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<<Pakistan and its rulers encouraged terrorism. Its President/CEO/dictator/army general is a person who encouraged terrorism and now he is changing face. IMO.>>
Dear Tony,
Do you remember your exchanges with me during the Kargil episodes in which you asked me why our than Prime Minister agreed to such an intrusion into India so soon after the Lahore declaration when Mr Vajpayee visited us?
I replied then that the than government had little knowledge about the front and this was an operation carried out in retaliation to the old loss of the Quaid post (by the famous Indian Subedar Singh who was awarded the highest medal of gallantry and our General Zia, then military C-C at the time, was sent a ‘burkha’ by Benazir Bhutto on that loss) in the Siachin. That lost and ridicule was never forgotten by the generals on our side!!
These are two professional armies that were originally one. These professional armies have a certain conduct and carry out their operations to show each other down. Soon after the fall of Dhaka, when General Niazi laid down his arms with 92,000 soldiers, instead of being butchered by the ‘Mukhti Bahinis’ (freedom fighters of the Bengal) these soldiers were saved by Indian forces and in the evening General Aurora (Commander of the Eastern Command) and General Niazi were sharing a gin tonic at Calcutta Gymkhana. They both were a product of Daredoun (military academy).
These Generals who attend war courses and plan strategies to overcome each other do make serious errors of judgments where war games are played in life. Kargil was one such war game and ultimately was not successful. However, from a military standpoint, this was a continuation from the Siachin dispute and they wanted to show themselves equal to the task and pulled a quick one vas-a-vis India. We can discuss it as neutrals and distance ourselves from vain patriotism but you have to give some credit to the Generals who are paid to do what they do. Much as I condemn Kargil, I believe that India and Pakistan have in the course of the last 54 years are not the greatest of friends. They have fought 3 wars and countless border skirmishes and all this dates back to cruel Muslim invasions of India where the invaders from the north pillaged the subcontinent at will. The remnant hatred in sub-continent finds its roots in history and unfortunate tendency of stamping authority on past subjects.
Until we do not have objective analysis of the background, we are not going to tear ourselves from our ugly past. I can see it that the Muslim invaders of India over the peaceful Hindus were invasions for bounty. Imagine Ghazni invading Somnath 17 times with the only incentive being to recover the gold in the temple not Islam, they were bandits.
ATTACK ON SOMNATH TEMPLE
Date: January 8, 1026 Weather: Cold
TERRAIN: Flanked on one side by sea and a lightly wooded forest on the other. Desert less than 50 miles northwest (direction taken by the attacking force).
STRATEGY: Mahmud of Ghazni marched from Multan with 30,000 cavalry and a multitude of volunteers eager for plunder. Mahmud employed a combination of swordsmen and archers on horseback in an arc with a deep defensive force in the middle. The surprise attack resulted in a shower of arrows from archers and was followed by a ladder-borne mounting of the temple ramparts. The king of Somnath fled with his entourage while the temple was protected by 50,000 poorly armed faithful with little military training. Mahmud scored with surprise, cavalry charge, better logics and motivation of jihad, it was not a Jihad byt robbery and banditry.
SIGNIFICANCE: The temple's ruthless plunder was a psychological setback to Hindustan. It set an example of India as a very rich but very poorly defended place-ripe for loot.
The 200 million Muslims of united India are a product of these following invasions as a result of coercive conversion or some others being descendants of these
invaders. THE SECOND BATTLE OF TARAIN
Date: 1192 Weather: Moderate
TERRAIN: Flat. Western extremity of the Gangetic plains.
STRATEGY: Prithviraj Chauhan, the king of Delhi was complacent after his success in the First Battle of Tarain in 1191 where he had defeated Mohammed Ghauri. This time Prithviraj was hamstrung as his two chief generals were unavailable. Ghauri attacked the rear lines of Prithviraj which were completely outflanked. Though Prithviraj's cavalry launched a very effective counter-attack, forcing Ghauri's retreat, the Rajput ruler didn't press home the advantage. The flanks of Prithviraj's forces were attacked by Ghauri's light cavalry. The sideways disruption caused a sudden halt and hesitation in Prithviraj's advance, and chaos in the rear which was moving forward. Tactically it was brilliant-it resulted in denial of space to Prithviraj which neutralised his numerical superiority. Once boxed in his troops were massacred.
SIGNIFICANCE: The battle established the sultanate in Delhi.
ATTACK OF TAIMUR THE LAME
Date: 1398 Weather: Cold
TERRAIN: River-crossing a Attock-the same place where Alexander had crossed the Indus 1,700 years earlier. Slightly hilly.
STRATEGY: The attack was in line with the Turkish-Mongol style of massed waves of attacks. Estimates vary but with 92 squadrons of cavalry the number could have been as high as 60-80,000. The Mongols who attacked Delhi were cavalrymen of a different order who could virtually live on horseback. This force, drawn by news of weak sultans in Delhi (the Taghlaq dynasty had ended and Delhi was ruled by Nusrat Shah), simply steamrolled all opposition till its destination. Nusrat Shah fled after weak resistance. The victory was followed by the sacking of Delhi and a general massacre of the population.
SIGNIFICANCE: Taimur's raid ended the supremacy of the sultanate in India. In the aftermath of the attack the influence of the sultanate remained only for 200 miles around Delhi. It also marked a power shift form Afghans to Turks and Mongols.
First Battle of Panipat
Date: April 21,1526 Weather: Hot
TERRAIN: Flat alluvial plain near the city of Panipat.
Strategy: Babar, the invader from Samarqand, had 25,000 infantry and cavalry while Sultan Ibrahim Lodhi had a massive army of 1,00,000. For the first few days neither army moved. Then Babar sent 5,000 men swung in night attack. Although they were beaten, the momentum of battle swung in favour of Babar-Lodhi's armies moved the next day. Babar employed his cannons with great effect and induced terror in Lodhi's ranks. The well-defended middle of Babar's army pressed forward in flanking 'flying column' attacks with his cavalry. The attack from the left showered Lodhi's forces with accurate musket fire while the right absorbed the brunt of Lodhi's counter-attack and pounded his defences with artillery fire. The battle ended by late after with at least 20,000 of Lodhi's troops dead including Lodhi himself.
Significance: First major battle to be won by artillery and against such superior numbers. The battle led to the establishment of the Mughal Empire in India. "Not for us the poverty of Kabul again," Babur records in his diary.
Second Battle of Panipat
Date: November 5, 1556 Weather: Cold and windy
Terrain: Flat alluvial plain.
Strategy: Hemu(Hemchandra), the King of Delhi had lost most of his artillery in an earlier battle where his advance guard had been defeated. However, his 50,000 soldiers struck rapidly at Akbar's force at 25,000 and were turning the battle into an easy victory for Hemu. Suddenly, Hemu was struck in the eye by an arrow which also pierced his brain. As in many medieval battles the loss of the leader caused panic among the troops and the tide turned the other way. At his point a concentrated artillery attack by Akbar's general-and mentor-Bairam Khan turned the tide of the battle. Later, Akbar beheaded Hemu and exhibited his head on a spike outside the gates of his fort in Agra.
Significance: The battle gave the Mughal Empire a firm base. This was the first empire which ruled with the capability to aggregate as many as 5,00,000 troops aat short notice and, therefore, had a qualitatively firmer grip on its empire than the preceding sultanate.
The geographic situation of Indian sub-continent where Pakistan is situated in the north historically demanded that all these invasion routes run through these northern parts of India. This is the same land of King Porus who fought against Alexander the Great. This was a total Hindu land that was converted by these multiple invasions from the north. The central Asian republics and Afghanistan were converted to Islam in the time of Omar bin Khatab. These invaders from barren lands made the India subcontinent a land where they would just run across, rape, pillage and loot at will. WE were a riparian society hence peaceful and timid people the invaders were rough hardened nomad people who found this peaceful people as great objects of embezzle and loot. This is the history of our sub-continent.
You ask me to justify why Musharraf is a dictator and why the Pakistan army does what it does and throws away democracy. Can you disassociate the ideology, habits custom of people and the habits of people or past of what we rise from? You cannot! Since we are slaves of history. Gentleman, democracy is habit and its very nature requires tolerance we have none of it in our strain of ideology we practice in land we call Pakistan. We are a product of abuse of power over centuries.
King Sher Shah Suri the ruler of India who made the GT road from Calcutta to Peshawar, and who had forced the mogul emperor Humayun to abdicate, used to say that Afghans will always be warriors and will always fight and will be at each other throat. How prophetic! In his memoirs, you will find that he wanted to destroy Afghanistan and rehabilitate all the Afghans in the sub-continent. Today, the Subcontinent is as it is since the ideological divide has created two different ideologies. Unfortunately, Pakistan and the Islamic world are still caught up with carrying forward the standard of Islam. As such, it is prone to far more mistakes that are only natural when governance is mixed with religion.
When someone asks me why Pakistan is not democratic. I spin the question around. Which other Islamic country from Morocco to Malaysia has a democratic government?
The sad truth is that the people of my country are of the same stock as you are but the difference being the ideological intolerance and inbred Islamic system that encourages a strong man to lead them has brought intolerance and democracy to be sacrificed.
Caliphate was one such an institution. Until Ata Turk came and destroyed the Caliphate, the Ottoman Empire was the centre of worship by the entire Indian Muslims. The Turkish caliphates names were a part of the daily 5 time prayers of all the Muslims in the world. Dictatorship, Intolerance, the emergence of strong man is a part and parcel of the Islamic society as a whole that is not just prevalent in Pakistan. Islamic societies do create demons and we have to live with them. Saddam is one; Ghaddafi is another to name a few. We are now facing one intolerant man in Afghanistan, Mullah Omar. There is a galaxy of villains around and I have been fair to myself by acknowledging the problems within the Islamic world and trying my utmost to address these issues in my analysis.
When I am faced with Omar, Saddam, Asad and Ghadaffi as compared to someone reasonable like Mahathir or Musharraf, I take it as a blessing in disguise. In Kargil, I had totally opposed his policy but at this juncture when we are fighting a far greater evil, to fight Musharraf or to discredit him does not help the delicate situation to retrieve the real culprits.
The issue boils down to whether we are going to carry the whole cross for the whole world? Yes, the Indian hijacking was wrong but India should not have allowed once the plane landed in Amritsrar to take off to its eventual journey to Kabul. That would have sorted out a lot of complications, which arose as a result of the hijackings. Your ‘black-cats commandoes’ could have done a clean job when the plane was still on Indian Territory. To send it to Pakistan or let it fly to Afghanistan was a strategic error.
These very terrorists are friends of no one. Today they are chanting death to Musharraf. The point is what does the world coalition achieve by hitting Pakistan or its dictator? That is not the issue of the day. Unfortunately in politics, the every national interests are far superior to justice. I can see your point and justice demands that all these people who have been involved in committing these atrocious acts should and must be brought to justice.
Talking of politics, when Kemal Ata Turk fought the last battle in this century for the enlightenment of the Islamic world by destroying the intolerant institutions of the Ottoman Islamic Empire, do you know who led the movement in India for the restoration of this distorted institution? Mohammed Ali brothers and Mr Gandhi who told the Indian Muslims that they should all fight this western attempt to Caliph of Islam led the movement. This was expediency but the strongman image in Islamic society was condoned by Mr Gandhi although he himself was a great democrat. He himself realised that without a strong man or centre, these societies seem to wither.
A prime example of contemporary history is when Saddam was left of the hook by Colin Powell. The Allied forces could have flushed Saddam out of Baghdad but again Mr Powell thought that this was not an objective and they could not create a vacuum in the region only for Iran to regain the initiative and conquer the spoils. They wanted a strong Iraq as a counter balance between Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia. I understand your concerns as to why Musharraf and Pakistan are not being punished?
But imagine, as I have explained to you above the issue between India and Pakistan is a historical dispute between estranged cousins and people of the same stock. Who wants a vacuum in the north of India at confluence of China, Russia, Afghanistan and the Central Asian Republics?
Strategic realities require that Pakistan should have fallen in place and provided all the facilities that they have so that they can be part of a future stable nations of the earth. I just don’t buy this blind attack by some strategists to take Pakistan out. The only strength I feel in myself is my ability to see the weaknesses of my nation. You denounce my country as a beggar nation and I see your point but history also tells me that Mahatma Gandhi gave his life for the sake of Pakistan. He was martyred by a Hindu extremist because he was keeping “Maranbrath” (which means fasting till death) so that the Indian government may judicially fulfil its obligations to pay 80 crores rupees due to Pakistan on its independence from India. Do you know that the sum was never paid?
This is one of the reasons Mahatma Gandhi is my model. He was a man above these artificial boundaries. Blind hatred of any nation is not good. I want every good that India has for my nation and I pray that all the bad that my nation has should not even go near to India. The only way this world can survive is to appreciate each other’s position and form a greater alliance and understanding of human beings that should use history of past as its tool for our future conduct. With all my faults and shortcomings, I have overcome vain national pride and patriotism in favour of realisation that one should love his country but not at the expense of others. I wish India all the best but I know that a fragmented Pakistan would be a nightmare for India from which India can never recover. I will come back to you on Kashmir, I have to go to bed, my best regards to you and yours, lets keep our love strong, that is how we can beat hatred.
Iqbal Latif
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