Reasons for India returning Pakistani lands won during the 1965 war

The 1965 war remains memorable for two things. One was a monumental miscalculation by pakistan. President Ayub Khan, egged on by his scheming and feckless foreign minister Zulfikar ali bhutto, sent a top secret order to his army chief General Mohammed Musa: “As a general rule, Hindu morale would not stand for more than a couple of hard blows delivered at the right time and the right place. Such opportunities should therefore be sought and exploited.”

Secondly, India’s leadership- as it has done consistently over the past 2500 years- frittered away on the negotiating table what the soldiers won on the battlefield.

At the end of a bruising 22-day war, india held 1920 square kilometres of Pakistani territory while pakistan only held 550 squre kilometres of indian land. The Haji Pir pass was also captured by indian soldiers after an epic battle. And yet india surrendered everything at the Tashkent Declaration in january 1966.

Was shastri ji feeling the pressure from the international community? Most likely not, but perhaps he felt- like successor Indira Gandhi after the 1971 war- that showing leniency towards pakistan would buy its goodwill.