https://m.thewire.in/article/security/general-naravane-sets-the-cat-among-the-pigeons

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Naravane sets the cat among the pigeons

On the current-day controversy over General Naravane’s unpublished memoirs, Four Stars of Destiny, one of India’s leading strategic commentators, Lt. Gen. HS Panag – who was once a frontline commander at the tactical and operational levels in Ladakh - has this to say: “The primary reason for not formalising national security strategy (NSS) and policy and written political directives in times of crisis by successive governments is to avoid accountability.”

He couches his comment on the military’s current political master by bracketing its mealy-mouthed guidance to the army chief – “Jo ucchit samjho voh karo” – with other such memorable dodges by successive governments. Genuflecting to the times, he refers inter-alia to a joint secretary memorably conveying Nehru’s desire that the chiefs ‘throw the Chinese out.’ An instance that missed mention was at the launch of Operation Parakram when General ‘Paddy’ Padmanabhan was told words to the effect, “Aap chaliye. Hum bataenge.” This places the regime in good company.

Panag is right in respect of successive Indian governments in general. Not having a written NSS prevents their actions to be gauged against it; thereby, preventing accountability.

However, since this regime claims to have broken with the defensive-reactive past through a strategic shift to pro-activism, there must logically be something more than that clubs it on this score with preceding governments.

Ladakh revisited

General Naravane’s version of Operation Snow Leopard - the mobilisation and the occupation of heights in late-August 2020 - shows up strategic diffidence at multiple junctures. The mobilisation itself was the tamest of options the regime had in face of the Chinese intrusion, and, further, it chose the least provocative of options on what to do with the forces mobilised.

In face of the intrusion, the first option was counter-grab action, a straight-forward counter attack, that all ground-holding corps are presumably capable of. Since India’s own ‘pivot’ to China since a decade prior, surely it had the capability in location. The response ought to have been reflexive. It wasn’t.

The second are grab actions in riposte, with objectives not necessarily confined to the front in Ladakh but also in the North East. Notably, the Chinese were provocative also in north Sikkim, allowing us an opening, which we chose to ignore. Only the previous autumn, the eastern command had given itself the wherewithal for such an option in Arunachal Pradesh.

As for the mobilisation itself, the military should have been given an end-state to materialise the advertised aim: ‘status quo ante.’ If and since mobilisation itself could not have been expected to work, military pressure was required in tandem with the other vectors of national power, such as diplomatic and economic, to roll-back the Chinese.

Instead, the mobilisation was only to contain the intrusion; which, in the event, had already ended. In short, the mobilisation did not deter the further intrusion; the Chinese – satiated – were static.

Next, the mobilised military’s contingency plans awaited a further trigger by the Chinese. There are three versions ‘out there’ of what happened next. One, General Naravane sticks to the line fed to the media at the time, that it was to pre-empt any further Chinese missteps. Why the Chinese would do so in face of a mobilised Indian military is moot. Excessive prudence is self-evident in this ‘wait-and-watch’ strategy.

Two, this line is not borne out by the army commander on the spot. General ‘Jo’ Joshi has it that the Indian military action in late August with the mobilised troops was a clean-slate operation. Such an operational feat can only have had a strategic level ‘go-ahead.’

However, not acknowledging the approval shows up an illogical reticence in political masters. If an after-the-fact cooked-up story, this line could have allowed the regime to take credit. But even prospects of an embellished image hasn’t moved the regime to appropriating ownership, as is its wont in regard to all and sundry.

The third is anecdotal, which holds that the specialised troops on hand espying renewed Chinese activity, apprehended that it constituted the ‘trigger’ for the contingency plan and scrambled to the heights. A responsive chain of command then pushed the envelope, successfully pitching for expansion of the operation and delegation of leeway.

Naravane’s orders in his words, were: “I had clear orders not to open fire.” Only firing in self-defence for self-protection was permitted. Lifting of the terms of reference ought to have been worked into the contingency plans, progressive lifting of strictures being infeasible in fast developing situations. He mentions debates in the run-up on this, implying a strategic level pushback being denied at the political level.

Naravane mentions his unsuccessful penultimate effort at the China Study Group meeting and his final-lap effort that succeeded - telephonically with the Cabinet Committee on Security to roll-back the unrealistic constraint.

An apologist might have it that the last-minute delegation to the army to do what’s necessary, shows gumption in the regime to chance war. Contrarily, here too is visible a strain of uncharacteristic self-effacement on the regime’s part. It’s cryptic response allowed it a distancing enough to palm-off any adverse outcome on the military.

Such queasiness on its part can well be viewed as abdication. That Naravane perceived his marching orders as such is implicit in his now-famous line: “I had been handed a hot potato.” His book’s publication held up, shows up a squeamish regime.

Critics of Naravane’s straining at the leash have it that he could have shouldered the responsibility to disregard orders. The definition of ‘terms of reference’ escapes such critics: over-arching and cannot be bypassed without reference to the higher echelon imposing these. They miss that contingency plans were self-limiting on account of such war-avoidance strictures.

Besides, for Naravane to rewrite his orders unilaterally would only allow further distancing of the regime from escalatory outcomes. Since escalation would necessarily involve other resources as the air force, it was not a decision that Naravane could have arbitrarily wrested. What was the role of regime-favourite General Rawat, then Chief of Defence Staff, is not covered by posthumously published hagiographies.

Finally, the effect of orders to be non-provocative was in the tamest of options being exercised: occupying un-held heights in our own territory. If the troops could take the ridgeline, surely they could have rolled down on the other side too, where a strategic prize lay: Rodok. Alternatively, the military could have recaptured grabbed land, in an albeit-delayed riposte.

It is clear that to the political level the mobilisation was intended as a rerun of Op Parakram: a post-facto hustle-bustle touted as succeeding in deterring the Chinese. To its eternal credit, the late-August not-quite-politically-blessed feat-of-arms was the army’s bid to retrieve reputational costs.

Accountability, anyone?

What accounts such over-weening strategic restraint and taciturnity on part of the regime, that otherwise luxuriates in both on the other, western, front?

The answer is at the grand strategic and political levels.

At the former level, we have two points made by minister Jaishankar to go on. Jaishankar had earlier clarified the regime’s grand strategy, saying, “Look, they (China) are the bigger economy. What am I going to do? As a smaller economy, I am going to pick up a fight with the bigger economy? It is not a question of being reactionary, it’s a question of common sense….” Perhaps Jaishankar schooled the prime minister on his ‘war is history’ thesis.

The second is quoted by Naravane: “The longer the talks draw out, the better, as the positions we now hold become semi-permanent and in time, it will become the “new status quo”... We should be prepared to continue with our forward deployment not only for this winter but for as long as it takes, even years, if necessary… (p. 308, italics added)”

Naravane cites Jaishankar as standing against ‘partial solutions’ and for ‘principled positions’ in the military-to-military talks (p. 306). Clearly, this makes for unending talks.

Taken together, the regime is shown up as determined not to take up cudgels with China, citing power differentials. Sushant Singh, who brought Naravane’s perspective back into the reckoning, argues that the power differential is unlikely to be narrowed. So what’s the purpose of a ‘new status quo’?

The answer is necessarily to be probed for at the political level. The primacy of the regime’s political project keeps the regime from taking on the Chinese. It cannot afford a diversion, leave alone a defeat. Such prioritisation obviously cannot be put down in writing in an NSS.

Further and more importantly, what differentiates this regime from preceding governments is that it cannot possibly say out loud (as yet) what the ingredients of a chapeau for any NSS are - its vision and aims. Doing so would place any such NSS afoul of Constitutional accountability. Thus, for the regime, not having an NSS helps it duck accountability in a far more significant way.

 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.