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Very good book about operations in the West in 1971. General Candeth gives a wonderful detailed account of the strategy and the operations in the West. It is quite clear that our strategy in the West was to hold the Pakistani forces at bay while we took care of business in Bangladesh. It all worked like a charm. It also answers my questions as to why we were not more aggressive in the West because obviously the mandate Manekshaw had did not include solving our problems in the West once and for all -- alas, another missed opportunity. It is also clear that toward the end of the war our forces from the East had begun shifting to the West and if the Pakistanis had not called it quits they would have been hit by overwhelming might of the Indian armed forces and would have lost a lot more. Of course this assumes that we would have wanted to do anything more than we did because like I have said in the past we are a people who follow all international agreements and rule of law and would find it hard to justify our actions as were able to do in the East. I do ask though what is the point of such circumspection! What if we had made better use of men like Candeth to solve Kashmir. It would have bought us years of Peace for the blood spilt of our best but then it would have added many percentage points to our economic growth today. It would have saved the 70K dead in Kashmir for instance. Ce'st la vie. I salute men like Candeth and others who carried out his bidding to time and again blunt the riposte from Pakistan and did not allow them to put any pressure on our operations in the East.
Rating:  [4 of 5 Stars!] |
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