external Inter-national borders of the Sub-continent of India, say at the Kuen Lun border of Kashmir at Kukalang in Kanjut, rather than the armies of India and Pakistan fighting each other at Kargil! It could just have happened... ‘The crux of the whole matter was that the armies of both the countries were continuing to face each other when they could have been released to defend their respective territories’….’the need to have a joint defence originates from the basic fact that India and Pakistan lived in the same region which had to be defended after an understanding between the people of the two countries’…if we ‘disengage our armed forces from facing inwards as they do today, and face them outward , I feel we shall have a good chance of preventing a recurrence of the history of the past, which was that whenever this sub-continent was divided –and often it was divided –some one or the other invited an outsider to step in’. Proposal for the joint defence of the Indian Sub-continent made by President Ayub Khan In the year 1959 which he repeated in the year 1960, ab initio and point blank rejected by Nehru to avoid antagonising relations, albeit servile, with China, even at the cost of our own South Asian solidarity!
Pakistan's first military ruler, field marshal Ayub Khan who seized power in a coup in 1958, was wary of expansionism by Communist China. One of the measures he suggested to contain this would sound improbable today: A joint defence agreement with India. From 1953, Chinese troops carried out localised intrusions into Hunza. In 1959, Ayub Khan declared, "any Chinese intrusion into Pakistan territory would be repelled by Pakistan with all the force at her command”.
India's first prime minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, rejected Ayub's proposal. Speaking in the Lok Sabha in May that year, Nehru said, "… we do not want to have a common defence policy, which is almost some kind of military alliance..."
A letter from then British prime minister Harold Macmillan to then US president John F. Kennedy, dated December 13, 1962, emphasised the UK's view of a joint defence pact. Macmillan wrote, "what sort of army should the Indians have to fill the major role of defending themselves against an all-out Chinese invasion? It is clear to me that any sensible defence, on whatever scale may be agreed, can only be effective if it is organised as a joint Pakistani-Indian plan to defend the subcontinent as a whole. This would be far more effective, less wasteful of troops, and would avoid our chief difficulty which is how to help the Indians without correspondingly upsetting the Pakistanis who are loyal friends and members of the CENTO and SEATO pacts."
In the article titled Tomorrow's Army, Ahmad Faruqui converses with Brian Cloughley, a historian of the Pakistani Army. He writes, "I asked if a time would come when Indians and Pakistanis will have routine exchanges of general officers and maybe even hold joint training exercises. After all, no less a military figure than President Field Marshal Ayub Khan had offered a joint defence pact to President Nehru in the late 1950s.
Brian said he very much doubted it and reminded me that Nehru had countered Ayub by saying “Joint against whom?” He said Nehru thought he was being clever but instead he was being arrogant and short-sighted. A real opportunity for peace was lost and increasing friction between the two siblings ultimately led to war in 1965".
So what if it was a mutually beneficial some kind of a "military alliance" of the Countries in the Sub-continent of India against alien foreign external countries outside of South Asia. If it was indeed a military alliance, so be it! By being thus summarily averse to South Asian solidarity as, it imperilled and infringed upon Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru‘s subservient unconditional and absolute friendship with the Regime in China, Mr Jawaharlal Nehru summarily changed the direction of the history of South Asia or the Sub-continent of India for ever, for the worse!
The issue transcends Pakistani occupation of Gilgit or Baltistan and the repercussions is that the Chinese regime has slyly and cunningly concluded a per se illegal and opportunistic so-called border agreement in 1962 with the Pakistani regime and Pakistan has illegally given away vast areas of India in the Cis-Kuen Lun Tract in Kashmir extending from Chhogori K2 to the Taghdumbash Pamir and Mariom Pamir and the Kukalang, Yangi, Kilian, Sanju-la and Hindu-tash Passes in northern Kashmir. If the stance of the government of Pakistan was that the northern border of Kashmir is the Kuen Lun Range and condemned and denounced Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru for publishing a per se illegal and null and void new map out of the blue in 1954, it would have been an altogether different story! I wish that had been the case. But if India were to recognise Pakistani occupation of Gilgit, Kanjut and Baltistan, it would be tantamount to recognising the surrender of the Cis-Kuen Lun Tract in Kashmir extending from Chhogori K2 to the Taghdumbash Pamir and Mariom Pamir and the Kukalang, Yangi, Kilian, Sanju-la and Hindu-tash Passes in Kashmir to the Chinese Empire in Occupied East Turkistan as valid and legitimate. It would have serious ramifications and repercussions in the long run long afterwards when the re-unification of the whole of the Sub-continent of India takes place. This cannot and shall not be permitted. The issue is that smaller states cannot protect the external boundaries of South Asia or the Sub-continent of India. Field Marshal Ayub Khan had the high level of intellect and wisdom to realise that. That is the reason why Pakistan's first military
ruler, Field Marshal Ayub Khan desired for a Common Defence of the frontiers of the Sub-continent of India. Only a reunified India comprising not just the Republic of India but the rest of present countries including Pakistan which comprises the Sub-continent of India can protect the external International boundaries or the external frontiers of the Sub-continent of India including the Kuen Lun Range Boundary or the Iran- Pakistan International Boundary on the Sarhad Range wherein are the Kuh - i-Taftan, Kuh- e- Estand or Kuh - e-Lunka, and Kuh- e-Malusan which is the historical International Boundary of India with Iran, rather than the internal International Boundaries like the Radcliffe Line separating India and Pakistan or the Durand Line separating Afghanistan and Pakistan. Ultimately, the whole of the Sub-continent of India comprising the states in The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation SAARC would have to re-unify and restore the Nation of India or Hind!
ruler, Field Marshal Ayub Khan desired for a Common Defence of the frontiers of the Sub-continent of India. Only a reunified India comprising not just the Republic of India but the rest of present countries including Pakistan which comprises the Sub-continent of India can protect the external International boundaries or the external frontiers of the Sub-continent of India including the Kuen Lun Range Boundary or the Iran- Pakistan International Boundary on the Sarhad Range wherein are the Kuh - i-Taftan, Kuh- e- Estand or Kuh - e-Lunka, and Kuh- e-Malusan which is the historical International Boundary of India with Iran, rather than the internal International Boundaries like the Radcliffe Line separating India and Pakistan or the Durand Line separating Afghanistan and Pakistan. Ultimately, the whole of the Sub-continent of India comprising the states in The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation SAARC would have to re-unify and restore the Nation of India or Hind!
