The most recent instance of fantasy masquerading as fact in Delhi are stories by excitable newspapermen on what is gratuitously described as the Official History of the 1965 War. For sheer inventiveness these stories are hard to beat because no such history of the 1965 war exists. And the hurried conclusions drawn from it by sections of the media are unbecoming of responsible journalists.

The facts, quite simply, are that the operational orders and war diaries of Army Headquarters and all formations and units involved in operations, which documented the conduct of the war, are with the government, according to the laid down procedure. However, nothing has been heard of them since. What is now described as "official history" is not based on them but is a reconstruction of events put together by civilian officials of the ministry about 37 years after the war ended. The following makes this clear.

Since war histories are written on the basis of the of the daily records kept by every combat formation and the command head-quarters incharge of war operations, it is difficult to doctor facts. Responsible democratic governments, which respect the public’s right to know, start compiling war histories soon after the dust has settled; not over a quarter century later. In the case of the 1965 Indo-Pakistan War, Lt. Gen. J.S. Dhillon (Retd.), Commander, XI Corps, the formation which bore the brunt of the 1965 War in the Punjab sector, was approached by Dr. B. C. Chakravorty, joint editor and deputy secretary in the History Division of the ministry of defence in September, 1987 with a request to answer questions relating to the 1965 War. The surprised general’s response was: "Why do you ask me, since you can get all the information you need from the Operational Orders and War Diaries of the units and formations under my command. They are all with the government." The astonishing answer he received was that "we cannot lay hands on them!" On agreeing to their request, he was presented with a questionnaire on September 22, 1987, exactly 22 years after the war ended on September 22, 1965.

Some of the questions were unexpectedly naive. Why were units, transported over long distances, sent straight into battle? Why weren’t they given any rest after journeying for distances of over 100 miles, and "mentally" prepared for War? Lt. Gen. Dhillon pointed out that in the war of 1965 the decision taken was to move units from their peacetime locations directly into battle and to cross the international border simultaneously at a fixed time to achieve total surprise. This retaliatory attack across the border in Punjab was necessitated by Pakistan’s unprovoked attack in the Chhamb sector. Our strategy worked.

Pakistan was unprepared for the massive assault at 4 a.m. on September 6, 1965 by forces which seemed to have materialized overnight, and which now posed an unnerving threat to Lahore. As for preparing the troops "mentally", extensive war games had already taken place two months earlier and troops were mentally prepared to go into battle in the event of war. The general also emphasized another crucial point which is often overlooked. "There is no method, in peace, of separating out those who are unwilling to face enemy bullets in time of war, except war itself." Adding that "success in battle is only for those was stay in battle at all costs. This is the basic expectation of the nation from its soldiers and most of all from its officers whose function it is to lead and command."

The point of all this is that a war history prepared decades later, and consisting of hindsight, hearsay, subjective opinion and historical misrepresentations, rather than a distillation of war diaries, is worthless. More damaging is the tendency to use the "official history" to distort events and destroy reputations of those who upheld the country’s honour during those critical days. Such distasteful exercises have, in fact, already begun.

A national daily published from the capital even raises doubts about whether Lt. Gen. Harbakhsh Singh, GOC-in-C of the Western Army Command, under whose direction the war was fought, gave the correct version in his recently released posthumously published autobiography: In the Line of Duty. The paper criticizes the general, widely acknowledged as one of the most brilliant in post-Independence India, for an incident in which a battalion (4 Sikh) was sent into action and during which some of them were taken prisoners. Several unfortunate phrases are used to describe the general’s decision, and the mishap is called one of the greatest fiascoes of the war. It not only betrays a woeful ignorance of soldiering, and a tendency to sensationalize, but also misrepresents a wartime situation.

The decision to send the battalion to invest Khem Karan was taken with the aim of hitting the enemy already reeling from a major reverse, having lost 99 tanks (captured or destroyed) during the previous two days. It was a tactically sound decision aimed at taking advantage of that fleeting opportunity to strike the enemy when he was off-balance. That it did not work is no reflection on the soundness of the decision. To describe an action in which some of our men were taken prisoners as one of the greatest fiascoes of a war in which close to 150,000 troops were involved is laughable!

Another fallout of this "official history" is a subsequent article by Major General Niranjan Prasad (Retd.) who was GOC, 15 Infantry Division at the start of hostilities on 6 September. By 8 September, he was relieved of his command due to "utter lack of determination and courage in the face of the enemy" and "for disobedience of orders given to him". The task assigned to him was to proceed along the G.T. Road upto Dograi on the Ichhogil Canal - designed by the Pakistanis as a defensive obstacle - and to secure the bridge over it. Even though a battalion (3 Jat) under a very able commander, Lt. Col. Desmond Hayde, crossed the canal and reached the Bata factory on the outskirts of Lahore, the commander of the 54 Infantry Brigade asked him to withdraw on September 6 itself, to a point not even on the Ichhogil Canal but 2,000 yards short of it on the Indian side. The 54 Infantry Brigade was a part of the 15 Infantry Division commanded by Major General Niranjan Prasad.

On this crucial day of September 6, when India had a distinct advantage over Pakistan because of the surprise element and superior tactic, Lt. Generals Harbakhsh Singh and J.S. Dhillon visited the front to assess the situation. The former describes the scene in his book. "We were directed by the Divisional Military Police to the General Officer Commanding, Maj. Gen. Niranjan Prasad, who was hiding in a recently irrigated sugarcane field! He came out to receive us, with his boots covered in wet mud. He had no head cover, nor was he wearing any badges of rank. He had stubble on his face, not having shaved, contrary to custom before the start of an operation. Seeing him in such a state, the first question I asked him was whether he was the General Officer commanding a Division or a coolie. Why had he removed his badges of rank and not shaved, I asked? Of course, he had no answer".

After he was given a second chance and again failed, he was removed from his command. Subsequently, when Radio Pakistan started reading out the incriminating contents of his personal diary which he had left in his abandoned official vehicle on the following day (September 7), the government asked him to resign.

In view of the above, he cannot be expected to take an objective stand of those events. But by his article’s amazing disregard for the truth, he damages himself still further. It is pointless to mention all the mistruths here, except for one. He writes that at one point Lt. Gen. Harbakhsh Singh wanted to withdraw to the Line of Beas and "Chaudhari instructed him to hold fast, flew into Ambala and gave orders against any withdrawal." Nothing could be further from the truth. It was Chaudhari who gave Harbakhsh Singh the advice to pull back to south of the river Beas. Harbakhsh Singh "was aghast at this suggestion and told him (the Army Chief) that since this was a tactical order..... he would have to come to the front with me, and only then I would decide whether I would carry it out or not." In the end the order was never given. Pakistan’s armour was routed, and India won the war.

An appropriate postscript to this would be the following paragraph from my book, Of Dreams and Demons (1994). "At a reception at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi, which followed a presentation of awards for the 1965 operations, President S. Radhakrishnan, with Harbakhsh and Jogi Dhillon sitting on either side of him, said in a voice loud enough for Chaudhari to hear: "We were told to expect bad tidings, but both of you saved the country." It became common knowledge that Chaudhari had prepared Shastri and Radhakrishnan to expect a military reverse in Punjab".

A few days after the cessation of hostilities, Frank Moraes and I (he was then Editor-in-Chief of the Indian Express), spent a weekend in the Lahore sector, calling first on Lt. Gen. Dhillon at his war-time Corps Headquarters at Riyya, and then visiting some of the places which had already become household words, like the Ichhogil Canal, Dograi, the Khalra Axis, Barki, etc. Talking to some of the officers who had distinguished themselves, like Major General Kishan Sibal, Major General Mohinder Singh, Brigadier T. K. Theograj and Lt. Col. Desmond Hayde was an inspiring experience. Frank Moraes described our visit in The Soldier’s Spirit in his paper of November 1, 1965: "The interest of our brief tour lay not so much in the visual testimony of war but in the aftermath of the fighting as reflected in the bearing, talk and spirit of the men in the front-line."

LLike other readers I too read the review of General Harbakhsh Singh’s book, In the Line of Duty- A Soldier Remembers, by Major General Himmat Singh Gill in October 2000 issue of the SR. In my opinion, the review seemed perfunctory and did not do justice to the General as I found on reading the book during my visit to New Delhi early this year. While in New Delhi, I was able to visit with the General’s wife,who is a Canadian by birth, born and educated in Calgary, Alberta. I was able to see many more of his photographs, awards and citations in his study.

General Harbakhsh Singh was indeed a remarakble man of whom every Panjabi, particularly Sikhs, should be proud. Yes, he was passed over for the possition of Chief of Army Staff by Indira Gandhi , but he took that in his stride, and wrote not a word of bitterness in his biography. However, this event should be considered in perspective. The man who bypassed him was none other than General (later India’s first Field Marshal) Sam Manekshaw, a British decorated office (Military Cross ) who distinguished himself as Commander of the 1V Corps after the debacle in NEFA, and later as Army Chief during the Bangladesh compaign. Indira Gandhi, autocrat and arch-enemy of the Sikhs as she was, as shown by the events in 1984, may not be faulted for selecting Sam Manekshaw - for whatever reasons. However, this does not suggest that General Harbakhsh Singh would not have performed equally - or even better than Sam Manekshaw.

General Harbakhsh Singh was a man of many talents, a sportsman, an athlete, accomplished horse rider but, above all, a soldier’s soldier for his many considerations to his subordiantes and Jawans alike. These are mentioned repeatedly in his book. During the Second World War he was taken prisoner by the Japanese. He and his brother, an officer in the Jind State Army, refused overtures from General Mohan Singh, and later from Netaji Subash Chandar Bose himself to join the Indian National Army. Back in India during the Jammu and Kashmir operations he won decisive battles at Shelatang and Thithwal and his Brigade was poised to attack Muzaffarabad in operation Surya when he was transferred. "Opertation Surya" never took place due to the machinations of the British at New Delhi (see a recent book,Faultlines Kashmir by C. Thomas, Brunel Publishers, UK. 2000).

General Harbakhsh Singh’s greatest challenge came during the Indo-Pakistan War of 1965 when he was Western Army Commander based at Simla. Enemy attack across the international border in Punjab did not materilise as he had expected due to failures by others at several fronts.Yet he remained fearless and undaunted. At one time there was panic at Army Headquarters that Pakistan might break through Indian defences. Harbakhsh Singh’s finest moment came when the Army Chief, General Chaudhry, ordered him "to abandon Amritsar and set-up a defence line behind the river Beas." Only a non-Sikh , ignorant of Sikh religion and history, could suggest such a folly. Rightly, General Harbakhsh Singh refused such an order, and the threat to Amritsar never developed. Although Pakistan was contained and battered at many places but it was not decisively beaten. Unlike Himmat Singh Gill’s review General Harbakhsh Singh nowhere mentions in his book that India won the 1965 War.

In the 1967 Punjab Assembly elections General Harbakhsh Singh was denied
Akali Party nomination from the Sangrur constituency by two illiterate Sants (SR Jannuary 2000 ). Personally, I am happy it happened that way. It would have belittled the General. In his career he had won far more honour than the nomination of a bankrupt party.