The Indo - Pak War

 In 1965 , India faced threats of war from Pakistan . General 1.5 . Mohammad Ayub Khan had come to power in Pakistan through a military coup in 1958 , forcibly taking over from President Iskander Mirza and assuming the president's post himself .

 The US was giving Pakistan a great deal of military support . The war with China in 1962 had left the Indians . including the armed forces , feeling demoralised . So Ayub Khan probably thought it was the right time to test the strength of the Indian forces at the frontier . In April 1965 , Pakistan tested the situation in Sindh .

 It seemed as if the Pakistanis could win after the first clashes in the Rann of Kachchh . Both sides were , at Britain's intervention , made to agree to a ceasefire and withdrawal of forces to the positions held before the clashes .

 Confident that the Indian army was weak , and trying to capitalise on the unrest created in the valley by the followers of Sheikh Abdullah and some other dissidents , the leadership in Pakistan decided to launch an attack in Kashmir .

 Operation Grandslam ' was launched in August with the idea of using the only significant overland route to Kashmir before India could muster its forces and outmoded tanks . Pakistan's foreign minister at the time , Zulfikar Ali Bhutto , encouraged Ayub Khan in this venture . Well - trained infiltrators were sent into the valley with the idea of creating an uprising there .

 The Indian prime minister showed his strength of mind at this point of time . Pakistan claimed that there was a spontaneous uprising against the Indian occupation of Kashmir .

 India pointed out that Pakistan had instigated trouble inside Indian territory by sending armed raiders into Jammu and Kashmir from so - called ' Azad Kashmir ' ( Pakistan - occupied Kashmir ) .

 Declaring tht force would be met with force , Shastri gave orders that the Indian army should cross the ceasefire line and close the passes used by the infiltrators .

 By early September the second Indo - Pakistan war had begun . Shastri proved that he could be decisive in a way that Nehru had not been .

 He took little time to grant the Indian forces the permission to take the needed retaliatory steps . His defence minister , Y.B. Chavan , also proved to be outstanding .

 In September , Indian forces launched a three - pronged attack with their tanks aiming at Lahore and Sialkot across the border in Punjab . Soon , Lahore was within the range of Indian fire .

 It was also the first time that the Indian Air Force was to take part in war after independence . The United Nations intervened and a ceasefire was brokered to which both sides agreed on September 23 .

Peace Agreement at Tashkent

 A South Asian peace conference was held in January 1966 at Tashkent ( the capital of Uzbekistan , then one of the republics of the Soviet Union ) which was sponsored by the Soviet President , Alexei Kosygin .

 It was with the mediation . of Kosygin that President Ayub Khan of Pakistan and Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri of India met and signed the Tashkent Declaration on January 10 , 1966 to " restore normal and peaceful relations between their countries and to promote understanding and friendly relations between their peoples " .

 The Tashkent Declaration was meant to form a framework for lasting peace between India and Pakistan . It is believed that the two sides were not able to reach an agreement on their own and that they were compelled by the Soviet leaders to sign a draft that they had prepared . However , it did not meet with complete approval in India .

 Critics felt that the agreement should have but did not include a no - war pact , nor was there any provision that Pakistan should give up guerrilla aggression in Kashmir . In Pakistan , the agreement was received even more angrily : there were riots and demonstrations against it . Zulfikar Bhutto distanced himself from Ayub Khan and the pact , and in the end broke away to subsequently form his own political party .

Shastri's Death

 Early in the morning of January 11 , 1965 , the morning following the signing of the Tashkent Declaration , Lal Bahadur Shastri died of a heart attack . There was a controversy over the death , with rumours floating that Shastri had been poisoned .

 The hand of the Central Intelligence Agency ( of the USA ) has been suspected in the matter ( as also in engineering the death of Homi Bhabha in an air crash ) as the West was wary of the nuclear aspirations of India and a disturbance in the balance of power in South Asia .

 The controversy has still not ended , especially as RTIs asking for relevant information have been turned down by the government .