Why is Operation Vijay of India so underrated?
The above was the question raised on the Social media. A very good answer has been given by a Veteran Colonel Awadhesh Kumar :
The first OP VIJAY IN 1961 was the operation to throw out the Portuguese from Indian coast of Goa where they had established an enclave and had been brutally and savagely ruling for nearly 450 years.
The British exhausted and beggared after WW2, already wary of Gandhi, saw the impact of the trials of the officers of the INA and then came the Naval mutiny of 1946. They wisely decided to leave when the going was still good and they still had the leverage to play their GREAT GAME. Patel nixed it, other wise imagine Indian security nightmare with Hyderabad in the middle, East Pak in the NE, Junagadh in the West, Goa in the South and J& K in the North.
The pragmatic French left on their own and today we have the best of the relations with them. However Portugal would simply not listen. In 1961 they brutally assaulted a group of Indian students who had gone there to do SATYAGRAHA in support of the people of Goa.
My father had been one of the students and I have heard the stories of Portuguese brutality on unarmed students first hand. Then finally walked in the paratroopers of the Indian Army and the Portuguese surrendered in no time.
Lt Auditto of the Indian Navy (later the first batch of submariners and retired as Rear Admiral) landed and captured the Anjidiv Island with a naval landing while the IN Ships quickly sank the Portuguese Naval Flotilla. The IAF too played its role.
Most of Europe was furious including the US, but could do a fig about it. A month or two later the US Ambassador while speaking at the Staff College Course in UK, harped on the subject at length, finally adding that ” USA does not recognize this liberation”. General S K Sinha then a Major was attending this course. He rebutted all the points raised by the US Ambassador, finally adding that even UK does not recognize the DECLERATION OF 1776 by the USA, so US not recognizing Goa’s liberation makes no difference.
A similar move, akin to GOA Operations was done by Sadam into Kuwait (the Brits had forcibly taken it out of Iraq afterWW1) and see what happened ? So how can any one under rate OP VIJAY 1.
The Second OP VIJAY was the Kargil Operation of 1999.This led to total surge in National Unity and patriotism. Soon after the conflict the LOC fencing was restarted and completed. The next budget saw major increase in defence spending.
On the Diplomatic front, there was surge in India’s standing all over the world. Indo US and Indo Israel relations soared. Subrahmanayam Committee was formed. It helped in large scale restructuring of intelligence agencies and formation of HQ Integrated Defence and CDS as follow up finally. 14 Corps got raised and because of it today UT of Ladakh could be created. South Western Command, A& N Command came up and 17 Strike Corps raising followed.
Pakistan was defeated militarily, economically (courtesy Indian Navy blockade ), diplomatically and politically. From the end of the war until February 2000, the Indian Stock Market rose by more than 30%.
Nawaz was ousted in a coup. Pakistan initially did not acknowledge many of its casualties, but Sharif later said that over 4,000 Pakistani troops were killed in the operation. Musharraf’s senior officer and retired major-general Abdul Majeed Malik maintained that Kargil was a “total disaster” and bitterly criticised General Musharraf. The Pakistani plan was flawed in terms of its strategic conception, tactical planning and execution that ended in sacrificing so many soldiers.
Though the Kargil conflict brought the Kashmir dispute into international focus, which was one of Pakistan’s aims, but it had done so in negative circumstances for Pakistan that eroded its credibility, since the infiltration came just after a peace process between the two countries was underway.
India had 527 dead and 1,363 wounded, the young Officers of the Army proved once again that they always will continue to lead their men from the front and will not shy away from their duty to defend the Motherland. So no one can under rate this operation too.
