https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/the-learning-from-amshipora-military
The learning from Amshipora: Military leadership matters
Note: The story has moved on, though not covered in below post https://theprint.in/judiciary/amshipora-encounter-in-appeal-against-life-term-captain-says-he-obediently-followed-orders/1432276/
It is worth congratulating the army on its Court-martial consigning the perpetrator of the Amshipora killings to life imprisonment.
It is strange that the army needs to be complimented on following through on a be done-and-dusted case of an as egregious a human rights violation as it can ever get.
One would’ve thought that this oughtn’t to have happened to begin with in an ethically-imbued army. That it would do the right thing reflexively and a verdict as this would be routine.
Unfortunately, it is not quite this simple.
Firstly, the verdict took rather long to get to – short of three years - which is not in keeping with military mores on disciplinary action.
Secondly, it is uncertain that the vagaries of the justice will allow the verdict to playout to its logical conclusion. Recall how the army court-martial sabotaged the Pathribal case and how the armed forces tribunal - that had a former army vice chief on its rolls - let off the Machil killers.
In the Pathribal case, the army brazenly dismissed the case for lack of evidence, though consigned to their custody by no less than the Supreme Court on the army’s own choosing.
In the Machil case, the tribunal had it that those killed were dressed Pakistani-like and found near the Line of Control (LC), and – ergo - were terrorists. The former vice chief on its rolls evidently forgot that his presence was to ensure against such stupid inferences. Perhaps he interpreted his job to be to sweep the case under the carpet.
What is the honourable thing to do is now no longer cut-and-dried, even if it ever was.
In the Amshipora incident, the Rashtriya Rifles (RR) Sector Commander alighted on the incident with unseemly alacrity, claiming it to be a genuine encounter. It reveals that he was not quite in touch with his instruments. He may have been motivated by the confidential report syndrome that annually mid-year afflicts officers.
The chain of command was unamused when the police scratched the surface of the encounter story. Yet, the Victor Force Commander and the Chinar Corps Commander took a month to launch a formal inquiry.
Despite Amshipora on his watch, the Brigadier went on to earn a Yudh Seva Medal (YSM), implying his showing in overseeing other encounters had washed off the stain. His only loss was in missing out on the National Defence College course, that would have enabled him to get to three-star rank eventually. He may yet make it to two-star rank, his medal bailing him out.
No evidence can ever be found of whether this largesse owed to his immediate superior also being from the same regiment.
Interestingly, since ‘Yudh’ translates as ‘War’, it is apparent that the insurgency in Kashmir was being viewed as late as Republic Day 2021 as a proxy war, presumably because in the encounters some Pakistani terrorists were also dispatched to Valhalla.
Once the LC ceasefire with Pakistan kicked in yet again, even awards for operations along the LC were in line with peace time awards, e.g. the Seva Medal series. Curiously, the Victor Force commander toting up the same statistics for his performance, received a peace time award; perhaps a bar to his YSM from his last command assignment fell short and an Uttam Yudh Seva Medal (UYSM) might have overshot. The same year, the UYSM received by the Corps Commander is easier to explain, given an active LC at the time.
That the lieutenant governor jumped into action, publicly condoling the victims’ families, shows the conspiracy was unbeknownst to the hierarchy. (It is another matter that the promises of jobs the politico made have not been kept three years on, though Hindu victims of killings by terrorists at a village nearby received such benefits the very next day. Even so, White Knight Corps, in whose area the village falls, should exert – if only as a public relations measure - with the administration to deliver on its promise.)
This means any suspicion that the false encounter had any hierarchical imprimatur can be laid to rest in this case, though vigilance on human rights protection is neither invalid nor illegitimate.
To the Brigadier’s credit, when commanding an RR battalion earlier, he had earned a gallantry medal, with an accompanying purple heart testifying that this was not based on a well-written citation. It is not impossible that he was duped by the RR battalion under command.
It is a positive trait in a military leader that she invests trust in her command. On rare occasions, a junior might let down the faith reposed - as possibly was the case here - but that is no reason for not respecting subordinates to do the right thing the right way. It allows juniors to rise to the occasion.
General JJ Singh in his autobiography recounts an incident in which as brigade commander in the Valley he faithfully transmitted operational information received from one of his battalions, only to find out later that he was misled, leading to an operational snafu. He then insisted that either he be removed, or the battalion commander replaced.
It is easy to imagine that with the wrath of the hierarchy on him for the Amshipora murders, the RR unit commander’s career was likely sealed, though he too may have averred to be conned by Bhoopendra. Even if true, it is too proximate a level to have been taken for a ride by a subordinate.
Grapevine later had it that the offending battalion in the Amshipora case was later relocated into rigorous mountain terrain for reorienting itself on the ethical conduct of operations. That they merited collective action suggests that Bhoopendra might not have been acting in isolation.
Since the command hierarchy in Chinar Corps in position at the time had a reasonable professional reputation, the Amshipora false encounter was eminently preventable. Since it nevertheless did occur begs the question of what structural prevention should be in place hereon.
There is speculation aplenty on why the false encounter was engineered by Bhoopendra Singh, aka Major Basheer Khan, and his affiliates, a prominent one being that they were after the ‘goodies’: pelf in case of his Kashmiri informers and perhaps awards in case of Bhoopendra himself.
Be that as it may, the structural explanation here is that command tenures are so short that commanders are faced with a challenge in impressing their personalities and yardsticks on their commands.
In my last post, I highlighted the rather short command assignments owed to an elongated waiting list. Apparently, while a passable tenure at higher levels is taken as one and a half year, the duration these days of one-star to three-star command is just above a year long. By all accounts, this is too short.
Whereas the military tries pruning the list, dropping some names onto the ‘staff’ track and is contemplating collapsing the one and two-star command opportunities, with the onset of integrated battle groups, it is evidently a losing battle.
I proposed Specialism inform career paths. Spotting and collaring the Leadership and Operations Speciality must be done by the 16th year of service.
The idea is with their battalion-equivalent command tenures done with by the 15th year, those with demonstrated leadership abilities can be sifted for induction into the leadership track from across the army’s combat and combat support arms. Their staff assignments would be with operational content, billets proliferating lately from information operations to cyber.
Others not so selected could populate specialised streams to which they have self-selected – administrative or logistic - in the hierarchy of headquarters, while those from the services could continue down career paths geared to their expertise.
Assured progression on the leadership track must follow, so that the underside of military leaders simply not having time enough to grow into their ranks and measure up to the weight of epaulettes, is done away with.
Take for instance the Force Commander in question. He made one-star at about 2013 and in less than ten years demitted command of India’s show-window corps in Ladakh. In effect, he has transited three command tenures, interspersed with another three staff tenures, and -not to forget- the National Defence College course, implying he has not sat on any chair for more than a year and half. This would amount to ticket-punching in a circumstance the structure was not responsible for such musical chairs.
The Corps Commander in question went on to head the military operations branch, be Vice Chief and now made it to Army Commander level, all in a laughable time-span of less than two years.
On his part, the Brigadier was wounded as a battalion commander in 2010, and completed his one-star command in 2020, making for some 10 years in the rank of colonel. Whereas colonelcy is good preparation for higher ranks, a decade of it is long enough to turn even radical leaders into demure followers.
Though the military likes to deride bureaucrats, taking a leaf out of their book on cadre management is in order. They make joint secretary rank by the 15th year and get to the top two rungs as a matter of course. This gives them policy making experience on-the-job, honing their core expertise.
Military leaders in contrast spend a quarter of their careers at the higher levels. Neither of the two courses they do in the duration can compensate for the interminable stay at the lower rungs.
If the idea is some form of perverse coup-proofing by the civilian side, then it is brilliant.
However, the responsibility for this is not at a civilian door, but the military’s own. It’s a self-inflicted career graph, in order the military is not led by Tigers but pedestrians in tiger stripes.
Its operational consequence was evident in the Amshipora.
The command hierarchy in Northern Command was unable to push back against the General Bipin Rawat-mediated Operation All Out. A brainchild of the Hindutva regime, it was a preliminary operation to remove into perpetuity any Kashmiri youth with the gumption to challenge what was impending: the evacuation of Article 370 of all meaning.
The pressures for ‘results’ in terms of ‘kills’ - comprehensively delegitimised by the body of evidence in the preceding Kashmir experience - upended ‘winning hearts and minds’, the cornerstone of the counter insurgency doctrine.
Kinetic means are to get a situation under control and are no substitute for political measures to end an insurgency. The violence indices simply didn’t justify the logic one Chinar Corps commander gave out: that all who take up the gun must be eliminated.
Not only did no general in the Northern Command have the gall and good sense to remind Bipin Rawat of the Army’s own doctrinal product, but bought into his 2018 Army Doctrine on hybrid war. The concept was borrowed from a United States’ training institution where Rawat underwent a course in the late 2000s, at a time when United States was in the midst of its twin Iraq and Afghanistan quagmires of its own making.
Instead, command tenures being short, commanders have to set off at the trot. Though at an operational cum strategic level, they have been conditioned through multiple tenures in the Valley to seeing only the operational level as their beat. The strategic level has been usurped by the Police, who may have at best heard bullets fired in panic.
There is no known input of the Army into Amit Shah’s Article 370 demolition act. It is possible it was not even asked; former military men appointed as advisers in national security corridors claiming to speak for it in support of the regime’s caper.
Another example is the stupefaction of the army in Ladakh. Covid cannot account for this. Take the case of the then commanding general in Leh. His colonelcy ended in April 2011 and he handed over the Ladakh command in September 2020, a timespan less than ten years.
Sure, Eisenhower had a lightning progress from colonel to four-star general. But that was war-time, warranting deep-selection, in his case by General George Marshall.
In the case closer home, the limited duration at the upper levels leads to an inability to be at home at the strategic level. No wonder the Chief of Defence Staff post was kept vacant for a year and there is no military adviser to Ajit Doval for now. This owes to a leadership development career profile that isn’t.
Merits of the proposal here for extended leadership opportunities over the last two score years is the only way. Career assurance will steel the backbone, while longer experience will ensure professional credibility at higher levels.
It would be easier to socialise a cohesive leadership. Yes, logically a cohesive apex cadre makes for a Prussian General Staff look-alike, with attendant subordination issues in a democratic polity.
But then a defanged officer corps – as now - makes for an easier civilian Constitutional coup, as can be seen unfolding in slo-mo and in plain sight.
