RADHASYAM BRAHMACHARI |
| Blog | Posted By: hindtodaynews on:1/25/2009 2:40:54 AM |
It has been pointed out earlier how
our leaders shamefully submitted to the unjust demands of the Pakistani
terrorists after the hijacking of the Indian Airlines plane, Flight no.
814 and released three dreaded terrorists from the Kashmir jail and how
a cabinet minister flew to Kandahar, by a special plane, with those
three terrorists, rupees 900 crores as ransom and a planeload of high
explosives (undoubtedly to be used against India). But after the hijacking drama when the plane was landed at Kandahar airport, it would have
been proper for our government to order our army to cross the border of Afghanistan and our air force to bomb Kabul and Kandahar.
It has also been mentioned earlier that how our leaders wrongly handled another incident. On April 21, 2001, Bangladesh Rifles abducted 15 Border Security Force (BSF) personnel into Bangladesh. They subsequently butchered
all the 15 BSF men and carried their mutilated bodies like carcass of
animals to return to our security personnel at the Indo-Bangladesh
border. The manner in which the carried the dead bodies was an extremely humiliating. As a cover up of that criminal act by the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), the government of Bangladesh said that our BSF men illegally crossed the Bangladeshi border and hence BDR captured and killed
them. It is to be noted here that, even if it is admitted that the BSF men had entered Bangladesh illegally, it was proper for BDR arrest them and produce them in the court of law. In any case, they could not have killed them.
The most justified reply of our government to this heinous crime committed by Bangladesh was to give order to our army to cross the Bangladesh border and march towards Dhaka. But our leaders could not gather sufficient courage to take military action against even a small and weak nation like Bangladesh. On the contrary, they supported the claim of the government of Bangladesh and admitted that our forces had done a wrong by entering Bangladesh without any provocation. Our
Prime Minister sent his personal secretary, Brojesh Misra, to Dhaka to
beg pardon on behalf of the Indian Government for the so called offence
committed by our BSF personnel. It is needless to say that, such a wrong step on the part of our government has dampened the moral and patriotism of our security personnel considerably.
According to a press report (The Statesman, 17th April, 2008), our
External Affairs Minister Sri Pranab Mukherjee told the Lok-Sabha on
April 16, 2008, that nearly 1,16,000 Sq Km area of Indian territory is
now being occupied by Pakistan and China. Pakistan is occupying 78,000 sq km of Indian territory since 1948, including the Pak occupied Kashmir (POK), and China is occupying 38,000 sq km of Indian
territory since 1962. In this context, it should be pointed out that the total
land area of West Bengal is 88,752 sq km and the land area occupied by
China and Pakistan is nearly twice (1.8 times) that of West Bengal. It should also be mentioned here that, according to a border agreement between Pakistan and China in 1963, Pakistan has ceded nearly 5,180 sq km of Indian territory (from POK) to China as a gesture of friendship.
But our leaders do not seem to be perturbed to the least about these developments. They are preoccupied with their petty
politics of winning election with the help of Muslim block votes and
therefore appeasing the Muslims by whatever means they can. These leaders don’t have the time to think that today’s Pakistan is nothing but a lump flesh severed from the body of our motherland and that must be brought back by any means.
An example may be cited, in this context, to expose what should have been our behavior in such a situation. The Falkland is a small Island at the southern end of South America. Though geographically it is a part of Argentina, it was under the occupation of the Britain. On April 2, 1982, the wellknown Faland War began with the Argentine invasion and occupation of the Falkland Islands. As a response, Britain launched a naval task force to engage the Argentine Navy and Argentine Air Force, and retake the islands by amphibious assault. After combat resulting in 258 British and 649 Argentine deaths, the British eventually prevailed and the islands remained under British control. The war ended with the Argentine surrender on 14 June 1982.
So
it is a shame that our timid and coward leaders are sitting idle and
doing nothing to recover the vast stretch of land now occupied by the
foreign aggressor. It is not difficult to trace the shadow of Gandhi behind the cowardliness of our leaders. When I started to post my articles on Gandhi to the Net, a few readers commented, “What is the use of writing all these things about a dead man”. But these readers fail to notice that, though Gandhi is dead, his ghost is still surviving as Gandhism which is turning the entire nation meek and coward from the inner core. They also fail to understand that Gandhi
succeeded to Islamize only a portion of this country, while his ghost is Islamizing the entire country slowly and surreptitiously.
At present, the situation has become very serious and alarming as the Muslims are increasing their population very rapidly through (1)
polygamy (2) total and deliberate rejection of family planning, (3)
huge illegal immigration from Bangladesh and Pakistan, and (4) by
converting Hindus to Islam. But the governments, both state and
the Central, remain silent spectators for the sake of their policy of
Muslim appeasement with an eye to the Muslim vote bank. It should also
be pointed out here that our political
parties depend badly not only on Muslim vote-bank but also on the flow
of Arab petro-dollars for their very existence. The statisticians say that, if things continue unchecked, India will be overpopulated with Muslims within next 40 years, while Assam and West Bengal is going to be Islamic much earlier. So, it becomes evident that the Hindus
should do something right now to save their age-old Dharma, culture and their national existence.
At such a grave situation, Hindus should first of all think, should they continue to trust their so called nationalist leaders any more? These leaders ruled India for nearly six years, but during their tenure they did nothing to unite the Hindus, consolidate Hindu votes and, as said earlier, to defend national prestige. According to the 2001 Census, nearly 83 per cent of population of this country, are Hindus. Had they concentrated to consolidate the Hindu votes by taking even a single step which they vowed to the
Hindus before 1999 Lok Sabha election? They
hopelessly neglected the issues like building temple at Ayodhya,
scraping Article 370, sending back the illegal Muslim infiltrators of Pakistan and Bangladesh and so on. Had they taken steps to fulfill any of their commitments, they would have won the 2004 election with landslide victory. On the contrary, they tilted towards 13.5 per cent Muslim vote and started to
appease them. As a consequence, they suffered a shameful defeat in the last 2004 election.
According to a press report, a couple of weeks ago, some people were arrested for allegedly selling globes where Indian border with Pakistan was shown in a distorted manner. More precisely, the area now known as Pakistan occupied Kashmir (or POK) has been shown as the territory of Pakistan. In fact, for past several decades, every map of India printed abroad shows POK as a part of
Pakistan and our government is discharging its responsibility by putting a rubber stamp that reads, “The border-line shown in the map is not correct”. Most importantly, none of our leaders of any party has shown any interest to correct the map by actual recovery of that land. In fact, our leaders don’t have a strong desire to recover that portion of our motherland now being occupied by foreign aggressors. Till date, they have got four golden opportunities to recover POK, but they wasted all these four opportunities with their wrong and impractical handling of those opportunities.
The Indo-Pak War in 1965: The First Opportunity
The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 took place between April 1965 and September 1965. In March 1965, it was reported that hundreds
of Pakistani "infiltrators" were hiding in the Indian state of Jammu
and Kashmir. Presence of Pakistani infiltrators was also reported in
the Rann of Kutch. On March 20, 1965,
and again in April 1965, fighting broke out between India and Pakistan
in the Rann of Kutch which put Pakistan in an advantegious position. After its success in the Rann of Kutch, Pakistan, under the leadership of General Ayub Khan, believed the Indian Army would be unable to defend itself against a quick
military campaign in the disputed territory of Kashmir.
On August
15, 1965, Indian forces crossed the actual line of control (LOC) and
launched an attack on the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir or POK. On September 1, 1965, Pakistan launched a counterattack, called Operation Grand Slam, with the objective to capture the vital town of Akhnoor in Jammu. But the said Operation Grand Slam ultimately failed, and Pakistan Army failed to capture Akhnoor,
Pakistan's Ichogil Canal was a vital barrier that needed to be crossed by Indian troops for capturing Lahore, the capital of West Punjab. The bridge across the canal was destroyed by the Pakistan Army before retreating. India crossed the International Border on the Western front on September 6, marking an official beginning of the war. On September 6, the 15th Infantry Division of the Indian Army, under the command of World War II veteran Major General Prasad, foiled a massive counterattack by Pakistan near the west bank of the Ichogil Canal.
A successful, attempt to cross the Ichhogil Canal was made over the bridge in the village of Barki, just east of Lahore. These developments brought the Indian Army within the range of Lahore International Airport. As a result, the United States requested a temporary ceasefire to allow it to evacuate its citizens in Lahore. One unit of the Jat Regiment, 3 Jat, had also crossed the Ichogil canal and capture the town of Batapore on the west side of the canal.
Pakistan lost or abandoned nearly 100 mostly US-made Patton tanks.
At that time, the Indian army was in possession of 710 square mile (1,840 sq km) of Pakistani territory and the Pakistan army held 210 square mile (545 sq km) of Indian territory. The territory occupied by India was mainly in the fertile Sialkot, Lahore and Kashmir sectors, while Pakistani land gains were primarily in deserts opposite Sindh and in Chumb, in the northern sector. India, however, was in a position to inflict grave damage to, if not capture Lahore, Pakistan's capital of the Punjab when the cease-fire was called.
It should be mentioned here that at that time Pakistan was one of the closest allies of USA and that led the US to begin a vigorous diplomatic activity to stop the war and hence to arrest the fall of Lahore. As a consequence, the United Nations Security Council, on September 22, unanimously passed a resolution that called for an unconditional ceasefire from both
nations. The war ended the following day. The Soviet Union, led by Premier Alexey Kosygin, hosted ceasefire negotiations in Tashkent (now in Uzbekistan), where Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and Pakistani President
Ayub Khan signed the Tashkent Agreement, agreeing to withdraw to pre-August lines no later than February 25, 1966.
The "Official History of the 1965 War", drafted by the Ministry of Defence of India, was officially published in 1992. According to the document, on September 22 when the Security Council was pressing for a ceasefire, India could certainly win the war, if it was continued for a few more days, by delaying or ignoring the ceasefire It was determined later that only 14% of India's front line ammunition had been fired and India held twice the number of tanks as Pakistan. On the contrary, by this time, the Pakistani Army had used close to 80% of its ammunition.
The most unfortunate part of the episode is that our Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, the originator of the slogan “Jai Jawan, Jai Kishan”, that aroused the entire nation, died in Tashkent, on the next day the Ceasefire Documents were signed. On 10 January 1966, Shastri and Khan signed the Tashkent Declaration and on.the next day Shastri, who had suffered two heart attacks earlier, died of a heart attack at 1:32 AM. But many believe that his death was not natural and he had fallen victim of a conspiracy.
However, it becomes evident from the above account that, if our Prime
Minister Sri Lal Bahadur Shastri could display a bit more courage to
ignore the resolution of the UN Security Council and continued the war
for a few more days, Indian Army could have win a convincing victory and occupied Lahore. In that case, India could be in a position to demand Pakistan Occupied Kashmir or POK in exchange of Lahore, and Pakistan would have no alternative but to submit to that bargain.
(To be continued)
( The Writer is a professor of Applied Physics, Calcutta University )