[Reader-list] J. F. R. Jacob

[anupam chakravartty]

Taking Dhaka did not figure in Manekshaw’s plans: General Jacob

In CNBC’s ‘India Tonight’ programme broadcast on April 30, Karan
Thapar presented an interview with Lieutenant-General J.F.R. Jacob,
who was Chief of Staff of the Indian Army’s Eastern Command during the
Bangladesh campaign of 1971, and who was after his retirement Governor
of Goa and Governor of Punjab, in the context of the Government’s
decision to give Field Marshal S.H.F.J. Manekshaw back pay for the
period since his retirement from service over 36 years ago. There is a
particular focus here on his role, as well as General Jacob’s role, in
the Bangladesh campaign. This is an edited but substantially intact
version of the transcript provided by CNBC:



Karan Thapar: Recently the Government gave Field Marshal Manekshaw a
cheque for Rs. 1.6 crore in lieu of the salary he should have received
as Field Marshal but didn’t get over the last 36 years. You have
worked very closely with him. In 1971 when he was made Field Marshal,
was he treated fairly or shabbily?

General Jacob: I think the Government was less than generous. He went
out on a pension of Rs. 1,300 — that was Rs. 100 more than [that of]
the Chief [of the Army Staff]. And no perks whatsoever, no car,
nothing.

Karan: You met him a few days after his retirement. You called on him
at the MES Inspection Bungalow. How did you find him?

Gen. Jacob: I found him sitting there dejected and looking very
lonely. I asked him what the problem was, and he told me he had just
returned after meeting Mrs. Gandhi and that he had asked to be made
Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, which she declined.
Instead she offered him the high commissionership in one of the
Commonwealth countries, and he was very upset.

Karan: He was upset at being refused the Deputy Chairmanship. Did he
explain why he wanted the Deputy Chairmanship?

Gen. Jacob:  No, he didn’t explain it. But I pre-assume that he
thought he would be able to do it. It’s an important job.

Karan: And it was the job he had set his heart on.

Gen. Jacob: Yes.

Karan: In fact, when Manekshaw visited Calcutta after retirement — by
then you were the Army Commander in Calcutta — he didn’t even have a
car and you put one at his disposal. But Jagjivan Ram, Defence
Minister, ticked you off for that.

Gen. Jacob: Yes, he did. He said, why [are] you giving him a car he is
not authorised [to use] as a Field Marshal? So I told him, look I am
not giving him a car because he is Field Marshal; this is a courtesy I
extend to all ex-Army Commanders of the Eastern Command.

Karan: But the Defence Minister of the day didn’t like the idea?

Gen. Jacob: No.

Karan: Your association with Manekshaw goes back to 1950 when he was a
Brigadier and DMO [Director of Military Operations] and you were a
Major attached to General Staff in Delhi. He used to consult you a lot
in those days, didn’t he?

Gen. Jacob: Yes, I used to go fairly often to his house. He was
generous and hospitable to me and he used to discuss matters with me.
You see, Sam unfortunately had a very short experience of war. He was
wounded in the early stages of war; unfortunately he was not able to
command a battalion, so he used to call me in for discussions.

Karan: So in a sense he had a short experience of war and he never
commanded a battalion in his entire career.

Gen. Jacob: That’s correct.

Karan:  Which meant those were little bits of disadvantages for him as
a DMO. In contrast, you had done full five years in the Second World
War, he needed your advice.

Gen. Jacob: Well, I don’t know [if] he needed [it] or not, but he used
to ask for it.

Karan: In an interview in 1999, Manekshaw told me that he won a
Military Cross almost at the beginning of the Second World War; a
certain General Cowan took the unusual step of pinning the medal on
him on the battlefield itself.

Gen. Jacob: Well, I don’t know about that: no one wears medals at war.
But Sam deserved it: he was courageous and got an active gallantry
[award]. But the question of anyone pinning on a medal… no one wears
medals in war. I think it is Sam’s over-exuberance.

Karan: That’s a bit of an exaggeration.

Gen. Jacob: Well, call that…

Karan: You next served with Manekshaw in 1961. He was at that time the
Commandant of the Staff College at Wellington and you were a member of
the teaching staff. At the time Manekshaw was accused of anti-national
activities and a court of inquiry was appointed to investigate the
matter. And you were asked to give evidence. Is that right?

Gen. Jacob: That’s correct, I was rung up by General Kaul, offered
anything if I gave evidence. I refused to give evidence. It’s not my
wont and my character to give evidence against my boss. I refused.

Karan: But were you, in refusing to give evidence, protecting Manekshaw?

Gen. Jacob: I consider that is not done for me to give evidence
against my boss. Had I done so, it would have caused difficulties for
Manekshaw.

Karan: Had you given evidence, you could have caused difficulties for
Manekshaw?

Gen. Jacob: I said it could have caused.

Karan: In other words, you are saying had you given evidence, had you
spoken about things you knew of — instead of being exonerated as
Manekshaw was, he could have been found guilty?

Gen. Jacob: I don’t think so. All I can say is, he might have created
some problem.

Karan: At the time, if I recall correctly, the speculation was that
Manekshaw had the habit of talking loosely. People say that he would
go around referring to Indians dismissively as natives and that in
public frequently, sitting at Wellington Club, he would criticise
politicians like V.K. Krishna Menon, or General Kaul. If I recall
correctly, you were honorary secretary of the Wellington Club. Was
there some credibility to these stories?

Gen. Jacob: I can’t comment on that.

Karan: You can’t comment?

Gen. Jacob: No.

Karan: But you won’t deny them either.

Gen. Jacob: I won’t comment.

Karan: That’s very significant. You won’t comment, but you won’t deny them.

Let’s come to the 1971 war, for which Manekshaw is best known. At that
time you were Chief of Staff, Eastern Command. It is widely believed
that Manekshaw stood up to pressure from politicians and as a result
military action was delayed from April 1971 to December. But that’s
not the real truth, is it?

Gen. Jacob: Well, put [it] this way, he did ring me three times in
early April to move to Bangladesh. I refused, I gave him reasons.

Karan: He rang you three times wanting the Army to move to Bangladesh?

Gen. Jacob: I gave him reasons why we couldn’t move.

Karan: I will soon ask you what your reasons were, but he wasn’t happy
with your refusal?

Gen. Jacob: No.

Karan: He got irritated?

Gen. Jacob: Yes.

Karan: Now, you refused to move in. What exactly were the reasons you
gave Manekshaw?

Gen. Jacob: I told him, look, we are mountain divisions. We don’t have
a single bridge. There are large numbers of rivers between us to
cross. We don’t have transport. The monsoon is about to break. And
international penal [action] will not let you move. So these are the
reasons we cannot move.  I told him: [I’m] afraid it’s not possible at
this stage.

Karan: Two things: first of all, the reasons you had — and obviously
they were good reasons — for not moving in April were reasons he had
never thought of or appreciated as the Army chief.

Gen. Jacob: I can’t comment on what he thought.

Karan: But clearly that follows that he was pushing you to move in, he
rung you three times, were irritated by your refusal.

Gen. Jacob: But his people in Delhi pushed him.

Karan: Secondly, you also pointed out to him that if the Army moved in
April, it would have been disastrous?

Gen. Jacob: Yes, it would have been, because we [would have] got bogged down.

Karan: So the truth is, people say Manekshaw stood up to political
pressure and delayed military action from April to December. The full
truth is that he did this because the Eastern Command stood up to him
on three separate occasions, otherwise he might have agreed to the
pressure he was under.

Gen. Jacob: Yes, maybe after he got our advice he went to the Cabinet
and told them ‘No.’

Karan: Let’s now come to the war plan under which India fought the
war. As Chief of Staff, Eastern Command, you sent your version of the
plan to Delhi in May. What was the strategy that plan was based upon?

Gen. Jacob: We assessed that to win a war we had to take Dhaka. Dhaka
was the geo-strategic heart of East Pakistan. No campaign would have
been complete without it.

Karan: So the core of your war plan was the taking of Dhaka?

Gen. Jacob: Yes.

Karan: In August, Manekshaw came to Calcutta where the Eastern Command
has its headquarters, where you were Chief of Staff. He came with
[his] own war plan. How different was that to yours?

Gen. Jacob: It was very, very different. The orders that come with
him, which he read out with his DMO, K.K. Singh, were the following:

You will take Khulna and Chittagong — these are the entry points — and
territory. Those were the orders given.

Karan: And no mention of Dhaka whatsoever.

Gen. Jacob: None whatsoever

Karan: So Dhaka didn’t feature in Manekshaw’s war plan at all?

Gen. Jacob:  At all.

Karan: I gathered [that] at that meeting in Calcutta there was a sort
of acrimonious exchange of opinions. You fairly forcefully pointed out
to Manekshaw that not taking Dhaka, not focussing on Dhaka, was a
serious mistake. How did he react to your views?

Gen. Jacob: He was very upset. He said, don’t you see sweetie — that
term he uses when he doesn’t like something you say. He said, don’t
you see if we take Khulna and Chittagong the war will be over? I said
I didn’t see how that could happen.

Karan: At that point he turned to General Aurora, who was there and
who was your boss and army commander. And what did he say to General
Aurora?

Jacob: Don’t you agree? Yes sir, I entirely agree, said General Aurora.

Karan: At that moment of time, you were in a minority — General
Manekshaw, General Aurora and DMO K.K. Singh were all in favour of the
war plan which Manekshaw had brought, which concentrated on Khulna and
Chittagong and completely ignored Dhaka. You were a lone voice
demanding that the war plan should concentrate on Dhaka instead.

Gen. Jacob: Yes, Manekshaw has briefed the government accordingly and
these are orders, which have been approved.

Karan: So the nub of this is that ultimately when India went to war in
December, it went to war with a war plan which completely ignored
Dhaka?

Gen. Jacob: The war plan that was given to us in writing was [one that
concentrated on] Khulna and Chittagong.

Karan: In fact, Air Chief Marshal P.C. Lal, the [Air Force] chief of
the time, writes in his book My Years With the IAF, that the Indian
Army didn’t expect that Pakistani forces in East Pakistan would
collapse and that Dhaka would fall. As Air Chief Marshal Lal writes:
“The possibility that Pakistani forces in West Pakistan would collapse
altogether as they did and that Dhaka would fall... was not considered
something that was likely to happen.”

Gen. Jacob: That’s correct. That was the recommendation given to the
Government by Manekshaw.

Karan: So General Manekshaw did not expect that East Pakistan would
collapse and Dhaka would fall.

Gen. Jacob: Correct

Karan: Air Chief Marshal P.C Lal has also contradicted something else
that the Field Marshal has repeatedly said of himself. Manekshaw
always claimed that he ran the war single-handedly — clearly
suggesting that the Navy and the Air Force took orders from him. Air
Chief Marshal Lal writes: “The three services, the Army, the Navy and
the Air Force, were left to plan their activities as they thought
best.” Whose version is right: Manekshaw’s or Lal’s?

Gen. Jacob: Difficult. Lal is right.

Karan: Lal is right? You’re absolutely sure of that?

Gen. Jacob: Yes, sure.

Karan: There were also moments when Manekshaw’s behaviour upset and
offended senior commanders. For instance, there is what happened on
September 1971, when he flew to Calcutta with D.P Dhar. In front of
him Dhar proceeded to scold senior generals... This was not only
indiscreet and improper but could have affected camaraderie. They took
that very badly.

Gen. Jacob: A meeting was there with the Army Commander, the Core
Commander, the Divisional Commander, and Manekshaw started berating
all of us.

Karan: And this had a bad effect on the Generals?

Gen. Jacob: It was resented deeply…

Karan: Therefore, at this critical moment of time, just two months
before war began, this was very bad behaviour on the part of the Army
chief?

Gen. Jacob: All I say is, people were surprised that Mr. D.P. Dhar,
who is a politician and who was sitting close to the Prime Minister,
was listening to it.

Karan: And the Army chief should not have scolded his senior Generals,
whose services he critically required at that time, in this way?

Gen. Jacob: Well, I would have not done it.

Karan: Let’s jump to the weeks immediately before the military action
in December. I’m talking about November. Manekshaw refused to give you
troops to tackle Dhaka because he refused to make Dhaka a part of the
war plan. You moved three brigades from the Chinese border for this
purpose. What did he say when he found out?

Gen. Jacob: He was furious. And you see…I told…Gill who was the DMO…it
was done between us… and [he] agreed with me to take Dhaka. Manekshaw
was not informed of the move of these brigades and he was absolutely
furious with Gill. He told him that he would… and that the brigades
would move back at once.

Karan: But the brigades didn’t move back.

Gen. Jacob: I spoke to Gill and we had a long chat and I said I cannot
move these brigades back.

Karan: So the brigades stayed where they were regardless of the fact
that the Army chief was furious and wanted them to return.

Gen. Jacob: Gill did that…but…Gill made me promise since he was
shouted at… I would not commit them inside Bangladesh without
reference to them.

Karan: So you had access to them…should you need them…but you gave a
commitment not to use them without further permission.

Gen. Jacob: I expected that I would be given permission once the war
started… but permission was denied for five days… I requested every
day for their deployment but they were not cleared to move in by
Manekshaw until December 8.

Karan: So even when you needed these brigades he denied you permission
for five full days. Had you got that permission five days earlier,
could you have taken Dhaka five days earlier?

Gen. Jacob: We would not have taken Dhaka, but would have surely
speeded up the fall of Dhaka.

Karan: So you could have speeded up the fall of Dhaka. You could have
speeded up the war. But Gen. Manekshaw’s refusal to let you use these
three brigades held things up.

Gen. Jacob: They did.

Karan: One other thing. Am I right in believing that when war began by
December 2-3-4, the plan was to go for Khulna and Chittagong, but you
ignored it and instead you went straight to Dhaka, which you always
believed was the right thing to do?

Gen. Jacob: That’s correct.

Karan: Let’s jump the story to December 13. At that point in time, the
Indian Army had bypassed towns like Rangpur, Dinajpur and Sylhet and
had reached the gates of Dhaka. Which meant that you were virtually at
the doorstep of the capital, but you had no major towns under your
control except for Jessore and Comilla which the Pakistanis had
evacuated and you had occupied. Is that a correct assessment of the
position?

Gen. Jacob: Yes.

Karan: At this point in time, [there] was a great fear that India
might be forced to accept a ceasefire and that if that happened [would
be left] without major towns under its control?

Gen. Jacob: The U.N. was in session

Karan: The U.N. was in session, and if that had happened without any
major town under its control the ceasefire would be very
disadvantageous to India

Gen. Jacob: Entirely.

Karan: General Manekshaw sent you an order, copied to the Corps
Commanders, asking you to capture all the bypassed towns. How did you
respond to that order?

Gen. Jacob: Except Dhaka. Dhaka was not mentioned.

Karan: So he wanted all the towns that had been bypassed to be
captured, but once again ignored Dhaka?

Gen. Jacob: No mention was made whatsoever. You can’t capture a town,
it takes a long time… See what happened in Faluja. It takes time and
it’s very heavy in casualties.

Karan: So you therefore ignored his orders?

Gen. Jacob: Well, there is an example in history. Horatio Nelson
putting the telescope to his blind eye.

Karan: So you did the same thing.

Gen. Jacob: We did the same thing.

Karan: Now, in fact you went one step further… didn’t you? You also
contacted a Corps Commander who had to copy to Signals what
instructions you gave them?

Gen. Jacob: Ignore it.

Karan: You said, the Corps Commanders [may] ignore the Army chief’s
signal. If you had agreed to what Manekshaw was asking and you had
gone back to capture towns you had bypassed, there was the likelihood
that you would have got bogged down.

Gen. Jacob: We would [have] completely [got] bogged down, we could not
have captured the towns.

Karan: Secondly, … [had you] concentrated on the bypassed towns, you
would have failed to take Dhaka.

Gen. Jacob: Absolutely right. [Had] we gone back, we couldn’t have taken Dhaka.

Karan: So had General Manekshaw’s signal of December 13 been accepted,
  that could have endangered India’s great victory?

Gen. Jacob: Well, I put it differently that it would have delayed the
proceedings.

Karan: It would have delayed the proceedings… those proceedings, as
you told me a moment ago, would anyway [have been] delayed because he
denied you access to the three brigades. This order from Manekshaw was
a bad order.

Let’s jump to December 15. General Niazi, the Pakistani Commander,
sent a signal offering a ceasefire. More importantly, he had 30,000
soldiers under his command in Dhaka.

Gen. Jacob: Yes, about 30,000.

Karan: Whilst you only had 3,000 outside the city. So you were
out-manned 10 to one.

Gen. Jacob: Yes.

Karan: In addition [to the fact that] the U.N. was in session, there
was a Polish resolution in front of the Security Council calling for
an Indian withdrawal. And the Russians had indicated that they were
not going to use their veto in India’s favour again.

Gen. Jacob: And Poland was [part of the] Soviet bloc.

Karan: So at that point of time, on December 15, the circumstances
both within East Pakistan and internationally made it seem as if a
surrender was not the likely outcome.

Gen. Jacob: You see, Niazi had merely sent a signal to us, which was
conveyed to the Americans, that there should be a ceasefire under the
U.N., a withdrawal under the U.N., handover to the U.N., and no more
crimes… That’s all.

Karan: And therefore if Niazi had used his 30,000 soldiers… he could
have carried on fighting for another two to three weeks, giving the
U.N. ample time to impose the ceasefire. And that would have been very
disadvantageous because India had no other town under its control.

Gen. Jacob: That’s quite right.

Karan: So it’s a critical moment.

Gen. Jacob: Very critical.

Karan: Now on December 16 you arrived in Dhaka in response to Niazi’s
offer of a ceasefire. Four hours later you had converted a ceasefire
into an unconditional surrender. What did you do to achieve what
sounds now like a miracle?


Gen. Jacob: Well… one thing that happened was, on the morning of
December 16. Manekshaw phoned me and said go to Dhaka and get a
surrender. I said we have sent you a surrender document, do I
negotiate on those terms? He said just go, you know what to do. So I
carried with me my draft what I sent to Delhi and I arrived in Dhaka
with this draft with the staff officer. I was met at the Dhaka airport
by the U.N.’s Mark Henry, Kelly and the others. And they said we are
coming with you to arrange the ceasefire and withdraw the Pakistan
Army and take over. I said, thank you very much, I don’t need your
help. Then I proceeded to Niazi’s headquarters. The Pakistani
Brigadier was with me, the Mukthi Bahini and the Pakistanis were
fighting on the streets. Firing was going on. They wanted to kill this
guy with me. With a lot of difficulty we reached the Pakistani
headquarters and this thing was read out to Niazi — the surrender
document. He said that you have only come here to discuss the
ceasefire and withdrawal…Who said I am surrendering? So this argument
went on. So it’s an unconditional surrender. I said it’s not an
unconditional surrender, we have put the treaty with respect. We will
evacuate all the civilians, etc., so it’s not an unconditional
surrender.

Karan: Then what happened? How did you get him to agree to a surrender?

Gen. Jacob: Then I told him, General, I assure you if you surrender,
accept these terms, we look after you, etc., and I will ensure that.
The Government of India has given the word and will ensure your safety
and that of your civilians.

Karan: Did you also say to him [that] if you don’t surrender, there
will be no protection?

Gen. Jacob: I said that in a different way. I said if you don’t
surrender, we can take no responsibility.

Karan: Then what happened?

Gen. Jacob: Then he kept [on talking] and then I said General, I
cannot give you any better terms. I will give you 30 minutes. If you
don’t comply I would have no option but to order resumption of
hostilities.

Karan: During those 30 minutes were you panicking?

Gen. Jacob: I wasn’t panicking but I walked out and I said god, he has
30,000 troops we have 3,000... Suppose he says no, what do I do? And I
had no answer.

Karan: Thirty minutes later you went back to the room, and what did he say?

Gen. Jacob: He kept quiet, I walked up to him. The document was on the
table and I asked him: General, do you accept this document? I asked
him three times but he didn’t answer. So I picked it up. I said, I
take it as accepted.

Karan: At that point he also cried.

Gen. Jacob: He was in tears…

Karan: He was in tears… so in a sense you called his bluff… made him
believe that you were in a more powerful position than you were…

Gen. Jacob: Yes, yes.

Karan: He fell for it and he failed to take advantage of the 30,000
soldiers he had.

Gen. Jacob: He was held to task by his own commission: why you didn’t
do it? You know what he said, I was forced to do it because Gen. Jacob
blackmailed me, he said he would hang them over the massacre.

Karan: Very quickly, you haven’t got the credit for the surrender that
you organised almost single-handedly. Has history been unfair to you?

Gen. Jacob: No, I’m not commenting on that…I as a soldier did my
duties, that’s not my concern.

Karan: One other question. Today you have cast Gen, Manekshaw, Field
Marshal Manekshaw as he is, in a very different light to the way we’ve
got used to thinking of him. You have suggested that the orders that
he gave, particularly on changing the direction of military strategy,
were wrong. You also suggested things about him when he was in his
earlier post at Wellington that people will find hard to believe. You
want to retract any other things you said?

Gen. Jacob: Listen, I have not suggested anything. You asked me
questions and I have answered them to the best of my ability.

Karan: Do you stand by what you said?

Gen Jacob: I stand by what I said… all the things [relating to] the
order for the operation are in Army Headquarters.

Karan: Everything you said is documented in Army Headquarters. Gen.
Jacob, a pleasure talking to you on India Tonight.

ENDS

On 2/21/10, Pawan Durani <pawan.durani at gmail.com> wrote:
> "We won in 1971 and B'desh was liberated because of a Jew who pushed
> ahead -- Gen JFR Jacob. Anybody remember him?"
>
> Regards
>
> Pawan
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