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.
