When India amassed 5 lakh troops at border, gave Pakistan war scare

India Today

25-04-2025

"Nobody can undo Pakistan or take us for granted. We are here to stay and let it be clear that we [Pakistan] shall use the [nuclear] bomb if our existence is threatened," a rattled Abdul Qadeer Khan, then Pakistan's chief nuclear scientist, told Indian journalist Kuldip Nayar. It was late January 1987, and the height of Operation Brasstacks of 1986-87, which was India's largest military exercise and saw half a million Army personnel, armoured and tank divisions, positioned within 180 km of the Pakistan border, nearly triggering a full-scale war.advertisementNearly 40 years later, India-Pakistan tensions have soared again after Pakistan-sponsored terrorists killed 26 civilians in Pahalgam, prompting New Delhi to suspend the Indus Waters Treaty and Islamabad to scrap the Simla Agreement. Even as the nuclear threat from Pakistan persists, the Indian Air Force launched Exercise Aakraman, simulating strikes with Rafales and Sukhoi-30s. There are reports that Pakistan has moved some of its fighter jets from southern bases to the north, closer to the border with India.Though a full-scale war is highly unlikely between the two nuclear nations, India and Pakistan have engaged in limited wars. There also have been times when they pulled back from the brink. Operation Brasstacks of 1987 was one such moment.
Operation Brasstacks, a military exercise in the winter of 1987 by India, made Pakistan sweat.advertisementWith nearly half of the Indian Army deployed near the Pakistan border, comprising 10 divisions and three brigades, Operation Brasstacks was larger than any NATO exercise the world had seen. It triggered a major military mobilisation and a war scare in Pakistan."Operation Brasstracks was the largest and most controversial peacetime military exercise in South Asian since World War II," The New York Times reported in March 1987.AQ Khan's mention of the nuclear bomb then might sound chillingly similar to Dar's threat. That was the time when India had declared its nuclear capabilities while Pakistan was working covertly towards it. AQ Khan's threat was, in fact, a disclosure that Pakistan had managed to lay its hands on nuclear technology.But what was the trigger for Operation Brasstacks, the largest peacetime exercise by any country since World War II? Here's a look at the political and geopolitical context of the time to grasp why an operation of this scale was considered necessary by India. BACKGROUND: THE PUNJAB INSURGENCY AND KASHMIR FLASHPOINTIndia was being led by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi at the time of Operation Brasstacks. He assumed office after his mother and former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's assassination in 1984.advertisementThe Punjab insurgency and Pakistan-manufactured unrest in Kashmir challenged India's stability. Pakistan, under military dictator Zia-ul-Haq, was, of course, looking for "strategic depth" in India by creating trouble spots.Pakistan's notorious spy agency ISI and the army were constantly fanning the unrest in Punjab and Kashmir with arms, money, training and psychological support.And Rajiv, keen on addressing internal security challenges, was also looking to strengthen international diplomacy and project India as a stable, forward-looking nation.The Cold War context was important too. Although the United States had been an ally of Pakistan during the Soviet-Afghan War and had armed it heavily, Washington was gradually shifting its focus towards Islamabad's nuclear weapons programme. So was New Delhi.India, on the other hand, had already conducted its first nuclear test in 1974 (the Smiling Buddha). And it was rapidly modernising its military after fighting three wars against Pakistan and one against China. Tensions with Pakistan were bound to escalate.
Codenamed Smiling Buddha, India's first nuclear test in 1974 marked its entry into the nuclear club. It sent shockwaves into Pakistan, prompting it to fast-track its own nuclear ambitions. (File/India Today)
advertisementOPERATION BRASSTACKS COMMENCES IN DECEMBER 1986Launched in December 1986, Operation Brasstacks was conceived by General Krishnaswamy Sundarji, then Army Chief.By then, General Sundarji, who had been leading an overhaul of the Indian Army, was eager to put his new mechanised warfare strategies to the test on real terrain.In mid-November, New Delhi's Director-General of Military Operations picked up the hotline and gave Islamabad a heads-up: 'Indian troops will soon be moving into Rajasthan'. Operation Brasstacks, a massive corps-level exercise, was gearing up for its act, with the final phase of ground manoeuvres scheduled for February and March, reported India Today Magazine in 1987.Coincidentally, Pakistan was running its own military drills, the Saf-e-Shikan, in the Bahawalpur-Marot sector across the border from Rajasthan. Two other Pakistani divisions were nearby in the Ravi-Chenab corridor. The Pakistani groups were to wrap up by mid-December.
In December 1986, during Operation Brasstracks, Indian troops were strategically positioned within 180 km of the Pakistan border, with around 5,00,000 personnel, 10 divisions, and multiple armored units deployed across the vast Rajasthan desert sector. (India Today Magazine)
advertisementPAK SCRAMBLED FOR DEFENCE AFTER OPERATION BRASSTRACKS BUILD-UPHowever, alarmed by Indian troops and tanks marching along the deserts between Bikaner and Jaisalmer in Rajasthan, the Pakistan Army moved its northern reserve to the Upper Chenab Canal. With infantry, tank, and armoured divisions fitted with modern computer-based warfare systems, Indian forces in Rajasthan remained firmly in position. Mirroring the stance were the Pakistani counterparts across the border.By late January, around 3,40,000 troops stood face to face along a 400-km stretch of the border, from the central deserts to the northern mountains, with rising concerns on both sides about the risk of an accidental war, reported The New Yotk Times in 1987."A tense situation developed in which even a minor clash could have triggered a major conflict... It was held in northern Rajasthan, which is the most likely 'jump-off' area for India in any future hostilities...," strategic thinker and former Director of the Institute of Defence and Strategic Analysis (IDSA), PR Chari, wrote in his 2003 paper, Nuclear Crisis, Escalation Control, and Deterrence in South Asia.advertisementAnticipating an Indian invasion, the Pakistan Air Force kept operating its satellite bases in full swing.Then, Rawalpindi (Pakistan Army HQ) dispatched its infantry and armoured reserves from nearby areas to reinforce them, reported India Today Magazine in 1987. Forward locations were stocked with first and second-line ammunition, with an additional 15 days of reserves. Service leaves were cancelled. Civilians from villages were evacuated. Some bridges near Lahore were rigged with demolition mines.Meanwhile, paramilitary units, Mujahids and Jaanbaz, responsible for manning air defences, were put on high alert and were activated, the report said.Soon the focus of Operation Brasstacks shifted to Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab as Pakistan moved its strike reserves closer to these sensitive areas. To counter this, India expanded its military posture to prevent any surprise assault.
By January 1987, Operation Brasstacks had stretched from Rajasthan to the northern plains of Punjab and the mountains of Jammu and Kashmir. (India Today Magazine)
The Pakistani positioning threatened to isolate key regions of India, Gurdaspur, Amritsar, and Ferozepur, by targeting the bridge at the Harike barrage, thereby cutting off access to the Jammu and Kashmir sector."A massive airlift and ground movement of troops was then undertaken by India to occupy their defensive positions along the border, resulting in a further escalation of tensions," IDSA's Chari wrote. Far from the border in Rajasthan, Indian and Pakistani forces were also virtually eyeball-to-eyeball along the borders of Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab, with each side maintaining a tense standoff."This [Indian Army] is not a third-world army... This is a modern army, fully competent for any mission, easily as good as the Chinese, the Koreans or the French," an unnamed western diplomat was quoted as saying by the NYT.It was amid these peaking tensions that AQ Khan revealed that Pakistan had enriched uranium to weapons-grade and could simulate a nuclear test, warning, "Nobody can undo Pakistan or take us for granted... We shall use the bomb if necessary".Later, however, Khan, known as the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, softened his stance, saying his remarks were misinterpreted.OPERATION BRASSTRACKS: MILITARY EXERCISE OR WAR POSTURING?"The 1986–87 exercises, then, presented a unique opportunity to pressurise Pakistan, to remind it of its vulnerability to India's superior might. The eventual aim: get it to rethink its policy of supporting separatists, however limited," military scholar and author Ravi Rikhye wrote in his book, War That Never Was.Army chief Sundarji, however, insisted Operation Brasstracks was "purely for training purposes" and aimed at validating India's new mechanised warfare strategy."This was, is and always has been a training exercise," Sundarji said, brushing aside Pakistani fears as paranoia. But for Pakistan, watching massive formations inch close to its borders, it looked like a precursor to war.This India-Pakistan military build-up had all the ingredients of a potential full-scale war but was eventually de-escalated through diplomatic intervention.In March 1987, India and Pakistan reached an agreement to pull back 1,50,000 troops from the Kashmir region, followed later that month by a second pact to reduce military presence in the desert areas of Rajasthan and southern Punjab.
General Krishnaswamy Sundarji Sundararajan served as the Chief of the Army Staff of the Indian Army from 1986 to 1988. He was the last former British Indian Army officer to command the Indian Army. (India Today/File)
India consistently reassured Pakistan that there was no cause for provocation.In March 1987, the Indian Army, however, simultaneously initiated the final leg of Operation Brasstracks with 1,50,000 troops, the NYT reported."This was, is and always has been a training exercise," General Sundarji told the newspaper.WAS OPERATION BRASSTRACKS A DEEPER GAME?However, PM Rajiv Gandhi's decision to publicly dismiss Foreign Secretary AP Venkateswaran during the ongoing crisis only deepened the sense of uncertainty and raised eyebrows. VP Singh, who would later go on to become the PM, was brought in as the new defence minister.However, contradicting the official stance that Operation Brasstacks was merely a routine military exercise by the Indian government and Army, Lieutenant General (retired) PN Hoon, then commander-in-chief of the Western Command, claimed that the army was actually preparing for a war with Pakistan.
In the 1980s, the Indian Army carried out rapid mechanisation and modernisation. It inducted the Soviet T-72M1 'Ajeya' tanks, upgraded artillery, and expanded mechanised infantry. (Image for Representation/India Today)
"Brasstacks was no military exercise; it was a plan to build up a situation for a fourth war with Pakistan. And what is even more shocking is that the then Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, was not aware of these plans of a war," Lieutenant General Hoon wrote in his 2015 book, The Untold Truth."It is my belief that the Prime Minister, Arun Singh (then junior defence minister), Natwar Singh (foreign policy advisor to the Prime Minister), RAW, and General Sundarji were all, for their own separate reasons, trying to get a war with Pakistan going," Ravi Rikhye wrote in his book, War That Never Was."It was a power game. Sundarji wanted to become a Field Marshal and Arun Singh wanted to become the Prime Minister," Lt Gen Hoon said, answering why Arun Singh and General Sundarji pursued a "war" allegedly without informing the Prime Minister.There are claims and counter-claims, and the historical backdrop has to be remembered while understanding the massive build-up. Operation Brasstacks came as Pakistan was arming Khalistani and Kashmiri terrorists. It was also the time that India knew that Pakistan was covertly pursuing a nuclear agenda.Whatever might have been the trigger for Operation Brasstracks, the massive troop build-up gave Pakistan a chilling reminder of India's military superiority and readiness to strike, forcing Islamabad to rethink its strategic assumptions and accelerate its nuclear deterrence posture, even before it could come out so publicly.Tune InMust Watch