THE PAKISTAN ARMY IN EAST PAKISTAN-1971 WAR
UNDERSTANDING THE 1971 CRISIS
COMMENTS ON BOOK REVIEW OF AHMAD FARUQUI ON GENERAL NIAZIS BOOK
PUBLISHED DEFENCE JOURNAL KARACHI JUNE 2000
BY
MAJOR AGHA H AMIN (RETIRED)
http://indopakmilitaryhistory.blogspot. ... istan.html
Bengal did not become independent because of Bengali Hindu fears about being in a Muslim majority independent Bengal. Thus the connection with “Two Nation Theory” was not the reason why Bengal was divided in 1947. Mr Jinnah saw in 1946 i.e the inadvisability of having Bengal in Pakistan without Calcutta. Something that the Pakistani policy makers failed to grasp till 1971! It is to Jinnah’s credit that he brought Bengalis in the army by raising the first two battalions of the East Bengal regiment. A process, which was stopped by Ayub from 1950 to 1966, as a result of which Pakistan Army instead of becoming a broad based national army like the post 1947 Indian Army, remained, a Punjabi dominated army. A factor which contributed a great deal to the separation of East Pakistan. The Two Nation Theory was created due to certain reasons which at that time were valid albeit relatively. It did not exist in 711 AD or in 1857 but was enunciated in the period 1860-1940. In 1971 it was no longer valid at least for the Bengali Muslims and they rejected it.
My second contention pertains to the author’s quoting a Pakistani General stating that “Never before had a Muslim army surrendered before a Hindu army or the assertion that the Pakistan Army was a bearer of traditions of the early Muslim conquerors of India! This assertion is absolutely false ! The problem is that we have to get out of this “Martial Races Syndrome”. The vast bulk of Pakistan army consists of men with Hindu or Buddhist ancestry! As a matter of fact the Hindu Rajputs of the north of Chenab area from where the vast bulk of Pakistan army is recruited were far more difficult to govern before they were converted to Islam!
The only positive connection that these races had with the Muslim Turks was the fact that one of their members killed Sultan Ghauri! Even the Pathans, the second largest group of Pakistani soldiers, had little connection with Turkish invasions of India! Babar did not like the Pathans and the Pathans generally remained in conflict with the Muslim governments in Delhi! Many Muslim forts surrendered to the Hindu Marathas during the Maratha war in the south. The Marathas captured Delhi long before 1971 in mid -18th century and held it with uneven gaps till 1803 once the British captured it. As a matter of fact the problem is that most of our worthy generals have not read military history of the sub-continent. The Pakistan Army is not the descendant of the Turk armies that invaded India! Of course with the exceptions of some genuinely Mughal villages like Lehr Sultanpur etc! The Pakistan Army is a chip from the block of the old mercenary British army with its origins in the “Mutiny Loyalty of Punjabi Muslim Pathan and Sikh soldiers” who attacked Delhi for the first time in September 1857 and in phenomenal staunchness of Punjabi soldiers while facing the Muslim Turks in WW One! The Punjabis once totalled as Muslim Hindu and Sikh, as an ethnic group became the largest single group and the vast bulk of the British Indian Army in the period 1883-1911.
The only positive connection that these races had with the Muslim Turks was the fact that one of their members killed Sultan Ghauri! Even the Pathans, the second largest group of Pakistani soldiers, had little connection with Turkish invasions of India! Babar did not like the Pathans and the Pathans generally remained in conflict with the Muslim governments in Delhi! Many Muslim forts surrendered to the Hindu Marathas during the Maratha war in the south.
The Marathas captured Delhi long before 1971 in mid -18th century and held it with uneven gaps till 1803 once the British captured it. As a matter of fact the problem is that most of our worthy generals have not read military history of the sub-continent. The Pakistan Army is not the descendant of the Turk armies that invaded India! Of course with the exceptions of some genuinely Mughal villages like Lehr Sultanpur etc!
The Pakistan Army is a chip from the block of the old mercenary British army with its origins in the “Mutiny Loyalty of Punjabi Muslim Pathan and Sikh soldiers” who attacked Delhi for the first time in September 1857 and in phenomenal staunchness of Punjabi soldiers while facing the Muslim Turks in WW One! The Punjabis once totalled as Muslim Hindu and Sikh, as an ethnic group became the largest single group and the vast bulk of the British Indian Army in the period 1883-1911.
In 1883 there were about 34.09 % or 120 Punjabi companies (25 Punjabi Muslims, 18 Punjabi Dogra Hindus and 77 Punjabi Sikhs) and 15 Pathan companies out of the total 352 infantry companies of the Regular Bengal Army. By 1911 the Indian Army was a more than 50 % Punjabi army although never a Muslim majority army. In 1929 thanks to Pathan and Ranghar defiance of the British in WW One the Punjabi percentage (divided into roughly one third Muslim Sikh and Hindu) of the Indian Army rose to 54.36% if the Gurkhas were included and to 61.8 % if Gurkhas were excluded. The Pathan share at this time stood at 4.02 % out of which all were not ethnic or linguistic Pathans. (Refers- Map on page-96 - Report of Indian Statutory Commission-Volume One- Calcutta - Government of India - Publication Branch - 1930). The low caste Hindu Marathas militarily defeated the Mughals long before 1971 and their hold on India was finally successfully challenged not by any Punjabi or Pathan Muslim army but by the Bengal and Madras armies of the English East India Companies at Laswari and Assaye respectively in 1803!
The problem is that we have forgotten that all territory west of Aligarh district (including Aligarh), including Delhi Agra Punjab and Frontier was under Hindu Maratha or non-Muslim Sikh rule till 1803 or as late as 1849!
There were no martial races in Muslim majority Punjab, at least to rule Punjab till 1849! So much for the martial traditions of Muslims of Indo-Pak! It was all situational, there being no martial races! But somehow in Pakistan by 1950s myth became mixed with reality and myth finally gained the upper hand ! The winter of our discontent finally came in the killing fields of Bengal in December 1971!
Punjab later dubbed as a martial province with a Muslim majority was firmly under Sikh domination despite the fact that the Sikhs were a 8 or 9 % minority! During Sikh rule mosques were often used as military magazines, including the famous Badshahi mosque and some times plastered with cow dung (Pages -347 to 360— “Lahore -Past and Present” - M.Baqir, Punjabi Adabi Academy, Lahore—1984)as happened with the Golden Mosque of Kashmiri Bazaar Lahore ! So much for the martial traditions, just 122 years ago, of the largely Punjabi Muslim army that surrendered in East Pakistan! The problem ironically was the fact that the same West Pakistanis, who despised Bengalis as non-Martial race in March 1971, at least were not as martial in 1849, as they became in 1914, because of British recruitment policies and situational reasons!
This blog, even it's written by a Paki ex-serviceman is worth every minute spent
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