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.

https://m.thewire.in/article/books/who-dares-win-joshi-is-great-that-said-theres-more

https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/joshi-is-great-that-said-theres-more

Joshi is great; that said, there’s more.

Reviewing 'Who Dares Wins'

General Joshi interests on two counts. He is an authentic ‘Kargil War Hero’, as the book cover puts it.* More interestingly, he was the commander of the northern theatre during the Chinese incursion.

His autobiography is worth a read on the first count, on tactical level leadership, for it tells of the making of the war hero.

However, a reader would be disappointed if she wishes to know more about the Chinese actions in Ladakh during his time there. Presumably his current position as head of the China think tank of the external affairs ministry prevents him from being more informative.

Alternatively, the blanket on information access - that has been a feature of the Modi regime - perhaps kept the general reticent on that most consequential operational level command he held.

Reportedly, a few years back an order was put out restraining members of security services from discussing matters in their operational ken after demitting office; though it is uncertain if that covered the military. There were threats of stoppage of pensions too.

One problem with this regimen is the free pass given to the regime’s narrative on security incidents. Ordinarily, such narratives can only be self-interested and in case of the populist authoritarianism on in India, self-centered.

The downside is that it deprives the primary principal in the principal-agent relationship – the Voter – a grasp of whether ‘all is well’ with Indian security.

Absent a fuller perspective – brought about by a liberal information order as befits a democracy – the Voter is handicapped. This explains Mr. Modi recent surpassing of Indira’s record in number of days at the helm.

To be fair, a self-styled ‘apolitical’ army might not wish to put out a narrative that might show up the governmental one. Sure, the civilian masters of the military have the ‘right to be wrong;’ but its not for the military to conceal it.

However, this approach to ‘apolitical’ betrays a limited understanding of the principal-agent relationship.

While the government (here regime) is the principal and the army the agent in the principal-agent relationship of subordination, the army must know it is an institution of the State.

The State is run per the Constitution. The Constitution makes the regime accountable to the people - the ultimate principal. Thus, people exercise accountability through their power of the Vote.

Inadequate information on which to base their choice debilitates the Voter.

Hence, the Voter cannot be the target of and subject to information war - the feature of nascent emphasis in the current-day changed character of war.

The notion that all it takes is to win the war of narratives amounts to believing that the nature of war itself has changed. Worse is to ‘win’ the narrative war internally. This is absurd.

Since security concerns are existential in nature, it is of categorical imperative status that people are furnished reliable information on security.

That is the national interest and national security, as distinct from regime interest and security.

A mistaken conflation of the two appears to be at hand, resulting in a novel understanding of political subordination of the military.

A government is run by a political party voted to power may be less than forthright on security matters – using the security of information as cover. This enables hiding of shortcomings and projection of falsity as reality.

Absent State institutions playing their intended role with a commitment to Constitutional verities, the opposition, the attentive public, ‘armchair strategists’ and the Voter are deprived of the benefits of the democratic checks-and-balances schema.

To the extent the military is participant, it is complicit in the ‘dismantling of India’s democracy.’

Memoirs of officials serve a very useful purpose in fleshing out the record. They illumine areas independently, if not quite disinterestedly. Admittedly, memoirs are but a perspective and may be self-exculpatory; and yet, they constitute the drops that make up the ocean.

By this yardstick, Joshi’s memoir is half-baked. It is a useful tactical level take of the Indian fighting man.

However, for the next quarter century, a reader might have to be content with Joshi’s promise of a sequel. He says it will be a sanitized version, as Operation (Op) Snow Leopard - quite like Op Sindoor - continues indefinitely.

Joshi is only being practical. Recall, his then boss, Army Chief Naravane’s memoirs were aborted.

The upshot will be that readers won’t get to know anything more than the official version. Joshi puts this out as gospel in the couple of paras he devotes to what - to some - amounts to a significant setback.

He recounts how he witnessed as early as 5 May the first Chinese incursion, in this case a PLA helicopter making for Galwan but which scooted back on spotting the Indian one, in which Joshi was taking a ride.

Joshi admits to a challenging situation that required ‘deft handling’. Enumerating the ‘transgressions’, including at Galwan, he pats himself of the back – “We handled them well.”

To be sure, Galwan triggered due planning and preparation for the launch of a ‘quid pro quo operation (QPQ)’ in the Rezang La-Rechin La complex on the Kailash ranges, on either side of the Pangong Tso and also further to the north.

He appreciatively writes: “We completely took the PLA by surprise, brought them back to the negotiation table and forced them to beat a hasty retreat. This was Operation Snow Leopard.”

Whereas a show of force was warranted and its execution commendable, it, firstly, took rather long in coming, and, secondly, its effects were not exploited – any gains given up even before Joshi demitted uniform. There is no word on the latter.

As theatre commander, Joshi had the wherewithal in-situ for securing Indian territorial integrity. The Indian military’s pivot to the China front having begun a decade earlier, quite like at Kargil which - is not dissimilar - he ought to have echoed Ved Malik: “We’ll fight with what we have.”

Providentially, as a self-acknowledged China-hand, and a Mandarin speaking one at that, he was the right man in the right place at the right time. He’d done time in Beijing as defence attaché.

All his three star-commands were in Ladakh, successively at Tangtse, Karu and Leh. He took over command after a stint as chief of staff, just as the Chinese reportedly marched up from their annual exercise for lodging on the Indian side.

The buck stopped with Joshi.

Joshi has the correct appreciation of operational command, calling it ‘a major transition’. To him, ‘officers who have operated at the tactical level for thirty-five years of their career are suddenly catapulted to the operational and strategic level of warfare….’

He prepared for the transition by reading up the likes of aggressive ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis’ autobiography.

So, what held Joshi back?

Whereas he has an appreciative word for this other two corps commanders, there is nary a mention of his commander in Leh. Was there any dissonance on the response? Can Covid-19 be held responsible? If his hands were tied, did he remonstrate? Or does he buy into the Jaishankar’ism: ‘they are a larger economy’?

The two paras are but ‘haan mein haan milana’ with the regime; the upshot is that a 1962 Henderson Brookes-like report is kept in abeyance. Accountability – no strong point of the regime – cannot be exacted.

Consequently, General, a self-exculpatory sequel may please be dispensed with. (Another general of his cohort has already brought out a sequel of his self-eulogy, this time on transitioning from ‘war-room to boardroom’).

Instead, critical biographers and military thinkers are alerted to a prospective subject: the ji-huzoor interpretation of ‘apolitical’ by Joshi’s leadership cohort.

Clearly, under this regime the military qua institution is not pulling its national security weight.

Whereas the question earlier in Indian civil-military relations (CMR) was of bureaucratic inter-positioning stifling the military, now the key question is the extent political interests and compulsions of the regime - if not its narcissist numero uno - are trammeling the military’s institutional role.

By now enough instances have accumulated of the military’s misconstruing political subordination with subservience.

After all, what else is new-fangled terminology as Udbhav, Bhairav, Rudra, Op Mahadev, Op Shivshakti meant to signal?

Joshi’s mentor on operational and strategic intricacies, along with the current-day Chief of Defence Staff, trashed the notion of raids across the LC prior to Modi’s advent.

The claim of destroying a seminary in Balakot, and downing an F-16 in the bargain, is another. Then came the famous waving of an anti-tank mine on national television to abort the Amarnath yatra, setting the stage for the vacation of Article 370.

Joshi’s characterising the Chinese incursions as ‘transgressions’ also amount to as much. There is also no mention in the book of the Agniveer scheme, the antecedents of which can be seen as long term response to the intrusions.

Lately, it’s the withholding of information relevant to forming an assessment on the regime’s showing in Op Sindoor. It took a middle-rung naval officer speaking at a seminar abroad to inadvertently spill the beans.

It is not known since when has a Lieutenant Governor taken on responsibility for an ‘All OK’ in the military’s Area of Responsibility, which surely covered Pahalgam. A record of prevarication puts under cloud the passing off of the three terrorists killed as the perpetrators at Baisaran.

How the generation of military leadership of which Joshi is a self-acknowledged leading light coped with regime onset and consolidation bears serious CMR reflection.

He clearly earned his spurs at the tactical level, brought out well in the strong first half of the book. A recently promoted lieutenant colonel, he took over officiating command in the midst of battle – his commanding officer was hors-de-combat due to high altitude effects.

His meeting the challenges at the academies, grooming in the unit and his career gaining traction are well handled. His progression was unremarkable for a good and successful officer – sound course gradings, grounding within the unit, exposure in an instructor tenure, the staff course rigmarole and a UN outing.

Fortuitously, he was also physically well prepared. Gaining weight during his tenure in Angola, h’d just shed 10 kilos in anticipation of a call for interview for the post of Adjutant of the military academy, a appointment that requires if nothing else a ramrod bearing.

Fit, young and belonging to the unit, he was the man of the moment, for the anointing under fire. Joshi credits officers as Vikram Batra, a stolid junior leadership, subunit bonding and the combat support provisioned for the unprecedented success (two Param Vir Chakras in one operation) of his team. He was also well-knit with the formation, being a ‘blue eyed boy’ of a charismatic divisional commander.

Nothing must be allowed to take anything away from his service to the nation, to the army and his unit.

It would be too much to expect his generation of professionally-imbued officers to have withstood the deinstitutionalization of the military that beset it as they reached higher ranks.

At best they may be arraigned for not applying peer pressure to rein in political entrepreneurs in uniform - who functioned as conduits for political contamination of the military. Such individuals were artfully placed in charge by the regime and therefore out of reach.

This is especially so when no other institution has been left standing (witness antics of no less than a recently retired Supreme Court chief justice).

It would be churlish to mar Joshi’s upstanding record with taxing him with the responsibility of preserving institutional integrity. Not being legend cannot detract from being great.

*: YK Joshi, Who Dares Wins: A Soldier’s Memoirs, Gurugram: Penguin 2024, pp. 240, Rs 699.