Indians in all their exuberance make horrific mistakes....without going into details......their belief that they everything went right, and everything will go right costs them everytime....
these are Pakistan Army soldiers, with a PA captain on the right, during the battle in EP in 1971, they are bringing back a dead body of a killed indian soldier
this pic is there on top of their article...
idrw.org
and even their claims of a REAL victory in 1971 are disputed by their own defence analysts......
It is believed that in the 1971 War, India had three vital objectives, of which only one was the capture of East Pakistan, ‘the other two’ were liberation of Azad Kashmir and the destruction of Pakistan’s war potential for 20 years, thus establishing India’s supremacy once and for all.
It is also believed that with the East Pakistan captured, the Indian Government abandoned the other two objectives because of American pressure, and that the pressure itself was a bluff.
Consider some of the exhibits.
The IA had budgeted for 40,000 casualties, easily three times those incurred in two weeks of fighting. Obviously a longer war was expected.
Lt.-Gen. K.P. Candeth’s entire plan for the Sialkot sector, where India deployed five infantry divisions and three independent armored brigades, makes sense only if we assume that he intended XI and XV Corps to eliminate the entire Sialkot salient, prior to turning north to outflank Azad Kashmir. In conjunction with frontal attacks by 19 and 25 Divisions in Kashmir, this would have cracked the front and AK would have fallen.
The IA Kashmir divisions more or less stood by defensively, letting the Pakistanis do the attacking. This makes no sense unless the idea was to let the Pakistanis expend their strength before India launched a counteroffensive.
Indian Southern Command launched a large, corps-sized force into Sind. Its objectives were exceptionally clear to cut the line of communication between Karachi and Lahore at two points, Hyderabad City and Rahim Yar Khan. The secondary objectives which we must not mistake for the primary ones, were to draw down Pakistani reserves from all over Pakistan, thus easing the task of Indian troops advancing in other sectors, and to occupy as much of Sind as possible, to exchange for possible losses elsewhere.
Indian XI Corps defending Punjab, with greater strength than the opposing Pakistan IV Corps, contented itself with a defensive role, making no move to attack Pakistan. This makes no sense unless we again say that the objective was to conserve IA strength before attacking the enormously strong Lahore defenses, allowing breakthroughs to made at other points, namely in the north by I and XV Corps and in the south by Southern Command.
Negotiations to end the fighting in the east were being mooted by Farman Ali, East Pakistan’ s governor, as early as December 10, after the fall of Jessore. By December 12 the process was in fall swing because it was clear that Pakistan could not hold out. The cease-fire was signed on December 16. Yet every single major Indian formation from Ferojpur to Uri and its counterpart on Pakistan’s side was getting ready for major offensives on December 17 and 19. As the war in the east wound down, both sides planned to step up the war in the west.
Pakistan had reduced its air sorties to the minimum required to defend its air bases. It had, from the start of the war, kept four squadrons in reserve. Concurrently, it avoided committing, it’s two armored divisions. Clearly, it was conserving forces for an anticipated long war.
Indian critics may say that Indian armed forces had no objectives in the West Pakistan.
If India lacked objectives in the west, why did India acted in a manner calculated to make the Pakistanis believe that India was about to attack there? India had crossed the international frontier in the east on November 21, 1971, without provoking a Pakistani attack in the west. Pakistan had, after all, realized right from 1947 that it could not defend its eastern wing without a counteroffensive in the west. So why did this counteroffensive not come on the 21st November? Clearly, that the Pakistanis, at least, were willing to separate the issue of war in the east and a possible response in the west.
Thus war in the west was avoidable. Clearly Pakistan hoped to avoid war, remaining quiet for 13 days while several Indian brigades established strong positions inside East Pakistan.
The notion of a sectorial war is rather siliy, unless you are the weaker power hoping to limit the scale of hostilities. A stronger power has no incentive for the sectorial approach. By fighting across the board, it prevents the adversary from lightly defending low threat sectors and concentrating in high threat ones.
Pakistan’s hope of limiting the war were certainly belied. Point is that Pakistan, after having sat quietly for a crucial 13 days, had had no interest in attacking first in the west, that too in such impulsive and ineffectual fashion, unless it aimed to preempt an Indian attack in the west.
There was no need for India to attack in the west just to prevent reinforcement of the east. Pakistan GHQ had already refused General Niazi’s requests for two more divisions when the magnitude of India’s build- up became clear. With only 12 divisions left in the west, including two (17 and 33 Divisions) raised in extremely hurried fashion, for Pakistan to further weaken the west by reinforcing the east was to tempt India into attacking. Further, the naval blockade of East Pakistan was already in place in November. Reinforcement from the air could have provided only troops with their individual weapons. And, had India found it necessary, it would have mounted an air blockade of the east after the war began on November 21. Remember, Pakistan was outnumbered about ten to one in the air in the east, which contributed significantly to the rapidity of Indian victory.
If Indian strategy was offensive-defensive, then why did they not also attack in Kashmir and Punjab, instead of limiting their offensive to the Pathankot sector ? This requires further amplification.
It may be easily accepted that India has to preempt Pakistan by attacking from Pathankot. The 50- kilometer deep corridor is too shallow to absorb a Pakistani first strike. Equally acceptable is the proposition that India must attack in the desert to obtain territory for further negotiation and to force dispersal of Pakistani reserves.
But then why did India not attack from Chhamb as well? Chhamb is so hard to hold that only an immediate, swift attack towards Marala can protect it. Just as India cannot prevent Pakistan from gaining some ground wherever it attacks, Pakistan must lose ground wherever India attacks. An offensive-defensive strategy requires for attacks all across the front.
Similarly, why did India not attack in the Punjab, particularly from Fazilka, and thus pre-empt the considerable Pakistani gains made by Pakistan’s 105 (1) Brigade? Even though India’s Foxtrot Sector held the equivalent of a reinforced division. In any case, Pakistan, with fewer troops, saw no reason to hold its hand and attacked immediately.
If Indian intention was offensive- defensive, when India had attacked the Sialkot sector in massive force, why they continued attacking? After having advanced 10-kilometers India could have simply dug in and let the Pakistanis bash their heads against Indians, as happened to Pakistan in Lahore in 1965, and to India in Khem Karan and Fazilka in 1965 and 1971 respectively.
Why did India not launch the armored division into Pakistan instead of waiting for Pakistan to launch its I Armored Division, thus conceding the initiative? The argument that using India’s strategic reserve would have left nothing to counter Pakistan’s Southern Strike Force is incorrect. If India was worried about this strike force, better to attack first, forcing its dissipation in defending his territory, then to wait for Pakistan to do the same to us. Besides, India had an armored brigade available to defend against Pakistan’s 1 armored division had India attack by I Armored Division gone seriously wrong.
It is senseless to say India must keep their strike force idle because they have to wait for Pakistan to strike, otherwise India won’t be able to hold off his strike force, and then assume Pakistan is not similarly constrained.
In short, it is clear that India was not following an offensive- defensive strategy
In Sind India followed an offensive-defensive strategy.
In Multan/Punjab India waited for Pakistan, to attack and bog itself down before moving. This was defensive-offensive.
In Sialkot, India had to attack no matter what strategy was involved, but India continued attacking even after ensuring the security of the Pathankot Corridor. This was offensive-offensive.
In Kashmir, India allowed letting Pakistan show its hand before striking. This was defensive-offensive.
There was, thus, no question of an offensive-defensive strategy.
To reiterate, had India not intended offensive objectives, India could merely have played along with the Pakistanis and continued lying passive in the west, something that also suited them.
Possibly this is insufficient to convince the skeptical reader who will demand a higher standard of proof. This reader will insist that as India had no intention to make strategic gains in the west, their failure to achieve these gains is no evidence of a defeat for India.
To meet these objections lets switch our argument.
A failure of Indian nerve can be said as the explanation for Indian failure to push the 1971 war to a logical conclusion. Those who disagree say since India had limited objectives which they achieved, the war did reach a logical conclusion.
If this is correct, then Indian strategic objectives were clearly faulty and that in retrospect, even their success ended up as a failure.
How does it make sense to fight the same opponent for the third time in 25 years, especially when he is inferior to you, and leave him with his war potential intact so that he can hope for another war?
The failure to include the recovery of Azad Kashmir in Indian strategic objectives is itself a confession of weakness.
And in as much as Bangladesh is today hostile, and Pakistan stronger than in 1971, even Indian limited objectives failed. It is instructive to remember that Pakistan had one division with four brigades against Eastern India. Bangladesh feels it necessary to have a 1,50,000 army now. There was one PAF fighter squadron in the east, and an insubstantial and transient naval presence. Bangladesh has atleast three times as many fighter planes and a permanent naval presence.
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