Patton vs Centurion 1965 Indo-Pakistan war - Page 10

Archer · 09-05-2007, 14:09 PM

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Originally Posted by zraver

You said they were protecitgn thier small base of skilled personel. if they had a alrge pool of technically proficent people to begin with...

Sigh, only if you insist on believing what you want to believe as compared to reading my statements for what they are meant to be..
Soldiers AND equipment are expensive. They cant be just built up overnight, not for a developing country. This is India circa 1965, with virtually non existent foreign exchange reserves, a huge issue of feeding its population...risk and audacity is proportional to the aims of war and secondly, the national resource backing it. Pakistan is a garrison state - India isnt. That rules out #1. Second, thats where the developing country syndrome hits.

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I do not beleive that, India was on the losing end at the begining of the series of battles that would elad to the Patton Slaughter. Those who would become Pakistanis also did yoemans service with the British

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Please continue to believe that if you will, but you cant ignore either historical records OR for that matter, the Pakistani Armys own statements. First- EVERY war Pakistan has fought with India has been marked by tactical audacity on the Pakistani side, almost invariably let down by p*ss poor strategy and underestimation of the opponents will to fight- if that doesnt speak of the ill-effects of propoganda, nothing else will.

Second- those who became Pakistanis etc did yeoman service under British control, led by the British, and fought as part of Indian units, staffed heavily with the British @higher command. So lets see whether they had an opportunity to develop their war leadership skills before the British. Unlike, Indian empires such as the Marathas and Sikhs, no Pakistani Punjabi empire ever created its own standing army of equal caliber or drilled to the RMA of the time, the disciplined infantry with muskets who wouldnt break and run at battle. Even the last remnant of Islamic power in the subcontinent- Ahmed Abdali, was Afghani not of present day Pak. Back to the British then: Till 1857, the proportion of Muslims in the British Army was considerably lesser than that of other natives. After 1857, the loyal natives were rewarded, the mutineers and their ethnic/religious groups downsized and a % marked to each group, and hence began the ascendance of the forefathers of todays Pak Army and the hoary claim of being a martial race etc. Fact is that they have little to no connection of being part of a successful empire that ever existed in India, and during WW1 and WW2, they like most other Indians, were led and put into battle by Brits. During WW2, if you look at senior officers of native origin, most went to India- and they were but a handful to begin with. Even that, being of limited use.

Fact: Both India & Pakistan in 1965 were armies that were "learning" as far as waging war on their own was concerned. And UNLIKE Pakistan, India didnt sell its troops a line of hokey that their faith and piety would translate into automatic battlefield performance. That continues to be the reason why the Indian Army has a more representative modern officer corps which is secular, rational and does not covet power, unlike the Pakistani Army which sees itself as the self assigned guardian of Islam & Pakistan, both being synonymous.

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take your own advice, not all Pakistanis are zealots.

Not all. But a significant percentage.
Continue believing that they havent bought into their own idealogy, if you will since you have missed my point in totality- thats like stating that the Crusades were political and had no religious element to them. I would rather take an Army that declares its motto to be " Iman, Taqwa, Jihad fi Sabilillah" at its word. Not to mention its actions against non combatants it deemed heretical in 1971, and throughout the 80's and 90's in its own country. I dont underestimate the Pakistanis- they will fight hard in defence and wont be a walk over. But as far as being a professional apolitical worldclass armed forces is concerned, they are hampered severely by their idealogy and the greed of their officer corps. There are 24 hours in a day- you can spend those either doing your job (preparing for war), or running the local Govt. Needless to say, the latter affects the former.

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Do you really think India would ahve tried to grab Kashmir in the first palce if they had been able to accurately guage the Pakistani responce?

I would like to see the reasoning behind that incredible piece of reasoning.

Especially considering that India entered Kashmir AFTER Pakistan invaded it.

And considering that India didnt "grab" Kashmir, it was in talks with both the ruler as well as the popular leader (Sheikh Abdullah).

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Or they didn't lead the attack with the Shermans which had weaker armor and guns.

Fail to get what you mean by this.

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not what I said, I said the European antiosn sent crack crews to the competitions, while America sent regulars so that a comaprison was not valid.

So why are your regulars- who were according to you, automatically well trained on account of their upbringing etc- unable to cope with "crack crews"?

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Except that America could feild thousands of tanks, jets, and ships even if india could have afforded it they didn't have that skill base.

Simple logic- America, by the time of WW2 was an industrial power. India, was a colony with considerable resource constraints. One will be more profligate with its war and where it wages it, the other wont be.

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Look at the units involved, they were the same ones.

Were the leaders the same? Were the companies the same?

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If Pakistan had not gone over onto the attack after defeatign the intial Indian attack in the lahore sector, the hsitory books would call 65 or at leas tthe battles for lahore an Indian defeat.

Semantics.

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No my statement wa sto show that the AMX-13 fullfilled a critical role in the Indian Army. It gave them a level of fast hard hitting firepower the Pakistanis could not match.

Not even with their Pattons?

Archer · 09-05-2007, 14:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shipwreck

My bad then.

For some reason, I was under the rather vague impression that the Arjun Mk1 was going to use an indigenous upgrade of the Vijayanta's TFCS with the Barr & Stroud LRF.

Not your fault. Its Janes and its execrable local reporter Rahul Bedi who have been peddling that line of hokum since time immemorial. Too lazy and inaccurate to even update their information.

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What LRF does Arjun use then ? Local design or off-the-shelf ? By whom ?

There are currently two Arjun FCS- one is with Sagem sights and LRF could be either French or Indian, integrated by BEL/DRDO with Indian electronics (Ballistic computer/ Grips etc)
The other one is an all Indian one, known as the IGMS (see www.bel-india.com for details). This has a DRDO day sight and complete local electronics, including LRF. The thermal imager is integrated in India, but with imported core modules from another country.

Original plans were for the first 15 Arjuns to get the first FCS, followed by the rest to get the Indian one. But its upto the Army- they can decide to standardize on either one. If the first, then its probable that India will license produce it.

Both FCS have similar features & performance- around 90% Pk on moving targets at range. But the Army may prefer to standardize on one type for logistics reasons.

Otherwise, the entire Indian procurement system is a shambles- in terms of differing systems and the like.

To give an idea:

- T-90S- Bolomo Peleng (Belarus) 1GA46 Sights integrated into the Irtysh FCS, but with Thales Catherine TI

-Arjun- Block 1: Sagem-Indian FCS with French 2nd Gen TI
Block 2: Indian FCS with Israeli 2nd Gen TI

(Whichever Army standardizes on)

T-72 Upgrade- Block 1: EL-OP TISAS integrated into existing sights

Block 2: Trials underway (for a "FULL FCS") which will replace the existing sights and which will be license manufactured in India

BMP-2: EL-OP TISAS

etc etc..

Archer · 09-05-2007, 14:27 PM

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Originally Posted by Shipwreck

What night fighting capability ???

The Pakistani Pattons back in 1965 had no infrared periscopes for the gunner and the commander (infrared periscope for driver appeared on late-production M48 and I'm am not even sure the Pakistanis had this feature back in 1965).

The infrared searchlight (or Xenon white light) above the 90mm appeared on the M48A3, so the Pakistanis didn't have it back in 1965.

Shipwreck,

Take a look at the account by the Indian Gen a few pages back (PDF). He explicitly mentions that the Paks were using night fighting eqpt on their tanks..

What do you think? Another case of mistaken attribution?

Shipwreck · 09-05-2007, 16:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Archer

There are currently two Arjun FCS- one is with Sagem sights and LRF could be either French or Indian, integrated by BEL/DRDO with Indian electronics (Ballistic computer/ Grips etc)

The other one is an all Indian one, known as the IGMS (see www.bel-india.com for details). This has a DRDO day sight and complete local electronics, including LRF. The thermal imager is integrated in India, but with imported core modules from another country.

Original plans were for the first 15 Arjuns to get the first FCS, followed by the rest to get the Indian one. But its upto the Army- they can decide to standardize on either one. If the first, then its probable that India will license produce it.

Thanks.

Shipwreck · 09-05-2007, 16:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Archer

What do you think? Another case of mistaken attribution?

I'm afraid so.

zraver · 09-05-2007, 17:16 PM

Another example is the widely held beleif that the Indian Shermans with a 75mm gun were inferior to the Pakistani models with the 76mm gun. The 75mm Sherman of WW2 vintage was indeed an inferior tank so the assumption is valid, until of course you learn the Indian Shermans had the French clone of the Panthers long barreled 75mm.

dave lukins · 09-05-2007, 18:19 PM

Anothe flaw with the M48 was the tendency of the Hydrolic system to leak and burst into flames. This fault caused many casualties and was a major factor in Tank losses

Shamus · 09-05-2007, 18:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zraver

Another example is the widely held beleif that the Indian Shermans with a 75mm gun were inferior to the Pakistani models with the 76mm gun. The 75mm Sherman of WW2 vintage was indeed an inferior tank so the assumption is valid, until of course you learn the Indian Shermans had the French clone of the Panthers long barreled 75mm.

This is something(Among many other things

)that I did not know about the Shermans on the Indian side of the war,evens things out a bit if not giving the advantage to the Indian Shermans.

dave lukins · 09-05-2007, 18:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Archer

Shipwreck,

Take a look at the account by the Indian Gen a few pages back (PDF). He explicitly mentions that the Paks were using night fighting eqpt on their tanks..

What do you think? Another case of mistaken attribution?

The late production M48A1 had night vision capabilities, plus the driver had an infrared periscope(T41)

If it was anything like the Centurion the British had, it was a filter fitted over the Searchlight. The driver had filters fitted over his headlights..but I don't know if that applied to the Thread in question!!!

zraver · 09-05-2007, 18:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dave lukins

Anothe flaw with the M48 was the tendency of the Hydrolic system to leak and burst into flames. This fault caused many casualties and was a major factor in Tank losses

Are you sure? Israel was pretty good in fixing defects in American material but in 73 they got blind sided by the M60's flammable hydraulics. America and israel both went Do'h! Seems if the lessons of the Indo-pak war 8 years earleir had been known this wouldn't have happened.

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This is something(Among many other things )that I did not know about the Shermans on the Indian side of the war,evens things out a bit if not giving the advantage to the Indian Shermans

I didn't know it either until I dug into the subject. India may actually have had 3 gun types on their Shermans 75/L34 (Sherman IV and V), 76mm Sherman (IVA and VA), and 75/L70 (not known if a direct M50 clone or indigenous development but India did have the AMX-13). Prior to 1965 2 regiments of Shermans were upgunned with the French gun. India almost certainly upgunned the 75/L34 equipped Shermans so I do not know if any of these saw combat with the L34.

I have now found at least 3 nations that attmepted to upgun the Sherman with the 75/L70. India and israel refitted the guns onto exosting turrets, while Egypt used the AMX-13's FL14 turret on a Sherman hull.

lemontree · 09-06-2007, 00:24 AM

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Originally Posted by zraver

The question was if Indian had bene able to accurately guage the pakistani responce, not what they did. Archer claims the Pakistanis are incapable of looking into the future, I simply pointed out an example where perhaps the very same ethnic groups might not be so different.

It was the Pak army system that was to balme for that, not their officers. A dictatorship breeds favoritism and idiots rise to position of power. There have been exceptions at the Pak Army formation level like Maj Gen Iftikar, who went on to re-captured Chhamb in 1971 from us.

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What troops did pakistan shift?

7 Inf Div and major elements of 1 Armd Div. I cannot give you unit names off hand, as the units were shifted in an ad hoc manner as developments took shape, first in Lahore sector and then in Sialkot.

There is a lot of stuff on the net on these battles.

zraver · 09-06-2007, 01:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Archer

I fail to get what you mean by this.

Pakistan didn't lead its attacks with Shermans, but India led its defense with them. Or so say the tank loss reports. Paksitan was firing on M4 Shermans while beign fired upon by superior French 75mm guns, 20 pounder OQF guns, and 106mm recoiless rifle equipped jeeps.

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So why are your regulars- who were according to you, automatically well trained on account of their upbringing etc- unable to cope with "crack crews"?

Because Europe has jsut as high of a technology savvy population base.

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Not even with their Pattons?

The Pattons, Shermans and Chaffees could kill the AMX-13- if they could hit it. But its small size, hard hitting long range gun, and extremily fast speed made it a very difficult target to hit. As a cavalry platform ther eis a reason it survived for so long going from 75mm to 90mm and finally to 105mm.

Stan187 · 09-06-2007, 01:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zraver

Are you sure? Israel was pretty good in fixing defects in American material but in 73 they got blind sided by the M60's flammable hydraulics. America and israel both went Do'h! Seems if the lessons of the Indo-pak war 8 years earleir had been known this wouldn't have happened.

Yeah, those tanks were rolled off the ships and planes and rushed straight to battle to replace losses. Interestingly enough, it was likely the reservists that got to use the brand new toys first.

Ray · 09-06-2007, 05:17 AM

Zraver,

This may interest you about the Pakistani psyche.

Maybe it will help you to realise the reality of the mindset that prompts the Pakistani Army and the Pakistani awam.

I am not contesting the who has the bigger one type of debate because that is theoretical and does not excite me. I am interested in the goats and not the scapegoats because at the end of the day (to use this overworked cliché), results is what I was interested in as far as war was concerned and not what who had the better technology!

With all due regards, under no circumstances, can it be accepted that Indians were inferior in understanding their equipment!

The article has independents giving their views.

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Abuse of History in Pakistan: Bangladesh to Kargil
Yvette Rosser

In mid-June I traveled from India to Pakistan during the height of the Kargil crisis. I made the trip on the Delhi-Lahore "diplomacy" bus. The rhetorical and ideological distance at the Wagh border crossing between India and Pakistan was like traveling a million miles and one hundred and eighty degrees in less than fifty meters. It was certainly an interesting time to be crossing that boarder. While in Pakistan, I felt as if I was experiencing history in the making, and the use of twisted history for nationalist justification.

I delivered a paper in Islamabad, in July arranged by the Islamabad Forum for Social Sciences. This paper discussed how Pakistani textbooks practice history by erasure and embellishment and how these distorted historical "facts" are used to corroborate contemporary political perspectives and justify current military adventurism. I cited examples from Pakistani Studies textbooks and compared these to the headlines which appeared in Pakistani newspapers during the Kargil crisis. My lecture was discussed in a newspaper article published in "The News," a daily in Islamabad, (quote): "Yvette drew examples from state-sponsored textbooks used in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan to illustrate the appropriation of history to reinforce national philosophy or ideology wherein historical interpretations are predetermined, unassailable, and concretized." History by erasure can have its long-term negative repercussions. In Pakistani textbooks, which narrate the 65 War with India, Operation Gibraltar is never mentioned. Operation Gibraltar and the recent events in Kargil are products of the same processes. The mistakes made in Kargil are a legacy of the lack of information that citizens have about the real history of their country. During the "war-like-situation" in Kargil, a headline in a Pakistani newspaper read, "Kargil: Revenge for ?71." This point of view can only be propagated by someone who is unaware of the real facts that led the Bengalis to succeed from the western part of the country, by someone who blames the breakup of Pakistan on India Gandhi and "Hindu influences" in East Pakistan rather than on 24 years of Panjabi-perpetuated internal colonization.

While I was out of the USA last year, I also spent six months in Bangladesh where I made several presentations. The first was in May 1999, entitled "Hegemony and Historiography: The Politics of Pedagogy." I also delivered a paper in Dhaka in late July when I returned to Bangladesh after a trip to Pakistan. That paper was called, "The Pakistani Historian and the Bangladesh War of Liberation." This talk received wide coverage in the Bangladesh media. Here is a message sent from Dr. Ratan Lal Chakravorty, a history professor at Dhaka University. This message describes some of the news reports about that talk:

"1. The news coverage about you appears in a Daily Newspaper which is very much popular at the present moment. It?s name is the Janakanta (Voice of the People) which I am a life subscriber. On 8 August, your photographs appeared with news in four columns of half a page. The paper appreciated you to such an extent that we had seldom received. The main topic covers your findings about the historiography and historical studies of Bangladesh and it suggests to follow your methodology to understand the things going at present.
"2. The second also appeared in the Janakanta (Voice of the People) on 11 August, 1999, where an analytical and critical assessment of your work and objectives were done in a very sophisticated way using metaphor. The writer appreciated you very much for speaking the truth and the reality."

Here are some observations about current events in Pakistan as they relate to the use of history in justifying current governmental and military actions and also about the psychological health of the nation:

Pakistani nationalism is characterized by ironies and contractions. Its ideology and national mythos have not been substantiated by its historical realities. In the last fifty-two years the vision or ideal of Pakistan, as a secure homeland where the Muslims in the subcontinent could find justice and live in peace, has not been realized by the citizens. There is a shared experience of disappointment and dissatisfaction among the populace that has not abated since the restoration of democracy in 1988, and in fact the feelings of betrayal and a collective mental depression have increased dramatically in the last decade. This intellectual fatalism and depression about the state of affairs is not something new, as can be seen in an excerpt from the book, Breaking the Curfew, A Political Journey Through Pakistan, published ten years ago by a British journalist, Emma Duncan, where she wrote, and I quote,"[. . . .] many Pakistanis I talked to seemed disappointed. It was not just the disappointment that they were not as rich as they should be or that their children were finding it difficult to get jobs; it was a wider sense of betrayal, of having been cheated on a grant scale. The Army blamed the politicians, the politicians the Army; the businessmen blamed the civil servants, the civil servants the politicians; everybody blamed the landlords and the foreigners, and the left and the religious fundamentalists blamed everybody except the masses.

"More than anywhere I have been - much more than India - its people worry about the state of their country. They wonder what went wrong; they fear for the future. They condemn it; they pray for it. They are involved in the nation?s public life as passionately as in their small private dilemmas. . . " (end quote).

In the ten years since this observation was written, the passion that the people in Pakistan have for their country has not abated, but the shared feelings of betrayal and disappointment have increased exponentially. A friend of mine who is a professor, the principal at a woman?s college in Lahore, confided that she and most of her colleagues felt not only disillusioned, but abjectly hopeless about the condition and future prospects of their beloved country. She said that she had lost all hope. She did not see that the nation could survive given the current situation and there was no alternative in sight. Here is a dynamic woman, a sincere practicing Muslim, a patriotic Pakistani whose father was an officer in the Education Core. She serves on the boards of directors of numerous institutions and works with the government to develop and implement various educational projects. She gives generously of her time and devotes herself professionally and personally to her students, her colleagues and the educational organizations of Pakistan. Yet, though she is totally committed to her country, and by nature a jolly and friendly person not prone to any type of self pity or despondency, she is overwhelmed by feelings of loss, failure, and depression when she thinks of her beloved nation.

I was intrigued and disturbed by this expression of depression, which, regardless of Emma Duncan?s observations did not seem as profoundly obvious when I was in Pakistan two years ago. Since my dear sister working in Lahore informed me that many of her friends and colleagues also felt the same, I decided to ask the professors and scholars with whom I had scheduled interviews if they shared this feeling of depression and sorrow regarding their nation. I was astounded to find similar feeling of disempowerment coupled with a dissatisfaction which offered no solutions. Many of the social activists and progressives with whom I spoke expressed this same helplessness while at the same time they counteract their feelings of loss by publishing journals, holding seminars and discussion groups?many work with NGOs to develop educational opportunities for girls in rural areas or contribute their time to other altruistic and progressive endeavors. They remain active?their work belies the futility which they expressed to me. They continue working, pouring their efforts and souls into positive activity aimed at improving the social and intellectual climate of their country, and they survive by not dwelling on the fact that ultimately, they feel powerless to effect any positive change.

It distressed me that these very people who could help Pakistan the most and whose voices should be heard and heeded are the very same people who, because of their political perspectives and social critiques, are often harassed by the authorities, denied jobs and otherwise discriminated against by the establishment. The current democratically elected government continues to make it difficult for intellectuals with alternative viewpoints to do research and even to travel abroad, not to mention what has happened lately to prominent journalists. Several professors at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad informed me that a recent decree by the government mandated that professors must now obtain an NOC (No Objection Certificate) when planning to travel abroad even for a family vacation. One well known and respected Physics professor, Dr. Parvez Hoodbhoy is a vocal critic about Pakistani affairs and writes magazines articles and essays about issues such as corruption, the unequal availability of educational opportunities and lately about the folly and danger of the nuclear option. Recently, Dr. Hoodbhoy was denied an NOC when he was invited to lecture in the Physics Department at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). He was able to leave the country only through the intervention of the Vice-chancellor of his university, Dr. Tariq Siddique, who also taught at the Civil Service Academy and served as the education minister under Zulfikar Bhutto. Dr. Tariq Siddique is well-known for supporting his staff and helping his former students. However, his intervention on behalf of Dr. Hoodbhoy, I was informed, risked provoking official ire. However, this type of potential threat is not something new to Tariq Siddique, since he had been dismissed from Bhutto?s cabinet for too zealously advocating teacher empowerment and merit-based promotion.

Many scholars at the university level expressed resentment that research was discouraged and intellectuals were often seen as a threat by the establishment. They complained that mediocrity was encouraged and original research impeded. Surrounded by a completely corrupt system, which they felt powerless to change, yet endowed with self respect and moral conscientiousness, many of these caring and intellectually brilliant individuals lamented about their hopelessness and depression regarding the condition of their nation.

As I was disturbed by this shared expression of depression, I interviewed a psychiatrist and asked him his opinion about this phenomenon. He first pointed out that the depression was a tangible reality and could be quantified by the huge increase in the number of suicides in Pakistan in the last few years. He said that there are 20 to 30 suicides per day in Pakistan which occur primarily among the young between the ages of fifteen and thirty, mostly upper-class urbanized females and newly educated rural or newly urbanized lower middle class males. Dr. Inayat Magsi, from the Civil Hospital in Karachi, explained that most of these suicides are the result of the loss of hope for the future. But he also pointed out that the dramatic rise in clinical depression which he has observed even among citizens with ample economic opportunities can be partly attributed to the fact that even though democracy has been practiced now for over ten years, there has been a decline in the development of civil society, a death of collective vision, of enthusiasm to change the system from within, a certain resignation.

During the time of Martial Law, the iron rule of General Zia-ul-Haq, the intellectuals and socially conscious scholars, along with large segments of the common people, had something to fight against, a mission and a purpose to rid their country of authoritarian rule. Dr. Inayat Magsi pointed out that this struggle against the military government and the hope for democracy united the people with a vision which kept them enthusiastic about the future potential of their country. Once democracy was restored, the level of corruption certainly did not decrease, the practice of fomenting regionalism which was practiced by General Zia increased, promises of a better future rapidly died as the political parties fought a propaganda war for their ascendancy instead working for the good of the country. The often disenfranchised polity was once again dismayed and depressed by the inability of their officials to focus on the needs and priorities of Pakistan. Dr. Inayat Magsi added that now that there is no military government to rebel against, they can only blame themselves for the lack of leadership and since they are powerless to create other alternatives, they are disheartened. . depressed.

Pakistan is a land that is torn by ethnic differences and is seemingly unable to achieve unity within its diversity. It was founded on the principle that Islam, as the great leveler of class and caste, was a sufficient force to tie the Sindhis, the Pathans, and the Balouchi tribes, and also the Bengalis together with the dominant Panjabis to form a cohesive and stable national identity which would supersede regional loyalties and ethnicities. Through the years, this mission to create a strong centrally controlled government has been pursued by various methods including realignment of political associations between its minority groups, usually based more on gains for provincial party bosses than nation cohesion, and by the use of military coercion, which as in the case of the Bengali majority, resulted in the split up of the original country.

Even today the central government operates under the assumption that Pakistan is a unitary entity, though the rhetorical idea of "One Unit" was only abandoned immediately before the Bangladesh war of liberation. The Pakistani military and bureaucracy are still grappling with the problems that the contradictions inherent in the Ideology of Pakistan continue to create within the varied cultural landscape of the nation.

The powers at the center, usually more intent at retaining the profitable reins on the government, are inevitably unable to make equitable policies which can reverse the decentralized loyalties nor reconcile these tendencies with the imperatives of a highly centralized state apparatus. As Feroz Ahmed in his book Ethnicity and Politics in Pakistan, published by Oxford University Press in 1999, wrote, "The state and its ideologues have steadfastly refused to recognize the fact that these regions are not merely chunks of territory with different names but areas which were historically inhabited by peoples who had different languages and cultures, and even states of their own. This official and intellectual denial has, no doubt, contributed to the progressive deterioration of inter-group relations, weakened societies cohesiveness, and undermined the state?s capacity to forge security and sustain development." (end quote)

Denial and erasure are the primary tools of historiography as it is officially practiced in Pakistan. There is no room in the official historical narrative for questions or alternative points of view which is Nazariya Pakistan, the Ideology of Pakistan?devoted to a mono-perspectival religious orientation. There is no other correct way to view the historical record. It is, after all, since the time of General Zia-ul Haq, a capital crime to talk against the "Ideology of Pakistan."

According to A.H. Nayyar from Quaid-e-Azam University, "What is important in the exercise is the faithful transmission, without any criticism or re-evaluation, of the particular view of the past which is implicit in the coming to fruition of the ?Pakistan Ideology.?" Rahat Saeed of the Irtiqa Institute of Social Sciences in Karachi explains that school level history teachers are often aware that what they are teaching in their Pakistani Studies classes is at best contradictory and often quite incorrect. They usually do not attempt to explain the "real" history regarding such events as the civil war in 1971, because to do so might jeopardize their jobs, and, as Rahat explains, the teachers are afraid "to corrupt their students with the truth."

In contemporary Pakistani textbooks the historical narrative is based on the Two Nation Theory. The story of the nation begins with the advent of Islam when Mohammed-bin-Qazm arrived in Sindh followed by Mahmud of Ghazni storming through the Khyber Pass, 16 times, bringing the Light of Islam to the infidels who converted en mass to escape the evil domination of the cruel Brahmins. Reviewing a selection of textbooks published since 1972 in Pakistan will verify the assumption that there is little or no discussion of the ancient cultures that have flowered in the land that is now Pakistan, such as Taxila and Mohenjo-Daro, though this lack seems to have been partly addressed in the very recent editions of several history textbooks published for Oxford-Cambridge elite schools. In most textbooks, any mention of Hinduism is inevitably accompanied by derogatory critiques, and none of the greatness of Indic civilization is considered?not even the success of Chandragupta Maurya, who defeated, or at least frightened the invading army of Alexander the Great at the banks of the Beas River where it flows through the land that is now called Pakistan. These events are deemed meaningless since they are not about Muslim heroes. There is an elision in time between the moment Islam first arrived in Sindh and Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

This shortsighted approach to historiography was not always the case.

Up until 1972, the history textbooks included much more elaborate sections on the history of the subcontinent, while adopting the colonial frame of periodization?the books described the Hindu Period, The Muslim Period and the British Period. History textbooks, such as Indo Pak History, Part 1 published in 1951, included chapters with titles such as the Ramayana and Mahabharata Era, Aryans? Religion and Educational Literature, the Caste System, Jainism and Buddhism, Invasions of Iranians and Greeks, Chandra Gupta Maurya, Maharaja Ashok, Maharaja Kaniska, The Gupta Family, Maharaja Harish, New Era of Hinduism, The Era of Rajputs. This same basic table of contents, which also included the history of Islam, was prevalent in textbooks until post 1971. A textbook published in 1964, for use at a military academy in Abbottabad included similar chapters, and even had a chapter entitled, Mahatma Gandhi, Man of Peace. This same edition of this textbooks was republished without any changes until 1971. It can therefore be seen that Pakistani textbooks were not always estranged from their associations with South Asian history and culture. but beginning with the Bhutto years and accelerating under the Islamized tutelage of General Zia-ul Haq, not only has the history of the subcontinent been discarded, but it has been vilified and mocked and transformed into the evil other, a measure of what Pakistan is not. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto?s influence on the textbooks was profound?he was furious at India, whom he blamed for the break-up of the country. Though ironically, his mother was a Hindu, a natch-girl (dancer) who had converted to Islam in order to marry his wealthy father, Bhutto vehemently launched an anti-Indian campaign with vituperative anti-Hindu rhetoric. This legacy of his orchestrated hatred is still the basis of Pakistani historical narratives where Gandhi is now usually referred to as a "conniving bania."

Much of the historical discourse and social analysis in Pakistan is based on negative methodologies which seek to justify Pakistan?s failures and shortcomings by pointing out similar problems that also exist in neighboring India. Instead of focusing their academic lens on the Pakistani situation, and be the view positive or negative, analyzing what is seen within their nation, scholars repeatedly use the tact of dismissing problems in Pakistan by discussions of parallel problems in India.

Within this paradigm, Pakistani scholarship is defined by placing the country?s problems in a less negative light in comparison to India?s problems. This could be called the theory of self justification, but more aptly results in self negation. A vivid example of this methodology can be found in the book by Akbar S. Ahmed, Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity: the Search for Saladin. It is one of a great number of books published in Pakistan during 1997. Many of these books published in honor of Pakistan?s fiftieth anniversary, such as Feroz Ahmed?s Ethnicity and Politics in Pakistan, and others such as the work by the linguist, Dr. Tariq Rehman, represent an effort to look objectively at topics such as Pakistani nation-building, society, cultural myths, domestic and foreign policy. Prior to this golden jubilee moment of self analysis, most books that graced the OUP or Vanguard shelves were basically biased and very much situated in the straight jacket of the two nation theory. This is not to criticize their nationalist orientation, all nations write nationalist histories, but an observation that historical discourse in Pakistan is dominated by negative images of India and Hinduism. In general, the majority of books in the field of the social sciences written in Pakistan have lacked theoretical basis and are short on angst and verve, though perhaps books by ex-pats, such as Mustfa Pasha are usually more circumspect. As Dr. Rahat in Karachi joked, "In Pakistan, social scientists are more social t

09-05-2007, 17:16 PM	#141 (permalink)
zraver Contrary by nature. *Military Professional* Join Date: 10-22-06 Location: Arkansas Posts: 2,529 Country:	Another example is the widely held beleif that the Indian Shermans with a 75mm gun were inferior to the Pakistani models with the 76mm gun. The 75mm Sherman of WW2 vintage was indeed an inferior tank so the assumption is valid, until of course you learn the Indian Shermans had the French clone of the Panthers long barreled 75mm.

09-05-2007, 18:19 PM	#142 (permalink)
dave lukins *Military Professional* Join Date: 01-04-07 Location: cheshire uk Posts: 4,732 Country:	Anothe flaw with the M48 was the tendency of the Hydrolic system to leak and burst into flames. This fault caused many casualties and was a major factor in Tank losses