POV: Pakistan's Military High Command (September–January)
It began with Hyderabad.
Early September 1947
Karachi, Governor-General's House
Muhammad Ali Jinnah sat rigidly upright in the high-backed wooden chair, the afternoon sun slanting across his drawn, exhausted face. A file lay open before him — thin, almost insultingly thin for something that had already changed the fate of Pakistan.
The Nizam had signed the Instrument of Accession to India.
Not compelled.
Not coerced by invasion.
Not toppled.
Signed.
Voluntarily.
Witnessed by her father.
Engineered by a woman neither the British nor Pakistan had fully understood — Saraswati Sinha the Minister of India's Cabinet and New Nizam of Hyderabad.
"Your Excellency," Liaquat Ali Khan whispered, voice barely holding steady, "this is… catastrophic."
Jinnah didn't respond. His fingers were ice-cold despite the Karachi heat.
"How," he finally said, voice low and sharp, "does a state we courted for months… surrender so completely… without even consulting us?"
General Frank Messervy, the British commander still heading Pakistan Army, cleared his throat.
"Sir… intelligence suggests the new Indian government offered autonomy guarantees… and deployed certain covert diplomatic pressures."
"Pressures?" Jinnah snapped. "This is annexation disguised as diplomacy!"
Messervy did not answer.
He didn't need to.
The news arrived on the same day that another blow struck them:
Lakshadweep had fallen to India.
No battle.
No warning.
The islands simply slipped through Pakistan's fingers.
"What next?" Jinnah muttered bitterly. "They will walk into Junagadh as well, and then lakshadweep?"
General Akbar Khan grimaced.
"Sir… Junagadh is already collapsing internally. Their Nawab is panicking."
Then a Pakistani Army Staff enter the room without knocking, and panickly say ."Sir Lakshadweep is now controlled by Indian Navy"
Jinnah pressed a trembling hand to his forehead.
"How the hell this happen ?"
Then Messervy said," Your excellency, India's Naval capabilities are more formidable than anyother commonwealth and pakistan well.."
Then Jinnah said,"This… this is not how the partition was meant to unfold."
And he then order the purchase of Submarine and Naval Vessels for future uses.
Messervy exchanged a heavy glance with Gracey.
India was not behaving like the Congress they remembered.
This was strategy.
Cold.
Coherent.
And Far more Dangerous.
---
Late October 1947
Rawalpindi GHQ
The Kashmir front reports were grim.
General Akbar Khan stood before a cluttered table, his uniform dusty, his eyes red from sleepless nights. The maps spread across the table were littered with red crosses — failed assaults, wiped-out lashkar groups, broken tribal columns.
"The lashkars are fleeing," he said. "Indian reinforcements are landing by air. Brigadier Sen is pushing them back toward Uri."
Messervy muttered, "What did you expect? India still has the Royal Indian Air Force. And we—"
He didn't finish. Everyone knew the truth.
Pakistan had no air force worth speaking of yet.
The tribals, who were supposed to storm Srinagar like a tidal wave, had instead stalled, looted Baramulla, and lost the element of surprise.
Jinnah slammed his cane against the floor.
"This war should've been over by now! Kashmir should have been ours!"
Akbar Khan stared at the map helplessly.
"Sir… India is not just defending. They are planning. Every move is calculated. Every reinforcement timed. We underestimated their new administration. Severely."
Jinnah's eyes narrowed.
"This new Prime Minister… Sen… who is he?"
No one answered.
Because no one had an answer.
What India was doing was not Congress politics. It was military precision.
---
Mid-November 1947
Pakistan Foreign Office
Islamabad (then Karachi)
The international newspapers began to circulate rumors.
India consolidates princely states at unprecedented pace.
Hyderabad joins the Indian Union peacefully.
Junagadh collapses.
Kathiawar merges.
Rajputana in final negotiations.
Maharajas aligning behind New Delhi.
Jinnah stared at the foreign press montage with a tightening jaw.
"This cannot be possible," he muttered. "Not all of them. Not so fast."
Foreign Secretary Zafrullah Khan sighed.
"Sir… the British High Commission believes India has been preparing this since August. Some fear this is a new form of dominance—internal consolidation before outward expansion."
Jinnah's face paled.
"What is Britain saying officially?"
"That they are… monitoring."
Jinnah scoffed. "Cowards. They left us with scraps and now watch India eat the entire feast."
---
November–December 1947
The Kashmir Collapse
The decisive reports came on 14 December.
Indian Army had secured the Valley fully.
Uri reclaimed.
Baramulla reclaimed.
Muzaffarabad in reach.
Gilgit tribes rebelling silently.
The Indian flag raised in every major settlement.
Jinnah stared at the telegram as if it were poison.
"We are losing Kashmir…" he whispered.
Akbar Khan stepped forward.
"No, sir. We have lost Kashmir."
The room fell silent.
General Gracey, diplomatic but direct, added, "India is executing operations far beyond what any of us predicted. Their logistics… their planning… it resembles wartime Europe, not a newly independent state."
Jinnah's voice cracked.
"How did they learn to fight like this?"
Gracey shook his head.
"We do not know."
But everyone was thinking the same thing:
"Why,How, and By whom"
But they forget something that India is the country that participated in the World War.
And every Veteran of that war is now in Indian military. And this military is guided by someone who saw the future of war… not the past.
---
17 December 1947
The Global Earthquake
It was The Times of London that broke the story.
INDIA CONSOLIDATES 500+ PRINCELY STATES
WORLD STUNNED BY RAPID UNION
NEW DELHI EMERGES AS ASIA'S CENTRAL POWER
Then The New York Times picked it up.
Then L'Humanité.
Then Pravda.
Then every newspaper in every capital city.
Pieces appeared about India's:
rapid integration
administrative unification
diplomatic brilliance
unexpected military discipline
new strategic doctrine
Pakistan's cabinet sat in stunned silence.
Even Liaquat Ali Khan whispered:
"Sir… we have miscalculated everything."
Jinnah did not reply.
He couldn't.
His hand shook too violently to lift the tea cup.
---
25 December 1947
A Funeral Gift
(though it was his birthday, it felt like death)
On Jinnah's desk lay the international bulletin that froze the entire Pakistani leadership in place:
NEPAL, BHUTAN, SIKKIM JOIN THE INDIAN UNION — FORMAL ACCORD SIGNED ON 25 DECEMBER
For a moment, there was no sound.
Nothing.
Only the distant Karachi gulls crying outside.
General Messervy sat down heavily. "This… is impossible."
"India now surrounds Tibet," Zafrullah Khan whispered.
Jinnah buried his face in his hands.
"This Sen… this man… he is unifying the entire subcontinent."
"And we," Liaquat murmured, "are shrinking."
---
29 December 1947
The Submarine Disaster
Rear Admiral Jefford entered the situation room pale as chalk.
"Sir… we have lost our submarine."
Jinnah snapped upright.
"What? But How ?"
"HMS Odin" Jefford whispered. "It is in Indian custody."
A stunned hush fell.
"Why?"
Jefford swallowed.
"It crossed into Indian waters."
"No Pakistani captain would commit such stupidity!" Jinnah roared.
Jefford shook his head. "Sir… they followed a storm-warning signal. But Karachi never issued that warning."
Silence.
"So," Jinnah said slowly, "you are telling me…"
Jefford nodded reluctantly.
"…someone impersonated us."
Jinnah's skin turned cold.
"Sen," he whispered. "It is him. Sen this bastard."
---
31 December 1947
The Second Strike
Another naval officer burst in, breathless.
"Sir—sir we have lost a second vessel!"
Jinnah nearly collapsed.
"What now?!"
"A troop transport. It drifted into Portuguese waters near Goa and… Indian Navy intercepted. Completely legal."
Jefford shook his head in disbelief.
"This cannot be coincidence. Two vessels in three days?"
Akbar Khan slammed his fist on the table.
"India is humiliating us. Publicly. Internationally. Militarily. And we are doing NOTHING!"
Jinnah grabbed the edge of the desk, knuckles white.
"No," he said. "Not nothing."
---
1 January 1948
Rawalpindi GHQ — Emergency Meeting
The New Year dawned with smoke-like fog over the cantonment, thick and choking. Inside GHQ, every major military leader sat at the long table. Files. Maps. Radio logs. Captured reports. International newspapers.
Jinnah walked in slowly, leaning on his cane.
He looked older than he ever had.
"This," he began, voice hoarse, "is our darkest hour."
Messervy stared straight ahead.
"India has unified," Jinnah continued. "Hyderabad gone. Lakshadweep gone. Princely states gone. Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim gone. Kashmir lost. Our navy humiliated. The world now sees India as unstoppable. A rising power. A unifier of the East."
He paused.
"And us?"
He looked around.
"We look like a mistake. It Proving the Two nation theory a Power hungry doctorine, And us like a power hungry madman who for power help the Britishers to divided the subcontinent, and massacre the innocent people"
The room's silence was suffocating.
Then Jinnah leaned forward, eyes sharp with rage and desperation.
"We will attack."
Akbar Khan stiffened. "Sir?"
"We move the war forward," Jinnah said. "No longer late January. We strike in the second week."
Messervy was stunned. "Sir — that is rash. Reckless. Our forces are not fully prepared. Our logistics—"
"India must be stopped before it becomes too powerful!" Jinnah snapped. "Before they seize East Bengal. Before they surround us entirely."
He pounded the table.
"This is existential."
General Gracey exhaled slowly.
"Sir… we must be realistic. India knows our plans."
Jinnah's eyes shot up.
"What?"
Gracey swallowed.
"The way they took our submarine… they know. They know everything."
Jinnah trembled with fury.
"Then we strike before they strike us."
Akbar Khan nodded slowly.
"It is madness… but also our only chance."
Jefford whispered:
"If we lose… we have no navy left."
Liaquat Ali Khan closed his eyes.
"If we lose," he said softly, "we have no Pakistan left."
Jinnah raised his head like a dying lion gathering the last of its roar.
"Prepare the armies.
Mobilize the divisions.
January will not break us."
Outside, a distant muezzin's call echoed across Rawalpindi, lonely against the cold morning air.
Inside GHQ, maps were spread.
Orders were written.
Troops were mobilized.
The engines of war began to turn.
Pakistan would strike India in the second week of January 1948.
But no one in the room realized —
India had already prepared for this.
Anirban Sen had counted on this.
This was exactly the mistake he needed.
The Perfect excuse to present infront of Indians and World.
And Pakistan had walked into it with open eyes and a closed mind, even when they know it will be their last chance.