A Matter of Honor

It began after dawn with a thunderous artillery barrage that sent the villagers of Chhamb and Dewa in the southwestern tip of Kashmir scurrying for shelter. As the sun rose higher over the semidesert land--flat, dotted with brush, a low mountain range to the north--Indian troops peered anxiously toward the border. What they saw sent them in a hasty retreat to the mountains: over the arid earth came 70 U.S.built Patton tanks and, in the dust cloud behind the lumbering giants, a full brigade of Pakistani infantrymen.

No Contest. Dewa and Chhamb were swiftly captured by the armored column, which rolled forward some eight miles against light resistance and halted by the banks of the shallow Munawar Tawi River. The Indian counterattack came from the sky--28 British-made Vampire jets bombed and strafed the armored force, destroying an estimated ten tanks before Pakistani supersonic F-86 Sabres streaked to the rescue. It was no contest: four of the slower Indian planes were shot down, and the rest scattered.

The air-tank battle last week abruptly escalated the Kashmir trouble from a border skirmish to the brink of all-out war. The contending Asian powers are evenly matched. India's army is the larger (867,000 to 253,000), but the Pakistanis are much better equipped. In a contest of quantity versus quality, India could probably overrun populous but poorly defended East Pakistan in a matter of weeks but might meet disaster in the arid uplands of West Pakistan.

Bloody Welter. The struggle has been 18 years in the making, and the basic issue is religion. After the British left the subcontinent in 1947, Pakistan and India emerged as independent nations in a welter of blood. An estimated half a million people were slain in the Moslem-Hindu riots, and hordes of panicky refugees fled toward the nearest friendly border. Each princely state could supposedly choose which nation it wanted to adhere to. But when the Moslem ruler of predominantly Hindu Hyderabad opted for Pakistan, Indian troops marched in and reversed his decision. When the Hindu ruler of predominantly Moslem Kashmir chose India, Pakistan also sent in troops. The result was a 14-month war that was finally brought to an end under United Nations auspices, with India holding two-thirds of Kashmir and Pakistan the remainder.

Since then the opposing armies have been glowering at each other across the cease-fire line, and have occasionally exchanged shots. The U.N. peacekeeping force under Australia's General Robert Nimmo has neither the authority nor the men to prevent outbreaks and is barely tolerated by both sides. The U.N. has four times ordered a plebiscite in Kashmir in order to determine the wishes of its inhabitants. India has always refused and, in 1957, a handpicked, Kashmiri puppet legislature declared the state an "integral" part of India. Kashmir's Sheik Abdullah, who belatedly objected to Indian domination and also called for a plebiscite, has spent most of his time in an Indian jail.

Fiery Pass. Last month when guerrilla warfare broke out in Kashmir, India announced to the world that the guerrillas were actually infiltrators from Pakistan. Just as loudly, Pakistan insisted that they were native Kashmiri "freedom fighters." Whatever their identity, the Indians have killed or captured more than a third of the estimated 3,000 "infiltrators." Deciding that this was not enough, India then moved to strike at the "infiltration routes" themselves. Indian troops crossed the U.N. cease-fire line and occupied half a dozen abandoned Pakistani outposts. Seemingly encouraged by the silence of Pakistan's President Mohammed Ayub Khan, India stepped up the tempo. In the Punch-Uri area, the Indians advanced fully 25 miles. Toward the end of August, four battalions of crack Indian troops drove the Pakistanis from two vital passes and claimed to have killed 62 and captured 14 of the enemy.

India became delirious with victory. News of the Indian advances was wildly cheered in Parliament. The government radio announced the "liberation" of 5,000 people and the establishment of Indian civil administration in the "liberated" areas. While they were at it, Indian troops decided to "correct" the cease-fire line where it bulged toward the Kashmir capital of Srinagar: the salient was reduced from about 80 miles to 16. In New Delhi, a top official announced: "The United Nations has not been able to see to it that the cease fire line is observed. India has taken the task upon itself."

Question of Objectives. The open seizure of Pakistan-controlled territory left Ayub Khan almost no choice. Either Pakistan would hit back or be exposed to the world as a paper tiger. Last week Pakistan made its military answer and also chose the ground on which it would fight. Its 70 tanks were deployed on the favorable flatlands of Chhamb rather than in the rugged mountain country near Srinagar.

It was not yet clear whether the Pakistani drive had the limited objective of smashing Indian forces in the immediate area around Chhamb, or whether it had the far graver purpose of crossing India's international boundary itself to strike at the vital road that connects Jammu to Srinagar. In New Delhi, Defense Minister Y. B. Chavan declared flatly that Pakistan had invaded Indian territory, and officials spoke ominously of a nearby Indian armored division capable of moving into the Chhamb area within 24 hours. It might well move with caution, since India's armored equipment consists mostly of aged British Centurions and U.S. World War II Shermans--no match for Pakistan's Patton tanks.

It is this disparity that brought a stiff Indian protest to Washington last week, complaining that Pakistan's modern planes and armor were supplied by the U.S. with the explicit understanding that they would never be used against India.* Ayub Khan responded that "we will spend our time dealing with the enemy rather than putting the American weapons in cotton wool." Uncertain just what was happening in the Chhamb area, U.S. military officers flew to the fighting scene to investigate the charges.

Talk of Honor. Ayub Khan ignored the angry howls from New Delhi, warning that Indian aggression "cannot and shall not be allowed to go unchallenged." Dismissing charges of infiltration, he said bitterly, "We are doing no more than what we have always pledged ourselves to do, which is to support the people of Kashmir in exercising their right of self-determination as pledged to them by the United Nations and Pakistan, as well as India. India has dishonored her pledge. Pakistan shall honor it!"

With both sides openly contemptuous of the U.N., Secretary-General U Thant abandoned as useless his month-long "quiet diplomacy" by which he hoped to achieve behind-the-scenes mediation. He publicly called for a return to old positions and mutual respect for the cease-fire line. It was obvious last week that no one was listening, and observers could only reflect that when nations begin talking about their honor, they are in a mood for a long fight.

*Pakistan has received some $5 billion in U.S. aid, about $1.5 billion of it in military hardware. Of the $5.2 billion India has received from the U.S., virtually none has been of a military nature.

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