On India’s military: Writings from within

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On India’s military: Writings from within

The book comprises the published writings in service journals of Ali Ahmed while serving in the

army. They cover the two decades on either side of the turn of the century, thereby providing a

window into the army in the period. The author was an infantry officer and the articles reflect

the concerns of the infantry and the wider army as the author grew in service from a subaltern

to colonelcy. The articles reflect the intellectual growth of the author and engage with the

issues that were salient in his time in uniform. The book is a record of the times as also serves

to provide insight into India’s army. The book is complemented by his other work, From within:

Reflections on India’s army (CinnamonTeal 2017), which comprises his unpublished work on the

same themes. The two books would interest military buffs and the attentive public; veterans

and practitioners; and students and academics in strategic and peace studies.

For the soldiers who served with me

Foreword

The book is a compilation of my in-military-service writings. I served in the Indian army for

twenty one years. I wrote avidly for its in-service publications and editors were kind enough

to publish some of my work. Most of the articles comprised my impressions and observations

on matters military. They were informed by a wide reading of professional subjects including

military history and by my graduate studies. I was fortunate to have undertaken sabbatical in

the UK early in my military career. The articles, book reviews and letters to the editor carry the

imprint of my studies and experience. In all, I managed to have about 95 pieces of varying length

published in service journals, which was reasonably good going since at least a decade of my

writing career was in the pre-internet age.

The published pieces reflect the concerns of the military in the period I served circa a decade

on either side of the turn of the century. They comprise in effect a written record of the times as

regards security concerns and issues as seen through a serving infantry officer. In my letters to

editor I engaged with the issues reflected in the publications, mostly presenting a point of view

that was not always the popular one. The collection expresses the liberal perspective in security

studies. This I believe made my articles somewhat different since my fellow officers largely

subscribed to the realist perspective and service journals usually reflected this bias. However,

that I was patronized by editors – all of whom were serving officers - did not owe so much to my

persistence or originality as much to their breath of vision and commitment to quality of their

journals.

I have divided the book into themes: regular war, irregular war, military matters and sundry book

reviews and letters to the editor. The commentaries in the regular war section deal with my main

area of interest which is limiting war. These were early articulations of my thinking that into my

doctoral dissertation. I converted the dissertation into a book, India’s doctrinal puzzle: Limiting war

in South Asia (Routledge 2014). In the irregular war section, I have compiled the articles dealing

with the army’s preoccupation through the nineties and early 2000s with counter insurgency.

My military service enabled me a vantage from which I could glean some insights on this and

have used the forum of writing for journals to record my observations. The liberal – soft-line

- perspective makes my take on insurgency and its counter different from the general run of

articles that featured in the journals. The military matters section comprises my impressions on

various issues that the military was engaged with intellectually during my time in uniform. There

were many viewpoints and mine was one of them. The topics range from military leadership to

educating army officers. My interest in military and society finds expression in this section. The

book review section has some book reviews I authored, but most have been left out since they

were short in length. The letters to the editor section is the one I am most proud of since I would

step up to the intellectual fight, forcefully presenting my argument or pointing out the fallacy in

some or other article. My excuse is that I was young then.

I believe the book will repay a reading and even a selective reading. It can over time prove to

be a significant contribution to military studies, strategic studies and peace studies in South

Asia since it is an insider’s view of the military in his time. On that count it might have historical

significance in serving as a national security record of the late twentieth century and early

twenty first century. It needs being read along with my other book, From within: Reflections on

India’s army, which is a collection of my military writings that did not get published when in

service. The two taken together will interest lay readers, veterans, military officers and scholars

interested in the military.

Acknowledgements

There are two groups in particular who I must thank for this book. The first comprises the

editors of the service journals who were serving officers on tenures with the institution that

published the journal. Their work is generally unsung and their contribution unrecorded but they

have held the intellectual torch high. They have provided me a forum and I must repay them by

acknowledging their support all through my years in service.

The second group are my senior officers in my battalion, in particular my commanding officers.

They allowed me to moonlight and I hope the output of my time does not disappoint them. The

support of my fellow officers in the various units I served in always buoyed me. Some did not

make it home from their field tenures, but our time together has surely gone into these pages in

some manner and measure.

Also, my father’s military postings during my early years in service enabled me a wider window

into the service that I have liberally relied on to inform my writings. A military background

equipped me well to serve as an observer on the military in my time. My earliest memory is

accompanying my father to the firing ranges sometime in the period before the 1971 War. As a

cadet home on vacations and as a gentleman cadet and young officer I was constantly taken

along for some or other military exercise. Some of these in Kashmir turned out to be adventures,

within sight and sound of gun fire. I suspect the early grounding in the military makes for any

acuity of my insights.

Finally, of course, the book owes to my family’s patience with me. I was allowed to goof off to

the computer at the expense of what could have been quality family time in some or other peace

tenure or when I was home for a limited time on leave. I trust the book compensates for the time

lost.

Other books by Ali Ahmed

From within: Reflections on India’s army (2017) (Ebook) - Download

India’s National Security in the Liberal Lens (2016) (Paperback) - Buy

On War In South Asia (2015) (Paperback) - Buy

On Peace in South Asia (2015) (Paperback) - Buy

First eBook edition published in India in 2017 CinnamonTeal Publishing.

ISBN: 978–93–86301–25–3

Copyright © 2017 Ali Ahmed

Ali Ahmed asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this book are the author’s own and the facts are as

reported by the author, and the publisher is not in any way liable for the same. Although the author and

publisher have made every effort to ensure that the information in this book was correct at the time of

going to press, the author and publisher do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for

any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result

from negligence, accident, or any other cause.

Page Development and Cover Design: CinnamonTeal Publishing

Cover Photo Courtesy: Author

CinnamonTeal Publishing,

Plot No 16, Housing Board Colony

Gogol, Margao

Goa 403601 India

www.cinnamonteal.in

From within: Reflections on India’s army

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From within: Reflections on India’s army

The book comprises unpublished writings of Ali Ahmed from his time in uniform. The author served in the Indian army for two decades. His reflections in the period that did not make it into print have been compiled into this volume. The commentaries here supplement his other book that contains his published writings of the period, On India’s military: Writings from within (CinnamonTeal 2017). The essays are carried unedited to retain the flavor of the times and conditions in which they were written. It has historical value in providing a snapshot of the concerns that animated the army intellectually in the period at the turn of the century. The observations and insights would be useful for both practitioners and scholars in military studies.

For comrades who did not make it back

Foreword

The book comprises my article and commentaries while I was in the military for just over two decades. While my book On India’s military: Writings from within is a collection of my articles that were published in military journals, there were several pieces I wrote that did not get carried in the service publications. I have collected these into this book. I think their publication complements my in-service published writings and taken together the two book present a fair record of the

security concerns and professional and intellectual engagement of the military in the years I served in uniform. While about 95 pieces of mine were published in the many service publications, many more

articles and rejoinders sent in as letters to editors did not see light of day. And, I am sure with good reason. However, to my mind mostly this owed to the service bias towards realism, which is perfectly understandable and not unreasonable. But it did lead to the writings presented here

not making it to print, largely because they were anchored in a liberal perspective. In effect, my views were a counter point, running into a brick wall at times. Nevertheless, as the book testifies, I persisted and some of my views did manage to get to print, even as those that did not

then make it, have this book to finally have an audience.

I think this book is therefore the more significant of the two. It is blunt, straight-forward in a typically soldierly way. It is forthright in criticism of some service mores and practices that do not dignify the service any. By including such pieces in this book without any subsequent editing I think a truer picture might emerge of the military in my time. But of course it is only one view point and perhaps not the most comprehensive or accurate one. However, taken with other vantage points on the military, I am certain my labour at the keyboard will pay off a reader in

search for an understanding of India’s military as also help the military along in its never ending trajectory towards professional perfection.

As with my other book On India’s military: Writings from within, I have followed the same sections to compile my writings: regular war, irregular war, military matters, selective book reviews and letters to the editor. The regular war section deals with conventional and nuclear doctrinal

issues. I have discussed these more fully after I left service in my writings for think tanks and on the web. The irregular war section has articles that draw on my personal experience in counter insurgency settings. My liberal perspective shines through in these articles, arguing relentlessly

that the military has to exercise strict self-regulation lest it impose on people in a counterproductive manner. In military matters, I mostly dwell on the soft-core issues such as military sociology. These articles are the more important ones since they are straight from the heart.

Some appear critical but the intent all along has been to be constructive, to engage, to debate and where possible influence change. The book reviews also bring out a few ideas triggered no doubt by the books reviewed. Some sensitive issues are dealt with in the letters to the editor

section. In some letters I spoke up about what I felt was penetration of majoritarian extremist thinking into military journals. I think this remains an area that warrants close attention, lest the politics in wider society seep into the military sapping its professionalism. The letters testify

that there is sufficient ground for concern on this score.

The book is not quite dated, even though I left the service a decade back. In fact most of the current day developments are riding on the back of issues originating in the period I was in service. The book serves as an outspoken, warts and all, no holds barred record of the military

in my time. It must be read alongside my other book with my published work of the period, On India’s military: Writings from within, to gain a fuller insight into India’s military at the turn of the century. It is for this reason, as an aid to scholarship in national security, security studies,

strategic studies and peace studies, I have undertaken to publish these piece a decade and more since they were penned. I trust the book shall serve to better the Indian army’s professionalism and help it serve the nation with pride.

Acknowledgements

I have had the benefit of a military background and quite like other fauji kids developed early an abiding interest in matters military. The book is a consequence of this interest. It is largely a labour of love since I spent considerable time on the keyboard. Though some of the output

appeared to be critical – perhaps accounting for why the pieces were not published – my writings were with a constructive intent. Where possible I pitched to bolster military good practice and where necessary I was constrained to point out we could have done better. The publication of

this book owes to the same sentiment. It is tribute to my former comrades in arms who made the military the fine institution it was and remains to this day.

I would like to thank my family foremost for permitting me the time and space. The inclusions here testify that it was an uphill journey, clearly one that could not have been undertaken without my family’s support, in particular my wife. Having an absentee husband even while he is at

home is a feeling she perhaps shares with spouses of authors in general. It is to ensure that her time was not spent in vain, I have put this book together, in the hope that some good emerge for India’s army and at one remove for the Indian nation.

First eBook edition published in India in 2017 CinnamonTeal Publishing.

ISBN: 978–93–86301–26–0

Copyright © 2017 Ali Ahmed

Ali Ahmed asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this book are the author’s own and the facts are as

reported by the author, and the publisher is not in any way liable for the same. Although the author and

publisher have made every effort to ensure that the information in this book was correct at the time of

going to press, the author and publisher do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for

any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result

from negligence, accident, or any other cause.

Page Development and Cover Design: CinnamonTeal Publishing

Cover Artwork: Painting by Farah Ahmed,

www.farahartcreations.blogspot.in

CinnamonTeal Publishing,

Plot No 16, Housing Board Colony

Gogol, Margao

Goa 403601 India

cinnamonteal.in

Intractable Scenarios

http://www.thebookreviewindia.org/articles/archives-5396/2017/march/3/intractable-scenarios.html
DEADLY IMPASSE: INDO-PAKISTANI RELATIONS AT THE DAWN OF THE NEW CENTURY 
 By Sumit Ganguly 
Cambridge University Press, New Delhi, 2016, 188, 395

VOLUME XLI NUMBER 3 March 2017

Sumit Ganguly is no stranger to scholars in international and strategic studies. His book The Origins of Wars in South Asia is a popular text with undergraduates. He takes his earlier work that finishes with the 1971 War further in the volume under review by beginning with the Kargil War. His is a slim volume covering the first decade of the century, the beginning of which he dates to this war.

In his view, Pakistan’s India policy cannot be explained through the ‘spiral model’. The spiral model relies on the concept of security dilemma. The security dilemma has it that states, perceiving even defensive actions of neighbours as threatening, resort to counter measures that in turn generate a negative threat perception in their neighbour. This leads to a spiral—hence ‘spiral model’—expressed through worsening relations, the arms race and recurrent crisis.

Since Pakistan covets Kashmir, to Ganguly, Pakistan is a revisionist and ‘greedy’ state—‘with nonsecurity motivations for expansion’ (Charles Glaser) (p. 20). Wanting territorial revisionism, its actions in the security sphere are not a result of a perceived threat from India that can be attributed to a security dilemma. Nothing India can do in terms of reassuring Pakistan by reining in its actions

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in the defence and security spheres can assuage Pakistan. Therefore, the recurring crisis and potential for conflict in the subcontinent cannot be explained by the spiral model.

The deterrence model on the other hand has it that a state’s security preparedness deters a neighbour from threatening it, but even such preparedness can be found wanting when confronted with a revisionist state out to change some or other facet of the status quo or relationship. He uses the deterrence model in appraising India. To Ganguly, evidence in favour of this model is in the quiescent period in the seventies and eighties when Pakistan was fended off by India’s defence preparedness. However, Pakistan’s Kashmir obsession got an outlet with the outbreak of troubles in Kashmir in the nineties. Since Pakistan is attempting to overturn the territorial status quo, India cannot but restrict itself to warding off Pakistan through defence related measures. This brings Ganguly to his prescription that, since the deterrence model provides a better vantage for India’s Pakistan strategy, a strategy informed by deterrence by denial is the preferred one for India.

Ganguly makes his theoretical case in his opening chapter. He then moves to his narrative beginning with the Kargil War. It is a useful recap of the war, interweaving the more popularly known military dimension with the diplomatic moves in the background. He then discusses the intermediate period between the war and the crisis precipitated by the terror attack on Parliament that included the Kandahar hijacking.

Ganguly’s coverage of the Agra Summit reveals the nuances of negotiations on both sides. On the Pakistan side, though Musharraf attended the Summit after taking over as the President of Pakistan, he still had to keep the military back home placated. There was also dissension in the Indian camp, with Advani playing hardball and stymying Vajpayee and Jaswant Singh who might have wished to go further, faster.

Ganguly’s most interesting chapter is the one on the dialogue that Vajpayee commenced after Operation Parakram wound down. Four rounds of dialogue followed between 2004 and 2006. These yielded results piecemeal such as a hotline between the two foreign secretaries, agreement on notification of missile tests, etc. Thereafter, Musharraf lost his way in attempting to get the Pakistani judiciary off his back through 2007. This delayed the fifth round to 2008 after a return of civilians to power. However, the fifth round was derailed by the Mumbai terror attacks in November 2008. Hesitant moves towards a patch up were underway in 2009, at which Ganguly closes his narrative.

Ganguly winds up the book with a chapter on how the rivalry extended into Afghanistan. This inclusion is perhaps for his American audience and related to the wind down in Afghanistan that was begun with Obama coming to the White House. His final chapter briefly updates the India-Pakistan relationship till 2014. He misses reverting to his theoretical start point in this chapter so as to sum up and clinch his argument.

The manner the book wraps up suggests that it was a work in progress in 2010, around when Ganguly was on sabbatical in Delhi, but one to which he was unable to return to with any degree of attention thereafter. This presumably accounts for the book taking half a decade thereafter to see the light of day. This genuflection to American readers is his irritating reference to Mumbai as Bombay (Mumbai) and spelling out that a high commissioner is an ambassador. Referring to the Simla Agreement as Shimla Agreement, dating the 1971 War to 6 December and the appearance of a space in the middle of names of those recommending his book on its jacket is suggestive of a hurried effort at turning out the volume and deflates the impact and quality of the book somewhat.

More significantly, though Ganguly presents his case with conviction, it would have beneffited had he alongside debunked competing arguments. For instance, he dismisses the security dilemma informing Pakistani actions, pointing to India’s several placatory overtures to Pakistan such as return of the Haji Pir Pass at the end of the 1965 War. Since he does not cover India’s continuing military upgrades since the 1971 War, the reader is unable to appreciate the possible impact these would have had on Pakistan that had been cut in half in that war. India went nuclear in 1974. It turned towards mechanization in the eighties. It showed its regional power aspirations in the nineties. These moves cannot have been seen with equanimity by Pakistan. This explains Pakistan’s needling India first in Punjab and then in Kashmir. Venturing further, an alternative narrative can plausibly hazard that wishing to tie down growing Indian military power, Pakistan has exploited the insurgency in Kashmir to the hilt, resulting in about 40 per cent of the Army being deployed in that State.

The central pillar of Ganguly’s argument is no less questionable. The appendices to the book include India-Pakistan agreements dating back to the Karachi Agreement. All these refer to Kashmir as pending resolution. The status quo is the dispute over Kashmir. India by not following through on the promise of talks has been revisionist. Not acknowledging the dispute makes India revisionist and India the ‘greedy’ power that seeks to continue to keep what is disputed. In this it neglects the demand of a substantial section of people who live there. Thus, if Pakistan is territorially revisionist, India is equally so in attempting to obfuscate agreements. Its latest ploy is that the Kashmir dispute is not over the Valley but over the areas occupied by Pakistan.

Ganguly ends on a note suggesting a strategic doctrine informed by the concept of deterrence by denial for India. Deterrence was the concept informing the Indian strategic doctrine upto the nineties and reflected in the military doctrine as deterrence by punishment. In the period Ganguly covers, India moved to an offensive military doctrine that in the Manmohan era was reined in by a strategic doctrine of strategic restraint. However, this military movement created the conditions enabling a move towards a strategic doctrine of compellence, one adopted by the Modi-Doval duo. Ganguly is embarrassingly unrealistic in his pitching a decade and half since the shift began for deterrence by denial, itself a rewind of about three decades back.

For Ganguly, since Pakistan is revisionist, it should be deterred. But deterrence by denial did not work in the eighties when Pakistan started its proxy war in Punjab. This forced India’s move to deterrence by punishment, practised in the Exercise Brasstacks. Since even this has not quite worked, India has moved to strategic proactivism. If the counter narrative to Ganguly holds water, this can only aggravate Pakistan’s security dilemma, leading to avoidable conflagration. It might be better to reappraise the possibility that India is the revisionist state and the security dilemma does inform Pakistan. This might yield up diametrically opposite policy prescriptions than Ganguly’s, which means instead of deterrence, backed by Ganguly, and compellence adopted as the Modi-Doval doctrine, India needs to move to accommodation, appeasement if you will. The nuclear era demands no less.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/dark-side-of-army-s-social-media-groups/371308.html 

Dark side of Army’s social media groups

ONE of General Bipin Rawat's early concerns into his tenure is social media. He had barely taken charge of the Army when the BSF trooper at a post under Army jurisdiction, along the Line of Control, sent out a social-media salvo on poor food being served. It set off posts by uniformed personnel, including Army soldiers, similarly exercised by myriad perceived impositions on them, such as “Sahayak” (batman or soldier-helper) duties. 

The Army has since revisited its social media policy. Essentially, its call for restraint is intended to keep personnel from washing dirty linen in public. Tightening internal grievance redress, the Chief has opened a direct line of access to his staff in case lower levels fail to prove responsive. On the batman system, there are innovative proposals in the pipeline, at least for peace stations, substituting for soldiers undertaking domestic work in officer accommodation. 

It is apparent that the Army has constructively seized  opportunity to make the necessary, if overdue, changes. However, there is one aspect that is likely to have missed its eye.  It is the extent of right-wing trope being exchanged on social media in military networks. It is now so commonplace as to be unremarkable. It is unexceptionable therefore in case the Army is oblivious to this. Precisely for this reason, the matter needs airing. 

The trend of social media penetration of right-wing jargon, thinking, positions and propaganda line began at the same time as in other middle class social media groups, sometime prior to the last General Election in 2014. It is now in the open that the “Modi wave” was partially manufactured in troll factories by paid agents and committed volunteers. 

The Army was no exception to this trend since its officer class is middle class. The earlier insulation of the Army in its cantonments and being tied down to its professional till has been eroded in the internet and mobile age. Consequently, the political winds that swept the dysfunctional UPA II government away found their way into the minds of the officer corps. 

Anecdotal evidence suggests that liberal voices on social media networks were feeble and easily overwhelmed. Protest was silenced through cyber bullying, with the majority being silent spectators. Political posts were widely shared, most with a degree of endorsement. It is easy in retrospect to identify that the Army had its share of what  have since come to be called bhakts. These self-anointed monitors outshouted any group managers who dared intervene on groups ranging from old-boy networks of military schools, course-mate groups to battalion groups. 

While earlier, politics was a taboo subject in officers' messes, and perhaps continues to be so, reservation on espousing a political line failed to extend to regulating the social media behaviour of members of the armed forces. The enthusiasm for the conservative party's victory is explicable as it is in keeping with the universal political inclination of an officer corps; the attractions of the allusion to development; its anti-corruption packaging; and the BJP’s largely pro-security agenda. 

The problem is that the ideological baggage that attends the politics of the BJP — Hindutva — was part of the package. One popular propaganda line that was seemingly heartily consumed — judging from its traffic on the social media group — was the conflation of the two “others” in the Hindutva worldview, the Indian Muslim with Pakistan. 

This was easy to sell since a majority of the military has been through Kashmir and has seen the Pakistani hand at play. Exposed to the media attention to the terror attacks in the hinterland, that seldom went beyond the reporting on the blasts to the investigations that have attended these blasts, the theme of a strong government was easily sold. Lately, the letting off by courts of Muslims incarcerated for alleged complicity in the blasts suggests that India was well into the post-truth age before the term was coined. 

Any collateral damage in terms of marginalisation of the minority and social relationships was found acceptable. The distasteful experience of this writer on social media chatter on Army groups led to his withdrawing from the three social media groups comprising his military cohort and former comrades. It was not so much on account of religious affiliation but constraints on expression of a liberal worldview encountered. 

The military leadership needs alerting to this unseemly underside of social media. The military's social media policy is a work-in-progress. It needs updating with stipulations on the content that is exchanged. While self-regulation is best, it has proven insufficient. This has implications for the freedom of expression intrinsic to social media. A case can be made that those who do not wish to receive such posts can opt to leave. The problem with this line of reasoning is that it divides the officer corps, leaving the turf to the cultural nationalists in uniform, for whom patriotism is just not enough. The Army’s social media policy has further steps to take. It needs to be possessive of its social turf. Its cohesion and apolitical nature is at stake.