My Personal American Diary Through Sixty Years of India-Pakistan Wars

As a five-year-old, I got what America did in an India-Pakistan war. As a 65-year-old, I'm still scratching my head!

President Donald J Trump betrayed a complete ignorance of history, claiming India and Pakistan have been fighting over Kashmir for 1500 years – which is exactly 1422 years before Pakistan was even created!

(Photo: Vibhushita Singh/The Quint)

September 1965. I was nearly five years old, my sister a domineering two years older.Our father, a young IAS officer, was Deputy Secretary in the central government. We were staying at the D-II flats in Chanakyapuri, New Delhi.

One morning, our mother came into the kids’ room with reams of thick black chart paper and bottles of sticking gum. She said, “C’mon bachchas, let’s measure all the glass windows in the house. Next, we will cut the black paper to fit each window. Finally, we will stick the cut sheets from the inside, so all the light gets blocked.” 

I remember my sister and I getting excited about this new game that Mom was playing with us. We busily went around the rest of the day, cutting, sticking, and blocking. The gardener was digging a big, deep pit in the lawn, but we just shrugged it off. By late evening, when Dad got home, the façade was pock-marked with black squares and rectangles. Our excellent craftsmanship had blocked all household light from spilling outside. We went to sleep, tired but happy.   

A sharply wailing siren, mixed with shrieking sounds of low-flying aircraft, woke me up around midnight. My heart was beating wildly. Dad and Mom appeared in the doorway. “Everything will be alright”. They led us to the pit in the garden. We covered our ears and knelt in the freshly dug mud, crouching forward. It was dark and cold. Dad whispered, “These are Pakistan’s American F-86 Sabre jets. People say their Sidewinder missiles are better than anything we have. But they are bad people. Don’t worry. Our MiGs and Gnats will beat them. Bad people never win.”

That’s perhaps my earliest childhood memory, when Pakistan Air Force penetrated deep, flying several sorties and flinging erratic bombs on New Delhi. There wasn’t much damage, but they did score a psychological victory, forcing people to take shelter in hastily built bunkers for several nights through that fateful September of 1965.

Indira-Nixon Face-off in 1971

I was nearly 11 years old in 1971, when India and Pakistan, both non-nuclear powers at that time, fought a 14-day war that ended with the liberation of Bangladesh. America had intervened decisively in Pakistan’s favour. President Richard Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger had a soft corner for Pakistan President General Yahya Khan. Pakistan was clandestinely facilitating Kissinger’s soirees to woo communist China.

India was seen as a “renegade” democracy that was firmly in Soviet embrace. Plus, Nixon and Kissinger viscerally hated Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who never flinched at their scaremongering and intimidation. She gave shelter to over five million refugees from East Pakistan who were fleeing the brutal violence inflicted on them by Yahya Khan’s army.

America ignored the genocide in East Pakistan, so graphically captured in the “Blood Telegrams” sent by Archer Blood, its Consul General in Dhaka. “With support of the American-trained and equipped military, the West Pakistani authorities have embarked on a program of selective genocide against the Bengali population. Estimates of dead vary from thousands to tens of thousands. We are mute and horrified spectators” (28 March 1971).

Instead, America pushed for a premature ceasefire resolution at the United Nations that would have left East Pakistan in a murderous thrall. Nixon upped the ante by dispatching the nuclear-powered USS Enterprise to the Bay of Bengal to coerce India. But backed by the Soviet Union, Indira Gandhi continued to advance, finally getting Pakistan to surrender on 16 December 1971.  

America’s U-Turn in Kargil War

I was nearly forty years old in 1999. We owned CNBC-TV18, India’s first 24-hour business news channel. Indian stock markets were humming with excitement at the impending dot com boom. The Sensex was at 4500, and rupee at 43 to the dollar. Suddenly, the Kargil War broke out in May. The Sensex tanked by over 20 percent. But the rupee held remarkably steady, dropping by barely five percent. 

The geopolitical tables had turned. Now, America was firmly with India. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s panicky dash to meet President Bill Clinton in Washington virtually backfired. Sharif was called the aggressor and instructed to withdraw his troops. The Americans reiterated that the Line of Control was the de facto border.

The joint statement was unambiguous: “President Bill Clinton urged an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of forces from the Indian side of the Line of Control.” American diplomats Strobe Talbott and Bruce Riedel actively liaised with Indian leaders to help restore peace.  

The Trump-Vance “Hands Off, Hands On” Conundrum

I am now nearly 65 years old, the owner of The Quint, a digital news platform. The American worm turned dramatically—for the third time—in the Pahalgam War a fortnight back (early 7-10 May 2025).

President Donald J Trump betrayed a complete ignorance of history, claiming India and Pakistan have been fighting over Kashmir for 1500 years – which is exactly 1422 years before Pakistan was even created! Every time he was asked about this potentially deadly conflagration between two nuclear powers, his response was, “I love both equally. They will figure it out.”

Perhaps the most stunning articulation of America’s new “hands off doctrine” came from Vice President JD Vance: “Fundamentally, India has its gripes with Pakistan, and Pakistan has responded to India. What we can do is encourage these folks to de-escalate a little bit (emphasis mine; America did not want a full de-escalation!), but we are not going to get involved in a war that is fundamentally none of our business and nothing to do with America’s ability to control it.”

Three days later, America did an astonishing volte-face. Trump claimed he had brokered a ceasefire and aborted a “nuclear war”.  Secretary of State Marco Rubio said India and Pakistan would sue for peace “at a neutral location”. Vice President Vance, well, he called Prime Minister Modi, and that did it!

It’s quite amazing. As a five-year-old, I got what America did in an India-Pakistan war. As a 65-year-old, I am still scratching my head!