Sifting facts from fiction: Did any Pakistani leader have intentions of helping India in 1962 war?

[Bharat Muslim]

Sifting facts from fiction: Did any Pakistani leader have intentions of helping India in 1962 war?

Is there any truth in the rumour that some Pakistani suggested helping India in some way in order to keep the ‘red menace’ at bay?

If it is true, what exactly was the nature of help contemplated?

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

Ayub Khan was notoriously pro-American and even offered a joint-defence pact to India in order to help fight off China.

Link: Bhutto's foreign policy legacy - DAWN.COM

"The roots of our strategic relationship with China go back to the India-China clashes in October 1959 in Ladakh. Bhutto was then leading Pakistan's delegation at the UN General Assembly. He was alarmed at President Ayub Khan's offer of joint defence to India. Bhutto felt that only those unlettered in international affairs could believe that such an offer would be accepted. In fact, it was more likely to incur the hostility of China which had so far, despite our membership of anti-communist western alliances, refrained from criticising Pakistan."

If India had accepted this joint-defence pact from Ayub Khan they might have won the 1962 war with Pakistan fighting at their side.

If Pakistan had accepted China's invitation to help us in 1962 they might have seized Kashmir from an already defeated India.

Can't blame either side though, China at that time was a complete mess, in the middle of the worst famine in our history (Great leap forward) and utterly destroyed from WW2 and the Chinese Civil War. We were a nation that was starving to death, hard to believe we could fight back.

 

[SSGcommandoPAK]

Sifting facts from fiction: Did any Pakistani leader have intentions of helping India in 1962 war?

Is there any truth in the rumour that some Pakistani suggested helping India in some way in order to keep the ‘red menace’ at bay?

If it is true, what exactly was the nature of help contemplated?

Altaf Hussain !

 

[Stephen Cohen]

They might have thought about it but there was NO concrete proposal

Pakistan China relations HAD not developed by 1962

Pakistan looked China with suspicion till 1962

It was after the war that Pakistan realised that it had lost a chance to Grab Kashmir

But USA had already warned Pakistan not to open another Front

Altaf Hussain !

He was a KID in 1962

 

[SSGcommandoPAK]

They might have thought about it but there was NO concrete proposal

Pakistan China relations HAD not developed by 1962

Pakistan looked China with suspicion

It was after the war that Pakistan realised that it had a chance to Grab Kashmir

But USA had already warned Pakistan not to open another Front



He was a KID in 1962

Haha I know Trolling ! His age was 9 years

Even If any Pakistani politician had Intentions they wouldn't tell anyone warna they would be labeled as a traitor . Cause no one in Pakistan wants to help India in any war .

 

[Bharat Muslim]

Haha I know Trolling ! His age was 9 years

Even If any Pakistani politician had Intentions they wouldn't tell anyone warna they would be labeled as a traitor . Cause no one in Pakistan wants to help India in any war .

Excuse me. That was way back in 1962. Who knows how people thought then? If I am not wrong, Indian movies would run freely in Pakistan before 1965, right?

 

[SSGcommandoPAK]

Excuse me. That was way back in 1962. Who knows how people thought then? If I am not wrong, Indian movies would run freely in Pakistan before 1965, right?

How would I know that I was born in 1998

 

[fitpOsitive]

We actually helped both sides by not taking any side. War finished soon and with out murder of thousands of more. So, yeah we helped whole the region which also includes India.

 

[LA se Karachi]

Ayub Khan was notoriously pro-American and even offered a joint-defence pact to India in order to help fight off China.

Link: Bhutto's foreign policy legacy - DAWN.COM

"The roots of our strategic relationship with China go back to the India-China clashes in October 1959 in Ladakh. Bhutto was then leading Pakistan's delegation at the UN General Assembly. He was alarmed at President Ayub Khan's offer of joint defence to India. Bhutto felt that only those unlettered in international affairs could believe that such an offer would be accepted. In fact, it was more likely to incur the hostility of China which had so far, despite our membership of anti-communist western alliances, refrained from criticising Pakistan."

If India had accepted this joint-defence pact from Ayub Khan they might have won the 1962 war with Pakistan fighting at their side.

If Pakistan had accepted China's invitation to help us in 1962 they might have seized Kashmir from an already defeated India.

Can't blame either side though, China at that time was a complete mess, in the middle of the worst famine in our history (Great leap forward) and utterly destroyed from WW2 and the Chinese Civil War. We were a nation that was starving to death, hard to believe we could fight back.

Ayub Khan loved India so much that he went to war against it just three years later in 1965.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

Ayub Khan loved India so much that he went to war against it just three years later in 1965.

It's not that he loved India but rather he preferred India over China, hence his offering of a joint-defence pact to India AGAINST China just before the 1962 war.

He saw he missed the opportunity to take back Kashmir in 1962, so he went for it 3 years later instead (in 1965) and failed.

 

[Nilgiri]

He saw he missed the opportunity to take back Kashmir in 1962

The nature of that opportunity is over-rated. The logistics and situation are completely different from the 1962 theatres with China.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

The nature of that opportunity is over-rated. The logistics and situation are completely different from the 1962 theatres with China.

Surely spitting at China and then trying it on his own in 1965 was a relatively worse choice for Ayub Khan.

 

[LA se Karachi]

It's not that he loved India but rather he preferred India over China, hence his offering of a joint-defence pact to India AGAINST China just before the 1962 war.

Well, that's my point though. He didn't really like India at all if he went to war against it just six years after he supposedly offered this pact. There are also reports that Ayub Khan would have attacked India in 1962 for Kashmir if it wasn't for American pressure. This was during a time America believed it was fighting global "communism" and China fell into this category. Of course, the US later established relations with China in the early 1970s to counter Soviet influence.

There are conflicting opinions about this, but I'm doubtful that Ayub Khan really preferred India to China beyond acknowledging that both countries had similar cultures. If he really did, I don't think he would have gone to war with it in 1965.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

Well, that's my point though. He didn't really like India at all if he went to war against it just six years after he supposedly offered this pact. There are also reports that Ayub Khan would have attacked India in 1962 for Kashmir if it wasn't for American pressure. This was during a time America believed it was fighting global "communism" and China fell into this category. Of course, it later established relations with China in the early 1970s to counter Soviet influence.

There are conflicting opinions about this, but I'm doubtful that Ayub Khan really preferred India to China beyond acknowledging that both countries had similar cultures. If he really did, I don't think he would have gone to war with it in 1965.

Do you have a source for that, like the one I provided?

Anyway, Ayub Khan led Pakistan to join all the NATO-led security pacts which were anti-communist in nature, and specifically identified China as the major enemy nation next to Russia.

So I don't think it's surprising at all that he offered a joint-defence pact to India against China just before the 1962 war. We were the "Red Menace" after all, and on the opposite side of the Cold War. And we had fought a direct war with US+NATO in the Korean War in the previous decade.

 

[Nilgiri]

Surely spitting at China and then trying it on his own in 1965 was a relatively worse choice for Ayub Khan.

I don't disagree it was a bad move on his part on both counts.

But he would have not succeeded in 1962 or pretty much any other year. The West Kashmir theatre is very different from the ladakh theatre even at that point in history regarding sheer force deployment, logistics and war planning....not to mention several viable fronts could be opened as needed (as was done in 1965). Nehru had badly dented the overall funding to the military...but it was still large and capable enough where it was deployed in sizeable number and with enough logistics and support.

It was not a case of single forward action policy with low force deployment being told not to retreat and then flanked and crushed like was the case in both 62 theatres with China. 62 did help make India more prepared for 65 with Pakistan its true and it manifested by the nature of the conflict....but the result was never in question (I think).