Operation Grand Slam and 1965 War-Akhtar Hussain Malik, Yahya Khan and Ayub Khan (Paperback)

The aim of this work is to discuss Operation Grand Slam in the overall context of the 1965 War, assessing its strategic significance, and the various controversies surrounding it.Nonsense Pakistani Myths advanced when I commenced writing this account.That Operation Gibraltar was a total flop.Whereas Indian accounts stated otherwise That Major general Akhtar hussain Malik was ...........which is why Pakistan lost in grand Slam.All cheap Below the belt statements like ......................Needless to state that such criminally biased statements were made because of petty personal rivalries of petty men, with perhaps bigger worldly status . The Kashmir problem shaped the future of Indo Pak Sub-Continental politics from 1947 onwards and led to the militarisation of India and Pakistan.The Poonch Valley link road connecting Jammu with Poonch Valley, the second largest valley of Kashmir, was a hot favourite military objective of military planners in Pakistan, right from 1947 48.One of the major military objectives of the 1947 48 War was to harass Indian communications around Jammu in areas Akhnur and Kathua.Beri Pattan Bridge over River Tawi a few miles south-east of Nowshera on this road was the main objective of a planned Pakistani armoured brigade and infantry brigade attack code named Operation Venus in December 1948.As a matter of fact one of the reasons which motivated the Indian Government, in 1948, into requesting for a complete ceasefire may have been its anxiety to avoid a major battle, opposite its communications to the Poonch Valley. The Pakistani governments, calling off the projected Operation Venus, and acceptance of this ceasefire offer and final ceasefire with effect from night 31 December 1948 and 1st January 1949, was later much criticised in Pakistan. Claims were made that the Pakistani Government agreed to a ceasefire to the armys horror at a time when military victory was within Pakistans grasp.A Pakistani officer who was then commanding the infantry brigade strike force tasked to execute Operation Venus, much later in 1976 claimed that, had the operation been launched, he could have been in Jammu within 24 hours and into Pathankot and Gurdaspur in the next 24 hours.Thus when Operation Grand Slam was conceived and launched in 1965 history was repeating itself and as later events turned out, ironically history repeated itself, in terms of irresolution and indecisiveness on part of Pakistans highest military and political leadership.The bluff self-promoted Field Marshal from a so-called martial area proved himself as indecisive as the Hindustani Muslim Prime Minister of 1948 who was much criticised by many intellectuals in Pakistan for indecisiveness and timidity in the 1947 48 War.History repeated itself for the second time in 1999 when a smaller scale military operation was called off in Kargil.The man accused of timidity on this occasion was a Punjabi Kashmiri Prime Minister.The 35th anniversary of the 1965 War demands that we in the Indo Pak Sub-Continent must re-assess the validity of the historical life scripts into which past experiences have programmed us It is a vain hope since most human beings despite all advancement in civilisation are dominated by absurd urges