The First South Asian Muslim Quetta Staff Course Graduate: A Military Profile

Defence Journal, March 2016, www.defencejournal.com (Pakistan)

http://www.defencejournal.com/2016-3/lte.asp

Captain Mohammed Ali Ahmed completed the 1^st War Course at the Indian Staff College at Quetta in 1940 as a Captain in the H.E.H The Nizam’s Regular Forces.[1] A representative of Command and Staff College Quetta has this to say in gracious confirmation: “…it is my pleasure to confirm that Captain Mohammed Ali Ahmed, The Nizam’s Regular Forces, was the 1^st Muslim Student from the Subcontinent to graduate from Command and Staff College Quetta, on 22^nd Jun 1940.”[2]

It is interesting that a State Forces officer cornered the distinction which otherwise could have been the fortune of a Muslim King’s Commissioned Indian Officer (KCIO). A third of the KCIOs commissioned into the British Indian Army after Indianisation commenced in 1920 were Muslim.[3] Staff College had opened its doors to Indians 1933 onwards,[4] with Captain (later Field Marshal Cariappa) completing the year-long course in 1933-34.[5] Those commissioned from the Indian Military Academy in Dehra Dun were perhaps not by then senior enough to be considered for the course since the Pioneer course was commissioned in 1934.[6] This article is a military profile of the State Forces officer, Brigadier Ali Ahmed, who has the distinction of being the first Muslim staff course graduate from the subcontinent.

The context of the times

For Hyderabad to be so chosen to send a nominee for the course is easy to see since it was the largest princely state with over 80000 square kilometers in territory inhabited by 16 million people. Its Nizam was the highest in protocol among Indian potentates entitled to the 21 gun salute, one among four other rulers. Gaining autonomy under the later Moghuls, Hyderabad had been a princely state in Deccan for about two hundred years. It had come under suzerainty of the British as they expanded across the Deccan after besting both the Marathas and Tipu Sultan in early nineteenth century. Hyderabad was the first state to accede to Lord Arthur Wellesley’s subsidiary alliance system in 1798[7] and consequently was required to maintain forces for use of imperial power in India when required.[8] For the purpose, they were termed imperial service troops. With consolidation of British power, there was less of a premium on State Forces. State forces now were:

raised and maintained by the Rulers of Indian States at their own expense and for State service. It has been the custom in emergency for State troops to be lent to the Government of India, and the Government of India have on many occasions received military assistance of great value from this source. But the rendering of such aid is entirely at the discretion of the Ruling Princes and Chiefs.[9]  

In an article in the June 1940 issue of Owl,[10] Captain Ali Ahmed encapsulated Hyderabad state’s perception thus: ‘Hyderabad State surrounded on all sides by British Indian territory, and removed by thousands of miles from the Northern marchlands through which all invasions of India in the past were effected, has nothing to fear from outside attacks and its boundaries are safe. Therefore, the basic factor underlying the defence policy of our state is the maintenance of Internal peace.’[11]  Under the circumstance, the main role of Hyderabad State Forces was ‘maintenance of internal security; suppression of communal troubles; prevention of sabotage; safeguarding railways, bridges and banks and, in emergencies, to reinforce the army in India.’[12]

Hyderabad was an ‘agglomeration of diversities’ in which ‘Medievalism flourishes by the side of modernity’ and life being ‘full of incongruities’ with even ‘defence forces being no exception to the rule.’ The army comprised the regular troops - Hyderabad State Forces - and irregular troops, Nizami Jameeth. Additionally, there were feudal levies such as the Sarfikhas, Paigah and Semestan troops and ‘swashbucklers’ of Jagirdars and Rajas armed with ‘Jambia’ and ‘Karabin’. Hyderabad State Forces were divided into field service, general service and state service troops, with the first two being Class A troops,[13] armed with relatively modern weapons and organised similar to the British Indian Army counterparts. These units were grouped into Cavalry and Infantry Brigades. The Brigades were under an Army HQs with a Commander-in-Chief and his principal staff officers: the Chief of Staff and the Adjutant and Quartermaster general. The Army HQs was responsible to the Hyderabad Government for the efficiency and wellbeing of the state forces. An Army Minister was the Executive Council member in charge of the Army Department and accountable to the President of the Executive Council, the Prime Minister. Finally, the Nizam, was, ‘The supreme head of the Army as well as the State is our Ruler whose decisions are final.’[14]

Liaison with the Indian Army was maintained through the Military Adviser-in-Chief at the Army HQs, India, who was empowered ‘to tender advice as regards the policy to be followed in respect of Indian State Forces.” The Commander-in-Chief in India maintained general supervision over state forces through the MA-in-Chief. State Forces had a Military Adviser and Assistant Military Advisers belonging to the British Indian Army posted in the state to facilitate this.[15]

In the eye of the storm

Partition did not affect Hyderabad state as it did north India. The Nizam contemplated his options while India set about integration of princely states after Independence. 1947 saw Brigadier Ali Ahmed serving as officiating Brigadier General Staff of Hyderabad Army. He was deputed to represent the Hyderabad Army in the negotiations with the Government of India for integration into India. The negotiations resulted in the Stand Still Agreement of 29 November 1947.[16] Interestingly, his role was to gain for the Hyderabad Army a supply of arms from India. In the event, this did not materialize and among one of the disagreements over the Stand Still Agreement was Hyderabad’s search for arms elsewhere, including the UK.[17]

Hyderabad was subject to India’s Home Minister Sardar Vallabhai Patel’s firm policy to get all princely states to merge with newly independent India.[18] An episode recounted in Hyderabad is that using an opportunity to advise the Nizam, Ali Ahmed reportedly told the Nizam that facing up militarily to the Indian Army - hardened by five years of the Second World War - would be futile. He forthrightly, if colourfully, said that it would take the Indian Army as long as it takes a tank to drive from Solapur (Sholapur) to Hyderabad, a distance of 299 Km, to capture Hyderabad. As it turned out this became the corporate position of the Hyderabad army, given out in a book, Hyderabad of “the Seven Loaves” (1994),[19] authored by its then chief, Syed Ahmed Ali el Edroos. But by then politics of the state had been captured by Laik Ali and Kasim Rizvi and their irregular militia, the Razakars.

In the tumultuous period, Brigadier Ali Ahmed raised, trained and commanded the Hyderabad Rifle Brigade till 1949, alongside raising the Hyderabad Territorial Army in 1948. ‘Police Action’, code named Operation Polo, was launched by the Indian army on 13 September 1948. Brigadier Ali Ahmed was in charge of Southern Sector defending Gulbarga and Raichur. Here he faced-off against the thrust commanded by Brig (later Maj Gen) NV Bal, an officer of the Maratha Light Infantry, placed under Maj Gen AA Rudra’s Madras Area. Bal’s troops included 5/5 Gorkha Rifles, 1 Mysore Infantry and Mysore Lancers (Horsed).[20] Hav Narbahadur Thapa earned India’s second Ashok Chakra in the skirmish over the Tungabhadra railway bridge in this sector.[21] Some skirmishes took place in the area of Hospet, near Bellary. The major operations were instead largely on the western front, thus Brigadier Ali Ahmed missed out on operational level action. Hyderabad capitulated on 17 September,[22] with el Edroos surrendering the next day to Maj Gen JN Chaudhuri, who led 1 Armoured Division under Southern Command’s head, Lt Gen Rajendrasinhji.

Maj Gen JN Chaudhuri,[23] appointed Military Governor of Hyderabad, was a Quetta course-mate and friend of Brigadier Ali Ahmed. For helping with stabilization operations after Op Polo, Brig Ali Ahmed was put in charge of the Internal Security Directorate in 1948-49 and in 1949 headed the Force HQs at Warangal for anti-communist operations. A communist threat was one reason for India’s use of force. By holding this charge, he can be said to have the honour of being India’s first counter insurgency commander![24] Interestingly, half century on, the area remained under threat of Naxalism. After the dust settled, he was appointed Commander of 1 Hyderabad Infantry Brigade in 1950 and, finally as his last appointment, of the Hyderabad Brigade Group.

The British Indian Army that had begun demobilization after the Second World War did not need additional manpower after Partition. Therefore, the State Forces were not integrated but demobilized. The terms of integration were not particularly attractive for the senior members of State Forces. However, unlike their seniors, junior officers did volunteer for integration. For his part, finding integration into the Indian Army presaged a demotion for state forces officers by two ranks, Brigadier Ali Ahmed took the honourable way out. On 1 April 1951, completing 23 fulsome years in uniform and attaining to a princely sum of Rs. 2150/- as his final pay cheque, Brigadier Ali Ahmed was released.

A military portrait

It is fascinating how a man with no aristocratic connections or pretensions, vital to advancement in the feudal era then, rose to play the role he did in the Hyderabad Army. Born as the eldest child to a medical doctor-in-uniform in the State Force,[25] his was the ninth generation of a family reputedly of Uzbek origin that traced its arrival in India to Aurangzeb’s final years in the Deccan. He gained his commission just under-20 years of age in 1927. Doing the usual stint as company officer and quarter master, he was company commander in 1931-33. In the period, he completed the Young Officers’ course equivalent weapons training and junior tactical courses. As is the customary progress today, he was off to a staff appointment with six years of service as assistant station staff officer and later Brigade Major of the Hyderabad Infantry Brigade in 1936-39. He completed the next rung of courses for middle-piece officers, the Short Tactical Courses at the Deccan District and at brigade level, equivalent to the current day Junior Command course.

As Brigade Major, he closely interacted with the British Indian Army regiments located in Secunderabad cantonment. Captain Ali Ahmed’s friend from 4 Battalion 19^th Hyderabad Regiment (4 Kumaon) days in Bowenpalli garrison, where it received the King’s Colours, was Major ‘Timmy’ Thimayya.[26] Yet another friend from the period was India’s first Army Chief and second Field Marshal, Captain ‘Kipper’ Cariappa, who after qualifying on the Quetta staff course stood posted as a Staff Captain and later DA&QMG in Deccan Area in Secunderabad.[27]   

Between 1934 and 1939, Captain Ali Ahmed simultaneously instructed Officer Cadets during training and was in charge of officer promotion courses. A report on him records that he was ‘well educated and very well read’ and ‘a keen student of his profession’.[28] After taking the pre-course at the Deccan District Promotion Course, he cleared the Indian Army promotion exam to the rank of Captain in 1936, unsurprisingly standing first in Deccan district, which included Indian Army officer candidates, and with distinctions in Military History and Military Geography. His assessors found him ‘widely read in military subjects’ and that ‘he has followed closely and studies deeply the world situation.’ His personal library held several studies of the Great War, including works on Allenby’s advances in Palestine. The thirst for knowledge explains his selection for the Staff Course over his contemporaries in both the Hyderabad Army and the British Indian Army.

The pre-staff course preparation for a State Forces officer was rigourous, consisting of attachments with Indian Army units. General Sir Chetwode, Commander-in-Chief, India, had in his opening address at the Indian Military Academy had given out the British intention thus: ‘With the federal idea before us, it is just as important that the officer of the State Forces should be highly educated as it is in the case of those in British India.’[29] Captain Ali Ahmed was one of two first beneficiaries of this policy of higher quality training for State Forces officers.[30]

He undertook the pre-course familiarization over a three month period in 1938-39 on the North West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), curiously the scene of just as extensive counter insurgency operations as now. He was attached to the 2^nd Battalion (Berar) of the 19 Hyderabad Regiment (rechristened Kumaon Regiment in 1945), today’s 2 Kumaon.  Brigade level training was with the famous HQs Peshawar Brigade, in which he undertook its short weapons training course. Brief stints with artillery and the services followed and an attachment with the Royal Indian Air Force’s oldest outfit, No. 1 “The Tigers” Squadron, in Peshawar in January 1939 when legendary air warriors such as Subroto Mukherjee and AM Engineer served in it.[31] Overseeing the training that included command of a company, Commander Peshawar Brigade Brigadier GO de Channer recommended unhesitatingly, ‘I consider he would do well if sent to the Staff College (junior wing).’ 

The General HQs Staff Course, presumably equivalent to today’s Indian Army’s Command level pre-staff course, followed. His senior instructor, Colonel AH Burnett, CB, DSO, MC, records that he had the ‘characteristic to cheerily make the best of a bad job.’ More importantly, he earned accolade for his ‘power of making a decision without fear of the result’. Further, his assessor wrote that, ‘Although he had opinions of his own, he is tactful.’ Together, these are the necessary traits of good officership in any army in any era. Character is as much of significance in an officer as physical fitness and mental robustness.   

On his nomination for Staff College, he adventurously drove up to Quetta from Hyderabad by car with his family. Between November 1939 and June 1940, he attended the staff course along with legends as Captain (later Lt Gen) SD Verma and ‘Muchhu’ Chaudhuri.[32] He renewed his friendship with Major (later Field Marshal) Cariappa, then Brigade Major of Khojak Brigade, later 20 Indian Infantry Brigade. General Sir Douglas Gracey, commander of the 20 Infantry Division of Burma fame and the second chief of Pakistan Army, was among his instructors. The Commandant General AFP Christisen, MC wrote in his report: ‘You should be very proud of this achievement and if it is decided to send a State Forces officer to ‘Minley’ you have an excellent chance as I shall recommend you.’ ‘Minley’ was a reference to a property with the War Office in 1934 to house the ‘senior wing’, or higher command equivalent faculty, of the nearby Staff College at Camberley in the UK.[33]

On his return to Hyderabad, he commanded the Hyderabad Army Training School that turned out wartime officers. In the war years, as Captain, he raised and commanded the 7 Battalion The Hyderabad Infantry. His reports as Commanding Officer by successive Military Adviser-in-Chief (MA-in-C), Indian State Forces, including twice by General Sir F Gwatkin, CB, DSO, MC, have it that, ‘he appears to be very keen on his job and seems to know exactly what was going on;’ ‘he has the most intimate knowledge of his men;’ and, ‘intimate knowledge of all the details of his battalion.’ He was thus an example in what is known in army parlance as ‘knowing one’s command’. Command of a unit is considered the epitome of command. Success in this guarantees higher appointments; however, being successful and good are two different aspects. In a sound army, a good commanding officer is more desirable than a successful one.

In 1944, the Hyderabad Infantry Training Center was set up under Lt Col Ali Ahmed.  To learn the ropes he had an attachment with the Mahratta Light Infantry Training Center.[34] At the end of the war, after briefly reverting to command his battalion, he was on staff of HQs Hyderabad Army in the coveted operations appointment of GSO-1. Clearly, the Hyderabad Army put his learning at Quetta to full use, a testimony to the quality of training at the elite training institution.

What stands-out in his reports are the remarks on ‘keen to learn’ and ‘real seeker after knowledge’.[35] This made him different as a modern man at the end of a feudal era. That he was marked out for higher command is visible in his reports in references to his ‘strong character’ and having ‘much personality’. In the event, Independence and its aftermath decreed that he retire at his prime.

The old soldier’s legacy

Post-Independence, Brig Ali Ahmed was patriarch of India’s leading Muslim military family. Partition had resulted in partition also of the Indian Army. As a result of departure of the Punjabi Musalmans and Pathans to Pakistan, the proportion of Muslims in India’s Army fell from roughly a third to about 2 per cent.[36] Since South India was not singed by the flames of Partition, Brigadier Ali Ahmed settled into retirement in Hyderabad, Deccan. His choice resulted over time in the family tradition of military service continuing as part of Indian Army.

Of his immediate family, three brothers,[37] three sons, three sons-in-law,[38] three grandsons and two nephews were officers in Independent India’s security forces, all of whom won red tabs for their lapels in their turn. Pre-Independence, his eldest son had been dispatched as a cadet at the Prince of Wales’ Royal Indian Military College (RIMC), Dehra Dun.[39] At RIMC, his son’s contemporaries were the likes of Shaharyar Khan and Shamim Alam Khan, later foreign secretary and general respectively in Pakistan.[40] Two daughters wore khakis, early entrants to the National Cadet Corps, with one in its air wing. One juncture in the early nineties saw at least one officer from the immediate family at every rank from Second Lieutenant to Lieutenant General in the armed forces and the paramilitary.[41] Interestingly, Brig Ali Ahmed’s son attended India’s Staff Course in Wellington and so did his grandson, making the three generations unique, making for yet another first in the subcontinent. 

In an India with an expanding economy, military families are threatened with extinction. A declining proportion of officers’ wards join services. For a professional, meritocratic and all-volunteer army of a republic, noblesse oblige has no place. Wards of societal elite must equally be represented in the military and it cannot merely be seen as a vehicle for upward socio-economic mobility. Consequently, tradition has a place in military affairs and it takes generations to foster. Measures that can preserve traditions need nurturing, including higher emoluments and assured dignity and quality of life to keep the military attractive as a calling.

Like a typical veteran, Brig Ali Ahmed maintained his interest in matters military. In a letter to his friend, Thimayya, then heading his third field army, the Eastern Command on his designation by Nehru as Indian Army Chief, he wrote: ‘I am looking forward to the day when you take over that finest machine – the Indian Army – and discarding ‘Red Tapism’ bring it back to its pristine glory by infusing new life in it … India’s defence forces should be a source of pride to the common man: They should be loved rather than feared (italics added).’[42] The sentiment resonates through the ages and is valid for all armies. Armies are of the people and are to serve the nation, albeit answerable through the government of the day.

Having given the better part of his life and his family to military service, as old soldier’s do he faded away. His fighter pilot son narrates that once after turning in the family car for servicing, they rode back home in a rickshaw. When the rickshaw encountered a climb, as they insisted on getting off, they heard the rickshaw puller say, “Sahib, zindagi mein utar-chadao to aate hain. Main main aapke niche 7 Hyderabad Infantry mein Sipahi tha.” (“Sahib, life has its up’s and down’s. I was a sepoy under you in 7 Hyderbad Infantry.”) With moistened eyes the two comrades-in-arms in the rickshaw receded into the sunset, ringing down the curtain on the medieval era in the Deccan.

---

[1] As inscribed on the board in the Command and Staff College Quetta on which is maintained the record of names of alumni.  

[2] Email of Internet in Charge, Command and General Staff College, Quetta, 3 March 2015.  The first Muslim to do staff course was an Iraqi army officer in 1935-36 (http://armystaffcollege.gov.pk/NOTABLE-GRADUATES.pdf, accessed on 15 July 2015), who later went on to be Iraq Army Chief of Staff till the coup in 1958 in the aftermath of which he was sentenced to death, commuted later in intercession of the King of Morocco with the revolutionary government (https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v12/d143, accessed 20 July 2015).

[3] In the first decade of Indianisation, of the 99 KCIO’s commissioned between 1922-31, 34 were Muslims, a clear one-third.

[4] In his famous speech at the opening of the Indian Military Academy, General Sir Chetwode had indicated that Staff Course was opened to Indians. See ‘Address of Field Marshal Sir Philip Chetwode to The First Term Gentleman Cadets of the First Course At the Indian Military Academy 10 December 1932’, Scholar Warrior, Spring 2012, p. 152, http://www.claws.in/images/journals_doc/SW%20J.172-175.pdf, accessed on 15 July 2015.

[5]Field Marshal Cariappa, commissioned in 1922, was the first Indian entry to Staff College completing the year long course between 1933 and 1934 (‘The Quetta Heritage’, DSSC, p. 6, http://www.dssc.gov.in/history/The%20Quetta%20Heritage.pdf , accessed on 18 July 2015). From South Asia’s Muslims, Field Marshal Ayub Khan, KCIO commissioned in 1928, did the 3rd Long Staff Course from December 1940 to June 1941, and General Musa, Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff in the 1965 War, did the 1942 course. See http://armystaffcollege.gov.pk/NOTABLE-GRADUATES.pdf , accessed on 15 July 2015.

[6] Of the first course commissioned from Indian Military Academy in February 1934, Field Marshal Manekshaw attended the course in 1943.

[7] KM Panikkar, The Evolution of British Policy Towards Indian States, 1774-1858, Delhi: Mittal Publications, 1986, p. 31.

[8] ‘Indian integration of Hyderabad’, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_integration_of_Hyderabad, accessed 10 June 2015.

[9] ‘British Empire India (Continued): Army’, http://digital.library.northwestern.edu/league/le0285al.pdf, p. 238, accessed on 26 July 2015.

[10] Captain Ali Ahmed, ‘Defence Forces of Hyderabad’, Owl, June 1940 (pp. 17-18). This was the magazine of the 1^st War Course at Quetta.    

[11] Owl, June 1940, pp. 17. The subsequent paragraphs draw on Captain Ali Ahmed’s article.

[12] Ibid.

[13] ‘British Empire India (Continued): Army’, http://digital.library.northwestern.edu/league/le0285al.pdf, p. 238, accessed 13 July 2015. Class A troops were organized like regular troops. Class B and C were relatively inferior in quality and less systematically organized.

[14] Op cit Note 9.

[15] Op cit Note 9.   

[16] For text see, Standstill Agreement between India and Hyderabad,  https://cbkwgl.wordpress.com/2012/04/24/standstill-agreement-between-india-and-hyderabad/, accessed on 1 July 2015.  

[17] el Edroos in his autobiography (S. Ali el Edroos and LR Naik, Hyderabad of "the Seven Loaves", Hyderabad: Laser Prints, 1994) recounts making a trip to London for the purpose. See Gautam Pemmaraju, ‘The Fall of Hyderabad’, Open Magazine, 18 September 2010, http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/nation/the-fall-of-hyderabad, accessed 10 July 2015.

[18] K. Venkateshwarlu, ‘How the Nizam lost Hyderabad in 1948’, The Hindu, 14 August 2012, http://www.thehindu.com/books/how-the-nizam-lost-hyderabad-in-1948/article3765710.ece, accessed 20 July 2015.

[19]S. Ali el Edroos and LR Naik, Hyderabad of "the Seven Loaves", Hyderabad: Laser Prints, 1994.

[20] KC Praval, Indian Army After Independence, New Delhi: Lancer, 2013.

[21] Hav Narbahadur Thapa received the award in 1952 when it was instituted. See  http://indianarmy.nic.in/Site/FormTemplete/frmTempSimple.aspx?MnId=Sci28TR4oZu8YGPYj4T9/w==&ParentID=vok489X2n9nw4MCLhdRl2g==, accessed on 16 July 2015. For his citation see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashoka_Chakra_(military_decoration), accessed 16 July 2015. The first Ashok Chakra awardee, Hav Bachitter Singh, won posthumously in the Hyderabad operations, earning it on the very first day itself.

[22] KC Praval titles his chapter on the army action as ‘Hyderabad – The 100-hour war’.

[23]JN Chaudhuri, 1 Armoured Division in Operation "Polo", East Sussex: The Naval and Military Press, 2014.

[24] Incidentally, his son, Lt Gen MA Zaki, led the Indian army in facing up to India’s gravest internal security challenge yet as India’s corps commander in Srinagar when the troubles broke out in Kashmir in late 1989. He was Adviser to Governor till 1995.

[25] Despite being a medic, early last century, he won the sharpshooter prize, the Golconda Cup, as the RMO (Regimental Medical Officer) equivalent during his infantry battalion deputation.

[26] Today the barracks where Thimayya’s unit stayed in Secunderabad are called Thimayya Lines.

[27] See for a brief biography of Cariappa, http://veekay-militaryhistory.blogspot.com/2012/10/biography-field-marshal-km-cariappa-obe.html, accessed 13 July 2015.

[28] Report extracts are from the Record of Service held in the family archives in Hyderabad, India.

[29] ‘Address of Field Marshal Sir Philip Chetwode to The First Term Gentleman Cadets of the First Course At the Indian Military Academy 10 December 1932’, Scholar Warrior, p.152. Sir Chetwode was promoted field marshal in February 1933. He was a general at the time of his historical speech at Dehra Dun. 

[30] At the 1^st War Course was another State Forces officer, Captain BP Walawalker, of 1^st Battalion Jaipur Infantry. He was a graduate of Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, and course mate of General JN Chaudhuri.

[31] Subroto Mukherjee became the first Indian commander of a squadron two months later.

[32]JN Chaudhuri, General J. N. Chaudhuri: An Autobiography, as Narrated to B. K. Narayan, New Delhi: Vikas, 1948, p. 114

[33] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minley_Manor, accessed on 20 July 2015. 

[34] Little could he have known that his son and grandson would join the Maratha regiment and his son would be Colonel of the Regiment. Coming to India ten generations back and with Aurangzeb’s army to Deccan to fight the Marathas, it is a testimony to the assimilative character of the subcontinent that two generations of the family post Independence were in the ranks of the Marathas. Lt Gen Zaki earned India’s third highest medal of valour in the 1965 War (See MA Zaki, ‘An Infantry Combat Leader’s Memoir of the 1965 War’, Journal of Defence Studies, 9 (3), July 2015,

http://www.idsa.in/jds/9_3_2015_AnInfantryCombatLeadersMemoirofthe1965War.html, accessed on 15 July 2015.  

[35] Later in life this facet led to his being delegated to show the historian Arnold Toynbee Hyderabad when he visited India for the Maulana Azad lecture under auspices of the Indian Council of Cultural Relations in 1960.

[36] Ahmed Faruqui, ‘Muslims in Indian Army’, Dawn, 15 March 2010, http://www.dawn.com/news/842925/muslims-in-indian-army, accessed 30 July 2015.

[37] His younger brother, Lt Col Moinuddin Ahmed, commanded an infantry unit as Lieutenant Colonel defending the Bidar axis during Police Action. Offered the rank of Captain in the Indian Army, he instead sought release during integration. He went on to give his two sons to the Indian Army and his daughter married an Indian army officer.

[38] All three attained star rank; with Lt Gen Jameel Mahmood, passing away in a helicopter accident in Bhutan as Army Commander, Eastern Command; the second, retiring as an Air Commodore; and the third as Inspector General in the Border Security Force.

[39]The elder son attained the rank of Lieutenant General and his son – the author - in turn ended up as a second generation Rimcollian and a third-generation Infantryman. At RIMC, Lt Gen Zaki was taught by Mr. Catchpole, who went on to be associated with Pakistan’s elite public schools: Cadet College Hasan Abdal and Abbotabad Public School. 

[40]Ali Ahmed’s two remaining sons were also packed off later to RIMC as was yet another grandson.

[41]Shashi Tharoor, India: From Midnight to the Millennium and Beyond, New York: Arcade Publications, 1997, p. 119.

[42] Brigadier Mohammed Ali Ahmed , ‘Letter to Lt Gen Thimayya’, 19 November 1956, available in Zaki family archives and in the ‘Thimayya papers’ in Coorg.

What a short, swift war means for the Infantry

http://www.claws.in/1548/what-a-short-swift-war-means-for-the-infantry-ali-ahmed.html

India expects that the next war will be swift and short. It would be swift in not being a replay of Operation Parakram in which, as critics would have it, India took time to mobilise, thereby, risking losing the initiative. It would be a short in that the nuclear threshold would tend to loom larger as the war lengthens in duration and with added dangers of escalation. 
What does such a war imply for the Infantry? 
The infantry would be at its best in the mountains sector, leaving the fighting in the plains to its sister arms. Since the infantry deployed in J&K is already in field conditions, it would be easier for it to shift gears. The defensive formations are virtually in combat mode on the Line of Control. The immediate reserves meant for offensive are largely well practiced, though there may be requirement to shift from a counter insurgency mentality and profile to one that lends itself to conventional operations. 
In this, the Kargil War experience and its lesson learned would prove handy. The switch over from anti-terrorism to conventional mode was more difficult then, owing to a higher intensity of the former. Now, while this gear change would be smoother owing to negligible militancy, correspondingly the shock effect of outbreak of hostilities in short order can be expected to be starker.  
The second set of lessons learned date from the 2001 experience, with the then army commander, known for his moral courage, reportedly weighing in against an offensive without due preparation. Another factor then was the snowy weather in early 2002 rendering a prospective offensive considerably handicapped at the very outset. While neither  the army commander’s concern of equipment shortages nor snow could be expected to tie down infantry, in operations more demanding of ‘results’ and aversive to setbacks, the risk of non-performance is higher. 
Offensives in mountains are inherently fraught and the crust of defences on the Line of Control has been thickened over three score years of faceoff. Therefore, the going would be rather tough and consequently more reliant on firepower rather than bayonets. The higher reserves, such as the Mountain Strike Corps, may fetch up in a later time frame. They would be less relevant for making territorial gains and more for posturing and deterrence. 
Territory gained would unlikely be returned this time round, unlike it was fifty years back. Holding on by reconfiguring these in real time in face of enemy counter attacks would be the primary challenge. Alongside, preventing any enemy riposte or counter offensive succeeding elsewhere would be at a premium in light of the optics that would make it prohibitive for a visibly stronger power and an offensive one at that losing ground. This would yet again be an infantry heavy exercise, supplemented by Rashtriya Rifles, close at hand, in a reinforcing role. 
In comparison with the challenge facing the infantry in the plains, the showing in Northern Command would be relatively easy. The essential difference is in the plains and desert sector having infantry begin from a peace time mode. This degree of difficulty is accentuated by the cantonment mindset that is heavily manpower – read infantry – intensive. 
Infantry as part of defensive formations being closer to the border can be expected to manage to reach operations locations and undertake pin prick offensive tasks, particularly if the time differential exists in India’s favour as can be expected in a ‘cold start’ scenario. Such infantry would have sufficient time to adapt from a peace time culture to a war time one, since Pakistani reaction to India’s offensives will take time to materialise, if at all. However, that Pakistan has practiced reflexive response to the so-called ‘cold start’ scenario suggests any complacency could prove embarrassing, as was the case to cite an instance at Hussainiwala in 1971. 
The major question is whether the infantry undertaking an offensive role can at all shift gears by the time it races from its cantonment locations serving as concentration areas through assembly areas in launch pads. While it would not be the queen of the battles in this sector, leaving the privilege to armour assisted by mechanised infantry, it would be required for defensive tasks along shafts, flanks and in bridgeheads. Its showing would call for a high degree of psychological preparedness. Does cantonment soldiering today permit this? 
A dignified respite in a peace station is indeed a must for the infantry, recuperating as it would be from a preceding high altitude or counter insurgency tenure. However, providing for an easy life and one with family entails higher pressure in the form of ‘events’ and ‘institutes’. This implies an inordinate – perhaps inescapable - attention to fatigue details and ‘working parties’. The terror threat post the Pathankot airfield terror attack has presumably also heightened static guard details. In fact, it is no longer remarkable to see soldiers who ought to be in barracks, living in tents near gates. Anecdotal evidence indicates that soldiers with families get to sleep over for a full nights rest at their houses only every other night. The upshot of such commitment is mixed. While the hectic pace of life in visits, inspections and events keeps the infantry on its toes and the guard details keeps it camouflage-clad and helmeted, it does not afford the infantry the much-needed rest. 
The danger is in infantry outfits compensating through short cuts in training, physical fitness parades and battle efficiency – physical and firing - tests. To create time and breathing space, a unit could for instance do without inter-company games competitions. It might even club ‘langars’ together since manpower in barracks is scarce. The effect of such innovation can be in a deficit in subunit identity and cohesion. Absent horizontal bonding it is not certain such an infantry outfit would be able to carry the objective. 
This begs the question: What needs doing? 
Clearly, there is a case for reducing the weight of higher headquarters on infantry units. This means a cut in duties devolving on units by employing camp manpower suitably. The system of privileges with rank has to be reviewed in light of the top-heaviness of late in headquarters, since this invariably adds to demands on infantry. To reduce the pace of life, formations need to identify the ‘must do’ and restrict activity to these alone. Doing away with the ‘should do’ and ‘could also do’ at formation level will create the time, energy and attention spans at unit level to recreate the infantry ethos. Increasingly formations have resorted to inculcation of elitism, through celebrating formation days etc. Since there are only 24 hours to a day, this can only be at the expense of lower echelons, notably that of subunits. Company commanders are hardput today to instill company spirit. Assisting this crucial level of command must be priority, for this is the level at which fighting gets done. 
Whereas there have been considerable doctrinal, planning, equipment and training upgrades to fight a short, swift war, a conclusion from the brief appraisal above is that, even so, winning such a war requires a fresh look at the human element.  

Dangerous strategy

http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/dangerous-strategy/216492.html

In his inaugural statement at a seminar on nuclear security at a think tank in Islamabad, the Nuclear Development Adviser to Pakistan’s National Command Authority, retired general Khalid Kidwai, made sure to get the deterrence message across to India.

He warned that ‘Cold Start or no Cold Start’, Pakistan’s adoption of ‘full spectrum deterrence’ had brought  about ‘retention of strategic equilibrium in South Asia’ by seriously neutralising any propensity in India for the ‘use of the military as an instrument of policy’.

For their contribution to ‘peace and stability in the region’, he was inclined to echo the title of a book on India’s nuclear weapons by Raj Chengappa, calling Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, ‘weapons of peace’.

Is Khalid Kidwai right?

On return from Islamabad where Sushma Swaraj had gone for the ministerial meeting of the Heart of Asia conference on Afghanistan, Swaraj in briefing parliament acknowledged as much, saying: “war is not an option”. Whereas she did not specify why this was so, the nuclear factor also figures among other reasons to avoid war, such as the economic one.

Since both states are close to embarking on a ‘bilateral comprehensive dialogue’ brokered by Swaraj during her Pakistan visit last December, it would appear that Khalid Kidwai is at least partially right. However, since the promised dialogue has not taken off three months on since its announcement indicates the pitfalls.

The terror attack on Pathankot airfield early in the year resulted in the foreign secretary talks scheduled for mid January being postponed. Even if talks finally take off in wake of the visit of the joint investigation team from Pakistan to the site of the terror attack in Pathankot, the hiatus indicates a continuing fragility that cannot be wished away.

This is compounded by India’s Pakistan strategy, likened by a former Indian ambassador to that  country as ‘manic pirouetting’. Since the strategy is controlled by National Security Adviser, Ajit Doval, his views are worth probing.

Immediately prior to parliamentary elections in which Doval had a major hand in generating the Modi wave, Doval laid  out his strategic world view at a talk in Sastra University. He called for a shift from a defensive strategy to one of ‘defensive offence’. Since this was not an offensive  strategy, the nuclear threshold was not of consequence. He preferred ‘intelligence led’, ‘covert’, operations to military action against Pakistan’s ‘vulnerable’ areas, such as its ‘internal security’.

Deeming ‘strategy without tactics is noise before defeat’, it can be expected that Doval as NSA is practising what he preached. Pakistan’s recent nabbing of an alleged Indian spy, former naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav, is perhaps evidence of this.

Alongside, in another preview of his Pakistan strategy, Doval as head of the Vivekananda International Foundation had instigated a press statement by 41 members of the strategic community. The statement had effectively tied down UPA II from contemplating a resumption of talks with Pakistan. It called for terrorism as being the sole agenda of talks.

Today the promised ‘comprehensive bilateral dialogue’ continues in abeyance, held hostage to terrorism. This explains Sushma Swaraj’s briefing to parliament: “We have decided that through talks we will resolve the issue of terrorism as talks is the way forward so that the shadow of terror is removed.”

The upshot is that India’s Pakistan strategy appears to have two prongs. One is to condition Pakistan to its underside by exposing it to Indian intelligence operations, while engaging in a dialogue restricted to terrorism.

The strategy is not without its dangers.

Firstly, while Indian interests are sought if not quite met this way, over time Pakistan’s national security estabishment’s interest in the dialogue  would lag. It is currently not averse to Sharif’s outreach to India that relies on personal equations reinforced with Indian Prime Minister Mr. Modi’s brief stop over at Sharif’s Raiwind residence. However, a status quo in India’s favour could prompt counter action by the Pakistan army to once again use its tried and trusted instrument, the ISI.

Secondly, the Pathankot terror attack and Pakistani NSA’s tip off to his Indian counterpart of infiltration of ten terrorists on Mahashivratri eve into India suggests that terrorist forces can act autonomously. They can trigger off another crisis by a mega terror attack.

During his Sastra University address, Doval had weighed in favour of an intelligence driven response to 26/11. In effect, the intelligence game would now heat up, increasing propensity for either side eventually going military. It is then that the nuclear threshold, so cavalierly dismissed by both Doval and Khalid Kidwai, would kick in.  

Given such escalatory possibilities, the contrasting policies of the two states appear delusional. Whereas Pakistan loses no opportunity to  foreground nuclear dangers to reinforce deterrence, as done most recently by Kidwai, India for its part has taken care to omit any mention of nuclear weapons in relation to military exercises since 2013.

Foregrounding nuclear dangers thus continues to be important, if only to compel the two states to remain at the table. 

---

Another India-Pakistan Upswing In The Offing?

Saturday, March 19,2016

http://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/NewsDetail/index/5/7183/Another-India-Pakistan-Upswing-In-The-Offing

The meeting on 17 March in Pokhara between Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj and foreign policy advisor 

to Pakistan’s prime minister, Sartaj Aziz, filling in as Pakistan’s foreign minister, heralds yet another prospective 

upswing in the relations between the two states. Swaraj accepted the Aziz conveyed invite for Mr. Modi to visit

 Islamabad for the SAARC summit in the later part of this year. The two prime ministers could meet even earlier,

 at the Nuclear Security summit in Washington D.C. The joint investigation team into the Pathankot airfield terror

 attack is set to begin work by month end.

Relations appear to be back on track after being derailed by the terror attack in Pathankot. However, in light of 

the earlier flip-flops in India’s Pakistan policy - characterized by one perceptive observer as ‘manic pirouetting’ -

 Mr. Modi’s trip to Islamabad is not a done deal yet.

As at previous junctures, this one too shall attract speculation as to whether this is a sustainable upswing or 

yet another mirage. Influence of internal politics with elections looming in Assam and Bengal is a candidate

 line of inquiry.  Deeper still is whether Hindutva philosophy contaminating strategy today can at all countenance

 equable ties with Pakistan. However, a robust answer will likely prove elusive.

For a better understanding of India’s Pakistan policy, there is one almost forgotten vantage point: the

 9 August ‘Press Statement on India-Pakistan Relations by Members of India’s Strategic Community’. 

Forty one denizens of Delhi’s seminar rooms signed up to a statement brokered by the Vivekananda 

International Foundation, headed then by current day National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval.

The statement had put paid to Manmohan Singh’s dream nurtured since his UPA I stint of making a 

path-breaking trip to Pakistan. UPA II, already in doldrums by then, preferred not to chance the forthcoming

 elections on the altar of India-Pakistan relations.

The statement if not quite Mr. Doval’s brain child, had him signing off on it. As India’s national security minder 

and old Pakistan hand, India’s current Pakistan policy therefore can be credited to him. What he endorsed then

 therefore affords being dusted up for review to see if it might have clues as to his mind. His policy advice 

then was:

India should show no anxiety to hold a dialogue with Pakistan, keep a steady focus on the issue of 
Pakistan-sponsored terrorism in any conversation that takes place, abjure language that equates our
 problems with terrorism with those of Pakistan, and take Siachen out of the basket of issues …

The logic given was that Pakistan’s military held the reins, even if there was a new placatory civilian government

 in place headed by Nawaz Sharif. India consequently was better advised to – in the words of the signatories 

– ‘impose a cost on Pakistan for its export of terror to India, and thus change the cost-benefit calculus of these 

policies and actions.’ Towards this end, a ‘proactive approach’ was thought as able to ‘yield us much better 

results than those garnered by policies of appeasement which have regrettably been pursued by us for years.’

This amounts to a blue print for the still-young Modi era. India has indeed been ‘proactive’. Diplomatically, it has 

reached out to Nawaz Sharif, best exemplified by the invite to Mr. Modi’s swearing in and Mr. Modi’s dropping in

 at Sharif’s Lahore farm house last December. The National Security Advisers have met twice over. Pakistan has

 been kept off balance with foreign secretaries meetings also having been either cancelled or postponed twice

over too. The sole agenda in the stillborn dialogue is terrorism, as anticipated in the statement.   

Militarily, India upped the temperature on the Line of Control since October year before last. With the message

 hitting home, it has wound down the pressure lately, though the heads of military operations have yet to meet as 
thought up in the Ufa meeting between the two prime ministers. On the intelligence front, the ‘game’ is clearly on, 
with India – if Pakistanis are to be believed - giving as good as it receives both in Pakistan and in Afghanistan.  

The idea appears to be to soften up Pakistan’s military, expose it to its own underside and the age old dictum:

 those who live in glass houses must not throw stones at others. Alongside, the line of strategy directed towards 

Nawaz Sharif is at best to incentivize Pakistan and at worst to divide its national security elite.

Since this dual pronged strategy is in play with the hard and soft lines alternating, it is confounding to Indian

 observers, predicating their analysis on the values of predictability and consistency. For its part, Pakistan’s 

decision making elite at the receiving end appears unfazed. It is making gains in its counter terror operations.

 Its proxies the Taliban have reemerged in Afghanistan. It is able to launch pin prick terror attacks against India 

at will. Its nuclear trump card is well into three digits in terms of warheads. It is heartened by India’s foreign

 minister - sensibly - ruling out war as an option. The military is not averse to using Sharif as foil.

It is unlikely that India’s hyper-nationalism inspired strategic community would find these comfort levels of 

Pakistan at all enthusing. It spells that Pakistan’s military has not been sufficiently battened down nor a 

division created within Pakistan into pro- and anti-India camps. Consequently, Mr. Modi’s pirouetting can 

be expected to continue under direction of Chanakya II, Mr. Doval himself.

The problem – nay, danger – with the strategy is that it has not thought through what it considers sufficient

 punishment of Pakistan. Hindutva infected, it would unlikely settle only for appeasement by Pakistan, when 

only Pakistan’s capitulation or going under will do. Clearly, the strategic ‘community’ needs to once again get

 together to draft a fresh statement to help bail Mr. Doval out. 

Yoga as prelude to politicization of the military

http://www.epw.in/journal/2016/11/commentary/yoga-prelude-politicisation-military.html

Unedited version

This January, 250 army men of Western Command attended the Yoga Teacher's Training Course organised by Ramdev's Patanjali Yogpeeth in Haridwar. They are the first lot of 1000 yoga trainers who are then to return to barracks and conduct yoga for troops. That the media finds this association between the army and Baba Ramdev’s outfit as news worthy suggests the link needs further query.

The aim ostensibly is to de-stress the army in cantonments in Western Command’s peace stations before they return for yet another tour of duty in some or other counter insurgency area or high altitude picket.

Superficially, this is for the good in so far as physical and mental fitness goes. The army has figured in the news earlier for the wrong reasons: soldier suicides, fratricide and affrays between officers and men. Among the enabling conditions for such avoidable incidents is stress. Yoga is meant to mitigate such stress.

Yoga caught on in the military long before the three chiefs along with a brigade of Delhi based troops lined up behind the prime minister on the Raj Path for yoga last June. It has been in practice for about a decade, with the army turning its attention to the psychological scars of countering insurgency once the situation in Kashmir started stabilizing mid last decade. Art of Living had also made an advent at about the same time for similar reasons.

The problem is not so much yoga as much as the army’s institutional association with Baba Ramdev’s organization. The Baba is controversial with his business deals having come in for investigative scrutiny. The premises in Haridwar where army men spent couple of weeks hosted a convention for the RSS year before last. The Baba is a known cheerleader for Prime Minister Mr. Modi.

Such proximity is not without its underside. Yoga is enwrapped in a cultural context. Cultural transmission can be expected, such as of ritual, intonations and interpretation of Sanskritic texts. Since the program requires residence on campus, dietary mores and ashram routine would also be conduits.

A right wing associated organization is not about to pass up an opportunity for influencing the army with its world view. Even if tacit, the exposure of 1000 troops this training year, and perhaps more to follow in subsequent years, will enable a window of penetration of the right wing perspective into the army.

This raises the question as to why this apprehension escaped the army’s exercise of due diligence in going about its yoga training program.  

I suggest that the impetus is from both directions. While it can be expected that right wing organizations are interested in the military, counter intuitively, it appears that the military is not averse to such attention.

The growing grip of Hindutva forces across polity and into society, such as over the education sector, the army should be alert to the possibility that it cannot escape like attention. This should have made it defensive, if not prickly, so as to reduce the politicization and corresponding effect on professionalism that penetration of cultural nationalism entails.

Its yoga program does not suggest that it is mindful of the otherwise obvious dangers. Since these are easy to apprehend, a plausible inference is that the army is courting Hindutva. Since it takes two to tango, are there are elements within the military opening the door wider?

An illustration is the appearance of articles on Vedic leadership in military publications, specifically in the Infantry Journal and on the website of the army think tank. This is of a piece with a leadership in the nineties by the Army’s Training Command on the leadership philosophy of the controversial godman, Sai Baba.

Is politicization underway? This is not in the usual sense of the term in a convergence of institutional and political interest of the military leading to its displacing of the government, as in Pakistan. This is better described as incidence of subjective civilian control in which the civilian ruling dispensation connects with the military by ensuring that the military shares its world view, in this case, of Hindutva, such as is the case in communist states.

This is as against objective civilian control in which the military is rendered politically inert by being left to its professional devices. The difference between the two is that where objective civilian control is exercised, the military not a political player. Where the military is under subjective civilian control, the military is kept out of politics because, in subscribing to the dominant perspective, it does not feel the need to intervene.  

Such a move by Hindutva forces can be expected. Once they go about their reset of India in right earnest, they would prefer to keep the military to its professional till. Whereas the mechanism of objective civilian control is available to this end, the ambitious Hindutva agenda for India forces a preference for a tighter embrace of the military. This will ensure, firstly, that it can be kept out by decree and does not feel the need to intervene, and, secondly, that it can be made to weigh in on the side of Hindutva, in case Hindutva forces find the going tough over the longer term.

In light of Indian military’s apolitical record, it can be argued that such apprehensions of convergence of interest are outlandish. This is true in so far as the military’s interest, unlike that of its peer militaries in developing states, was never in a takeover of the state. This would continue to be so, the difference this time round is that the military will increasingly subscribes to the world view of the regime in power.

This is not troubling in so far as the paradigm is a conservative-realist one that militaries, universally, subscribe to. However, the makeover of India in the image of majoritarian nationalism is unlikely to remain a political and democratic exercise. Aware of this, Hindutva forces would like a placid military when they contrive to remain in power and their agenda goes beyond governance.

On this count, the army’s association with Baba Ramdev is only superficially innocent, to do only with yoga. The army is not so politically innocent as to be unaware of the upfront social and political changes ongoing in India. Its choice of Baba Ramdev suggests that it needs watching as much as the moves of the Hindutva combine to influence it.     

 

---

Book Review

http://www.kashmirtimes.in/newsdet.aspx?q=49951

Vivek Chadha, Indian Army’s Approach to Counter Insurgency Operations: A Perspective on Human Rights, Occasional Paper 2, IDSA, New Delhi, 2016, pp. 40

In the IDSA monograph under review, Chadha brings out the current status of army’s approach to human rights. The army’s record has been chequered, but the limitations of space in a monograph length work have led to Chadha’s looking at only the positives. The good news is that the current day army appears suitably impressed by the need to keep human rights to fore in subconventional operations.

Since the army is not particularly challenged today in any theater of subconventional operations, be it J&K or North East, it is easier for the army to maintain a credible record on human rights. That it is has used the letting up in operations for taking a closer look at human rights is altogether heartening. The test of whether it has suitably internalized this can only come up with the next test.

Such test does not appear on the horizon. The situation in J&K while being delicate politically and simmering in terms of popular disaffection is unlikely to escalate militarily owing to the massive deployment of the army continuing along the borders and within the ‘hinterland’. The Udhampur, Gurdaspur and Pathankot incidents suggest the difficulties terrorists are having in using Kashmir as site for their action. In the North East, a series of suspension of operations agreements are in place, the most significant of which in Nagaland has recently be strengthened by a framework agreement. The Central Indian theater of operations has been consigned to the paramilitary since the levels of violence are relatively low and access to sanctuary abroad the missing element.  

As for the possibility of being faced with subconventional operations outside of the borders, this can only be in wake of conventional operations against Pakistan. The likelihood of this has thankfully been appreciably set back by the upward trajectory, albeit a hesitant one, in Indo-Pak relations of late. Stabilisation operations in which human rights would have a place appear remote. Another farfetched site for subconventional operations could be if India joins a multinational force in wrapping up the ISIS in an indeterminate future. 

The upshot of this survey is that after a long while the army is not faced with subconventional operations of any notable intensity. Does Chadha’s work lend confidence that the army will pass when tested?

It would be as easy as unfair to dismiss Chadha’s word as coming out of a ‘sarkari’ think tank, the IDSA, and being from a former military man cannot but be biased. However, it best to give him a hearing for as once an infantry colonel he would know where the shoe pinches. His first hand knowledge is from participation in subconventional operations in Sri Lanka, J&K and North East. He is also author of the heavy tome Low Intensity Conflicts in India: An Analysis in which he laid out a brief history of India’s showing in countering insurgency in various theaters.

Chadha believes that the army’s human rights approach has not received due attention in the human rights discourse otherwise crowded with the works critical of the state and its agencies. His claim is that the army has at least over the last decade spruced up its understanding of and record on human rights. He uses its work in J&K as a case study.

In J&K, the statistics are clear. The human rights record of the army has improved to an extent that incidents such as at Machil stand out as aberrations. Further, the positives are in the army’s own attempt at house cleaning such as in its punishing perpetrators for the Machil and follow up in the mistaken opening up of fire at a road block in Chhatargam in which two youth died.

There are two explanations for this. One is that Pakistan has indeed turned off the tap to a large extent in terms of infiltration, leading to an improved security situation. Consequently, the army has rightly tuned down its operational tempo, leading to an improved human rights record. The second is that it has also had an enlightened leadership in Kashmir, appointing figures with a credible spoken reputation. It needs noting that the current theater commander General Hooda has embellished his credentials by his actions on this front.

In the bargain, Chadha’s work appears to have profited with Northern Command furnishing some figures to help his case. Even if these are critiqued - as they should be - by human rights defenders in J&K, the gainer would be the human rights discourse having something more that a straw man to grapple with and reflexive military bashing.

Chadha’s vantage point does not allow him to engage with the items at the forefront of the human rights agenda in J&K. The issue of justice is critical. The figure of disappeared at close to five figure mark; the resurfacing of the Kunan Poshpora incident in the judicial agenda; and the attempted closure by the army to the Pathribal case are prominent cases.

Chadha, for his part, attempts to bring out that judicial and human rights activism can result in miscarriages in terms of making soldiers acting in good faith victims. The reminder is that intensive operations also have a psychological war angle, which human rights defenders must also for their part be objective about. Chadha also reveals the processes by way of which the ministry approaches its role in respect of Article 6 (in case of J&K, Article 7) of the Armed Forces Special Power’s Act. But, he takes the safe way out in being descriptive, rather than self-critical.

In a reference to the infirmities in the western record in Iraq and Afghanistan, Chadha brings home an inescapable fact: that collateral damage and human rights infringement is intrinsic to military operations. There is no ‘zero casualty’ war. The human environment of combat severely tests pious intentions: both at the strategic and tactical levels. The ‘zero tolerance’ to human rights abuse policy inevitably acquires caveat.

The seeming logic is that this is for the eventual larger good. This explains India’s parameter: human rights infringement is tolerable only if it is operationally justifiable. The problem is that the military sits in judgment on its own action, in that verdict on operational justification cannot, of necessity, have civilian imprimatur. 

Though outside the scope of Chadha’s reflection, if and since subconventional operations have human rights consequences, the state (and civil society) must not only look at mitigation. The state must be preventive and political.

For instance, in the case in J&K, it is not enough for the army to be working on its human rights record. Firstly, howsoever well intentioned, this would always leave much to be desired when, for example, the ‘Do’s and Dont’s injunction against torture implies that it is excusable short of maiming and causing death! Secondly, kinetic subconventional operations outsourced these days the army’s engagement with human rights becomes academic, if not diversionary. The case in Imphal of ex PLA fighter Sangit Meitei’s killing by Herojit Singh on orders of the police Additional SP and the manner of paramilitary’s sway in Central India make their human rights approaches more significant.

Wishfully speaking, the state must work more diligently in taking forward the promise of Modi’s 

Lahore stop over externally, and, internally, creating the political conditions speedily for removal of troops. If the misplaced sloganeering in Delhi’s Press Club and JNU on 9 February is to have any value, it is to wake India up to this finally. If two tenures of a UPA government could not bring this about, it cannot happen any time soon.

Consequently, the verdict is that whatever the human rights spin/situation - such as currently - it cannot but be impacted when push comes to shove. This inevitability opens the human rights space to instrumental use as part of policy and strategy, by both sides. Chadha’s is a tragic insight: this is at best subject to mitigation, never to elimination. In J&K, the resulting satisficing leads to the circular argument: since the situation is tolerable now, the army can be removed, but since the army is tolerable now, it can remain indefinitely.

---

For India to be off to Levant now would be premature

http://www.eurasiareview.com/03022016-for-india-to-be-off-to-the-levant-would-be-premature-analysis/

India’s Former National Security Adviser and foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon in a lecture in New Delhi argued that, “sooner rather than later India will have to make real political and military contributions to stability and security in this region (West Asia) that is so critical to our economy and security.”

He takes India’s “high stakes”, specifically its oil being sourced to West Asia, the presence of an Indian diaspora and remittances, as its national interest, and advocates that “our approach and behavior should change in defense of our interests.”

That India is not part of the ongoing four powers’ peace initiative closer to home in Afghanistan suggests prudence in casting out wider. Further afield in West Asia, our power is greatly diluted by distance. As a recent study points out, India does not currently have the capacity to sustain such operations, even if it would be able to do so in future.

At best India can reinforce the peace frameworks being put in place under US-Russian aegis. Militarily, it can participate in any subsequent peacekeeping, but, as pointed out by its defence minister, only under the ‘UN flag’.

The catch is in going further in terms of rolling back the ISIS by going beyond peacekeeping to peace enforcement.

As the foreign office spokesperson Vikas Swarup hastily clarified, this is a “hypothetical situation”. Menon, who plugged the liberal-realist perspective while at the helm of the national security establishment, is unlikely to have had this in mind.

What can India do? India has rightly ruled out a military solution to the conflict and backed the conference that is currently bringing all actors to the table. Interestingly, its statement in the UN makes no mention of its position on ISIS.

In standing up against regime change in Syria, the line favoured by Russia, China and Iran, India stands to be at odds with the West, Arab regimes and Israel that have consistently sought the exit of Basher al Assad. India’s stakes – oil, diaspora and remittances – being largely on the Arab side of the divide and its tilt towards Israel, act as constraints to actively standing up against regime change in Syria.

Therefore, India cannot be expected to ‘do more’ at this juncture. It can await fruition of the UN led peace initiative currently underway, whereupon it can participate more broadly including in any peacekeeping dimension that emerges.

However, tacitly in what Menon says, and explicitly in the words of other commentators, there is a belief that India, as part of its ‘great power’ march can, indeed must act, in the defence of what it defines as its national interest.

In regard to West Asia, a leading strategic commentator, Manoj Joshi, puts it thus: “If  our oil supply lines or  citizens working in the Gulf are threatened,  or hundreds and thousands of Indians are being radicalised by the Al Qaeda or the Islamic State, India should certainly consider intervention, with, and if it has the gumption, without, UN authorisation.”

Although Joshi’s is rather a high – almost hypothetical level – of Daesh tentacles, even so, interventionist thinking needs contesting.

The first problem is political, on the question of legitimacy. Menon appears to suggest that since traditional security providers in the region – read the US and UK – are less than effective, India must sign-up rather than continue as a free-rider.

Menon appears to justify prospective military action by saying India’s transformation depends on flow of oil. Interference in its flow would require Indian military response to defend the status quo. The argument smacks of neo-colonial logic in which oil dependency of the West requires them to back repressive Arab regimes.

Arab nationalism that has been discounted in the media fixation with the religious dimension to the Daesh challenge, has been air brushed out of the frame. This has enabled the unchallenged Western, and now Russian, military approach in West Asia. In effect, India would end up backing a status quo in favour of the mix of repressive regimes that have between them succeeded in stymieing the promise of Arab Spring.

Scope for ‘doing more’ is in pointing this out course correction by Arab regimes in internal reform and their Western backers in shedding militarized templates. However, in having the French President over for its Republic Day, India appears instead to be painting itself into the same corner as the West.

The second reason is military. An ‘all of government’ response would be called for. The response to the terror attack on Pathankot airfield does not lend any confidence that the national security establishment can pull it off.

An external – military – consequence of India’s military proactivism could be with Islamists fetching up at the door step. The Pathankot episode suggests that the border fence, even if shored up with gadgets and tactics of Israeli provenance, cannot be relied on.

Menon discounts such a scenario, saying that the “risks of the (India-Pakistan) relationship deteriorating into open conflict are slight.” With the Daesh having already fetched up in Afghanistan, in case of India’s military involvement in the Levant it could provide a fillip to anti-India groups in Pakistan.

The internal political consequence of this would be the benefits for the right wingers in India. It would buoy majoritarian extremists who misrepresent the Islamist threat as the threat from Islam.

Therefore, any thrust for a greater role in West Asia needs to be contested. The liberal realist argumentation can be easily manipulated by cultural nationalists at the helm of national security affairs to depict an emerging consensus in favour of intervention. That an Akshay Kumar starrer Airlift is ruling at the box office suggests such a thrust.

As Menon points out elsewhere, the timing of when to make the move from a regional player to a ‘great power’ is a delicate one. Clearly now is not the right time and this is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.