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Naravane’s place in military history

General Naravane has done a signal service to strategic thinking by penning down his version of the last crisis with China. Its circulation has been tamped down by the regime, though there is nothing much further than what was in the extracts that made the rounds a couple of years back. Everyone knows of Naravane’s anguish over the Agnipath scheme as also that the disengagement arrangements at some places limit Indian patrols to short of the pre-crisis envelop.

The addition to knowledge is of Naravane’s role in the final lap of Operation Snow Leopard, India’s mobilization and launch of a quid pro quo operation. He took the right decision on exercising restraint in opening fire. Authority was devolved on him through the now-immortal phrase – “Jo ucchit samjho, voh karo.” Rightly divining the restrictive intent of his political masters and assessing that the tactical situation did not warrant escalation, he let his forces stare down the Chinese from a position of advantage on the Kailash ridge-line.

Such moments of acutely-felt command responsibility have been competently faced by Indian military leaders earlier. Sam Bahadur fended off pressures for premature military action in East Pakistan, arguing that winter was the right time for such a campaign. When faced with evidence that the Kargil intrusion was a rather serious breach of the Line of Control (LC), General Ved Malik resolved to ‘fight with what we have,’ even if weighed down with a terms-of-reference not to cross the LC. Nanavatty’s date with military history was in his exercise of moral courage in preferring time for preparation for assault across a snowed-in LC when faced with tacit pressures for an early reprisal for the parliament terror attack. Satish Dua recalls his vigil in wake of the setback at Uri spurring on a cross-LC surgical strike. More recently, the air chief led his team back to the drawing board after suffering an aerial ambush on the first night of Op Sindoor, to come up trumps on the last night. Naravane’s experience of handling what is described as ‘hot potato’ adds to collective wisdom on leadership and command.

Preparation for the ‘hot potato’

A second-generation military man, he was an air-force brat marauding through military stations during childhood. His father’s more notable posting was to Paris on staff of the defence attaché (DA). Requiring stable schooling in the senior years, he was sent to a school founded by a luminary of the cultural Right. His lackluster record at the academies continued into his subaltern days. His tactical grounding was in his oversight of recruit training at the regimental center. No doubt this stint helped in his first operational spell with the Indian Peacekeeping Force in Sri Lanka on the outskirts of Trincomalee.

He ascribes a change of approach and fortunes to his marriage - outcome of a premarital romance - to a Jawarharlal Nehru University product of its halcyon days. Not only did he clear his promotion exams first shot, but also made it to the career-enhancing year-long staff course. He goes on to tenant the sought-after operational staff assignment as brigade major. He has an exposure to logistics aspects on staff of a paramilitary outfit, which enabled him also look at cantonment related affairs. Such broad-basing of background turns out a professional plus at higher ranks.

Of consequence is his rubbing one of his one-star superiors the wrong way. Unmindful of the effect on his report card he stood by what he thought right. Unsurprisingly, he did not make it to colonelcy in the first look. Reinstated, he goes on to command a Rashtriya Rifles unit in the midst of the Kashmir insurgency at the most testing of times, in wake of Kargil war. His showing earns him a place on the Higher Command course. In hindsight, subsequent postings turn out to be sound preparation for future operational and strategic level commands. These include spells in the perspective planning strategic affairs section and as DA in Myanmar. As a one-star flag officer, he raised a brigade headquarters on the watershed in the north east, cementing his grasp of the inscrutable Chinese.

His two-star command as inspector general of the Assam Rifles was where his prior knowledge from Myanmar helped in operations against recalcitrant Naga factions. Post-retirement, he completed a doctorate using his in-depth first-hand knowledge of issues in the region. In this assignment began his association with General Rawat, who was his immediate boss for a time. The inclusion of ‘destiny’ in the book’s title owes to Rawat going on to supersede two seniors to get the army’s top job. Willy-nilly, Naravane ended up topping the proverbial succession chain.

Such prospects led to his exposure both in Delhi as the area commander and at an operational level three-star command of a strike corps in the western sector. He then goes on to the Army Training Command. When there, though knowing of the new preference for ‘deep selection’ and the by-then well-known proclivities of the regime, in a speech at a university he highlights constitutional probity. As preparation for his next rank, he then gets to lead the China-facing eastern army. His penultimate appointment is as Vice Chief, preparation for the forthcoming step up.

He rightly rues the move through some five billets in four years, typical deficit of Indian military preparation to take on strategic level roles. A late return from his DA assignment led to a compressed one-star, at the cost of a year at the national defence college, an exposure missed but more from a family life point of view than any learning thereby.

His final ‘star of destiny’ is over the head of Rawat’s recommendation in favour of General Chauhan. So, when Naravane moves to 5, Rajaji Marg, he is not only lucky, but also well-equipped intellectually and character-wise. And, primed to meet the Chinese challenge head-on.

The book shows his family as central to this journey. Behind his success were three women, his wife and two daughters. His liberality shines through in his support as a parent for one of his daughters going for an inter-religious marriage. The reputation of Mrs. Veena Naravane as head of the military’s ‘second chain of command’ – of the formidable army wives’ welfare association – has been as an empathetic first lady. His daughter’s observation when he gained his fourth star is apt: ‘hard work, humility and family.’ Values practiced at home influence softcore professional issues as human rights. He records taking a dim view of the Amshipora killings. It is another matter that infirmities in the system allowed the perpetrator bail.

Saluting Naravane

Between Naravane as army chief and an army commander who had once been DA in China, there was enough expertise on hand to take on the Chinese intrusion on their terms. But that was not to be and Naravane’s telling is not too revealing on this. Naravane explains away the intrusion, till it became moot after the Galwan incident. Conscious of the reputational costs for the military, Naravane rolled out the strategically necessary quid pro quo operation, even bucking civilian control while at it. By also keeping in mind the priorities of his political masters, he exhibited strategic sensitivity and ample deference to civil-military relations in the Indian tradition.

To critique him for an insufficiently vigorous push-back against a political class playing coy is to be oblivious of the political reality of today. To hold that he approached the political leadership on an essentially military matter is to ignore the imperative cast by terms of reference, in this case the restriction on resort to firing. Though best positioned to take over as Chief of Defence Staff, he did not allow the carrot to impact his convictions, preferring instead to pay the price for retiring with dignity.

Since the Ladakh episode is considerably more consequential than Op Sindoor, the book must be piloted with dexterity for early clearance. It would not only be a favour to the publisher but to military history. That the book does not allow the regime to have its cake and eat it too is no reason for an apolitical army to dally over its clearance.

 https://open.substack.com/pub/aliahd66/p/the-naravane-memoirs-whats-ucchit?utm_source=direct&r=i1fws&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

The Naravane memoirs: What’s ucchit and what’s not

It will take the then Fire & Fury corps commander’s memoirs to reveal which of his two superiors – the army commander or the army chief – has got it wrong in their respective autobiographies on the occupation of Kailash range.

While the then army commander, Lt Gen YK Joshi, presented the operation as a quid pro quo one, designed to even the psychological score with China, the then army chief, Gen Naravane, stays true to what was put out in the media at the time, that the operation was to pre-empt another attempted land-grab by China.

Since the corps commander in question, Lt Gen Harinder Singh, appears not to figure in the good books of his two superiors, his perspective might shake up things decidedly more than the current shindig over vignettes doing the rounds of the social media from Naravane’s yet-to-be-cleared book, Four Stars of Destiny.

Significantly, he’d be able to tell-all on who ordered the eviction of the tents at Galwan, a matter Naravane’s book glosses over. Since lives were lost, getting to his version is critical for accountability, with Naravane hinting that the matter was raised with the national security adviser.

Clearly, someone ordered a colonel – the Mahavir Bikumalla Santosh Babu - to evict the tents pitched by the Chinese. Some two months into the crisis, both sides were reasonably well-prepared with clubs and spiked truncheons to inflict telling casualties on each other.

This episode prompted Indian repositioning of troops onto Ladakh - Operation Snow Leopard - that enabled the army’s subsequent quid pro quo operation: the occupation of Kailash range.

Naravane’s version is that the operation was in response to Chinese troop movements by night at Chuti Changla in the area of Pangong Tso on 29 August. With troops on hand, another land-grab by China was a planned-for contingency. Northern Command reacted the very next night, 30th August, using mountain strike corps elements to occupy heights and features flanking the lake.

When the China Study Group (CSG) met at a pre-scheduled meeting that very forenoon, Naravane asked that next steps be approved: the race to the top of the balance stretches of Kailash range.

Before any afterthoughts could upend the consent for a ‘go ahead’ at the meeting, the military operations branch quickly passed on the orders. As to whether the CSG has any legal and formal accountability for decision making is another, if major, question.

However, restrictive rules on firing – requiring firing for immediate effect in self-defence only by elements directly threatened - remained in place. These were to be truly tested night on 31^st August.

With the operation over two nights competently executed, the Indians could espy the Chinese reaction building up in the Spanggur gap and Moldo garrison below the heights seized. On 31 August, as Chinese tanks moved upslope Lt Gen ‘Jo’ Joshi asked for permission to open up medium artillery fire.

At this juncture, Naravane updated the external affairs minister, the national security adviser and the chief of defence staff, asking of each, “What are my orders?” Apparently, Naravane wanted the restrictive terms of reference on firing lifted in face of imminent danger to forward troops.

It’s not obvious that when the buck for the army stopped with the raksha mantri, why the latter three - even if members of the cabinet committee on security (CCS) - needed to be posed the question.

A follow-up update to the raksha mantri elicited the response that he would revert after checking with the very ‘top.’ A while later, Naravane received the now-immortal marching orders: ‘Jo ucchit samjho woh karo.’

Naravane recounts his moment of command solitude thereafter. Strangely, Naravane was in his official accommodation, rather than in the operations room. In the event, the Indians held their nerve and the Chinese blinked, stared-down by the barrels of T-90 tanks purposely swiveled downslope.

Eventually, following the army’s heroic deployment through winter at those heights, India leveraged the advantage so gained in getting the Chinese to concede on their intrusions on the north bank.

From the narrative, the regime appears justified in its tight control over escalatory possibilities. Perhaps its confidence was from from diplomatic and intelligence channels on the wider Chinese position. Both the NSA as special representative and EAM had post-Galwan interfaced with their counterparts.

As for the later delegation on opening fire to the army chief, it is also only right that it did so considering that the input of the chief himself along such lines. The operational manoeuvre could have gone wrong, showing up the ‘only fire in self-defence’ ruling as unrealistic.

To be sure, the earlier restrictive rules of engagement show up a reluctance to chance escalation on India’s part. This is of a piece with the ‘common sense’: “As a smaller economy, I am going to pick up a fight with the bigger economy?” Giving itself a strategic doctrine is a government’s privilege. War avoidance is mostly a sensible strategy and it’s a government’s call to make.

On his part, Naravane was proven right in retaining the authority to fire when delegated to him. He was aware that in the two preceding days there were no indicators of any vigorous and violent Chinese response, rightly discounting the provocative probing from their side as posturing.

Alongside, the Chinese had even sent feelers on de-escalation, with a brigadier also responding to an ad-hoc border meeting on local de-escalation called for by the Chinese. These could have been deception measures too, since a troop of tanks resumed their march uphill. Naravane rightly reckoned that these might have been sacrificial lambs intended by the Chinese to instigate a casus belli.

In nutshell, the government authorized the mobilization and approved the resulting quid pro quo operation. Having demonstrated India’s determination not be cowed, it could do without provoking escalation into an undesired war.

This begs the question: Why is the government unwilling to be identified with a boldly executed plan that enabled the leverage that followed? Why not take up ownership of a plan that embellishes its muscular image?

The answer is in the regime has been boxed in by its own rhetoric. It has projected such an image of itself and it cannot afford any detraction from it. Naravane’s approaching the political master for devolving fire control responsibilities busts the myth of the army being given a ‘free hand.’

A different reading of the narrative is warranted. The army seemingly aware of the regime’s pusillanimity appears to have forced the regime’s hand in three instances.

One, not only did the army initiate the operation but also – two - forced a decision out of the CSG. Clearly, the political masters required goading. A company-worth of Chinese movements supplied the cover. That the Chinese had earlier intruded with impunity was not enough to settle scores.

Third, Naravane later succeeded in wresting the authority for fire control over three calls made over two hours to Rajnath Singh. Even a loosening of their grip over fire control required Naravane generating a scare scenario with Chinese tanks trudging uphill.

In effect, both Naravane and Joshi can be taken as right (at least until Harinder Singh tells us otherwise). A quid pro quo operation was indeed launched per Joshi’s telling, but only under hard-sell by Naravane to a reluctant political master.

The extracts of the memoirs in public domain throw up three observations on policy and decision making. Taken together, these should serve as backdrop for any thrust towards an offensive strategic doctrine and structural innovation underway.

At the level of individual actors, for Naravane to wish to redeem institutional honour – that took a beating with the intrusions on his watch - is unexceptionable. Since a Kargil-like rebound or even a reflexive quid pro quo action was ruled out with the regime dithering, clearly ‘something’ had to be done. If he ordered the eviction of tents at Galwan (his memoirs are indistinct on this), then he may have had a personal animus to settle too.

At the institutional level, the army appears to have wrested for itself more strategic space bottom-up than considered congenial by an unwilling regime. Imagine the denouement if ‘Jo’ Joshi were an integrated theatre commander, the CDS operationally empowered and the defence minister a rank ignoramus!

At the political level, the political master appears rather too timid to be a trustworthy custodian of national security. Being chary over the use of force indicates the regime’s strategic infelicity. Its loud self-advertisement to the contrary reinforces suspicion that tom-toming its muscularity is but a symptom of its insecurity.