So 50 years have passed to the day India formally declared war on Pakistan on 6 September 1965. The 17-day conflict, fought mainly in Kashmir and Sialkot-Lahore sector, ended in a UN-sponsored ceasefire with both sides. The war has gained near mythical status in both countries with both sides claiming victory for various reasons and is often celebrated in their respective popular cultures. As children, we all grew up reading about the heroism and bravery of our soldiers in thwarting repeated enemy attacks and laying down their lives for it. Army, Navy, and Air Force exploits in battle are often celebrated in music and television with the oft-repeated vows to sacrifice our lives for our country come what may. This raw emotion nurtures a dying love and devotion for your fellow soldier, fellow citizen, and way of life. It also nurtures a collective effort to combat a threat no matter how dire or severe.

However, war is not just bravery, valour, and courage to lay down your life for your country against all odds. War has political, strategic, operational, and tactical sides that can guarantee total victory or defeat against a worthy opposition. You may win a hundred battles and still lose the war; or lose an equal number of battles yet still win the war. It all depends on how you plan, execute, react, and adapt to the changing dynamics. At military level, warfare lessons are essential education for the officer as he rises among the ranks to command and staff positions. Pakistan is no exception. Such military education facilitates the understanding of warfare at all levels – strategic, operational, tactical – and lessons derived from past examples of glory and defeat to build upon enhanced decision making for future officers.

But what about the public? What do they know of the 1965 war beyond the ‘pop culture’ stories of martyrdom, rhetoric, pride, and everything else in between? Are they meant to even know the intricacies of what happened and how the reality was markedly different than what all of us have sincerely believed in? It would be certain to say that amid all the hype and celebrations surrounding 50 years of the war on both sides, there would be many writers and columnists describing how both sides essentially failed to take numerous advantages that would have made the war more decisive rather than the actual stalemate that got a permanent impact on Pak-India relations and history. We were all told that in 1965, Pakistan stopped Indian generals from having brandy in Lahore Gymkhana. But in the age of the internet and gradual disclosures some sections have been outspoken over how what was supposed to be a clever plan to ‘liberate Kashmir’ (or de-freeze it) turned out to be a fight for our lives to save the Sialkot-Lahore region from falling into Indian hands.

It is now well-acknowledged that India’s defeat to China in 1962, and Pakistan gaining an upper hand in the Rann of Kutch skirmishes of April 1965 gave extra encouragement to Gen Ayub Khan’s cabinet and commanders to strike India at its weakest – or so they thought. The ambitious planning of igniting an internal insurgency inside Indian-held Kashmir that needed an infiltration from Pak Army special forces – Operation Gibraltar – in late August 1965 failed when locals and Indian forces reacted against them and led to India capturing key Pakistani posts on the ceasefire line (now Line of Control) like the Haji Pir Pass by 28 August 1965. This caused Ayub’s men to launch its Plan B – Operation Grand Slam – to capture Akhnoor near Jammu and cut-off Kashmir from India. However, due to some truly shocking decisions taken at the highest levels of command, Pakistan gave India enough time to react not only in Jammu to thwart Grand Slam but also take the fighting to the international border by September 6 to formally declaring war and trying to attack Lahore to relieve pressure in Kashmir – something the Ayub regime strangely thought India would never do. The rest of the war was a mix of many battles in which both sides gained some advantage but more or less ended up losing it because of poor decision-making and planning.

Also, per historical sources, Pakistan should consider itself lucky that 1965 was confined to West Pakistan after East Pakistan was left virtually on its own. It does certainly cause confusion and denial among many sections of our public, and certainly raises eyebrows on the whole point of that war as the celebrations of ‘Defence Day’ become more tame in comparison to past grandiose displays in Pakistan.

India, under the assertive Narendra Modi, has left no stone unturned to make a real spectacle of 1965 starting nearly month-long celebrations from as early as August 28 when Indian forces are said to have retaliated against Pakistan’s Operation Gibraltar infiltrations that tried to launch an armed insurgency in Indian-held Kashmir 50 years ago. India claims of saving Kashmir from falling into Pakistani hands, and overturning the 1962 war humiliation at the hands of China that led to a renewed confidence for 1971 East Pakistan war that broke Pakistan in two. However, many in India have criticised these Modi-led celebrations, claiming that they are for his own domestic political popularity, jingoism, and rhetoric owing to recent rise in Pak-India tensions, without addressing the needs of administrative overhauling and modernisation of India’s large cumbersome military or even honestly discussing what went wrong in 1965. Even Lt Gen Harbaksh Singh (1913-1999), who headed the Indian Army’s Western Command in 1965, wrote in his own memoirs War Dispatches that anyone who tried to understand the war beyond the gloss and emotions felt disillusioned by its reality.

The bravery of our soldiers and young officers on the front can neither be denied nor forgotten, but the poor decision making at the highest level with incompetent and narrow strategic thought – as emphasised by Maj (r) Agha Humayun Amin in his September 2001 Defence Journal piece on 1965 – doesn’t deserve to be forgiven nor forgotten either because of its impact on Pakistan’s later history. If one still wants to call 1965 war a ‘victory’ then the prefix ‘pyrrhic’ must be added when describing it.

The war also proved to be a turning point for the Ayub regime as a stalemate conclusion and the 1966 Tashkent Agreement, which didn’t decide anything on Kashmir, caused increased opposition and agitation towards him. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, among the major champions of the 1965 campaigns in Ayub’s cabinet, left the regime in anger to form the PPP. International sanctions for using weapons, meant for countering any Soviet ingress, also impacted the development aid that Pakistan had been utilising since Ayub’s 1958 takeover. East Pakistan was already fuming over being literally left on its own without any necessary defences that India could have easily exploited, furthering the mistrust among many ethnic Bengalis towards the domineering West Pakistani civil-military elite. Relations with India permanently turned worse, while it opened up ties with China – something the US would use tacitly to normalise its own ties with Beijing through Islamabad over the next decade too. Gen Ayub Khan’s “golden years” now seemed ending and within 4 years he was forced to step aside and handed over power to Gen Yahya Khan in 1969 rather than call for immediate fresh elections to decide his successor.

Lt Gen (r) Mahmud Ahmed – former DG ISI during the early Gen Musharraf years – bemoaned in his rarely available book Illusion of Victory: A Military History of the 1965 Indo-Pak War that it was a “war of lost opportunities, a war of reaction, and a war of disillusionment.” He further wrote that 1965 was ‘undeserved glory’ that sowed the seeds of a bitter harvest of humiliation in 1971.

Many officers who fought in 1965 certainly thought more could have, and should have, been done. The events of 1971 war only further drove the point home. The 1965-71 generation and their juniors are said to have always eyed trying to return the favour to India. That culminated in Kargil 1999 but it also turned to be another disappointment that failed to get anything achieved as far as Kashmir goes. Maybe that explains why 1965 became celebrated and 1971 ignored in Pakistan without that generation of civil and military leaders honestly answering anything. Now that generation has retired and/or passed away.

The new generation of officers, especially the young lot that have seen how dangerous, merciless, and brutal war actually is with post-9/11 operations against terrorists and insurgents, has inherited the institution of the Army. Their valour, bravery, and professionalism is unquestionable, and it is hoped they can avoid the mistakes of their predecessors and seniors too if Pakistan is to be defended from all hostile threats without dragging the Army into unnecessary squabbles and roles it is better off from.

Maybe we treat the public with a bit too much contempt in knowing the full truth, though they also have a tendency to forgive and forget too. We have a short attention span, and we certainly do prefer “living in the moment” amid full display of emotions. One could say the same may be true across the border in India.

The individual bravery, loyalty, and selflessness of our brave young officers and jawans should never be forgotten. But that does not mean questions about the competency and foresight of our higher commands cannot be brought into scrutiny for all public.

War is not something one can gloss over and glorify for political point-scoring when lives of brave soldiers, officers, and innocent civilians are lost under a hail of bombs and bullets. It is supposed to be a sombre reminder for coming generations to honour their dead and learn from them in a truthful, honest manner. This region has seen enough of nationalistic bluster and jingoism for far too long at a great cost to our present and past generations. Is it really worth continuing it for our future generations too? Let us hope cooler heads prevail and all outstanding issues are properly dealt with amicably and honestly if we are to progress.