Azad Kashmir claim on Gilgit Baltistan

[Joe Shearer]

Here is a fact for you to chew. The British had sold, literally sold Kashmir to the antecedent of the Maharajah which then was signed over the the said Maharajah to India.

A misreading of the history.

1. The subsidiary principality of Jammu and Kashmir was a successor of the domain of the Raja of Jammu, a tribute-paying feudatory of the Maharaja of the Punjab, at Lahore, and one of the great officers of state.
2. The first Raja of the current line, Gulab Singh, came to the throne of Jammu as a vassal of the Maharaja, who had fought against him when Jammu was an independent principality under a close relative, and who made the best of a bad job on losing to the Sikh power.
   1. He took the precaution of taking a quit-claim from the former independent Raja, assigning him the traditional right of rule, in addition to the vesting of the territory to him by the Sikh Maharaja;
3. The Raja acquired, through various circumstances, not all of them violent, a patchwork quilt of principalities in the foothills, Kishtwar, Doda and the like; these, too, he held after getting his rule over them assigned formally to him by the Lahore Durbar.
4. His general, Zorawar Singh, conquered, independent of the Lahore Durbar, Baltistan and Lahore.
5. He acquired a suzerainty over his other relative's territory of Poonch - most of these petty princelings were closely related to one another, and belonged to the same Dogra lineage, and were known as the folks from Jammu, the Jamwals.
6. At the time of the final defeat of the Sikh dominion, Gulab Singh ruled, as a dependent vassal, Jammu, Poonch, the state-lets in the foothills, Baltistan and Ladakh. I leave it as an exercise to the wise reader which two parts of 'modern' Kashmir he did NOT rule.
7. In 1846, he bought the Vale from the British. He did not buy the rest of his domain, and he was recognised as the ruler of those portions.
8. AFTER his recognition as a great prince, ruling independently but owning the British Crown as the suzerain, he and the British mounted a joint campaign and captured the cis-Pamir Khanates, of which @Saiyan0321 has given such a vivid account.

None of it other than the Vale was purchased by the Maharaja from the British.

 

[Saiyan0321]

If the rule of the Dogras was legitimate, then the territory of Gilgit is in armed rebellion and is liable to be reconquered with no legal consequences whatsoever; the dispute over Indian sovereignty has been a very effective red herring over the decades, but ultimately, it boils down to the transfer of power: who was entitled to transfer power, and to whom did that entity transfer power?

Frankly isnt that our position. That dogra construction was of a legal state, again in 15th august 1947 what was the legal position of all the states. Were they independent states or not? That is a major question and if they were independent states then that means that their artificial construction no matter how artificial was of the nature of the state. Joe as i stated that we had a problem. We had accepted acceding of GB but if we annexed the region then that would mean that we declare as you have pointed the artificial nature of the region whose parts could swiftly rebel and form their own governments and the Dogra would be one of such governments. Ofcourse. We claim Azad Kashmir and you guys claim the Dogra. It is that position that we took in the UN that while the construct called Princely state of Kashmir was legal, the government in power had lost its mandate when the people of Kashmir revolted. You must realize that when you make a claim, you cant say 'oh these guys werent rebelling and they were supportive and they hated both the governments'. When you make a claim, you need to make a claim and it was far more beneficial for the government at that time to declare the Azad government as the rightful government of all the people of the princely state of Kashmir then just kashmir because by doing only that, we would truly make it a rebel government then a revolutionary government for the entire state which would, as i mentioned before, implode the state itself. We must not look from our own hindsight but from the eyes of those in 1947 and at that time, it seemed the most legal of decision which was strengthened by the resolutions passed in 1950s where the Azad forces and the Azad government was given equal legitimacy to the state forces, something India did not like. That resolution is made of gold for us because there in 1957 we got them recognized not as a rebel government or a government of a small sliver but as an opposing government to the state forces.

If they had a right to do that, then joining or not joining a third country is well within their rights.

Joe this is a solution that comes with hindsight. declaring the state of princely state as artificial construct and all those parts that forced to become part of such rebelled and joined their respective states . This would end the dispute but in 1947-1971 that was not the case and Pakistan and India both had placed hopes on the UN. So to do just that would have been damaging to the cause perhaps would have created ripples as well. If these were independent states on par with India or Pakistan then who are Pakistan or India to decide their integrity or declare them artificial when they are themselves constructs formed by the conquests and working of the British. If this division by the two powers could be done to the state of Kashmir then why not to Others like India or Pakistan. No joe. In 1947 this was not a good nor legal stand to take.

However, nobody declaring themselves an heir to the Dogra rule can insert themselves into this space. If the Maharaja's rule was illegitimate, it cannot be inherited (=devolved). There is no question of the declaration of independence by the people of Gilgit and the assumption of ruling rights over that territory by the self-declared government of so-called Azad Kashmir co-existing. Either one or the other must prevail.

'Why not?' is what Azad kashmir says and it uses the argument that they never declared the rule of the dogra but as the ruler that had lost the mandate of the people thus the legitimate right to rule the region and the Azad government being the sole representative of the people was the inheritor of this right. They claim legitimacy as the government that was not meant to divide kashmir to pieces but its rightful ruler and thats where our headache came and i have explained the solution we came to to answer the headache. Do you find this position to be be weak and devoid of logic? Perhaps but that is where enter the world of Dejure, Defacto and revolutionary constitutionalism and constitutional revolution. Legal tenants that we use to explain the happenings of these events. This was not something unique. It had happened before and happened afterwards and the legal arguments that were used to justify the claim of Azad KAshmir found precedents before and precedents afterwards.

The claim of the Azad Kashmir government to hold his powers is nonsense. The constituents of that government had no locus standi in the Vale or in Jammu, or in Ladakh, Baltistan or Gilgit; it held only local power in the trans-montane area of west Jammu. It had no representation or military presence in Baltistan, in Ladakh, in the Vale or in Jammu (east Jammu). Certainly the rules of the transfer of power to the two Dominions of India and Pakistan had absolutely no provision for accepting a self-declared transferee as a satisfactory substitute for the Maharaja's nominee, nor did any interested party have any authority to designate that provisional authority of a province in armed rebellion as the proper administrative authority. So the headache that the Government of Pakistan has, deciding how to pry loose Gilgit from Azad Kashmir is a non-issue, shall we say.

The claim of AJK post the 1974 constitution was severely weakened as well since there came a constitutional limit and the constitution did not specify the regions of Kashmir that are under the government in question and that places even a more question mark as to why was it framed so. Why was the Azad government confined to such by Bhutto. Largely due to the fact that the issue was dead then and there post 1971 and Pakistan made arrangements for Azad Kashmir. The constitution should have mentioned the occupied regions more openly like jammu or vale. Now things need to be more roundabout.

How can a part become representative of the whole, when the other parts of that whole had their own independent ideas of how matters should be settled? How did that Azad government and the rump Muslim Conference, the majority of whose members were now the National Conference, decide that all power belonged to them, and that none of the other constituents had a say in that matter? Least of all the Maharaja?

If the part claimed itself as representative of the part alone then yes but Azad government always claimed itself as the representative of the entire princely state. They decided it by declaring themselves as a separate government and launched a military campaign for such. The question is did they ever declare themselves solely for Azad kashmir or jammu alone or did they declare themselves as all of Princely state. The same way the national conference was declared as the representative of the entire people when it had no presence outside its sphere of influence. Where was NC in modern day Azad Kashmir or in GB? Nowhere. When they declared that they were bringing forth a revolution, they declared themselves and always have as not rebels but ones who were bringing revolution to the entire state of Kashmir. Their claim may clash with the locals claims of fighting their own independence but their claim was made and Pakistan recognized that claim. You see this all the time in International nations and revolutionary constitutionalism. The subject is controversial itself.

Considering that the successor government was not clearly defined nor recognised except by one of the interested parties, how can this be anything but a constitutional piety?

Oh no we defined it clearly that we recognize Azad Kashmir as a legitimate party to the dispute and as such we have treated them as the legal authority and treated nothing with the governments in Indian held Kashmir. We always had our protest noted for any change in the region. This is where defacto dejure recognition comes in. We provided recognition to the Azad government, you provided recognition to the maharaja. This is the dispute in question.

Any addition to this is superfluous. Further that the 1974 Constitution is a piece of constitutional engineering by hindsight, as fallible as our own idiots declaring Art. 370 of the Indian Constitution inoperative, is self-evident.

the 1974 constitution had a big difference and that was the fundamental fact that the limitation it imposed on the government of Azad Kashmir both territorial and legal. Where did the writ begin and where it ended.

Good Heavens, why on earth should I? Given an opportunity to explain the untenable position to someone with an insight into jurisprudence and constitutionalism, I will do my best to grind the point home.

You flatter. I claim no such insight. I started studying law like 4 years ago.

I have to point out that they were not securing the region but attacking and conquering the territory of Baltistan.

What if i told you the current generations dont see it as such and some claim that their ancestors played part in the attack on leh

True, but only if the so-called 'revolutionary government' was the sole authority. It was not; it governed only a token borderland, and had claims to another part of the former state controlled that, as you have so eloquently explained, did not recognise its authority.

You dont need to be sole to be declared as such. I believe you mean the existence of NC in the region. Well it all comes to recognition.

As for the separate nature of Baltistan, i have written in this article how they were incorporated as well just like Hunza and Nagar

 

[Saiyan0321]

A misreading of the history.

1. The subsidiary principality of Jammu and Kashmir was a successor of the domain of the Raja of Jammu, a tribute-paying feudatory of the Maharaja of the Punjab, at Lahore, and one of the great officers of state.
2. The first Raja of the current line, Gulab Singh, came to the throne of Jammu as a vassal of the Maharaja, who had fought against him when Jammu was an independent principality under a close relative, and who made the best of a bad job on losing to the Sikh power.
   1. He took the precaution of taking a quit-claim from the former independent Raja, assigning him the traditional right of rule, in addition to the vesting of the territory to him by the Sikh Maharaja;
3. The Raja acquired, through various circumstances, not all of them violent, a patchwork quilt of principalities in the foothills, Kishtwar, Doda and the like; these, too, he held after getting his rule over them assigned formally to him by the Lahore Durbar.
4. His general, Zorawar Singh, conquered, independent of the Lahore Durbar, Baltistan and Lahore.
5. He acquired a suzerainty over his other relative's territory of Poonch - most of these petty princelings were closely related to one another, and belonged to the same Dogra lineage, and were known as the folks from Jammu, the Jamwals.
6. At the time of the final defeat of the Sikh dominion, Gulab Singh ruled, as a dependent vassal, Jammu, Poonch, the state-lets in the foothills, Baltistan and Ladakh. I leave it as an exercise to the wise reader which two parts of 'modern' Kashmir he did NOT rule.
7. In 1846, he bought the Vale from the British. He did not buy the rest of his domain, and he was recognised as the ruler of those portions.
8. AFTER his recognition as a great prince, ruling independently but owning the British Crown as the suzerain, he and the British mounted a joint campaign and captured the cis-Pamir Khanates, of which @Saiyan0321 has given such a vivid account.

None of it other than the Vale was purchased by the Maharaja from the British.

To declare it entirely purchased would be akin to declaring the entire region of Baluchistan and KPK was given up by the 'Iron amir' in the durand line agreement

 

[Kaptaan]

None of it other than the Vale was purchased by the Maharaja from the British.

But as you know the Vale of Kashmir is the centre of the conflict. It also has the highest % of Muslims. Indeed it is the vale that makes the name "Kashmir". That is why the correct name is Jammu & Kahmir state. I don't think anybody has illusions on the Pakistani side that Jammu or Ladakh stand a chance of being part of Pakistan. It is the vale that is the issue. Indeed right now the vale is the epiicentre of the insurgency. The previous year attack on Indian Army convoy that precipitated the near war between Pakistan and India was in the Vale of Kashmir.

Ultimately Jammu and Kashmir was a princely state enjoying a loose protectorship of the British. In this it was not remarkable as 40% of the Raj was similiarly disposed. Ultimately Kashmir by any measure should have gone to Pakistan. Geographically, historicaly and demographically. In 1947 just one unpaved road connected India with Kashmir. Everything about the state flowed into and out of Pakistan.

Thanks to the cheating and duplicity of that cuckold Lord Mountabatten and guile of Nehru that one road was given to India so that she could make a grab for Kashmir. I am sure you have heard of the Gurdaspur and Ferozepure districts being given to India under the most dubious grounds. The fact is Pakistan was cheated by Mountbatten who proved to be nothing but a low down merchant of deciet.

I can also add the critical failure by Muslim leadership including Jinnah to address this issue given the obvious Mountbaten/Nehru friendship which was to prove to be so deadly. This is a subject that deserves another thread whiuch I will open some time. But we can see how India used naked military force top invade, annex the State of Hydrabad. This is what Pakistan should have done with Kashmir. But alas.

Hyderabad 1948: India's hidden massacre

In September and October 1948, soon after independence from Britain, tens of thousands of people were brutally slaughtered in central India.

www.bbc.co.uk

And I always find it amusing that Indian's justify the invasion of Hydrabad State because [> please fill this up with excuses <] but cry on about Pakistan's infamy with regards to Kashmir.

*frankly Mountbatten got his dessert when he was blown up by IRA while fishing. The fact is between him and Nehru they both bequeathed a problem on South Asia that 70 years later is still causing mothers to lose their sons. May they both Nehru and Mountbatten burn in hell. I also blame Liaqat on the Muslim side for not having shown the decisivness to deal with the concieted plan put into action by Mountabatten and Nehru. As you know Liaqat also got his dessert.

 

[Saiyan0321]

Liaqat was not loved by Akbar khan nor by major Amin

 

[Kaptaan]

By the way the true scale of the cheating and duplicity by Mountbatten who was supposed to be impartial arbiter on behalf of HM government will come out over time as archives are opened up. The British state has intentionally suppressed this aspect in order to hide it's role in creating the mess in South Asia. And Mountbatten is the culprit here.

 

[Kaptaan]

Liaqat was not loved by Akbar khan nor by major Amin

You know why? On the ground all the Muslim leadership was aware that the interests of Pakistan were being royally fcuked by Mountbatten [who despised Jinnah but on the other hand was happy to see his wife Edwina being cuckolded to Nehru] and they also knew there was not much they could do to Mountbatten.

However and this is where my anger reaches boiling point with Muslim League leadership. Life is not always fair. Leadership is always about contesting, reshaping events that maybe working against you. Jinnah [he can be partly excused as he was ill] but Liaqat het 100% blame. He failed to address the clear conspiracy and there is no other way to put it that was hatched by Mountbatten in close alliance with Nehru to cheat Pakistan of Kashmir.

This failure or negligence by ML leadership to handle Kashmir the way Patel handled Hydrabad and other princely states that India gobbled up was known up close by Akbar Khan and would fester away leading him to join the the Rawalpindi Conspiracy.

 

[Kaptaan]

@Saiyan0321 try to read Eminent Churchillians by Andrew Roberts. There are few other books which all together give a good idea how Pakistan was cheated by Mountbatten and the roots of the Kashmir imraglio were laid in 1947.

 

[Saiyan0321]

You know why? On the ground all the Muslim leadership was aware that the interests of Pakistan were being royally fcuked by Mountbatten [who despised Jinnah but on the other hand was happy to see his wife Edwina being cuckolded to Nehru] and they also knew there was not much they could do to Mountbatten.

However and this is where my anger reaches boiling point with Muslim League leadership. Life is not always fair. Leadership is always about contesting, reshaping events that maybe working against you. Jinnah [he can be partly excused as he was ill] but Liaqat het 100% blame. He failed to address the clear conspiracy and there is no other way to put it that was hatched by Mountbatten in close alliance with Nehru to cheat Pakistan of Kashmir.

This failure or negligence by ML leadership to handle Kashmir the way Patel handled Hydrabad and other princely states that India gobbled up was known up close by Akbar Khan and would fester away leading him to join the the Rawalpindi Conspiracy.

Indeed. If you were to happen upon what those two have written, their discontentment came from the handling of the Kashmir war especially how far they were willing to go and little support they wanted to bring to the table. Both have written on their indecisiveness and have declared that for them their self-interests were a greater priority whereas, I think amin wrote it, that for Liaqat, it was more important for him to keep the link with India open, the link with his constituency and power base then it was to get Kashmir. For Liaqat, Kashmir was a bonus. If you got, why not. great. if you didnt, no harm done. He certainly wasnt willing to create a large war situation nor the complete closure of India to Pakistan. The more i think about the more it is becoming more and more likely that the founding fathers did not see the countries with barbed wires and tanks but open to border countries. The leaders surrounding jinnah definitely saw it as such. Behavior of Liaqat points to that and if we utilize this form of thinking as the base then it can be seen that the muslim league would not provoke open conflict to keep their estates and interest in control. Anyhow the animosity was promised the moment the independence Act 1947 was brought forth.

 

[Saiyan0321]

@Saiyan0321 try to read Eminent Churchillians by Andrew Roberts. There are few other books which all together give a good idea how Pakistan was cheated by Mountbatten and the roots of the Kashmir imraglio were laid in 1947.

Thank you. I shall try to do so. lets see if i can find a link

 

[Saithan]

I was going to write some stuff, but can see you guys are pretty much clear and kinda agree on the grey zones that led to complicating the situation.

Elephant in the room - I agree that mistakes were making on a pretty grave level. K/J etc should have used the uprising or democratization process to thoroughly remove the maharajas powers, or at least have stated transition to democracy and democratric rule thereby indicating that the Maharaja would no longer hold any power.

Whether K/J is an artificial construct doesn't matter as anything can gain legality in the past, present or future. Israel, KRG, YPG/SDF, GC, and TRNC going to be.

Still the Maharaja handed over K/J to India under durress, hereby I mean after fleeing the seat of power (I assume this part). After signing and then being forced to abdicate I think the Maharajas signing of the treaty has become obsolete... IMO.

How many Maharajas did India have when K/J Maharaja signed the treaty, if zero, then isn't it safe to say the signing of the treaty was obsolete from the get go as the Maharaja would effectively not be in power anymore even after joining India.

I do not believe looking back and trying to solve the issue from the past is going to benefit K/J, I think it's more important to allow the current population to make a referendum. But I do not believe India would allow that.

Forgive me for simplifying things I did watch a documentary and everything you've said was also mentioned in the documentary.

 

[Nilgiri]

How can a part become representative of the whole, when the other parts of that whole had their own independent ideas of how matters should be settled? How did that Azad government and the rump Muslim Conference, the majority of whose members were now the National Conference, decide that all power belonged to them, and that none of the other constituents had a say in that matter? Least of all the Maharaja?

Joe, in the end this whole matter is kind of splitting hairs I feel....we are just going to go in circles and get dizzy I feel...since there is a significant chasm in political divide too that has now set into firm concrete into the very ethos of these nations I feel.

The worst poignant divides happen in a (former) family...it is not without reason I refer at times to the 100 years war and US civil war when referencing the rawness of this south asian reality in many aspects (which as bad as it has been and still is.... all things considered could likely have turned out way way worse if we are to extrapolate similar raw conflicts of history both far and near to our population scales...which we often forget)

Actions happen and set consequences on ground, then you often backwork a legal justification with whatever filters you need apply...especially with a time duration and weighty narrative set in.

How honestly you challenge all that as a country (i.e introspection on yourself as well), is correlated to how robust and credible you are as one. Most countries do it piecemeal, very selectively or not at all. I think its clear mostly where Pakistan is on that...constrained in large part by its entrenched psyche I keep referring to.

This is what I meant earlier when I said we amply disagree with Pakistanis (even the best intelligent rational ones) given what level of priority they afforded to various local authorities and accounts to justify the breaking of their standstill agreement with J&K.

To us its matter of it happening in just a few days time (less than a week?), the ink was still fresh...and something clearly was cooking nefariously and in total bad faith well before they signed it...in fact they signed it likely as part of whatever that plan was supposed to be (I believe there is a Pakistani General that has commented on this in a book).

To us its matter of credibility they have had military coups and constitutional crisis again and again and complete disregard for basic principles of human rights that lost them half their original country....

Speaking of which, we also recognised+hosted BD govt in exile early...as representative of their whole in a very unclear position at the time as to what defined concrete course we were going to take with that. Many matters were of completely different scale and of a proven established nature of course...but some of this stuff cuts all ways to some degree in the end.

So Pakistan doing so (in pure application/extension of the argument) is not totally unwarranted...given they (and many over course of history) justify a part can represent a whole and there was intervention needed etc claimed atrocities being done by the Dogras and other mobs in the pangs of partition all around.

It is simply their version of events now. After all what is the total absolute neutral reference point to use here anyway?....everyone is involved in it and has downstream reality to shore up from it...since we are living it. We can make our best arguments possible with the accounts and analysis we have, but not many opinions change across such chasm in the end on such fundamentally "set in" things.

After all esp with 20/20 hindsight regd. East Pakistan...we should have gone all the way with the root problem (in the western wing) at that window of time. But we were timid...and also needlessly arrogant to the Bangladeshis in how we didn't have a proper tribunal at the end either. Allies and Soviets would have been happy to confine the 3rd reich and imperial japan to borders they started out with, replete with their cabals intact?...after all that they did?...and with no investigation + prosecution of Axis forces captured outside where they perpetrated such things (Poland, USSR and China notably...but also the closer parallel of inside Germany too starting out). I say this knowing just how flawed and limited Nuremberg itself was in the end.

But a basic scaled extension of the underlying logic+justice there would have been the appropriate one here and elsewhere too. Genocide to me means a revolution/reset of the perpetrator must follow (as cleanly focused as possible on the power-wielders and not the laypeople/civilians).

If it didnt happen (and no internal correction/evolution away from what got that situation but in many ways a doubling down or passing the buck), that just going to linger as well on top of everything else and most everything else is kind of semantics in the end given a core credibility on this whole topic has been eaten away at and never replaced.

Sorry to rant a bit here.

 

[Saithan]

So to break the impass you either need a 100 year war or something less drastic like referandum.

 

[Saiyan0321]

e should have gone all the way with the root problem (in the western wing) at that window of time. But we were timid...and also needlessly arrogant to the Bangladeshis in how we didn't have a proper tribunal at the end either.

I keep hearing about handling west pakistan. West Pakistan was not some weak entity that could be so easily beaten down. infact during the conflict the war machinery was entirely spent on the western theater and India was not marching all over West Pakistan nor could it have continued the conflict indefinitely to bring west Pakistan down especially considering that what you desire would have required the conflict to go for months on end perhaps years and then occupy the region to make sure that all the military capability is completely removed. Panzerkiel talked about military capability as the hidden war objective of all wars and whether Pakistan and India especially India had the capability to even cordinate such a massive operation. Holding trials? really? Under what legal authority? you could have brought them to ICJ or demanded a trial by the UN but as long as they were POWs, India could not legally hold anything and i keep hearing that with 90k prisoners we should have asked them to do everything from giving up kashmir to disbanding the army itself.
You guys keep blaming Indira for this and that but frankly i dont see how she could have done it any differently save for forcing Pakistan to accept the LOC as IB and ending the conflict once and for all.

 

[Kaptaan]

basic principles of human rights that lost them half their original country

You guys use this "lost half of their country" as beating stick along with "90k soldiers" both which are factually incorrect. Bangla was more like 60% of the country and 55k soldiers were captured. Beyond that Bangla was always going to "break away". Find me a country where the mainland is 40% and the metropolitan territory is 60%. If you can cite me one such example that proved to be stable I won't mention this ever again. Even when people belonged to the ame ethnic group like Anglo settlers in America they broke off from Britain.

Then the oft repeated "90k" defeat which is touted by Indians as the greatest military victory of the 20th century. Leaving alone the incorrect 90k which counts men, women, children and transgenders from West Pakistan along with their pet cats the reality is NO army could have kept down the entire Bangla population and held out Indian attack from every direction all the while being 1,200 miles distant [practically 0ver 3,000 miles as logistics was by sea] from their home base.

The much vaunted US Army had been defeated in a neighbouring country Vietnam which funy enough had similiar climae and geography as Bangla. And the US Army did not have to contend with a third party invading but was just fighting the local Vietcong. Pakistan Army was first fighting the local Bangla Mukti Bahini and on top this Indian also joined in.

 

[Kaptaan]

West Pakistan was not some weak entity that could be so easily beaten down.

If India could have defeated us on the west they would have but there was no way India would have won. We must keep in mind the Pakistan military strategy was "defence of Pakistan lay in west" and accordingly only limited military resources were placed in Bangla. If you look at the forces deployed we had two skeleton divisions which had left most of their heavy gear behind. The real fist was kept in Pakistan on the western front. And thus we saw negligible success by India Army on the western front. After all they did not have Mulhti Bahini helping them .....

 

[Saiyan0321]

If India could have defeated us on the west they would have but there was no way India would have won. We must keep in mind the Pakistan military strategy was "defence of Pakistan lay in west" and accordingly only limited military resources were placed in Bangla. If you look at the forces deployed we had two skeleton divisions which had left most of their heavy gear behind. The real fist was kept in Pakistan on the western front. And thus we saw negligible success by India Army on the western front. After all they did not have Mulhti Bahini helping them .....

I have studied the war myself in great detail, looked at maps and military resources and what could have been done and what should have been done. Frankly with the pitiful navy that we had, it would not have mattered if even burma had attacked. There were only three access routes to East Pakistan. The sea which around all the way around the subcontinent, the land which went through India 2000km away. Weirmacht could not have done that and then the air force which meant that we would have had to create air superiority over the entire subcontinent for us to supply men in the east. The country was surrounded 90% by India save for the hills which connected burma. The ground forces were by far the most equipped to fight in west Pakistan wheras the navy was not equipped to do anything. There is a joke in our military history books that for the better part of the century, the army was not even aware of the navy's existence. I wonder if the military ever even considered the defense of east pakistan. Well that would have required us to invest heavily in navy compromising other units which would have left West Pakistan vulnerable. I guess the choice and between east and west was made long before there ever was 1971

 

[Nilgiri]

I keep hearing about handling west pakistan. West Pakistan was not some weak entity that could be so easily beaten down. infact during the conflict the war machinery was entirely spent on the western theater and India was not marching all over West Pakistan nor could it have continued the conflict indefinitely to bring west Pakistan down especially considering that what you desire would have required the conflict to go for months on end perhaps years and then occupy the region to make sure that all the military capability is completely removed. Panzerkiel talked about military capability as the hidden war objective of all wars and whether Pakistan and India especially India had the capability to even cordinate such a massive operation. Holding trials? really? Under what legal authority? you could have brought them to ICJ or demanded a trial by the UN but as long as they were POWs, India could not legally hold anything and i keep hearing that with 90k prisoners we should have asked them to do everything from giving up kashmir to disbanding the army itself.
You guys keep blaming Indira for this and that but frankly i dont see how she could have done it any differently save for forcing Pakistan to accept the LOC as IB and ending the conflict once and for all.

I would ask you to take up the matter with Panzerkiel. He has given quite a different appraisal of the situation if India decided to push after defeating 1 army given concept of getting an army split into 2 to defeat 1 at a time. He spoke to me and Joe on it couple of times even, what he would have done if he was in India's shoes....purely matter of fact in the way he likes to do...even telling us how long it would have taken India to move its eastern theatre forces to be deployed in the west to bring it to bear there.

The amount of sheer war materials Pakistan had lost at that point and what the reserves were looking like at that juncture can also be researched and looked at....especially given where and how Pakistan got its oil from (and huge amounts of other replenishments)...and what the interdiction for that was already looking like around that one harbour.

No doubt it would be costly affair still, but like I said in hindsight, it was one needed to be grimly done right then and there....be it 1, 2 weeks or a month even....or restart the conflict after a ceasefire at our discretion.

We hold trials under the legal system of Bangladesh when its set up. The crimes were perpetrated there....we hold every POW till then and get them processed when BD is good and ready for it...rather than as some bartering agent for our personal politics with Pakistan's cabal, that we squandered away for paper promises and platitudes anyway in simla regardless...which Pakistan was quick to break at earliest opportunity.

 

[Saiyan0321]

anyway with 7pm i am going to prepare for the night and simply state, i truly wonder if this arrangement would have worked at all in the future even if mujib had formed government in East Pakistan. Before 18th amendment people had problems from being ruled from a city 300km away from them much less a city 2000+km away

 

[Nilgiri]

You guys use this "lost half of their country" as beating stick along with "90k soldiers" both which are factually incorrect. Bangla was more like 60% of the country and 55k soldiers were captured. Beyond that Bangla was always going to "break away". Find me a country where the mainland is 40% and the metropolitan territory is 60%. If you can cite me one such example that proved to be stable I won't mention this ever again. Even when people belonged to the ame ethnic group like Anglo settlers in America they broke off from Britain.

Then the oft repeated "90k" defeat which is touted by Indians as the greatest military victory of the 20th century. Leaving alone the incorrect 90k which counts men, women, children and transgenders from West Pakistan along with their pet cats the reality is NO army could have kept down the entire Bangla population and held out Indian attack from every direction all the while being 1,200 miles distant [practically 0ver 3,000 miles as logistics was by sea] from their home base.

The much vaunted US Army had been defeated in a neighbouring country Vietnam which funy enough had similiar climae and geography as Bangla. And the US Army did not have to contend with a third party invading but was just fighting the local Vietcong. Pakistan Army was first fighting the local Bangla Mukti Bahini and on top this Indian also joined in.

Like I said, I don't gloat about it. What you got by turning the Bangladeshis against you is on your cabal. Yahya, Bhutto and the rest.

It would have just been better for all involved if Pakistan power-wielders (by design or chance) had a different attitude to its citizens...and stayed united and built up a better peaceful progressive relationship with India over time.

Without operation searchlight and the following mass scale degenerate actions on a civilian population....of course there would have been no war....and it wouldn't have gone down like how it did at all.

If you wanted peaceful devolution of power to eastern wing to run their own affairs and potential independence at some date for them given they were oh-so-different....again thats on your cabal. All fun and games for them when they extracted what they wanted from the jute exports and such...and spend everything lopsidedly and build up on existing resentments. What was that takfiri statement given by Yahya again?

This was all done by your own hand mostly....and it was stupid we didn't take the full opportunity (past the moral argument of letting the perps go scott free) that was available when we have to mobilise every single force we have regardless...only to put one army out of action when it was split. Doesn't matter if it wasnt 50/50 split....it was still significant enough to bear out a longer strategic advantage by not having it positioned and ready in the west.