J. F. R. Jacob
Jack Farj Rafael Jacob, PVSM, was an Indian Army officer. He was best known for the role he played in the creation of Bangladesh in the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971. Jacob, then a major general, served as the chief of staff of the Indian Army's Eastern Command. During his 36-year long career in the army, Jacob fought in World War II and the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965. He later served as the governor of the Indian states of Goa and Punjab.
Early life
Jacob was born in Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India. His family were deeply religious Baghdadi Jews, originally from Iraq, who settled in Calcutta in the middle of the 18thcentury. Jacob's father, Elias Emanuel, was an affluent businessman. After his father became sick, Jacob was sent at the age of nine to Victoria School, a boarding school in Kurseong near Darjeeling. From then on, he went home only during school holidays.Jacob, motivated by reports of the Holocaust of European Jews during World War II, enlisted in the British Indian Army in 1942 as "Jack Frederick Ralph Jacob." His father objected to his enlisting. Jacob said in 2010, "I am proud to be a Jew, but am Indian through and through."
Military career
Jacob graduated from the Officer's Training School in Mhow in 1942, and received an emergency commission as a second lieutenant on 7June. He was initially posted to northern Iraq in anticipation of a possible German attempt to seize the oil fields of Kirkuk, and was promoted war-substantive lieutenant on 7December.In 1943, Jacob was transferred to an artillery brigade that was dispatched to Tunisia to reinforce the British Army against Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps. The brigade arrived after the Axis surrender. From 1943 to the end of the war, Jacob's unit fought in the Burma Campaign against the Empire of Japan. In the wake of Japan's defeat, he was assigned to Sumatra.
On 27October 1945, Jacob was granted a permanent commission in the rank of lieutenant. After World War II, he attended and graduated from artillery schools in England and the United States, specialising in advanced artillery and missiles. He returned to India following its partition, and joined the Indian Army. On 20 May 1964, he was given command of an artillery brigade, with the acting rank of brigadier. During the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, he commanded an infantry division, which later became the 12th Infantry Division, in the state of Rajasthan. During this period, Jacob composed an Indian Army manual on desert warfare.
Jacob was promoted to substantive brigadier on 17January 1966, and received command of an infantry brigade on 30 September. On 2 October 1967, he was promoted to the acting rank of major general and was given command of an infantry division, with promotion to the substantive rank on 10 June 1968. On 29 April 1969, he was appointed the chief of staff, Eastern Command, by General Sam Manekshaw. Jacob's immediate superior was Lieutenant General Jagjit Singh Aurora, the general officer commanding-in-chief of the Eastern Command. Jacob was soon tasked with dealing with the mounting insurgency in Northeast India.
Bangladesh War
Jacob gained prominence during his stint as the chief of staff of the Eastern Command; the command helped to defeat the Pakistan Army in East Pakistan during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. Jacob was awarded a commendation of merit for his role.In March 1971, the Pakistan Army launched Operation Searchlight to stem the Bengali nationalist movement in East Pakistan. The action led to over 10million refugees entering India, fuelling tensions between India and Pakistan. By the monsoon season Jacob—as chief of staff—was tasked with drawing the contingency plans in case of a conflict. After consulting with his superior officers, Jacob developed a plan for engaging Pakistan in a "war of movement" in the difficult and swampy terrain of East Pakistan.
An initial plan, given to the Eastern Command by Manekshaw, involved an incursion into East Pakistan and the capture of the provinces of Chittagong and Khulna. Senior Indian Army officers were reluctant to execute an aggressive invasion for fears of early ceasefire demands by the United Nations and a looming threat posed by China. That, together with the difficulty of navigating the marshy terrain of East Pakistan through three wide rivers, led the commanders to initially believe that the capture of all of East Pakistan was not possible. Jacob disagreed; his "war of movement" plan aimed to take control of all of East Pakistan. Jacob felt that the capital Dhaka was the geopolitical centre of the region, and that any successful campaign had to involve the eventual capture of Dhaka. Realising that the Pakistani Army's commander of its eastern command, A. A. K. Niazi, was going to fortify the towns and "defend them in strength", his plan was to bypass intermediary towns altogether, neutralise Pakistan's command and communication infrastructure, and use secondary routes to reach Dhaka. Jacob's plan was eventually approved by the Eastern Command.
The strategy eventually led to the capture of Dhaka. The Pakistani forces were selectively bypassed, their communication centres were captured and secured, and their command and control capabilities were destroyed. His campaign was planned for execution in three weeks, but was executed in under a fortnight.
Jacob understood that a protracted war would not be in India's best interests. On 16 December, during a lull in the battle, Jacob sought permission to visit Niazi to seek his surrender. He flew to Dhaka and obtained an unconditional surrender from Niazi, who later accused Jacob of blackmailing him into the surrender by threatening to order the annihilation of Pakistani troops in the east by bombing. Gen. Jacob made Niazi surrender in a public surrender at the Dhaka racecourse in front of the people of Dhaka, as well as provide a guard of honour.
The war was a significant victory for India, with nearly ninety thousand Pakistani soldiers surrendering to the Indian Army. Despite that, when Dhaka fell, there were more than twenty-six thousand Pakistani soldiers in the city and only three thousand Indian soldiers in the immediate area.
A study of the campaign by Pakistan's National Defence College concluded that "the credit really goes to Jacob's meticulous preparations in the Indian eastern command and to the implementation by his corps commanders." According to the website Bharat Rakshak, Jacob had repeatedly asserted that the Bangladesh war was only successful because of his own efforts rather than those of Field Marshal Manekshaw or the GOC-in-C of Eastern Command, Lieutenant General Aurora.
Later military career and retirement
On 17 June 1972, Jacob was promoted to acting lieutenant-general and was appointed a corps commander, with promotion to substantive lieutenant-general on 5 August 1973. His final appointment was as GOC-in-C, Eastern Command, which he held from 1974 until 31 July 1978, when he retired from the Army following 36years of service and having reached the mandatory retirement age.Post-retirement life and political career
Following his retirement from the army, Jacob entered a career in business. In the late 1990s, he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party and served as its security adviser.From 19 April 1998 till 26 November 1999, he served as the Governor of Goa. While Governor of Goa, he was also the administrator during president's rule, due to instability in the Goa assembly. As administrator, he was recognised as an efficient administrator. He contributed to the preservation of Goa's natural green cover by declaring Mhadei and Netravati as wildlife sanctuaries.
From 27 November 1999 till 8 May 2003, he served as the Governor of Punjab.
As Governor of Punjab, he was also Administrator of Chandigarh. During this period, he successfully setup the IT Park in Chandigarh and invited N. R. Narayana Murthy, Chairman of Infosys to setup a development center there. Thereafter, other IT companies also setup operations in the Chandigarh IT Park, thus increasing employment avenues in the city
He also conceptualised the Chandigarh War Memorial, which was designed by the students of the Chandigarh College of Architecture and inaugurated by President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam on 17 August 2006.
He was a supporter of improved India–Israel relations. When the Bharatiya Janata Party became part of the ruling coalition government of India in 1998, one of their first priorities was to improve relations with Israel, with which India has had formal diplomatic relations since 1992. In the run-up to 2004 election, he postulated the implications of a win for the Indian National Congress in terms of Indo–Israel relations as:
He supported the purchase and trade of military equipment and technology from Israel by India, particularly the purchase of Israeli Arrow missiles, which he preferred over the U.S.-made Patriot missiles on account of the Arrows' ability to intercept enemy missiles at higher altitudes.
He remained cautious about relations between India and Pakistan in light of the Pakistani media's suggesting that military and intelligence co-operation between Israel and India, which they called a "Zionist threat" on Pakistan's borders.
He was also positive about India's recent economic growth and the capabilities of the young Indian generation. He said:
Death
On 13 January 2016, at around 8.30 am local time, Jacob died at New Delhi's Army Research and Referral Hospital due to pneumonia. He was laid to rest the following day in Delhi's Jewish cemetery on Humayun Road. His funeral was attended by India's defence minister, information minister, and foreign delegations.In April 2019, Israel honoured Jacob with a commemorative plaque on the Ammunition Hill Wall of Honour.
Major publications
Jacob was the author of these books:- Surrender at Dacca: Birth of a Nation
- An Odyssey in War and Peace: An Autobiography Lt Gen. J.F.R. Jacob
Dates of rank