Tales Dead Men Tell

Shiv Kunal Verma, author of the book 1965 A Western Sunrise: India’s War With Pakistan

What research methods did you employ while writing the book?

A lot of the research has happened over various other projects as well. I did the History of the Air Force in 1992 which was funded by JRD Tata. While making films I had done a lot of research and it’s a continuous process.

But when I started on the 1965 book, the first thing I did was to visit some of the places where the action took place. I first went to the Rann of Kutch in India’s Gujarat, and got across the Sardar Post from where one can see Kanjarkot that is now in Pakistan. Once you see the terrain, half your job is done. It’s almost as if the ground speaks to you. The lie of the land, the geography, the slopes, the flow of the rivers–everything starts making sense then.

Additionally, I have also grown up in a lot of these areas. My father commanded the Tiger Division in Jammu, which was a key player during the war. I have also lived in Jalandhar in the mid-1980s and am very familiar with the Mand area and the Bari Doab, which in Punjab they call the area between two rivers—in this case, the Beas and Ravi, which is actually the Amritsar-Lahore sector, and the Rachna Doab in Sialkot sector. Kashmir too I know well because of all my earlier professional engagements in the area. Rajasthan’s Barmer sector was also among the areas I visited to get a feel of it.

I also did a few fighter sorties from Jaisalmer and Uttar Lai which further familiarised me with the terrain. I spoke to a few people selectively and was mindful of not speaking to too many. Somehow, individual stories can be distracting, as people tend to tell the story from their point of view and at the end of the day, they will also be very disappointed because they will expect one to include all that they have said. People also tend to speak about past events while keeping themselves at the centre of the incident. As a military historian one has to shove all that aside and look at the larger picture by studying the map and terrain and then figure out for yourself what could have happened.

Why was writing on the war of 1965 important for you?

It was important in the overall chronology of events because we started with ‘1962: The War that Wasn’t’. Aleph is a mainstream publisher and one of the biggest brands in the country. Until now most military history books had been published by specialists like Lancer, Manohar and Natraj Publishers plus a few others. It was David Davidar of Aleph who came up with this idea of documenting military history chronologically, which started with 1962: The War that Wasn’t and went on to 1965: A Western Sunrise books. The project also includes the wars that took place in 1947–1948 and 1971. We may also include the Kargil War in this project but that’s yet to be decided.

Coming back to th