55 quotes found
"In war the Indians were by far the bravest of all the races inhabiting Asia at that time."
"No Indian ever went outside his own country on a warlike expedition, so righteous were they."
"Anticipating war the hero should train himself to master archery, swordsmanship, cavalry and also fight on elephants and chariots, to emerge victorious when the battle breaks out . . . If the warrior’s training is incomplete and inadequate, he would not be able to face the fierce enemy, but if it (the observance of the vows) is perfect and complete, he would successfully quell the enemy and emerge victorious . . . One who panics on the battlefield is bound to face defeat and humiliation."
"While the Greek and Roman historians have not failed to point to Alexander's weaknesses and the difficulties encountered by him, Vincent Smith has extolled him as a hero. Out of the 501 pages of his 'Early Hiostory of India', 70 pages are devoted to Alexander's campaign. ... Basham admits... that 'at least in his approach to Alexander's Indian campaigns, Mookerji is a more impartial historian than the hero-worshipping Smiths and Tarns, who had never been able to view history from the angle for the East."
"Its water is dark; its fruit is bitter and poisonous; its land is stony, and its earth is saltish. A small army will soon be annihilated there..."
"At most periods of her history India, though a cultural unit, has been torn by internecine war. In statecraft, her rulers were cunning and unscrupulous. Famine, flood and plague visited her from time to time, and killed millions of her people. Inequality of birth was given religious sanction, and the lot of the humble was generally hard. Yet our overall impression is that in no other part of the ancient world were the relations of man and man, and of man and the state, so fair and humane. In no other early civilisation were slaves so few in number, and in no other ancient lawbook are their rights so well protected as in the Arthasastra. No other ancient lawgiver proclaimed such noble ideals of fair play in battle as did Manu. In all her history of warfare Hindu India has few tales to tell of cities put to the sword or of the massacre of non-combatants…There was sporadic cruelty and oppression no doubt, but, in comparison with conditions in other early cultures, it was mild. To us the most striking feature of ancient Indian civilisation is its humanity."
"Hindus could not, even in the wildest stretch of their imagination, conceive of a war that defied description. Until then, the code of war ethics that they had inherited since the Vedic period rested upon a rather tempered, three-tiered categorisation, given, for example, by Kalidasa50, which was later elucidated by the Kashmiri scholar, Vallabhadeva. The first was a Dharmavijayi, which refers to a conqueror who after defeating his enemy, allows him to rule the territory as before but exerts administrative control over him. The second was a Lobhavijayi—a conqueror who, after defeating his enemy, snatches both his territory and his treasury but spares the defeated king’s life. And the third was an Asuravijayi—a conqueror who not only grabs his vanquished enemy’s territory and treasury but puts him to death and takes his entire family, including women and children, as slaves. Needless to say, the Hindu tradition holds the Asuravijayi as the most despicable form of military victory."
"No military unit in recent years has undertaken a more delicate and demanding peacetime mission than that faced by the Indian forces in Korea. The vast majority of prisoners placed in their charge had from months of imprisonment and uncertainty become highly nervous and volatile. The confidence inspired by the exemplary tact, fairness and firmness shown by the Indian officers and men led by their two able commanders, Lt. General Thimayya and Major General Thorat did much to alleviate the fears and doubts of these prisoners. The performance of these officers and their troops was fully in keeping with the high reputation of the Indian Army. They deserve the highest commendation."
"The total numbers of men fielded by the various parts of the British Empire [during World War II] were immense. All told, the United Kingdom itself mobilized just under six million men and women. But an additional 5.1 million came from India, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Victories like El Alamein and even more so Imphal were victories for imperial forces as much as for British forces; the colonial commitment to the Empire proved every bit as strong as in the First World War. Especially remarkable was the fact that more than two and a half million Indians volunteered to serve in the British Indian Army during the war - more than sixty times the number who fought for the Japanese. The rapid expansion of the Indian officer corps provided a crucial source of loyalty, albeit loyalty that was conditional on post-war independence."
"India had barely become independent, in 1947, when Pakistan invaded Kashmir, which at the time was ruled by a maharajah. The maharajah fled, and the people of Kashmir, led by Sheikh Abdullah, asked for Indian help. Lord Mountbatten, who was still governor general, replied that he wouldn’t be able to supply aid to Kashmir unless Pakistan declared war, and he didn’t seem bothered by the fact that the Pakistanis were slaughtering the population. So our leaders decided to sign a document by which they bound themselves to go to war with Pakistan. And Mahatma Gandhi, apostle of nonviolence, signed along with them. Yes, he chose war. He said there was nothing else to do. War is inevitable when one must defend somebody or defend oneself."
"When Alexander had asked a Brahmin as to what they taught which inspired Hindu warriors to such high heroism, the Brahmin had replied in one sentence – “We teach our people to live with honour.”"
"The Indian legion is a joke. I believe that if Indians could be used to turn prayer-wheels, they would be the most indefatigable soldiers in the world. But using them in a real life-and-death war is pure madness. They cannot even kill an Englishman."
"Today the absurd spectacle of the high-stepping soldiers from India and Pakistan who nightly strut their robotic lowering and folding of flags, with their high kicks, stamps and twirls, at a border crossing on the Old Trunk Road between their two countries, draws increasingly large cheering crowds from each side and is a YouTube favourite. It is surely a bit of harmless fun. Or is it? Both countries have nuclear weapons and a long history of conflict and mutual suspicion. And militarism, whether that means elevating the military to a position as the noblest and best of their societies or the leaching of military values, such as discipline and obedience into the civilian world, can lead to trouble for democratic societies."
"Whatever the provocation, the shrine, the Brahman and the cow were sacrosanct.... War being a special privilege of the martial classes, harassment of the civilian population during military operations was considered a serious lapse from the code of honour. The high regard which all Kshatriyas had for the chastity of women, also ruled out abduction as an incident of war."
"The most curious thing was the code of war of those days; as soon as the battle for the day ceased and evening came, the opposing parties were good friends, even going to each other's tents; however, when the morning came, again they proceeded to fight each other. That was the strange trait that the Hindus carried down to the time of the Mohammedan invasion. Then again, a man on horseback must not strike one on foot; must not poison the weapon; must not vanquish the enemy in any unequal fight, or by dishonesty; and must never take undue advantage of another, and so on. If any deviated from these rules he would be covered with dishonour and shunned. The Kshatriyas were trained in that way. And when the foreign invasion came from Central Asia, the Hindus treated the invaders in the selfsame way. They defeated them several times, and on as many occasions sent them back to their homes with presents etc. The code laid down was that they must not usurp anybody's country; and when a man was beaten, he must be sent back to his country with due regard to his position. The Mohammedan conquerors treated the Hindu kings differently, and when they got them once, they destroyed them without remorse."
"Arthur Schopenhauer (d. 1860), one of the greatest nineteenth-century philosophers, narrates the sordid tale of the Islamic invasion of India as follows: ’…the endless persecutions, the religious wars, that sanguinary frenzy of which the ancients (of India) had no conception! The destruction or disfigurement of the ancient temples and idols, a lamentable, mischievous and barbarous act still bears witness to the monotheistic fury… carried on from Mahmud, the Ghaznevid of cursed memory, down to Aurangzeb… We hear nothing of this kind in the case of the Hindoo.’"
"Although conquest and conflict are by no means absent from dharmic traditions, these conflicts stemmed from an entirely different psychology and political programme than did the huge colonial endeavours of the West."
"When we remember their wonderful military success in other parts of the world, the comparatively insignificant results the Arabs achieved in India certainly stand out in marked contrast. The cause of this, however, does not lie in the religious and social peculiarities of India as old historians like Elphinstone vainly attempted to establish. The cause lies undoubtedly in the superior military strength and state-organisation of the Indians as compared with most other nations of the time. However incredible this might appear in the light of subsequent events, this is the plain verdict of history. page 175"
"The Indian kings, all of whom accepted, at any rate in theory, the law of the Dharmastras as inalienable, waged wars according to certain humane rules. 'Whatever the provocation, the shrine, the Brahmata and the cow were sacrosanct to them. War being a special privilege of the martial classes, harassment of the civilian population during military operations was considered a serious lapse from the code of honour. The high regard which all the Kshatriyas had for the chastity of women, also ruled out abduction as an incident of war.... The wars in Central Asia, on the other hand, were grim struggles for survival, for the destruction of the enemies and for appropriating their womenfolk. No code circumscribed the destructive zeal of the conqueror; no canon restrained the ruthlessness of their hordes. When, therefore, Mahmud’s armies swept over North India it saw torrents of barbarians sweeping across its rich plains, burning, looting, indulging in indiscriminate massacre; raping women, destroying fair cities, burning down magnificent shrines enriched by centuries of faith; enforcing an alien religion at the point of sword; abducting thousands, forcing them into unwilling marriage or concubinage; capturing hundreds of thousands of men, women and children, to be sold as slaves in the markets of Ghazni and other Central Asian markets... Mahmud annexed the Punjab, thereby opening the way to the hungry men from the steppes of Central Asia to descend upon this rich and fertile land in search of plunder. Nothing would with- stand the Central Asian raiders eager to plunder and destroy. In a few years, Thaneswar, Mathura, Kanauj and Prabhasa Pattana were smoking ruins. ... However, the destruction and the humiliation inflicted by Mahmud’s raids shocked India’s sense of ancient superiority, bringing into play several political, social and psychological factors. With the Yaminis, the successors of Mahmud, firmly established in the Punjab, the ‘Aryavarta-consciousness’ lost whatever significance it had. The belief that Chaturvarnya was a divinely appointed universal order, characteristic of the land, was shaken; for now a ruling race in the country not only stood outside it, but held it in contempt and sought its destruction."
"As its most important international backer, the United States had great influence over Pakistan. But at almost every turning point in the crisis, Nixon and Kissinger failed to use that leverage to avert disaster. Before the shooting started, they consciously decided not to warn Pakistan’s military chiefs against using violence on their own population. They did not urge caution or impose conditions that might have discouraged the Pakistani military government from butchering its own citizenry. They did not threaten the loss of U.S. support or even sanctions if Pakistan took the wrong course. They allowed the army to sweep aside the results of Pakistan’s first truly free and fair democratic election, without even suggesting that the military strongmen try to work out a power-sharing deal with the Bengali leadership that had won the vote. They did not ask that Pakistan refrain from using U.S. weaponry to slaughter civilians, even though that could have impeded the military’s rampage, and might have deterred the army. There was no public condemnation—nor even a private threat of it—from the president, the secretary of state, or other senior officials. The administration almost entirely contented itself with making gentle, token suggestions behind closed doors that Pakistan might lessen its brutality—and even that only after, months into the violence, it became clear that India was on the brink of attacking Pakistan."
"It was Biblical,” remembers Sydney Schanberg, who reported on the refugees for the New York Times. Schanberg, steeped in the worst horrors of war from Vietnam and Cambodia, goes quiet at the memory of the desperate millions who fled into India. “You don’t tune out,” he says, “but there’s a numbness. Either that or you feel like crying. There was a tremendous loss of life on those treks out.” He remembers, “Their bodies have adjusted to those germs in their water, but suddenly they’re drinking different water with different germs. Suddenly they’ve got cholera. People were dying all around us. You’d see that someone had left a body on the side of the road, wrapped in pieces of bamboo, and there’d be a vulture trying to get inside to eat the body. You would come into a schoolyard, and a mother was losing her child. He was in her lap. He coughed and coughed and then died.” He pauses and composes himself. “They went through holy hell and back.” Major General Jacob-Farj-Rafael Jacob, the gruff, battle-hardened chief of staff of the Indian army’s Eastern Command, went to the border to watch the refugees streaming in. “It was terrible, pathetic,” he recalls. The displaced throngs inescapably called to mind nightmare memories of Partition in 1947, not so long before. “It’s a terrible human agony,” says Jaswant Singh, a former Indian foreign minister. “It was as if we were reliving the Partition.”"
"Swaran Singh, the ordinarily unflappable foreign minister, indignantly told his diplomats, “Artillery, tanks, automatic weapons, mortars, aeroplanes, everything which is normally used against invading armed forces, were utilised and very large-scale killings took place; selective killings of individuals, acts of molestation and rape against the university students, girls, picking out the Awami League leaders, their supporters and later on especially concentrating on the localities in which Hindus predominated.” P. N. Haksar anxiously wrote that “our people have been deeply stirred by the carnage in East Bengal. Government of India have endeavoured to contain the emotions which have been aroused in our country, but we find it increasingly difficult to do this because of the systematic effort on the part of Pakistan to force millions of people to leave their hearths and homes taking shelter in our territory.”5"
"The Indian government, from Indira Gandhi on down, worked hard to hide an ugly reality from its own people: by an official reckoning, as many as 90 percent of the refugees were Hindus. This skew was the inevitable consequence of Pakistani targeting of Hindus in East Pakistan—what Archer Blood and his staffers had condemned as genocide. The population of East Pakistan was only 16 or 17 percent Hindu, but this minority comprised the overwhelming bulk of the refugees. India secretly recorded that by the middle of June, there were some 5,330,000 Hindus, as against 443,000 Muslims and 150,000 from other groups. Many Indian diplomats believed that the Hindus would be too afraid ever to go back... But the Indian government assiduously hid this stark fact from Indians. “In India we have tried to cover that up,” Swaran Singh candidly told a meeting of Indian diplomats in London, “but we have no hesitation in stating the figure to foreigners.” (Sydney Schanberg and John Kenneth Galbraith, the Kennedy administration’s ambassador to India, separately highlighted the fact in the New York Times.) Singh instructed his staff to distort for their country: “We should avoid making this into an Indo-Pakistan or [[Hindu–Islamic relations|Hindu[-]Muslim conflict]]. We should point out that there are Buddhists and Christians besides the Muslims among the refugees, who had felt the brunt of repression.” In a major speech, Gandhi misleadingly described refugees of “every religious persuasion—Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist and Christian.”... The Indian government feared that the plain truth would splinter its own country between Hindus and Muslims... And Indian officials did not want to provide further ammunition to the irate Hindu nationalists in the Jana Sangh party. From Moscow, D. P. Dhar, India’s ambassador there, decried the Pakistan army’s “preplanned policy of selecting Hindus for butchery,” but, fearing inflammatory politicking from “rightist reactionary Hindu chauvinist parties like Jana Sangh,” he wrote, “We were doing our best not to allow this aspect of the matter to be publicised in India.” ... Rather than basing this accusation primarily on the victimization of Hindus, India tended to focus on the decimation of the Bengalis as a group."
"But when Yahya’s government allowed a World Bank team of seasoned development specialists to tour East Pakistan, their secret report found an “all-pervasive fear.” The infrastructure was devastated, largely because of army campaigns in the big cities and towns. “In all cities visited there are areas that have been razed; and in all districts visited there are villages which have simply ceased to exist.” There were ongoing military strikes, which, even when targeting “Awami Leaguers, students or Hindus,” frightened the whole population. There was a “trail of devastation running from Khulna to Jessore to Kushtia to Pabna, Bogra, Rangpur and Dinajpur.”"
"Michael Walzer, probably the most distinguished philosopher of justice in war, repeatedly points to India’s Bangladesh war as a canonical example of a justifiable humanitarian intervention, in a radical emergency when there was no other plausible way to save innocent human lives."
"The most important departure from determinism during the Cold War had to do, obviously, with hot wars. Prior to 1945, great powers fought great wars so frequently that they seemed to be permanent features of the international landscape: Lenin even relied on them to provide the mechanism by which capitalism would self-destruct. After 1945, however, wars were limited to those between superpowers and smaller powers, as in Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan, or to wars among smaller powers like the four Israel and its Arab neighbors fought between 1948 and 1973, or the three India-Pakistan wars of 1947-48, 1965, and 1971, or the long, bloody, and indecisive struggle that consumed Iran and Iraq throughout the 1980s."
"Just as in Egypt, the rise of Islam as a political force and a social trend in Pakistan was not the result of one moment, or even the work of one person—it was a slow build that came in waves and ebbed and flowed. It was sometimes bolstered by weak leaders who used the Islamists to shore up their own legitimacy, like Sadat in Egypt, or even secular, socialist Bhutto, who first introduced the ban on alcohol and instituted Friday as the weekly holiday instead of Sunday. In both Egypt and Pakistan, leaders used religion as a balm after the national trauma of a military defeat. For Pakistan it was the 1971 loss of East Pakistan, today’s Bangladesh. And just as in Egypt before the assassination of Sadat, the relentless work of Islamists in Pakistan had not yet delivered a sea change—they toiled on the margins, and they converted people to their cause one by one. Even when Zia spoke, in the spring of 1978, about his mission to purify the country, Pakistani society was far from being gripped by Islamic fervor. For this to happen it required the incredibly powerful, violent, and moneyed convergence of a number of people and events: Mawdudi’s groundwork over decades, Zia’s rise to power and brutal rule, but also the generous support of Saudi Arabia."
"Victory in the Liberation War of Bangladesh was possible without the help of the Indian Army. It might have taken more than one or two years. Because the war of Bangladesh was a war of independence of a nation. If any war is for freedom, then it is not possible to stop that war in any way."
"Maj. Sahrawat seconds this. ‘Only then did we understand why Col Harolikar had insisted on a khukri attack. It instilled abject fear in the enemy and also cut our casualties in the next battle: our attack on the Sagarnal tea estate. When the Pakistanis heard that the Gorkhas were coming, they fled, leaving their posts unoccupied. If it was not war, it would have counted as a comical scene where we were mounting an assault and they were running away instead of putting up a defence. Their will to fight had been completely broken by the Battle of Atgram. We just went and occupied their posts without any resistance,"’ he remembers."
"People's priorities and actions are influenced by many different affiliations and associations, not just by their religion. For example, the separation of Bangladesh from Pakistan was connected with loyalty to Bengali language and literature, along with political - including secular - priorities, not with religion, which both wings of undivided Pakistan shared. Muslim Bangladeshis - in Britain or anywhere else - may indeed be proud of their Islamic faith, but that does not obliterate their other affiliations and capacious dignity."
"Despite American support, the Nationalists were defeated anew after World War Two: by the Communists in the Chinese Civil War. This defeat would have been less likely, bar for the war. Prior to the Japanese attack on China, the Communists had been in a vulnerable position in their conflict with the Nationalists. As a result of repeated and increasingly successful Nationalist attacks from 1930, the Communists, in 1934, had abandoned their base in Jiangxi and, in the Long March, had moved in 1935 to a more remote rural power base in northern Shanxi. Funded and provided with arms by Stalin, Mao had become a factor in the complicated negotiations of power in China. Following the Japanese attack, the Communists benefited from having become, during the late 1930s and early 1940s, the dominant anti-Japanese force in northern China and from the war having weakened the Nationalists."
"The Chinese Civil War was the largest conflict, in terms of number of combatants and area fought over, since World War Two, and it proves an instructive counterpoint to the latter, indicating the difficulty of drawing clear lessons from the conflicts of the 1940s. Nevertheless, there has been far less scholarship on the Chinese Civil War, and much of the work published on it has reflected ideological bias, notably being used to support the legitimacy of the Communist regime."
"In China, technology and the quantity of materiel did not triumph, as the Communists were inferior to the Nationalists in weaponry, and, in particular, lacked air and sea power. However, their strategic conceptions, operational planning and execution, army morale, and political leadership, proved superior, and they were able to make the transfer from guerrilla warfare to large-scale conventional operations; from denying their opponents control over territory to seizing and securing it. Mao’s party and army possessed unitary command and lacked a multi-party consensus model. The Nationalist cause, in contrast, was weakened by poor and highly divided leadership, inept strategy, and, as the war went badly, poor morale. In addition, corruption and inflation greatly affected civilian support. Indeed, the China White Paper published by the State Department in 1950 blamed the Nationalists’ failure on their own incompetence and corruption."
"There was strong pressure in the USA to intervene on the Nationalist side, particularly from the Republicans, who repeatedly raised the charge of weakness toward Communism. Longstanding American interest in China had been strengthened in World War Two, not least with a large-scale expansion of the economy of the Pacific states. Moreover, the south and west became more important in economic and demographic terms during the post-war ‘baby boom’ and there was to be a cultural shift toward the Pacific coast. All these factors contributed to enhanced interest in East Asia. Nevertheless, the Truman government decided not to intervene in China. It took a lesser role than in the Greek Civil War, which was a more containable conflict and one more propitious for Western intervention. There was also great distrust of Jiang Jieshi, the Nationalist leader. As a result, the Republicans organised a witch hunt of those who had allegedly betrayed China."
"In 1948, as the Communists switched to conventional, but mobile, operations, the Nationalist forces in Manchuria were isolated and then destroyed, and the Communists regained Shensi and conquered much of China north of the Yellow River. Communist victory in Manchuria led to a crucial shift in advantage, and was followed by the rapid collapse of the Nationalists the following year. The Communists made major gains of matérial in Manchuria, and it also served as a base for raising supplies for operations elsewhere. After overrunning Manchuria, the Communists focused on the large Nationalist concentration in the Suchow-Kaifeng region. In the Huai Hai campaign, beginning on 6 November 1948, each side committed about 600,000 men. The Nationalists suffered from poor generalship, including insufficient coordination of units, and inadequate use of air support, and were also hit by defections. An important factor in many civil wars, defections from the Nationalists proved highly significant in the latter stages of the Chinese Civil War. Much of the Nationalist force was encircled thanks to effective Communist envelopment methods, and, in December 1948 and January 1949, it collapsed due to defections and combat losses."
"Jiang Jieshi resigned as President on 21 January 1949, and the Communists captured Beijing the following day. They responded to the new President’s offer of negotiation by demanding unconditional surrender, and the war continued. The Communist victories that winter had opened the way to advances further south, not least by enabling them to build up resources. The Communists crossed the Yangzi River on 20 April 1949, and the rapid overrunning of much of southern China over the following six months testified not only to the potential speed of operations, but also to the impact of success in winning over support. Nanjing fell on 22 April, and Shanghai on 27 May, and the Communists pressed on to capture rapidly the other major centres. Fleeing the mainland, Jiang Jieshi took refuge on the island of Formosa (Taiwan), which China had regained from Japan after the end of World War Two. It was protected by the limited aerial and naval capability of the Communists and, eventually, by American naval power. However, until he intervened in Korea in 1950, Mao Zedong prepared for an invasion of Formosa, creating an air force to that end. Jiang, in turn, used Formosa and the other offshore islands he still controlled as a base for raids on the mainland. Meanwhile, in the spring of 1950, the island of Hainan and, in 1950–1, Tibet were conquered by the Communists, the capital of Tibet, Lhasa, being occupied on 7 October 1950. The CIA subsequently backed rebellion in Tibet, notably by Khampa rebels. The new strategic order in Asia was underlined in January 1950 when China and the Soviet Union signed a mutual security agreement. Mao was in Moscow for two weeks, an unheard of amount of time for a head of state: Stalin would not see Mao for a while, insulting him. Tension between the two regimes was there from the start."
"The Chinese Civil War was not a simple struggle between Communists and anti-Communists. It drew on a number of strands in Chinese history, including regional rivalries and the issues of military control. Moreover, the success of the Nationalists’ Northern Campaign in the late 1920s, when, from a base in the south, they gained control over all the country bar Manchuria, indicated that Communism was not itself necessary to deliver such a military verdict. Nevertheless, the Communist success in 1946–50 was more complete, not only because it included Manchuria and Tibet, but also because it was not dependent, as that of the Nationalists (or indeed the Manchu in the 1640s–50s) had been, on co-operation with warlords. Moreover, as a result of Mao, the nationalism and nation-state building seen in China earlier in the century was linked to the Cold War."
"At the end of World War II which brought about the defeat of the Nazi aggressors, our nation and our people achieved their long-cherished desire for liberty at home and equality in the community of nations. Before long, however, the people on the Chinese mainland were robbed of their personal property, separated from their families and relatives, deprived of their cultural and historical heritage, and denied their human and individual dignity. They have been forced to serve as Communist tools of aggression for the enslavement of yet other peoples."
"The Chinese Communist Party refers to its victory in 1949 as a ‘liberation’. The term brings to mind jubilant crowds taking to the streets to celebrate their newly won freedom, but in China the story of liberation and the revolution that followed is not one of peace, liberty and justice. It is first and foremost a history of calculated terror and systematic violence. The Second World War in China had been a bloody affair, but the civil war from 1945 to 1949 also claimed hundreds of thousands of civilian lives – not counting military casualties. As the communists tried to wrest the country from Chiang Kai-shek and the nationalists, they laid siege to one city after another, starving them into submission."
"The revolutionary dimensions of Mao’s victory were not well understood at the time and are still contested. Neither a grievous political defeat for the United States nor a great triumph for the USSR, the establishment of communist rule in China exposed the limits of the Superpowers’ agility and skill. Locked in their rivalry over Europe in 1947–1948, both had failed to deal adroitly with the rapid deterioration of the Nationalist (Kuomintang) government and with the communists’ determination to prevail. In Washington, which was caught up in the close presidential campaign of 1948, the debate between the ardent proponents of military support for Chiang and the equally passionate decriers of his government’s corruption and ineptitude produced a $400 million aid appropriation but also a paralyzing fatalism over the US role in China’s future, particularly given the political impossibility of armed intervention. Similarly, in Moscow, the fears of US intervention and of a feisty Chinese Tito as well as the advantages of a weak and divided China that would preserve the Yalta gains had to be weighed against the ideological benefits of obtaining a huge Asian satellite. Stalin’s capricious gestures in 1948 were the result: a mediation offer that annoyed Washington and infuriated Mao and the delay in inviting the communist leader to Moscow, but also the intense communications between the two parties, the procommunist pronouncements later that year, and the stepped-up arms deliveries and diplomatic contacts in 1949."
"A second but simultaneous expansion of the Cold War occurred in East Asia, where on October 1, 1949—a week after Truman's announcement of the Soviet atomic bomb—a victorious Mao Zedong proclaimed the formation of the People's Republic of China. The celebration he staged in Beijing's Tiananmen Square marked the end of a civil war between the Chinese nationalists and the Chinese communists that had been going on for almost a quarter of a century. Mao's triumph surprised both Truman and Stalin: they had assumed that the nationalists, under their long-time leader Chiang Kai-shek, would continue to run China after World War II. Neither had anticipated the possibility that, within four years of Japan's surrender, the nationalists would be fleeing to the island of Taiwan, and the communists would be preparing to govern the most populous nation in the world."
"The situation in China was full of explosives, the handling of which required delicacy. Shortly before the actual surrender the Japanese withdrew their forces to the Yangtze Valley and to North China, where the Chinese Communists demanded that they receive the Japanese surrender. General Okamura, commander of the North China Area Army, refused, but on 17 August let it be known that he would surrender to Chiang Kai-shek. Unfortunately, the Generalissimo and his Nationalist armies were far distant, in southwest China. A Japanese puppet Chinese government with its own "Peace Preservation Troops" further complicated matters. And although the United States was willing to assist the Nationalist government to reestablish control over Chinese territory, it was fearful of being involved in a civil war."
"In their native countries, Roosevelt and Churchill are regarded as examples of wise statesmen. But we, during our jail conversations, were astonished by their constant shortsightedness and even stupidity. How could they, retreating gradually from 1941 to 1945, leave Eastern Europe without any guarantees of independence? How could they abandon the large territories of Saxony and Thuringia in return for such a ridiculous toy as the four-zoned Berlin that, moreover, was later to become their Achille’s heel? And what kind of military or political purpose did they see in giving away hundreds of thousands of armed Soviet citizens (who were unwilling to surrender, whatever the terms) for Stalin to have them killed? It is said that by doing this, that they secured the imminent participation of Stalin in the war against Japan. Already armed with the Atomic bomb, they did pay for Stalin so that he wouldn’t refuse to occupy Manchuria to help Mao Zedong to gain power in China and Kim Il Sung, to get half of Korea!… Oh, misery of political calculation! When later Mikolajczyk was expelled, when the end of Beneš and Masaryk came, Berlin was blocked, Budapest was in flames and turned silent, when ruins fumed in Korea and when the conservatives fled from Suez – didn’t really some of those who had a better memory, recall for instance the episode of giving away the Cossacks?"
"Nevertheless, the Chinese Government and people are still laboring under the double and interrelated burden of civil war and a rapidly deteriorating economy. The strains placed upon the country by eight years of war, and the Japanese occupation and blockade have been increased by internal strife at the very time that reconstruction efforts should be under way. The wartime damage to transport and productive facilities has been greatly accentuated by the continued obstruction and destruction of vital communications by the Communist forces. The civil warfare has further impeded recovery by forcing upon the Government heavy expenditures which greatly exceed revenues. Continual issuances of currency to meet these expenditures have produced drastic inflation with its attendant disruption of normal commercial operations. Under these circumstances China's foreign exchange holdings have been so reduced that it will soon be impossible for China to meet the cost of essential imports. Without such imports, industrial activity would diminish and the rate of economic deterioration would be sharply increased."
"中国人民从中国解放区和国民党统治区，获得了明显的比较。 难道还不明显吗？两条路线，人民战争的路线和反对人民战争的消极抗日的路线，其结果：一条是胜利的，即使处在中国解放区这种环境恶劣和毫无外援的地位；另一条是失败的，即使处在国民党统治区这种极端有利和取得外国接济的地位。 国民党政府把自己的失败归咎于缺乏武器。但是试问：缺乏武器的是国民党的军队呢，还是解放区的军队？中国解放区的军队是中国军队中武器最缺乏的军队，他们只能从敌人手里夺取武器和在最恶劣条件下自己制造武器。 国民党中央系军队的武器，不是比起地方系军队来要好得多吗？但是比起战斗力来，中央系却多数劣于地方系。 国民党拥有广大的人力资源，但是在它的错误的兵役政策下，人力补充却极端困难。中国解放区处在被敌人分割和战斗频繁的情况之下，因为普遍实施了适合人民需要的民兵和自卫军制度，又防止了对于人力资源的滥用和浪费，人力动员却可以源源不竭。 国民党拥有粮食丰富的广大地区，人民每年供给它七千万至一万万市担的粮食，但是大部分被经手人员中饱了，致使国民党的军队经常缺乏粮食，士兵饿得面黄肌瘦。中国解放区的主要部分隔在敌后，遭受敌人烧杀抢“三光”政策的摧残，其中有些是像陕北这样贫瘠的区域，但是却能用自己动手、发展农业生产的方法，很好地解决了粮食问题。 国民党区域经济危机极端严重，工业大部分破产了，连布匹这样的日用品也要从美国运来。中国解放区却能用发展工业的方法，自己解决布匹和其他日用品的需要。 在国民党区域，工人、农民、店员、公务人员、知识分子以及文化工作者，生活痛苦，达于极点。中国解放区的全体人民都有饭吃，有衣穿，有事做。 利用抗战发国难财，官吏即商人，贪污成风，廉耻扫地，这是国民党区域的特色之一。艰苦奋斗，以身作则，工作之外，还要生产，奖励廉洁，禁绝贪污，这是中国解放区的特色之一。 国民党区域剥夺人民的一切自由。中国解放区则给予人民以充分的自由。 国民党统治者面前摆着这些反常的状况，怪谁呢？怪别人，还是怪他们自己呢？怪外国缺少援助，还是怪国民党政府的独裁统治和腐败无能呢？这难道还不明白吗？"
"Returning home from daily namaaz in the afternoon, I saw a well armed gang of about 200 tribals in a motor convoy. They were stranded as the bridge on Uri Nalla (now known as NS Bridge) was blown by J &K State Forces. These tribesmen were becoming restless. A few of them stopped the locals and asked them for any alternate route. When they replied in negative, the locals had to face the wrath of savages. Since, they could not move across the Uri Nalla, tribal settled in Uri town and Peeristan. They then started looting and burning the houses. Few of the tribal performed more devious crimes. My 80 years old grand mother was beaten on the chest, kicked in the abdomen and then hacked to death. My neighbour Manzoor was also stabbed in the abdomen. Few tribal grabbed his sister Aaliya, who had come home and beat her till she could no longer stand. Then they raped her and stabbed her repeatedly in the abdomen and the pelvis. Four long hours passed. I hid near the masjid, frozen, and then I ran down towards jungles and returned only when I came to know that Indian Army has moved in. During this violence I lost my elder brother, my sister-in-law. My house was gutted and everything was taken away by the tribals."
"The Pashtun tribesmen under Khurshid Anwar`s command halted after reaching Baramula, only an hour`s bus ride from Srinagar and refused to go any further. Here they embarked on a three-day binge, looting houses assaulting Muslims and Hindus alike, raping men and women and stealing money from Kashmir treasury. The local cinema was transformed into a rape centre. A group of Pashtuns invaded St Joseph's convent, where they raped and killed four nuns, including the mother superior."
"The number of women who have been kidnapped and raped makes my heart bleed. The wild forces thus let loose on the State are marching on with the aim of capturing Srinagar, the summer Capital of my Government, as first step to over-running the whole State [of Kashmir]."
"The raiders came to our land, massacred thousands of people -- mostly Hindus and Sikhs, but Muslims too -- abducted thousands of girls, Hindu, Sikhs and Muslims alike, looted our property and almost reached the gates of our summer capital, Srinagar."
"Everything was peaceful until the afternoon of 27 October, when the tribesmen suddenly appeared in their lorries. They took control of the town and an orgy started. Anyone who attempted to argue with them or showed any signs of resistance was shot immediately. This resulted in those residing in the Southern portion of the town fleeing to the Northern part which lay across the Jhelum River. Almost throughout the night there were signs of arson and bursts of firing. The next day, 28 October, groups of tribesmen entered the Northern part of the town and abducted women whom they dragged back to the Southern part. They warned the people to stay in their houses or face death if they stirred out."
"In Hindutva writings (e.g. in Jeevan Kulkarni’s Writ Petition no. 587 of 1989), there is frequent reference to a telegram allegedly sent by the Pakistani raiders to their military headquarters during the invasion of Kashmir in 1948: “All women raped, all Sikhs killed.”"
"In the month of November (1947), Hindu and Sikh girls brought by Pathan raiders from Kashmir were sold in the bazars of ghulam,” for rupees 10 or so each in the wake of the partition of the country, 1947-48."
"[When the Jihadist tribal Mujahidin raided Kashmir in 1947, the girls abducted by the Jihadists] 'were exhibited in the bazaars of Peshawar and Bannu, thereby enticing Pathans towards Kashmir. Many were subjected to unmentionable indignities.'"