Dear Members,
I was forwarded this speech by one of our military friend. I think it is a good speech, and will give you all some vital information on issue: Kashmir. Post your views on the subject and not individuals.
Since the subject matter is too long, may be I will have to post it in more tha one post. Gen Sinha's observations and his work is interesting.
Have a nice reading.
THE FIRST FIELD MARSHAL MANEKSHAW MEMORIAL LECTURE
(Delivered by Lt Gen S K Sinha at the Defence Services Veterans Conclave, New Delhi in August 2008)
Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw is our national icon whom we failed to give an appropriate farewell when he passed away recently. I am glad that the Conclave of Defence Services Veterans have started Field Marshal Manekshaw Memorial lecture series. I feel greatly honoured to be invited to deliver the first lecture. I was privileged to serve under the Field Marshal in various capacities for several decades. I recall that in September 1946 when
the Interim Government had come to power in Delhi and India’s Independence was fast approaching, three Indian officers were posted in three different sections of the Military Operations Directorate of the then General Headquarters (India), which later became our Army Headquarters. Till then this Directorate was manned exclusively by British officers
and British clerks. These three Indians were Lt Col Manekshaw, Major Yahya Khan and myself in the rank of Captain. Later I served under him as instructor first at Mhow and then at Wellington, when he was the Commandant of these training institutions. Thereafter I served as a Brigade Commander when he was the Army Commander and as a Deputy PSO when he was the Army Chief.
The war clouds had gathered in 1971 and I was due to command a Division. He held me back as Deputy PSO on his staff. I told him that the G-1
was going to war with the G-2 and the G-3 should not be left out of battle. He turned down my request saying that he needed me more on his staff. I last met him in 2007 when he was terminally ill on life support system in Wellington Military Hospital. A little earlier at the intervention of the then President, he had received over one crore as arrears of pay of a
Field Marshal for the past 35 years. At last the bureaucracy had relented and given him his due which had been denied to him. We had taken up the case in 1972 when he was promoted Field Marshal. I congratulated him for this. He smiled and told me,”A Babu came from Delhi to give me the cheque which I have sent to my bank, but I am not sure if the cheque will be honoured.”
I have been asked to talk about Jammu and Kashmir which is today, the most burning topic affecting our national security. After Independence, Sam, as Manekshaw was affectionately called, became a Brigadier and took over as Director Military Operations. I was posted as GSO-2 (Operations) in a newly raised skeleton Command Headquarters, which later became Western Command. When I was leaving the Directorate, Sam told me that I had been dealing with internal security for a year and now I was going to a Command
Headquarters which was being raised primarily for internal security in Delhi and Punjab. The Headquarters would be in a railway train operating between Delhi and Lahore. Mountbatten had made the Viceroy’s special corridor train available for this purpose. Little could Sam or I foresee that in a few weeks our Command under the leadership of Lt Gen Sir Dudley Russell, will be fighting a war in Kashmir. For the first few weeks I was the only
Indian officer in the Headquarters, the others being all British. The British Government directed that no British officer then serving with the Indian or the Pakistan Army will be allowed to go to Kashmir. That placed a heavy responsibility on me as I was the only officer from the controlling Headquarters who could visit Kashmir for the first few weeks.
Our Headquarters got Indianised by January 1948 when Lt Gen (later Field Marshal) succeeded Lt Gen Sir Dudley Russell. In October 1947 , Russell had asked me to act as his eyes and years in Kashmir, functioning like Montgomery’s Liaison Officers at El Alamein and after in the Desert during the Second World War. Russell had been a Divisional Commander at El Akamein. I was also given the task of organizing the airlift of some 800
Dakota sorties in civilian aircraft from Safdarjang airport to Srinagar in 15 days. In all this I was closely interacting with Sam, who was the DMO at Army Headquarters. After the first Indo.Pak War in Kashmir, the United Nations held a cease fire conference at Karachi. The Indian delegation was led by General Shrinagesh with the Defence Secretary, Kashmir
Affairs Secretary, Maj Gen Thimayya and Brigadier Manekshaw as members. I was the Secretary of the delegation.
Given our long common association with Kashmir, it is only appropriate that the first Field Marshal Manekshaw Memorial Lecture should be about National Security: The J&K Perspective.
Kashmir has been a major lingering problem for our national security for the past over sixty years. We have fought four wars with Pakistan over Kashmir and emerged winners in each one of them. The violence of the ongoing proxy war has been very substantially contained. When I took over as Governor of the State in 2003, the average rate of daily killing due to terrorist violence was 10. By2008 this came down to a little over one a day.
However, in terms of propaganda and media war, we have been at the losing end. This has been largely due to the appeasement policy of our vote bank politicians towards communal and anti-national elements.
The origin and genesis of the Kashmir problem lies in the Partition of the Sub-Continent on the basis of religion. Pakistan’s stand has been that Kashmir being a Muslim majority State should have been part of that country which had been created as a homeland for Muslims on the Sub-Continent. India which has more Muslims than the total population of Pakistan has been opposed to the concept of religion being the basis for nationhood. No doubt in 1947, the partition of what was then British India, the eleven provinces directly ruled by the British, was carried out on the basis of religion. This did not apply to the 562 States ruled by the Princes. Their rulers had entered into treaty with the British Sovereign and accepted
the latter’s paramouncy. Jinnah wanted that on the withdrawal of the British power from the Sub-Continent and the lapse of paramouncy, the rulers should be allowed to decide the future of their kimgdoms. His hidden agenda was that Hyderabad which was the richest and largest State in India, of the size of France, and which had a Muslim ruler with over 90% Hindus subjects, should opt for Pakistan. He even tried to get the Maharajas of
Jodhpur and Jaisalmer to accede to Pakistan, promising them the world. As for Kashmir, which had 70% Muslim population with a Hindu ruler, he was confident that both geography and demography were favourable for Pakistan and the State would fall like a ripe plum in his lap. In the event, he got neither Hyderabad nor Kashmir. It suited the British to go along with Jinnah’s thinking in this matter.
.........................To be contd........................................