India-Pakistan Relations: An Embittered Legacy

By : Yashvardhan K. Sinha

Page No: 113-124

Abstract

It was a typical August evening in 1947 when Indian army officers gathered at the Imperial Gymkhana Club (later Delhi Gymkhana Club) to bid farewell to their British and Pakistani counterparts.1 Conflicting emotions of hope, joy, agony and trepidation swept the gathering. A nation had been torn asunder — India was being partitioned and Pakistan was being carved out. On August 15, at the stroke of the midnight hour, India attained freedom after almost two centuries of colonial subjugation and depredation. However, the seeds of future conflict had been firmly planted, notwithstanding the bonhomie, contrived in some cases, that was displayed at the Gymkhana Club that evening. Many friends and comrades-in-arms would confront each other in battle before the year ran out, and in the ensuing decades. The story of three officers present on that occasion, whose lives and careers would intersect in times to come, is worth recounting. Lt. Col. S.H.F.J. Manekshaw was General Staff Officer 1 (G 1) in the Military Operations Directorate; Maj. Yahya Khan was G2 and Capt. S. K. Sinha was G3 in the same directorate at Army Headquarters.2 Till his Humber came from Peshawar, Yahya would occasionally ride pillion with Sinha in his Norton from the Wellesley Road (Zakir Hussain Marg) Officers Mess to South Block.

Author
Yashvardhan K. Sinha served as Deputy Secretary, Joint Secretary and Additional Secretary at the Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi, handling Pakistan. He also served as Counsellor and Head of the Political Wing at the High Commission of India, Islamabad. He retired from the Indian Foreign Service in 2018 as High Commissioner to the UK. Subsequently, he was appointed Chief Information Commissioner, Central Information Commission. He demitted office in 2023.
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.32381/IFAJ.2025.20.2.2