In 1958, General Muhammad Ayub Khan (1907–74), with substantial military backing from the United States, seized power in Pakistan. By the time India's powerful first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964), died and was succeeded by the lackluster Lal Bahadur Shastri (1904–66), Ayub was ready to test India's frontier outposts in Kashmir. Since the Iindo-Pakistani War (1947–1948), the Kashmir region had existed as a state divided between Pakistan and India. About a third of it was under Pakistani administration as Azad Kashmir—Free Kashmir—and about two-thirds was occupied by Indian forces—despite an Indian promise, never fulfilled, of a Kashmiri plebiscite. Always a flashpoint, Kashmir became a renewed cause of conflict when Ayub signed a treaty of friendship with China. As India saw it, this put in jeopardy the boundary between Kashmir and China. Fevered talks began between India and Pakistan, but predictably broke down, and a border war flared in the Rann of Kutch during April 9–30, 1965. Pakistan's American-supplied Patton tanks rolled to an easy victory over India's British Centurions, and the country's new prime minister quickly turned to the United Nations for succor. The United Nations engineered a cease-fire and both sides withdrew their troops.

Despite this mutual acceptance of the borders established in 1948, Pakistan believed that it had actually won the war and that India's army was weak. At least, those were the reasons Ayub's foreign minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (1928–79), gave when he argued for another campaign in Kashmir during the summer of 1965. Pakistan launched "Operation Grandslam"—aimed at cutting off Kashmir along its narrow south neck before India could respond with its ragtag tanks—in mid-August.

Now, the long-simmering dispute rapidly escalated into a major war on September 6, 1965, when India sent 900,000 troops across the border toward Lahore, Pakistan. The city was in range of the Indian tanks when the United Nations was able to broker a new cease-fire on September 27—but not before a large number of Pakistani tanks had been destroyed and a number of troops killed.

During the cease-fire, both sides withdrew to the battle lines established before August. The cease-fire also kept China out of the war, and it gave sufficient breathing space for mediation. The United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union met at a Tashkent conference sponsored by the Russians, which resulted in a pledge of cooperation and a new Indian promise of a Kashmiri plebiscite. Unfortunately, Indian prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri died just after the conference. His successor, Indira Gandhi (1917–84), followed through on most of Shastri's promises, but not all of them. Most significantly, the plebiscite remained unimplemented. War would be renewed in 1971.

Further Information

M. J. Akbar, India: The Siege Within: Challenges to a Nation's Unity (New Delhi: UBSPD, 1996,); Farooq Bajwa, From Kutch to Tashkent: The Indo-Pakistan War of 1965 (London: Hurst, 2013); Balraj Puri, Jammu and Kashmir: Triumph and Tragedy of Indian Federalism (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers, ca. 1981); Robert Wirsing, India, Pakistan, and the Kashmir Dispute: On Regional Conflict and Its Resolution (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994).

Following on the nationalist movements in Latin America and the Middle East, nationalist leaders in India achieved independence from the United Kingdom in 1947. The mood of celebration soon changed to that of desperation and terror. The traditionally powerful Muslim community, the numerous Hindu populations, and the well-organized Sikh population had to decide how to rule India without the British. The political leadership established a democratic republic, but mistrust among these distinctive groups resulted in attacks against each other. Neighbors began killing neighbors due to their religious affiliations, and about 300 thousand people were killed. To stop the bloodshed, the leaders decided to divide India, creating Pakistan and Bangladesh as Muslim states and leaving India for the Hindu and Sikh population. This decision slowed the killing but did not resolve the problem completely. Members of the different religious groups were not neatly located in each of the new nations; there were Hindus in Pakistan, Muslims in India, and Sikh everywhere. Millions of people began to migrate to their corresponding countries, and the result was the largest single migration in human history: an estimated 15 million migrants relocated in three years. Most of them found limited resources in their host countries and were relegated to refugee camps, where disease and famine caused many deaths. In the end, about one million people lost their lives. Ironically, independence from Britain had been relatively bloodless; the primary source of violence was the freedom to self-govern in a polarized society. Africa would have a similar experience in the following decades.