eastern front, East Pakistan, however had already been going on since long and our armed forces were fighting on two fronts there. One front was the Indian Army across the border and the other front was inside East Pakistan against the Mukhti Bahini, the insurgents from amongst the local Bengali population who were demanding independence for East Pakistan from West Pakistan.
At Sialkot I was deployed as the forward-most artillery observer (OP) of a medium battery supporting a Baluch Battalion to defend the Pukhlian sector which also consisted of a Punjab and Frontier Force unit. This Brigade was deployed three Battalions up from Chumbia to Eik Nullah. The general pattern of fighting in this area was mainly harassing fire and occasional raids. The Pukhlian sector was on the left flank to where the Baluch Battalion and my OP was deployed. The salient was being defended by one wing of the Ranger Force called Saleem Force' . It was here at Sialkot that except for one or two major offensive in the initial stages of war, there was not much action.
In the words of Maj. General R Shaukat Riza, Ãâ In Sialkot it seemed that neither side intended to launch a major offensive battle. In engagements that did take place our troops fought with their usual clan. These actions perhaps convinced the Indians that Pakistan Army in the western front would by no means be a walk over.
It was during one of the first major offensive that I had first true taste of war. The enemy launched their attack on our defences somewhere after dusk with whatever firepower they could shower on us. And so while I crouched in my dug out trench resembling more like a dug out grave with my OP party, the distant boom of heavy enemy artillery guns, mortars and tanks followed by the shells fell on our forward most defences with deafening noise all over the place. I would not be telling the truth if I said that I was not at all terrified and afraid. In those moments while the earth around my OP shook with dust, mud and the nausatic odour of burning gun powder going up my nostrils while my eyes pained with burning sensation, I thought that my end had come and that this dug out OP would perhaps become my grave. It is at times like these that even the most courageous and brave person is bound to be afraid. But then someone did say that basically man is afraid and a born coward and only those become brave who are able to hide their fear and control their cowardice. I was then a very frightened soul but somehow I did manage not to show it to my men and putting up a brave front, came out of my trench and from a vantage point nearby I passed orders on the wireless to fire on the advancing enemy to my medium battery. with so much accuracy and intensity of firepower that the leading enemy Brigade Plus advance soon stopped dead in its tracks and within minutes retreated leaving behind a number of damaged tanks and dead soldiers all over the place. They attacked a number of times again but met very tough resistance and so perhaps they finally gave up but did continue sending harassing parties now and then which kept us busy but with almost no casualties on either side. It was hide and seek from then onwards until cease-fire was announced few days later. Both sides had in the end achieved nothing but very few casualties not worth mentioning.
However the news and stories pouring in from the different foreign press, radio , TV etc. regarding East Pakistan were not very encouraging. East Pakistan, where some pockets of our valiant forces were still fighting at odd places despite the ceasefire, was expected to fall any day. What happened in East Pakistan, what were the circumstances of its surrender, who are at be blamed for the emergence of Bangladesh is another story altogether. I am in no position or authority to write about it. I only know that for Pakistan it was the blackest period in its history. When the war was finally over , East Pakistan had fallen to the Indian Army and 90,000 Pakistanis including the army, civilians and Generals had been made prisoners of war (POWs ) and soon after transferred to concentration camps in India. To sum up this war in the words of Major General (Retd) Shoukat Riza in his book The Pakistan Army 1966 -1971 The year of 1971 was sad for Pakistan. The Pakistan Army was trapped by its unqualified acceptance of CLAUZEWITZ maxim that War is a continuation of policy by other means' We blundered into the military action in East Pakistan on the wrong premise that the bulk of East Pakistanis were on our side. We failed to understand the people, the geography and the effect of continued use of violence on the people and on the troops. We squandered the flowers of our Army, and we set them on a course which ended in our military humiliation. Finally we failed to appreciate the Indian reaction in all its dimensions. If there is anything to be learnt from the events of 1971, it is that war is a continuation of policy only for the victor. For the loser there is no policy only MILITARY HUMILIATION'. And so Pakistan lost its Eastern sector. Our Bengali brothers opted to have an independent country of their own and parted ways. It was a sad and traumatic experience especially for those who had intermarried and many a families broke because of the events that took place.
This war like the 1965 war was short in its duration but left a deep impact on my mind. In my opinion war is a curse, no country powerful or weak can afford and those who speak of war should in my mind be termed simply as lunatics. I of course had undergone an experience that left many unanswered questions. What are we fighting for? Why can't we live like good neighbours and solve our problems across the table ? What can be achieved by fighting except destruction, misery, tragedy and poverty which both our under-nourished and underdeveloped nations cannot afford? I hoped then that sanity would prevail on politicians from both the sides and prayed that both Pakistan and India would in future live in harmony and friendship for the betterment of our countries for times to come.
Soon after the war I was promoted to the rank of Major and as a battery commander was given the command of an artillery battery. We were however still camped on the borders on the western front awaiting orders to go back to the cantonment area. Our Army chief Gen Yahya Khan had been sacked and arrested while Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto took over the reins of the country as the supreme commander. In the next few months the process of repatriation of our prisoners of war (POWs) started from India. Being a defeated country we were subjected to humiliation by the massive Indian press propaganda and they started announcing the names and messages of our prisoners of war over the radio. It was pathetic hearing the voices of our people over the radio while their kin folks at home glued their ears to it day and night in anticipation of hearing about their lost ones. India spared no stone unturned to portray that it was the victor and did whatever it was possible through its Hindu mentality to humiliate and disgrace Pakistan and its people. Repatriation was very slow and took many months to complete. Stories of excesses, rapes, killings + murders etc. committed in East Pakistan during the war also came pouring in along and it took more than a year for things to calm down but things were never the same as before the war. Pakistan now had broken into two. The other part now Bangladesh under Sheikh Mujeeb ur Rahman became independent although still under the occupation of the Indian Army. The next few years Pakistan tried to stabilise itself after the tragedy of the 1971 war.
A lot of changes took place in the Armed Forces soon after the war. Many high ranking armed forces officers either resigned or were retired. Things were not the same as before the war and the process of raising the morale of a defeated army and the nation became top priority. The tragedy of 1971 war also changed my thinking and perception but a greater personal tragedy was soon to follow for which I was not prepared and left me so much disturbed that it began to affect my career. I lost my father who died at a young age of 52 years and the burden of supporting a large family consisting of my mother, four brothers and two sisters, all students and younger to me fell on my shoulders.
In the years to come I tried to do my best to cope with both my army career and the many domestic problems at home but in the end I succumbed to the pressures of my family and I therefore decided to stay and look after them, I finally took voluntary release from the army after having served honourably for sixteen years.
I would like to say that even today I have never regretted the life I spent as an officer in the army. Those were one of the best times I had and relish them with sweet and everlasting memories. And if there are institutions in our country that deserve praise, honour and recognition, these are our well disciplined armed forces, academies from where I at least learnt a lot especially as how to conduct myself in life and from where I gained confidence and the art of facing it with fortitude, determination and tolerance. It is said that soldiers never die, they just fade away. I too would fade away one day but I hope my sons and grandchildren would make me proud by following in my steps and serve this great country with honour, dignity, honesty and to the best of their abilities.
Maj (Retd) Saeed Z JANJUAH writes about
his years as an officer soldiering in the Army
I had just cleared my Intermediate science examinations in 1965 when war between Pakistan and India broke out in September of the same year. I was then only nineteen years old. Although this war was very short in its duration, the country became engulfed into a massive propaganda campaign whereby heroic deeds and actions of our valiant armed forces against heavy enemy odds was spread to such an extent that victory against India was declared on all fronts. The morale of the people of Pakistan was at its peak. To fight against the enemy and become a martyr by attaining shahadat' was the cry on everybody's lips.
It was in 1965 that men like Major Aziz Bhatti, Sawar Muhammad Hussain, Major Shabbir, Pilot Officer Rashid Minhas and many others by their sheer courage, convictions and sacrifice attained shahadat and were later on the recipients of the biggest gallantry awards of Nishan-e-Haider. It was because of them and many thousand unsung soldiers who laid down their lives so that the country may be saved from the treacherous enemy.
The September war was an example of chivalry, courage and gallantry. Our brave and fearless Armed Forces displayed exemplary discipline and spirit of sacrifice in defending their homeland and make their nation proud. Those who lived to tell the tales and stories of war became Ghazis. These men and the whole nation stood steadfast like a rock.
It was David against Goliath the father of the nation, Muhammad Ali Jinnah must also have made him proud in his grave. He had said of the armed forces, Everyone of you has an important role to play in strengthening the defence of the country and your watch words should be unity, faith, discipline. You will have to make up for the smallness of your size by your courage and selfless devotion to duty for it is not life that matters but the courage, fortitude and determination you bring to it.'
At the end of September war the soldier became a symbol of the hero, the valiant, the idol and the country was in the grip of a victory mania from Karachi to Khyber Pass. Petals were showered on them, song were sung in their praise. Patriotic and martial songs sung by Madam Noor Jahan and many other were enough to drive any indifferent person to commit his property, his savings, in fact his life for the defence of Pakistan. The people were full of confidence and high spirits and morale knew no bounds. The war which lasted for a few days only was full of sudden impact and aggressiveness. Pakistan Army had at places captured a lot of Indian territory and prisoners of war. At some fronts it was able to repulse Indian attacks at least three times its size. Our Air Force had virtually crippled the Indian Air Force and shot down a large number of their aircraft. It destroyed the Indian airfields deep into their territory and many people in Lahore witnessed the aerial dogfights from their roof tops and the Indian aircraft being shot out of the sky.
Our navy notwithstanding its small size also played its part by keeping our sea lanes of trade open, bombarding the enemy's coastal fortifications and stopping the enemy from coming anywhere near our coastline. The war however ended as soon as it had started and cease-fire was declared on 23 September. Victory of the 1965 war was attributed to Pakistan because it was able to stop the advance of an army three times its size and fire power, inflicting a large number of Indian casualties and capturing a large area of Indian territory. The claim of the Indian Army Chief that he was going to have a drink in Lahore Gymkhana could never materialize and he had to eat up his words in humiliation.
I had always wanted to become a doctor but in those days of September war it seemed that nothing else mattered but the armed forces. It was in this highly motivated state of mind that I suddenly decided to join the army and one day I found myself standing in the queue in front of the Army Recruiting Office at Karachi, along with a very large number of potential candidates for selection as a gentleman cadet in the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA). Getting qualified as a cadet for PMA was not an easy affair and I got the first taste of the gruesome test I had to undergo. First there was the interview test, then the physical test, the written test, the medical test, the intelligence test and so on. There were perhaps about more than 80 boys in my batch from Karachi who had applied for the commission. I think only about six of us could make it and when one day I got my call on a winter morning to report to PMA Kakul by 1st December 1965, I had at that time thought I had conquered the world.
The day arrived when I bade farewell to my family. It was the first time someone from the family was getting separated and as the train moved out of the station for the onward journey, I saw tears in my mother's eyes while my father tried to conceal his and a strange feeling of emptiness and sorrow filled my heart. The journey by train from Karachi to Rawalpindi was most uneventful but very wet and cold. From Rawalpindi to Abbottabad it was not only raining all the way but followed by very cold winds which made the journey all the more uncomfortable.
The action however started when I found myself being bundled along with other candidates who had also travelled with me on the same train into a number of army trucks waiting outside the railway station. There was lots of movement, lots of shouting, soldiers running to and fro, luggage and suitcases being loaded, orders being shouted. A uniformed tall soldier sporting big heavy mustaches and a stick in his hand seemed to be in command and his heavy booming voice through the rainy dark night was sharp and cracked like a whip. It looked as if some emergency was on and within a matter of about half an hour, the trucks were already moving towards the Military Academy few miles away.
On reaching the academy we were off loaded and directed to a barrack which had A' Mess written at the gate and although it had yet not snowed, the air was freezing cold outside. Like sheep being shepereded we were lined up inside. The mess hall however was quite warm and cosy and we had not yet got used to our bearings when all hell broke loose. Here we suddenly came face to face with the senior cadets. They seemed to be waiting for the kill or the slaughter and with their blue coloured blazers and PMA insignia on the pocket, the army style hair cut they descended on us like a pack of wolves on the innocent lost sheep. They were shouting, bullshitting, bragging and ragging of which the academy was famous for .
Which place do you disgrace from, was first question shouted at me by a tall lanky youth who was breathing down my neck with a face so full of anger and sadism, as if he was going to beat the heck out of me. Somehow the whole atmosphere inside the mess was so full of charged authority and command that everyone of us poor victims were doing exactly what the senior cadets was ordering us to do. Some of us were seen front rolling, some behaving like a cock imitiating crackling sounds, some were singing songs on top of their voices, some others were seen jumping like a frog, some were being asked to recite the national anthem and still others were rubbing their noses on the floor. In the midst of all this confusion, instructions, timetable, location of our rooms, platoon numbers etc etc and filling of a number of forms was going on. No one exactly knew what was happening and very few of us including myself could have ever dreamed of such a reception. But somehow we soon got over the first initial reaction and took it all in good spirit as part of the academy training. It is not a question of why but to do and survive seemed to be the message.
I still remember the PMA number allotted to me, Gentlemen Cadet 4490 and Salahuddin Company, platoon number 4 . As luck would have it my platoon commander was then Capt. Hakeem Arshad Qureshi from the SSG, the toughest platoon commander in PMA, who later went on to become a General. He trained us as if we were a platoon of SSG men and not gentlemen cadets.
During the next six months we went through the gruesome and tough, army training which required physical, academic and mental capabilities. The course although short was tough, both in its intensity and physical endurance and to make things worse was the terrible cold winter with its snow and heavy rains. The stay at PMA Kakul and the memories of the wonderful time spent in this army institution still lingers in my mind.
The words inscribed in INGLE. Hall It is not what happens to you that really matters but how you behave while it is happening,' left a lasting impression that still haunts me. The academy itself was very beautiful with the mountains in the background, tall pine trees lined on both sides of the road, clean, neat and tidy barracks of old British type and big ever green sports grounds.
The weather was cold and unfriendly at times but the air was fresh and the environment was very healthy. At times when I recollect the things that we had to endure as a cadet like jumping into the freezing swimming pool fully clothed or standing in our undergarment outside in the snow with a tub full of water over the head or climbing on the cupboard and pretending to be a cock, front rolling on the main PMA road dressed in our best clothes after witnessing a movie in the in-house cinema hall and such other acrobatic antics, I have a good laugh at myself. This ragging was a part of PMA training. The privilege was given to the senior cadets and it was taken in good spirit and fun. But when the course was over and the passing out parade day came, we had all forgotten the rough and tough time we had spent in the academy and proudly stood in our smartly pressed cadet uniforms awaiting for the ceremony to be over and looking forward to joining our units of the Pakistan Army, commissioned as Second Lieutenants.
I was commissioned and posted to a medium artillery unit located at Lahore. Jokingly courses commissioned soon after the 1965 war were known as Noor Jahan commission and my course was one of them. Before I joined the academy at Kakul, I had never set foot outside Karachi and now Lahore would become one of the many places I would have seen during my army service of sixteen years. My first few years in the army were really very tough. I had to undergo one training course after another in a very short period under very demanding circumstances. In Artillery, one was expected to be right all the time, to have knowledge of everything at all times, to be alert and be quick to respond at all times. The reputation of Gunners in the army was that they were KLM men. That is K for Keen as far as profession is concerned, L for Lean a regards to fitness and M for Mean to the point of sadism! Because of this atmosphere life was not a bed of roses.
During my initial six years of service I was posted three times from one artillery unit to another and in the process served at places like Azad Kashmir and Sialkot. I had the opportunity of traveling in Azad Kashmir from one end to the other and there were places so beautiful, so breathtaking that to write about these would require a whole book. Suffice to say that I enjoyed my stay in these parts and the many photographs that I have with me brings back memories of the time I spent there.
It was at Sialkot in the year 1971 while I was a Captain, that war again broke out between Pakistan and India and so on the evening of perhaps fourth December I found myself dug in my Observation Post (OP) with my observer party consisting of the wireless operator, the technical assistant (TA) and the driver of my jeep awaiting for the Indian attack across the border. The war on the eastern front, East Pakistan, however had already been going on since long and our armed forces were fighting on two fronts there. One front was the Indian Army across the border and the other front was inside East Pakistan against the Mukhti Bahini, the insurgents from amongst the local Bengali population who were demanding independence for East Pakistan from West Pakistan.
At Sialkot I was deployed as the forward-most artillery observer (OP) of a medium battery supporting a Baluch Battalion to defend the Pukhlian sector which also consisted of a Punjab and Frontier Force unit. This Brigade was deployed three Battalions up from Chumbia to Eik Nullah. The general pattern of fighting in this area was mainly harassing fire and occasional raids. The Pukhlian sector was on the left flank to where the Baluch Battalion and my OP was deployed. The salient was being defended by one wing of the Ranger Force called Saleem Force' . It was here at Sialkot that except for one or two major offensive in the initial stages of war, there was not much action.
In the words of Maj. General R Shaukat Riza, Ãâ In Sialkot it seemed that neither side intended to launch a major offensive battle. In engagements that did take place our troops fought with their usual clan. These actions perhaps convinced the Indians that Pakistan Army in the western front would by no means be a walk over.
It was during one of the first major offensive that I had first true taste of war. The enemy launched their attack on our defences somewhere after dusk with whatever firepower they could shower on us. And so while I crouched in my dug out trench resembling more like a dug out grave with my OP party, the distant boom of heavy enemy artillery guns, mortars and tanks followed by the shells fell on our forward most defences with deafening noise all over the place. I would not be telling the truth if I said that I was not at all terrified and afraid. In those moments while the earth around my OP shook with dust, mud and the nausatic odour of burning gun powder going up my nostrils while my eyes pained with burning sensation, I thought that my end had come and that this dug out OP would perhaps become my grave. It is at times like these that even the most courageous and brave person is bound to be afraid. But then someone did say that basically man is afraid and a born coward and only those become brave who are able to hide their fear and control their cowardice. I was then a very frightened soul but somehow I did manage not to show it to my men and putting up a brave front, came out of my trench and from a vantage point nearby I passed orders on the wireless to fire on the advancing enemy to my medium battery. with so much accuracy and intensity of firepower that the leading enemy Brigade Plus advance soon stopped dead in its tracks and within minutes retreated leaving behind a number of damaged tanks and dead soldiers all over the place. They attacked a number of times again but met very tough resistance and so perhaps they finally gave up but did continue sending harassing parties now and then which kept us busy but with almost no casualties on either side. It was hide and seek from then onwards until cease-fire was announced few days later. Both sides had in the end achieved nothing but very few casualties not worth mentioning.
However the news and stories pouring in from the different foreign press, radio , TV etc. regarding East Pakistan were not very encouraging. East Pakistan, where some pockets of our valiant forces were still fighting at odd places despite the ceasefire, was expected to fall any day. What happened in East Pakistan, what were the circumstances of its surrender, who are at be blamed for the emergence of Bangladesh is another story altogether. I am in no position or authority to write about it. I only know that for Pakistan it was the blackest period in its history. When the war was finally over , East Pakistan had fallen to the Indian Army and 90,000 Pakistanis including the army, civilians and Generals had been made prisoners of war (POWs ) and soon after transferred to concentration camps in India. To sum up this war in the words of Major General (Retd) Shoukat Riza in his book The Pakistan Army 1966 -1971 The year of 1971 was sad for Pakistan. The Pakistan Army was trapped by its unqualified acceptance of CLAUZEWITZ maxim that War is a continuation of policy by other means' We blundered into the military action in East Pakistan on the wrong premise that the bulk of East Pakistanis were on our side. We failed to understand the people, the geography and the effect of continued use of violence on the people and on the troops. We squandered the flowers of our Army, and we set them on a course which ended in our military humiliation. Finally we failed to appreciate the Indian reaction in all its dimensions. If there is anything to be learnt from the events of 1971, it is that war is a continuation of policy only for the victor. For the loser there is no policy only MILITARY HUMILIATION'. And so Pakistan lost its Eastern sector. Our Bengali brothers opted to have an independent country of their own and parted ways. It was a sad and traumatic experience especially for those who had intermarried and many a families broke because of the events that took place.
This war like the 1965 war was short in its duration but left a deep impact on my mind. In my opinion war is a curse, no country powerful or weak can afford and those who speak of war should in my mind be termed simply as lunatics. I of course had undergone an experience that left many unanswered questions. What are we fighting for? Why can't we live like good neighbours and solve our problems across the table ? What can be achieved by fighting except destruction, misery, tragedy and poverty which both our under-nourished and underdeveloped nations cannot afford? I hoped then that sanity would prevail on politicians from both the sides and prayed that both Pakistan and India would in future live in harmony and friendship for the betterment of our countries for times to come.
Soon after the war I was promoted to the rank of Major and as a battery commander was given the command of an artillery battery. We were however still camped on the borders on the western front awaiting orders to go back to the cantonment area. Our Army chief Gen Yahya Khan had been sacked and arrested while Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto took over the reins of the country as the supreme commander. In the next few months the process of repatriation of our prisoners of war (POWs) started from India. Being a defeated country we were subjected to humiliation by the massive Indian press propaganda and they started announcing the names and messages of our prisoners of war over the radio. It was pathetic hearing the voices of our people over the radio while their kin folks at home glued their ears to it day and night in anticipation of hearing about their lost ones. India spared no stone unturned to portray that it was the victor and did whatever it was possible through its Hindu mentality to humiliate and disgrace Pakistan and its people. Repatriation was very slow and took many months to complete. Stories of excesses, rapes, killings + murders etc. committed in East Pakistan during the war also came pouring in along and it took more than a year for things to calm down but things were never the same as before the war. Pakistan now had broken into two. The other part now Bangladesh under Sheikh Mujeeb ur Rahman became independent although still under the occupation of the Indian Army. The next few years Pakistan tried to stabilise itself after the tragedy of the 1971 war.
A lot of changes took place in the Armed Forces soon after the war. Many high ranking armed forces officers either resigned or were retired. Things were not the same as before the war and the process of raising the morale of a defeated army and the nation became top priority. The tragedy of 1971 war also changed my thinking and perception but a greater personal tragedy was soon to follow for which I was not prepared and left me so much disturbed that it began to affect my career. I lost my father who died at a young age of 52 years and the burden of supporting a large family consisting of my mother, four brothers and two sisters, all students and younger to me fell on my shoulders.
In the years to come I tried to do my best to cope with both my army career and the many domestic problems at home but in the end I succumbed to the pressures of my family and I therefore decided to stay and look after them, I finally took voluntary release from the army after having served honourably for sixteen years.
I would like to say that even today I have never regretted the life I spent as an officer in the army. Those were one of the best times I had and relish them with sweet and everlasting memories. And if there are institutions in our country that deserve praise, honour and recognition, these are our well disciplined armed forces, academies from where I at least learnt a lot especially as how to conduct myself in life and from where I gained confidence and the art of facing it with fortitude, determination and tolerance. It is said that soldiers never die, they just fade away. I too would fade away one day but I hope my sons and grandchildren would make me proud by following in my steps and serve this great country with honour, dignity, honesty and to the best of their abilities.
