Three historical mistakes by India from Military perspective

The fate of any nation depends more than the grave mistakes that it makes rather than the correct decisions that it takes. While I am a proponent of peace, I do think that sometimes it is the military might that is required to establish stability and peace in the region. We have fought four wars with our neighboring Pakistan, three out of which have been over Kashmir. India, in my opinion, has made three historical miscalculations of great proportions that still continues to haunt it to this day.

The first was the return of 93,000 prisoners of war (POW’s) back to Pakistan after the 1971 War and liberation of Bangladesh. This was one of the largest surrender by any army after the surrender of Nazi forces in Stalingrad in 1943. Undoubtedly, a decisive victory for the Indian Armed forces, the war brought back the lost pride from the 1962 Indo-China War. Playing the same flute of peace to the world, India, under the Shimla agreement, agreed to return back the captured Pakistani soldiers. Disregarding the reality that these “battle hardened” soldiers could be thrown back into the circulation and could be integrated back into the “Pakistani War machine” operating in Kashmir, India made a fatal misjudgment. What we could have done at this pivotal moment was to negotiate with the Pakistani administration over the Pakistani Occupied Kashmir or POK. We should have returned these prisoners but in exchange of Pakistan agreeing to give away at least some of the critical positions that it holds in the POK region to us, if not the entire occupied territory.

The second is the return of Haji Pir to Pakistan after the 1965 conflict. Albeit not a conclusive victory like the 1971 war, the battle of Haji Pir was a major win for our Armed forces. The re-capture of Haji Pir gave India a strategic and a military advantage to the armed forces since it has been a main point for the insurgents to infiltrate into the Kashmir Valley. The occupation of Haji Pir gave the Indian armed forces control of the Uri-Pooch highway, thereby cutting off the a major supply line for the terrorists to get into the Indian territory and operate from there. I have a deep reverence for Lal Bahadur Shastri, who was the Prime minister during this war and when the Tashkent agreement was signed, but I think Shastri made a ghastly mistake by reaching a status quo with Pakistan.

The third mistake made by the Indian polity was our “inertia” in acting swiftly during the 1947 Indo-Pakistan conflict. Recapitulating what I mentioned in my previous article, had we sent in our army quickly or had Nehru not gone to knock the doors of United Nations, we might have resolved the Kashmir problem once and for all. The Pakistani army was already on the run, and we could have pushed them further consequently capturing a large area of what we call as POK today. Given the reality that none of the countries were nuclear equipped at that time, there was no threat of the conflict going beyond the confines of a conventional war. I also believe that had Sardar Patel tackled this conflict, we would have the entire Kashmir as an integral part of India today.

While I do salute the Indian armed forces for their valor in each of these three wars, I believe these terrible blunders committed by the feeble Indian administration continue to echo to this day.