Indira Gandhi’s decision to

hold the Indian Army back

from Peshawar in 1971
By Ashok Parthasarathi • caravanmagazine.in • 10 min
View Original

AS AFTERNOON TURNED to evening on 16

December 1971—shortly after Pakistani forces
surrendered to the Indian Army in East Pakistan—
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi called a large meeting
in the Cabinet Room, in the South Block of the
Secretariat Building that housed her o ices. Those
present included the defence, foreign, inance and
home ministers—all the senior members of the
cabinet committee on security—as well as their
secretaries, the chiefs of all three armed services,
the head of the Research and Analysis Wing, and the
cabinet secretary. Also in attendance were four of
the prime minister’s closest advisers—PN Haksar,
her principal secretary, PN Dhar, her secretary, G
Parthasarathi, my father, then formally serving as the
 vice chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University, and
myself, her science and technology adviser.

dira Gandhi, as the prime minister of India, was assured of the support of the Soviet Union. Yahya Kha
eading a military government in Pakistan, was backed by the United States. KEYSTONE/GETTY IMAGES
mps set up to receive refugees from East Pakistan eventually came to hold some ten million people, w
constituted one of the largest trans- border migrations in human history AP PHOTO
Opening the meeting, Gandhi asked General Sam
Manekshaw, the chief of army staff, how long he
would take to reach Peshawar. In the west, as in the
east, Pakistan’s defences had been shattered since
the war began, on 3 December. Indian forces had
complete superiority in the air over West Pakistan,
and had taken signi icant territory on the ground.
Maneskhaw’s army had surrounded Sialkot, in
Pakistani Punjab, and was poised to breach that
massive military forti ication, the Ichhogil Canal.
From there, the way to Peshawar cut north-west,
through the Pakistani capital at Islamabad and the
Pakistan Army’s headquarters in Rawalpindi.

“Three days, madam,” Manekshaw shot back.

Gandhi seemed a bit surprised at the promptness of
his response, and remarked that Manekshaw
seemed very sure of himself. The general replied
that as he and his commanders had watched
developments in the east, they had known that this
question would come, so they had done their
homework and were ready.

Gandhi went around the table asking for views. One

by one, everyone said that we should head straight
for Peshawar and take it.

Then Gandhi asked Haksar for his thoughts. He said

he had no doubt that Manekshaw could reach
Peshawar in three days, but, he wondered, what
then? Was India to take over and rule West Pakistan?
With a deployment of 100,000 troops we could do
it, he reasoned, and initially the people of West
Pakistan would be with us. Their slogans would be
“Yahya Khan murdabad, Tikka Khan murdabad,”
denouncing the country’s military dictatorship. But
after six months, the mood would shift, and the
people would want the Indians out. The slogans
would change to “Hindu kutte wapas jao”—Go back,
Hindu dogs.

At this point, Jagjivan Ram, the defence minister,

raised his hand to speak. Haksar had not understood
his view, he said. He was not arguing for the
annexation of West Pakistan—only a fool would
advocate that. He was proposing that it was feasible
and necessary to use the chance to take back areas
that Pakistan had taken by force, in Jammu and
Kashmir, after Partition.

For once, Haksar was speechless.

After hearing both Haksar and Ram, Gandhi closed
the meeting. “Achha, main sochoongi,” she said—I
will think about it.

WHY GANDHI DID NOT GO for Peshawar will remain

one of the great enigmas of the twentieth century.
As the end of the 1971 war approached,
circumstances in the subcontinent, and globally,
aligned to give her unprecedented cause for
boldness. If she had chosen otherwise, history
would have been fundamentally different for India,
Asia and the world. Few know of everything that she
had to consider.

The 1971 Indo-Pakistani War was not of our making.

It was forced upon us by Pakistan, then under the
military rule of Yahya Khan. The Pakistani military’s
brutality in East Pakistan—especially as the military
governor, Tikka Khan, oversaw the suppression of a
growing liberation movement—created a huge low
of refugees into India. We were left with a
humanitarian problem of gargantuan proportions.
The government had to ind a way, and quickly at
that, to let the refugees return home in safety.

The dictatorship of Yahya Khan and Tikka Khan was

totally and unconditionally supported by the US
president, Richard Nixon, and his hard-nosed,
arrogant national security adviser, Henry Kissinger.
Other Western powers, despite their avowals of
democracy, stood by the Khans too, even in the face
of unimaginable crimes such as the systematic rape
of women in East Pakistan.

Gandhi and her advisors designed a strategy in

response to the Khans and their Western
benefactors. First, we would build up our armed
forces to ight and win what seemed an inevitable
war. Second, as a way to counter the distorted
picture of South Asia being put out especially by the
Western and Pakistani media, we would send
delegations to countries in Western Europe, East
and West Asia, Africa and even Latin America, as
well as to the United Nations, to explain what was
really happening. Third, India and the Soviet Union
would enter into a treaty that guaranteed strategic
cooperation in the event that either country was
attacked.

Swiftly, we raised new infantry and armoured

divisions, to be deployed against West Pakistan. The
Soviet Union, with assistance from experienced
Indian o icers, selected a couple of thousand top
infantrymen who could ight in the hot and humid
conditions of East Pakistan. We also acquired from
 the Soviet Union two squadrons of MiG-23 ighters
for our air force, and several batteries of surface-to-
air missiles for the protection of Delhi and Bombay.
The Soviet position was that we could take whatever
we wanted, and the price could be decided later.

The guerillas of the Mukti Bahini had a big role in the defeat of Pakistani forces in the east. WILLIAM
LOVELACE/EXPRESS/GETTY IMAGES

Such was the Soviet Union’s generosity that it sent

to India a specialised aerial-surveillance aircraft. The
aircraft would circle high over the battle zone with
its powerful radar, processing signals with its
complex onboard electronics to pick up every
Pakistani military aircraft. The data with the exact
locations of Pakistani planes was to be sent to a
ground station that we quickly constructed at a
place called Chakrata, to be operated by the
Aviation Research Centre of the Research and
Analysis Wing. Intelligence would be passed on
from there to the headquarters of both the army and
the air force, and onwards to our air ields and air
defences. Normally such a project would have been
undertaken by the air force, but the matter was so
secret that the prime minister asked me to monitor
the operation. The same applied to the
exceptionally valuable high-resolution ground data
of Pakistani air ields collected by low-orbit Soviet
surveillance satellites.

My close involvement in the preparations for the

coming Pakistani attack took me on visits to some of
the camps set up to receive those leeing East
Pakistan, in West Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. These
eventually came to hold some ten million refugees,
who constituted one of the largest trans-border
migrations in human history. Young men from East
Pakistan, many of whom had seen their mothers,
wives and sisters raped and killed by Pakistani
forces, clamoured for us to train, arm and inance
them, so they could go back and avenge their loved
ones. A team of senior army o icers was set up to
do what they asked. Soon there was a group called
the Mukti Bahini—“freedom ighters”—that went on
to play a big part in the coming war. We encouraged
reports about the Mukti Bahini in the media in India
and abroad, and these stirred a great deal of
sympathy across the globe.
dian soldiers joined civilians in East Pakistan to celebrate the surrender of Pakistani forces in the territo
on 16 December 1971. East Pakistan shortly became an independent Bangladesh. GETTY IMAGES
We were ready on all points of our strategy. Towards
the end of November, our intelligence agencies, as
well as Soviet intelligence, concluded that Pakistan
would launch its opening attack on 3 December.

On the evening of 2 December, the Soviet

ambassador, Nikolai Pegov, came to South Block
and went straight to PN Haksar’s o ice. There, Pegov
handed over a bulky envelope. Haksar later told me
of how Pegov said that he did not know what it
contained, since his embassy had received it via
intelligence channels, and not the usual diplomatic
avenues.

The message was from Leonid Brezhnev, the leader

of the Soviet Union, and was addressed to Indira
Gandhi. Brezhnev wrote that he and his colleagues
on the politburo of the Soviet communist party had
watched with admiration how India’s prime minister
and her main colleagues, the Indian armed forces
and the country’s people had responded to
Pakistan’s actions. In the war looming over the
subcontinent, he said, India could count on the
unconditional support of the Soviet Union.

Haksar rushed off to the prime minister’s residence

with the letter. I was there as she read it, twice over.
Her reaction was a single remark to Haksar about
the Soviets. “Look at them,” she said. “Whenever we
are in trouble they stand behind us like a rock.”

Early on the following morning, Gandhi rang up her

private secretary, NK Seshan, to say that she wanted
to go to the east of the country that day, and that he
should see to the arrangements. Seshan was
incredulous that she would want to leave the capital
with an attack impending. He called me to tell me of
Gandhi’s plan, and asked me to rush to her
residence to try and dissuade her. I had barely put
the phone down when it rang again. This time it was
Jagjivan Ram, the defence minister. He had also
heard the news, and told me that, since the prime
minister was fond of me and valued my advice, he
hoped I could change her mind. I replied that I was
only her science and technology advisor, while he
was the defence minister, and that the advice might
be better coming from him.

Very soon, I was at the prime minister’s residence.

As I headed in, Ram was coming out. Gandhi was
adamant, he told me. Inside, I told Gandhi, “Madam,
you know better than all of us that the irst Pakistani
strike is due.” She did not waver.

And so she went. Later that day, she delivered a

public speech in Calcutta. Before sunset, the
Pakistani air force hit our forward airbases, and
other sites. In the evening, and after being informed
of the strikes, Gandhi landed back in Delhi. She
went straight from the airport to the Cabinet Room
in South Block, where all those who would gather
here again on the day of the Pakistani surrender had
already assembled. After half an hour of
comprehensive stock-taking on the military
situation, the cabinet formally handed the war over
to the three service chiefs.

Our navy launched a massive bombardment of

Karachi, and by midnight, Pakistan’s main port was
burning. In the night, our air force struck Pakistan’s
major air bases, including the principal base at
Sargodha. The bases saw huge damage, and many
Pakistani aircraft were destroyed on the ground.

The army moved swiftly as well. In the east, it gained

steadily on Dhaka, where the East Pakistan
leadership found itself trapped. In the west, after a
series of decisive victories in the early days of the
war, the army advanced to the positions it held
when Manekshaw addressed Gandhi on 16
December. It was not just East Pakistan that faced
total collapse. Even in the west, Pakistani troops
were throwing down their weapons in surrender,
and we captured thousands of soldiers from some
of the best Pakistani regiments. Demonstrations
against Yahya Khan and Tikka Khan began breaking
out in some of Pakistan’s largest cities.

On the morning of 16 December, Gandhi received a

second top-secret letter from Brezhnev. The Soviet
leader and his politburo colleagues congratulated
the prime minister and all of India for the superb
victory in the east. Now, Brezhnev wrote, Gandhi
and her colleagues had to turn their attention to the
west, and consider carefully what they would do
there. Whatever they decided, they could once
again count on unconditional Soviet support.

If anyone had any doubt about Russia’s solidarity,

what Brezhnev said in word he had also
demonstrated in deed. The United States Seventh
Fleet, centred on the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise,
had been ready to land American troops in
Chittagong. Russia had rushed a naval armada of its
own to the Indian Ocean. The American leet
eventually turned away.

Gandhi did not share this letter with anyone else at

the time—not even Haksar, with whom she was
extremely close. I came to know of it only several
weeks later, and got to read it only when the prime
minister showed it to me after a few months. She
was the only one who knew of the Soviets’ irm
rea irmation of support as everyone gathered in
South Block to discuss what to do with West
Pakistan. She would make her fateful decision with
the secret to herself.

AS GANDHI LEFT SOUTH BLOCK, there was

jubilation in Delhi and across India, and also in
Bangladesh, as East Pakistan came to be called after
its independence. The prime minister headed to her
residence, and I followed her there to plead that we
advance to Peshawar. I told her we would never
have another chance like this, and that she owed it
to my generation, which had seen Partition and all
that followed it.

Gandhi replied that when the leader of a country

has to take such a momentous decision, she is
desperately alone. There was nothing more to say.

I went back to my o ice in South Block. The prime-

time news broadcast on All India Radio, at 8pm,
announced that the government of India had
declared a cease ire in the west.

This essay draws partly on material in GP: 1912-1995,

a book on G Parthasarathi by Ashok Parthasarathi,
upcoming from Academic Foundation.