New Delhi, May 1
Gen Sam Manekshaw has been regarded as the hero of 1971 war against Pakistan that led to creation of Bangladesh earning him the rank of Field Marshal, but one of his top generals in that operation has for the first time sharply criticised his war plans and tactics suggesting these could have denied India victory.
Lt Gen J F R Jacob (retd), then a Major General in the Eastern Command involved in the battle for creation of Bangladesh, said on a TV programme last night that Manekshaw, the then Chief of the Army Staff, did not want capture of Dhaka but other towns and it could have “delayed the proceedings” if not “ignored”.
84-year-old Jacob, who later served as Governor of Punjab and Goa, said the delay could have been crucial because there was a fear that India could be forced to accept ceasefire, without much in hand, as the UN was in session.
Manekshaw (93) is ailing and hospitalised at Wellington Hospital in Tamil Nadu. He was recently given Rs 1.16 crore as arrears by the Central government, which decided to
give him the salary of a general with retrospective effect.
“There was no mention of Dhaka (in Manekshaw’s plan),” Jacob said in an interview to Karan Thapar’s ‘India Tonight’ programme on CNBC last night. He said the then Army Chief had instead wanted capture of Khulna and Chhittagong.
Maintaining that capture of Dhaka was very crucial rather than Khulna and Chhittagong, Jacob said he told his field commanders to “ignore” Manekshaw’s order and target Dhaka. “We would have been completely bogged down. We couldn’t have captured the towns. You can’t capture towns, it takes a long time... It takes time and very heavy casualty,” Jacob contended.
He said if Manekshaw’s plan had been followed, “we would not have been able to capture Dhaka.”
Jacob agreed that Manekshaw didn’t expect that East Pakistan would collapse and Dhaka would fall.
He also contradicted Manekshaw’s remark a few years ago that he “ran the war single handedly” and suggesting that the Navy and the IAF took orders from him.
Jacob said he had earlier moved three brigades from Chinese border to take Dhaka and when Manekshaw found out he was “furious”. However, the brigades were not moved back, he said.
Even after having brigades were ready, the permission to use them was denied for five days, he said.
“I expected I would be given permission once the war started but the permission was denied for five days,” he said. Had the permission been given earlier, it could “have speeded up the fall of Dhaka,” he said.
Asked whether it meant that Manekshaw’s refusal “held things up”, he replied “they did”.
— PTI
