Pakistan: Not down for the count, yet
http://www.kashmirtimes.in/newsdet.aspx?q=71556 

There is some exultation in India that Pakistan has thrown in the towel. Its army chief has finally reckoned that the political track is the route to go down in tackling the bone of contention between the two, Pakistan's jugular vein, Kashmir. The inference is that the Modi-Dovel doctrine of a tough line on Pakistan is working. With Trump having turned the screw, right in wake of Modi's visit to Washington, D.C., the understanding in such circles is that Pakistan will finally have its comeuppance. All India needs doing is to hold on to its hardline and watch Pakistan wallow, under the twin pressures from the US and India. 

Pakistan for its part has turned up its chin on the Trump demands, indicating that it has seen it all before and can stare down the US. It believes it still has a few cards up its sleeve, putting its geography to play once again. Since it would not want to have two powers breathing down on it, it is seeking to defuse both with placatory language. It is reminding the US that it is an indispensable ally in the war against terror and to India it is messaging peace. This would allay pressures for now, allowing it to fight another day. 

Pakistan's trump card is that it can get Taliban to the table or, indeed, keep it away. It had locked up one leader, Mullah Baradar, who was getting close to the Americans. Taliban has sanctuary in Pakistan and this keeps it dependent to a degree on Pakistan. Pakistan knows that the US exit from Afghanistan is dependent on Taliban playing along. The Taliban for its part will only talk if US exit is also on the agenda. 

For a superpower, talking to the Taliban would be humiliating, especially two decades into a war against it. The last time it was readying for talks, its leader, Mullah Mansour, was knocked out in a drone attack. The US instead would like a negotiated solution between the Taliban and its protégé regime in Kabul. This would keep the US alone at the high table as the two Afghan sides jaw it out on the side table. The Taliban has denied US the satisfaction so far. US desperation is beginning to show. 

US generals who got to be generals by their showing in Afghanistan believe they need to now fight the war they could not fight when they were earning their spurs. So perhaps for the third time they hope to up the ante. The last two times were in the operations to take out the Taliban by supporting the Northern Alliance and the second was Obama's surge strategy, replicating under Petraeus what he had tried out in Iraq earlier. It is not certain what additional ingredient their current strategy has from the earlier iterations that can induce the Taliban to roll over. 

The last time the surge lacked a peace surge. It is also uncertain if a military surge works at all. The example from Iraq is no lesson since there were multiple reasons for the ending of the Sunni insurgency in the Sunni triangle in Iraq, including Sunni tribes aghast at the tactics of the Al Qaeda in Iraq. Pushing into Pakistan after the Taliban has been tried through drones. This time the Trump rhetoric - 'Attack we will' - suggests that they would carry the war into Pakistan, perhaps restricting their incursion if any to the sanctuaries in the tribal areas. 

At best the drone strikes can be beefed up by air and missile strikes. Putting American boots on ground would be to take a chance. To begin with, the Pakistanis would put up a grand show of taking out the Taliban, going after the 'bad' Taliban in the bargain. The Pakistanis having outlasted two two-term presidents expect to see off Trump, who can at best be a one-term wonder, if not impeached earlier for the links of his election campaign team with Russia. 

This longish prelude via Trump's 'attack we will' strategy to get back to the start point on Indian jubilation over the expectation that Pakistan is cornered, collared or clobbered is to show that for the bhakts in the strategic community to fire off the success signal is trifle premature. The Pakistan army chief's wish for a political solution is not because he is intimidated by the Indian army chief's reference to Indian readiness for a two-front war twice-over in as many months. 

Responding to a question at the American think tank, Council of Foreign Relations, while on his visit to the US for addressing the General Assembly, the Pakistani prime minister showed the Pakistanis have some cards up their sleeve. While disclaiming possession of tactical nuclear weapons he said they had short range nuclear weapons, under the same command and control arrangements as their strategic nuclear weapons. This brings out the strategic purpose of their nuclear weapons: not to stop India's cold start offensive in their tracks but to stop the war itself by going nuclear. This in theory is deescalatory escalation, escalation to deescalate. 

India's army chief, dilating on a two-front war at a seminar organized in wake of the two sides - India and China - standing down at Doklam, had in relation to Pakistan, said "Because of this proxy war, there is always scope of conflict with our western neighbor." Since surgical strikes have been tried out, and, in the event of proxy war continuing and another attack that Rawat apprehends occurring, that leaves India with its as yet untried answer, cold start. 

Cold start is a proactive response at the conventional level to subconventional provocation in the form of limited objective attacks designed to stay below the nuclear threshold. Whereas its army chief has been uncharacteristically placatory, it is with good reason. Pakistan has deployed its prime minister to remind India of the nuclear ace up its sleeve to counter cold start. This papers over the crack that had opened up in its civil-military relations with the departure of Nawaz Sharif, in a military-judicial quasi-coup. 

Pakistan has thus not only replied to India's army chief, but has also tried to show repair to the possible blow India had administered it in Mr. Modi's overly effusive jhuppi of Nawaz Sharif. The cracks had begun to show in the Cyril Almeida case in which he reported of a rift between the army and the civilian government over the ISI-army's support for 'good terrorists'. The army promptly ordered the attack on the Uri garrison in India to put paid to any thought that it would obey the civilians. Finally, it eased off Sharif, perhaps seeing him as the unwary victim of India's rather up-front and in-your-face intelligence operation of creating a schism in Pakistan's national security elite. 

Pakistan remains in the ring, riding out twin punches from General Rawat and President Trump. India would be naïve to take President Trump too seriously. The backdrop of his sudden announcement of the Afghanistan strategy was the Charlottesville episode. The president was in the dog house over his seeming siding with white supremacists in equating them with the liberals they had violently confronted at the University of Virginia campus. This seeming endorsement of the far right by the president had even his military worried. The US military has disproportionate numbers of coloured people in its ranks, who are from America's poor seeking employment and upward mobility. The four joint chiefs of staff had all tweeted their condemnation of racism, distancing from their president's remarks. Trump has apparently tried to win them over by allowing them a loose rope in Afghanistan. That the Afghanistan strategy lacks sufficient elaboration suggests it is a product of American domestic politics. It would be naïve for India to take it too seriously. 

Given Doval's adeptness at pirouetting - evident from the several about-turns in India's Pakistan and Kashmir strategies in the Modi period - perhaps India can do yet another twirl and surprise Qamar Javed Bajwa by accepting his plank of talks as the means to a solution to Kashmir.

Journal » Vol. 52, Issue No. 34, 26 Aug, 2017 » Dilating on a ‘Half-front War’

Dilating on a ‘Half-front War’

The reference to a “two and a half front war” by Army Chief General Bipin Rawat is critically dissected. The “half front” apparently covers large tracts of India and a significant number of its marginalised people. The thought of a war on the half front, as conjured by this term, needs to be controverted outright. The army’s imagining of such a war and preparation for it is questioned.

http://www.epw.in/journal/2017/34/commentary/dilating-%E2%80%98half-front-war%E2%80%99.html

Army Chief General Bipin Rawat has been in the limelight ever since he was picked up for the job superseding two of his seniors. This time around, he figured in the media over an interview to a news agency in which he expressed his satisfaction that the “Indian Army is fully ready for a two and a half front war” (ANI 2017). The backdrop to his statement is an ongoing face-off with Chinese forces at Doklam, a disputed territory between China and Bhutan adjoining the tri-junction of the India–China–Bhutan border. The general, perhaps, felt it necessary to bolster national morale by reassuring Indians that the army could fight off not only the Chinese, but also the perennial foe, Pakistan, in case Pakistan—in the circumstance of an India–China conflict—sensed an opportunity.

Some, such as the acerbic strategist Bharat Karnad, have questioned the general (Karnad 2017). In light of the figures recently put out in a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General on critical shortages in the ammunition for tanks and artillery, their critique is plausible (CAG 2017: viii). Apprehending as much, the defence minister—who, being the finance minister too, is at best a part-time raksha mantri (defence minister)—declaimed in Parliament that the armed forces were “reasonably and sufficiently equipped,” cryptically adding that it is not in public interest to disclose the actuals (Hindu 2017).

As for the “half front,” Bharat Karnad is somewhat glib in believing that, “on the half front, there’s no issue.” He reasons that the army will “quickly rid the landscape of insurgents at will, if the brakes on its actions in J&K or in the northeast are removed by the government,” given that, “[e]ven with the AFSPA [Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act] shackles, the army can do its job of denying the insurgencies the success they crave” (Karnad 2017).

Though Karnad is sanguine, it bears reminding that the Kargil War—the anniversary of which India, under its ultra-nationalist ruling dispensation, has begun observing as Vijay Diwas (Victory Day)—had witnessed an upsurge in insurgency and terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). Even the additional deployments in the nearly year-long Operation Parakram (2001–02) were unable to staunch the insurgency. It is arguable that Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s political sagacity in reaching out to the Kashmiris in April 2003 on the basis of insaniyat (humanity) and to Pakistan through the back channel resulted in the unwritten ceasefire agreement of November 2003 and the Islamabad declaration of January 2004. As for the supposed “AFSPA shackles” that the army has on, according to Karnad, the army only adopted the “iron fist in velvet glove” philosophy when relative quietude returned to Kashmir through the “healing touch” policy internally and the composite dialogue with Pakistan externally.

Outlining the ‘Half Front’

In other words, the half front—a euphemism for internal security—is a consequential front. This is not so only in relation to the communication zone (the rear areas of military operations through which troops and logistics intended for the front are located or transit). The two parts—combat zones and communication zones—comprise the theatre of war. While the army, perhaps, restricts itself to this area, the term “half front” potentially goes well beyond this and therein lie the dangers.

In case of a “two-front war,” the areas to the rear of the two theaters of war—northern, against a twin threat from Pakistan and China; eastern, against China, and western, against Pakistan—are taken as sensitive enough to club into a half front. This would understandably include areas in J&K and the North East that abut the combat theatres, and the states along the western front. Further, and more troublingly, in the strategic lexicon, the half front straddles most of the rest of India. Deeper in the hinterland is the Red Corridor that would, in the imagination of strategists, kick in in case of a war with China, and Muslim inhabited areas that are taken as likely areas in which a Pakistan-affiliated fifth column based on “sleeper cells” would activate. At a juncture in the nation’s life when dissent is being equated with sedition, a redefinition of the half front can be taken as ongoing, with even liberal bastions and spaces, such as free-thinking universities, being included.

The formulation “half-front war” conveys the impression of an India at war with itself. It is not clear as to what the army has to do with any such war inside India, restricted as its mandate is to the defence of India externally and only secondarily to assisting civil authorities in internal security duties. Using the term “war” in relation to internal security is questionable as a dangerous mindset that can set off a self-fulfilling prophesy. The army needs cautioning that, even if it imagines the half front in a restricted manner as the area directly impinging on its operations, there is a danger of the expansive interpretation taking over. This would not necessarily demand the army’s attention as providing an arena for its current-day political masters and their assorted supportive pseudo-cultural political formations to expand their takeover of India.

Dissecting the ‘Half Front’

It is a reasonable expectation that J&K could turn restive at the onset of war. Pakistan has not sustained the insurgency in Kashmir out of a sense of affinity with Kashmiris alone. Its military overlords have national security and the military’s institutional interests at heart. Operationally, they wish to undercut India’s conventional military advantage prior to its application on the western front. Keeping rear areas insecure helps in interdicting and disrupting the Indian forces en route to the frontline. An example is Pakistan’s choice in the late 1990s of the Hill Kaka area in Surankote tehsil as a base for terrorism. Not only would the terrorist base prove useful for disrupting India’s defences in Poonch sector from the rear, but would also help sustain the insurgency across the Pir Panjal range in the Kashmir Valley. The base was finally evicted in a division-level operation, Operation Sarp Vinash (2003), on the heels of Operation Parakram (2001–02).

Sensing Pakistan’s game plan in Punjab and Kashmir, the army had raised the Rashtriya Rifles. Additionally, the home ministry has at its disposal massive Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF). However, the interface has seldom been smooth. During the Kargil War, with the army’s Kashmir-based formations concentrating on operations on the Line of Control, the Rashtriya Rifles headquarters based in New Delhi were brought forward to Srinagar to handle the spike in terrorism and insurgency. The move met with backlash from the forces, answering to the home ministry, which refused to come under operational control of the Rashtriya Rifles headquarters. From the handling of the stone-throwers in Kashmir last year with the use of pellet guns, it is evident that under the conditions of war the situation would be considerably more fraught and human rights that much more expendable.

As for the eastern front, India’s sense of vulnerability is heightened by an unstable North East stretching behind it. Though insurgency-related deaths in the North East have been the lowest in 2016 since 1997, the army’s “worst case scenario” most likely has it that insurgent groups in the North East would be armed by the Chinese. This is especially so since the army itself probably has plans up its sleeve of waging an asymmetric war in Tibet using Tibetan irregulars behind Chinese lines. India, however, lives in a glass house of its own making. There are over two dozen suspension of operations agreements across the North East. These are at best interim, since peace is not merely the absence of violence. A few hundred AK-47 rifles can set the accumulation of grievances and greed alight.

The North East’s insurgent groups being under an umbrella organisation—the United Liberation Front of Western South East Asia—with links to China, heightens India’s threat perception. This will inform its suppressive reaction in case of hostilities.

A significant stretch of the half front is the Compact Revolutionary Zone, visualised as the Red Corridor running in an arc through forested central India, from the Terai region astride the Nepal border to the Telangana region. Manmohan Singh, as Prime Minister, had once referred to Naxalism as India’s “biggest internal security challenge” (PTI 2010). Noting a declining trend of left-wing extremism-related incidents since 2011, the home ministry’s annual report in a self-congratulatory mode claims an “unprecedented improvement” in the current government’s tenure (MHA 2017: 4). While Naxalism has no external linkage of any military significance, it can be expected that the opportunity offered by a border conflict, particularly with China, would be used to legitimise forays of the Operation Green Hunt variety. Operation Green Hunt, disclaimed by the government after its launch in 2009, was a search-and-destroy mission that continues till today, though under a different guise and scope.

The least visible aspect of the half-front war is related to “terrorism in the hinterland of the country” (MHA 2017: 4). The devotion of merely one paragraph to it in the home ministry’s annual report indicates the actual level of its significance. Nevertheless, prime-time noise and headlines on terrorism, and the supposed inroads by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence earlier and by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant lately into India’s largest minority, its Muslims, leave the impression of a large-scale problem.

This politically motivated identification of Muslim communities with terrorism has been going on for over a decade. This image has been forged by police reflexively picking up Muslim youth in the wake of incidents of domestic terrorism. Such a perception of Muslims indicates that Muslim mohallas might well find inclusion within the half front; for instance, Batla House in New Delhi, the site of a supposed encounter against a terrorist cell in September 2008 (Sethi 2012). In June 2017, 15 Muslims were arrested at various places for allegedly celebrating a Pakistani cricketing victory in the Champions Trophy (Suri 2017). In case of a war with Pakistan, increased security surveillance of Muslims and security-related impositions can easily be imagined.

Additionally, the spate of lynchings and rowdyism by cow vigilantes suggests how any such war will play out for Muslims as a part of the half-front war. This identification of Muslims with the Pakistani “other” is best illustrated by the unsolicited advice of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader Inderesh Kumar in reaction to former Vice President Hamid Ansari voicing the concerns felt by India’s Muslims regarding their security (Thapar 2017). Kumar called for Ansari to leave the country for “some place he feels secure” (Deshpande 2017). Presumably, after the fashion lately, Kumar had Pakistan in mind. This conflation of India’s Muslims with Pakistanis can only reach a crescendo in the case of military setbacks in war. If the war goes nuclear, its intercommunity impact within India could rival partition.

Last but not least is the opportunity that a war will offer cultural nationalists for further throttling liberal voices. At a recent observation of the Kargil Diwas in Jawaharlal Nehru University attended by its vice chancellor, the university was likened by Major General (retd) G D Bakshi, with his cultural nationalist credentials, to a “fort” that had been conquered, and he called for similar conquests of similarly oriented universities in Hyderabad and Jadavpur (Shankar 2017). The overt displays of nationalism are now de rigueur, such as the installing of giant-sized tricolour flags in public places, including university campuses; playing of the national anthem before movie screenings; and mandatory singing of the national song, Vande Mataram (I pray/bow down to thee, Mother), twice a week in schools in Tamil Nadu. This is happening in peace time with mere border stand-offs with both neighbours as the backdrop. War will increase the “holy cow” status of national security, legitimising the invasion of liberal spaces.

Prevention as Answer

It would appear that, irrespective of the military showing on either front, India’s national fabric can only suffer a setback on the half front. This is one more reason—added to several others, such as nuclear escalation—why war should not figure as an option. Working meaningfully towards its prevention assumes importance. This means going far beyond, for instance, diplomatically addressing the Doklam crisis. Instead, India needs to clinch the 19 rounds of special representative–level talks so far with China on the border issue, with a determined display of readiness for mutual compromise and accommodation. On the western front, India must discontinue its current policy against substantial engagement with Pakistan and within Kashmir of ignoring political outreach as the best and only way to tackle violence and public disaffection.

Such a line of reasoning might not impress cultural nationalists, who hold the reins of power. To them, a round of bloodletting might be just the potion the nation needs to unify it and bring in the discipline, uniformity and cohesion attributed to wars. Though Vajpayee denied likening Indira Gandhi to Goddess Durga (Vincent 2016), today’s bhakts (devotees) would welcome a similar profile as a war leader for Narendra Modi. The communalists within their ranks would welcome the prospects for further marginalisation of the minority community. This explains India’s strategic direction in terms of the absence of engaging with political solutions. To them, the possibility of war is an acceptable alternative to negotiated settlement of problems.

References

ANI (2017): “Indian Army Prepared for a Two and a Half Front War: Army Chief General Bipin Rawat,” Associated News International, 8 June, viewed on 20 July 2017, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/indian-army-prepared-for-a-two-and-a-half-front-war-army-chief-general-bipin-rawat-4694292/.

CAG (2017): “Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India for the Year Ended March 2016: Union Government (Defence Services) Army and Ordnance Factories, Report No 15 of 2017,” Comptroller and Auditor General of India, New Delhi, 21 July, viewed on 27 July 2017, http://www.cag.gov.in/sites/default/files/audit_report_files/Overview_of_Report_No.15_of_2017_-_Compliance_audit_Union_Government_Army_and_Ordnance_Factories_Reports_of_Defence_Services.pdf.

Deshpande, V (2017): “Go Where You Feel Secure, RSS’s Indresh Kumar Tells Hamid Ansari,” Indian Express, 13 August, viewed on 15 August, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/go-where-you-feel-secure-rsss-indresh-kumar-tells-hamid-ansari-4794361/.

Hindu (2017): “Armed Forces Equipped to Face Any Crisis: Jaitley,” 28 July, viewed on 1 August 2017, http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/armed-forces-fully-equipped-to-deal-with-contingencies-says-arun-jaitley/article19377197.ece.

Karnad, B (2017): “Is the Indian Army Ready for a ‘Two and Half’ Front War?” Qrius, 20 June, viewed on 25 July 2017, https://qrius.com/is-the-indian-army-ready-two-half-front-war/.

MHA (2017): “Annual Report 2016–17,” Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, New Delhi, viewed on 25 July 2017, http://mha.nic.in/sites/upload_files/mha/files/EnglAnnualReport2016-17_17042017.pdf.

PTI (2010): “Naxalism Biggest Threat to Internal Security: Manmohan,” Hindu, 24 May, viewed on 28 July 2017, http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/Naxalism-biggest-threat-to-internal-security-Manmohan/article16302952.ece.

Sethi, M (2012): “Batla House and the Problem with the Deluded Journalist,” Kafila, 28 February, viewed on 23 July 2017, https://kafila.online/2012/02/28/batla-house-and-the-problem-with-the-deluded-journalist-manisha-sethi/.

Shankar, A (2017): “JNU V-C M Jagadesh Kumar Wants an Army Tank on Campus as Inspiration,” Indian Express, 24 July, viewed on 30 July, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/jnu-v-c-wants-an-army-tank-on-campus-as-inspiration-4764093/.

Suri, M (2017): “India Arrests 15 for Celebrating Pakistan Cricket Victory,” CNN, 21 June, viewed on 27 July 2017, http://edition.cnn.com/2017/06/21/asia/india-arrest-pakistan-cricket/index.html.

Thapar, K (2017): “Asserting Your Nationalism Day In, Day Out Is Unnecessary: Hamid Ansari,” Wire, 9 August, viewed on 12 August, https://thewire.in/166419/asserting-nationalism-day-day-unnecessary-hamid-ansari/.

Vincent, P (2016): “Footnote to Fabled Story on Indira,” Telegraph, 27 February, viewed on 5 August 2017, https://www.telegraphindia.com/1160227/jsp/frontpage/story_71657.jsp.

http://www.kashmirtimes.in/newsdet.aspx?q=69873

Debating the 'harder military approach'

In wake of the attack on the Amarnath pilgrims that took a toll of eight innocent lives, Lord Meghnad Desai in an op-ed lamented that, 'A harder military approach will be urged. That has been tried since 1989. Time may have come to try something different (http://indianexpress.com/ article/opinion/columns/the-opportunity-in-kashmir-death-of-pilgrims-amarnath-yatra-attack-hurriyat-jihadists-naga-tribes-4752306/).' 

As if on cue, a hardy contender for the vacancy coming up soon in the Raj Bhawan in Srinagar, while agreeing that '… no proxy conflict of this kind can ever be defeated by military means, 'countered that, 'I disagree, however, that India's approach to the proxy conflict has so far only been militaristic or through the security prism and not from the angle of winning the support of the people (http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-edit-page/after-the-attack-on-the-amarnath-yatra-why-meghnad-desai-is-both-right-and-wrong-on-kashmir/).'

He gives an article long summary of the army's engagement in Kashmir covering inter-alia its Operation Sadhbhavna initiatives. More pertinently, perhaps referring to his tenure at the helm of Srinagar corps, the author, who is a retired member of the army brass, has this to say: '2011-13 saw the conscious calibration of the balance of hard and soft power through the Hearts Doctrine which created hope and attempted restoration of dignity to the conflict stricken people, incidentally by the army itself; a situation not politically exploited (http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-edit-page/after-the-attack-on-the-amarnath-yatra-why-meghnad-desai-is-both-right-and-wrong-on-kashmir/).'

The general appears to have drawn cudgels with the academic over the latter's understanding that a 'harder military approach' has been tried since 1989 and has been found wanting. His article attempts to highlight two aspects to the military's engagement in Kashmir. One that the military is indispensable to managing the situation of such violence as encountered in the 'proxy war' in Kashmir; and, two, that despite this, the army has attempted to win 'the support of the people', by largely following the counter insurgency doctrine of 'winning hearts and minds (WHAM!)'.

The academic, however, was questioning whether India's Kashmir policy that has been rather military dominant, could succeed, and on that count advocating a shift in tack from a military reliant to a political approach. A politics-up-front approach would have political outreach to Pakistan on one hand and an internal political settlement with the Kashmiris on the other. Lord Desai appears to believe that India has erred in not taking the two prongs of the political strategy to their logical conclusion in a settlement in Kashmir, even though its Kashmiri citizens have been imposed upon as a consequence for over a quarter century. 

Since Lord Desai's remark is a concluding one in his article on the routinisation of conflict and approaches to conflict in Kashmir, space constraints precluded his articulation of his position in these terms. But this appears a fair interpretation of his position, since he calls for a change of tack from the direction Indian has been on since 1989. 

He is entirely right. The political prong of strategy has never been the dominant one in tackling India's Kashmir problem. Over the preceding two score years to 1989, India firmly retained a hold in Kashmir, by lining up its military along the Line of Control and deliberately foisting corruptible regimes in Kashmir. The Swaran Singh-Bhutto talks of the early sixties were not sincere. This was brought out in an evening talk by PN Haksar at the India International Center in the early nineties at which this author was present. Haksar recounted asking Swaran Singh what the aim of the talks had been, with Swaran Singh letting on that it was a charade to keep the Americans at bay. The Simla Agreement is similarly a promise regarding the representatives of the two sides to meet 'to discuss further the modalities and arrangements for the establishment of durable peace and normalization of relations… a final settlement of Jammu and Kashmir… (italics added).' It is about 'talks about talks'. 

The story of the nineties is little different. The weak coalition governments then - even if led by a bleeding heart at one time, Inder Gujral - were hardly in a position to change tack on Kashmir. When Nehru and Indira in their prime were unwilling to walk down the road to peace politically arrived at, it would be too much to expect of the prime ministers in the nineties. The late nineties saw some political activity, such as the composite dialogue initiation under Gujral and its spirit carried forward by Vajpayee. However, the leeway either had in clinching the issue through compromise was non-existent. Gujral was a stopgap, while Vajpayee had Mr. Advani on his flank to be mindful of, as revealed unmistakably at the Agra Summit a few years on. Since India was also rather hard pressed through the upturn in the proxy war in Kashmir in wake of the Kargil War, it could hardly be seen to be compromising in face of such pressure. 

Even so, it is to Vajpayee's credit that he allowed the backchannel to enable a start to the composite dialogue, by creating the conditions for this in an unwritten ceasefire along the LC and on its heels with the Islamabad declaration. However, in retrospect, it is questionable whether Vajpayee could have gone the distance, even if the BJP's India Shining campaign had worked out. Within Kashmir, the 'healing touch' campaign could not even get the AFSPA sway diluted, though some of the army was depicted as returning to barracks - which incidentally was a sleight of hand since only additional troops deployed for Operation Parakram reverted to barracks. 

This remained the case even as the indices of terrorism were brought to negligible as the composite dialogue progressed desultorily under Manmohan Singh. Manmohan Singh's incapability was stark in his inability to convert the quiet in Kashmir to India's advantage by acting purposefully on the feedback from his three roundtables, five working groups and his team of three interlocutors. For its part, the Congress was unable to convert the penalty corner into a goal owing to its political sense telling it that India was then veering away to the right, buoyant from a high growth rate, increasing great power aspirations, diaspora influence into its polity, imbibing of cultural nationalism and, therefore, was unlikely to countenance any let up on Kashmir. All it's tuning in to the national mood could not keep the Congress from being swept into history - as history will record soon enough. 

Mr. Modi's strategy is what Lord Desai was ruing. An opportunity to foreclose a deal with Kashmiris internally has been lost. The PDP chief minister in alliance with the BJP, Mehbooba Mufti, is right that Modi holds the cards. She is only naïve in thinking he would play it in the way she hopes. The unnecessary standoff with China on the Doklam plateau suggests the lengths the two - Modi and Doval - have invested in a militarized template for India's security policy. In this, resort to politics is a sign of weakness. The Hindutva cultural paradigm entails revitalization of Hindu masculinity. Muscles, brawn and testosterone now matter, since India's eclipse a thousand years ago is attributed to their absence. A national security policy on steroids cannot but singe its Kashmir policy. 

This exposé of the absence of a political prong to India's Kashmir policy, leaves one just enough column space to touch upon one of the general's pet projects, which happenstance he does get to Rajbhawan he will surely thrust onto a hapless state administration. In his own words, this is: 

…if the chief minister has to walk this talk it will need the support of one organisation which can make all the difference, the Army; it has the deployment, reach, contact with people and the robust ability to secure a grand engagement plan. It cannot be a creeping plan. It just has to be bold with transformational approach. All the talk about not talking will vanish once the government, the politician and security forces are speaking with the people and not the leadership (http://www.ipcs.org/ article/india/handling-jk-what-is-right-and-what-more-needs-to-5333.html). 

Perhaps an elaboration is merited: absent politics, there is only the military left. But the matter is best left to the reader.

An Army to fear: The Army's future?
http://www.kashmirtimes.in/newsdet.aspx?q=67858

The jury is out on whether the army chief was put up to it by his political masters or whether his rewarding the protagonist in the infamous ‘human shield’ case was of his own volition. From the broadside by one commentator likening the chief to General Dyer, it is clear that there are some who believe that the army chief acted on a suggestion from his superiors. That broadside from an academic would likely have been directed, less at the army chief himself, as much as the one whose bidding he was doing. But with the army chief going out on a limb (yet again) with his defence of not only the indefensible action of Mr. Tactical Innovation himself, Major Leetul Gogoi, and his own award, it is quite clear that the army chief has the courage of his conviction. That is the good news.

The bad news is that the conviction is itself wrong-headed. Courage of conviction in such cases leads to persisting in the wrong direction. Precedence in the case of a predecessor of his pursuing an age related case for a year’s extension at the helm of the army suggests as much. Incidentally, that general titled his memoirs, Courage and Conviction. Worse could follow. The generals of the First World War were not for nothing dubbed ‘donkeys’, for their outsized determination in trying to breakthrough trench lines with tactics that failed to work for several successive years at the cost of a million lives.

The pattern of persistence in wrong headedness in Kashmir is discernible. There has been a reversion to cordon and search operations. The unwritten ceasefire dating to end 2003 is in tatters. Just as the army went after the JKLF in the early nineties, believing it was wrapping up the indigenous insurgency then, this time round too it has a list, a score entries long of local militants it wants to take out by summer’s end. The army chief has warned off people from complicating military operations, lest they be taken as overground workers. Since it is well known what happened to overground workers, among others, through the nineties, he is harking back by a decade and more. The earlier measures having failed to end the insurgency, it beats imagination as to how these can possibly succeeded in their second iteration.

This time round the difference is in the army chief setting the tone out loud. He has required that the army be feared. Earlier - at least up front - the army preferred being respected, if not quite loved. It certainly wished to inspire fear in the enemy. This enemy was usually the adversary state across the border and its army, and in Kashmir, the jihadi mercenary, usually Pakistani Punjabi.

However, in terms of internal security, Jawaharlal Nehru had early on clearly spelt out how the army needed to be appreciated in such circumstance as a protector of the people. The then army chief taking cue in sending the army into Nagaland in 1955, had in his Special Order of the Day phrased the political terms of reference given out by Nehru in these words:

You must remember that all the people of the area in which you are operating are fellow Indians. They may have different religions, pursue a different way of life, but they are Indians and the very fact, that they are different and yet part of India is a reflection of India’s greatness. Some of these people are misguided and have taken up arms against their own people and are disrupting peace of this area. You are to protect the mass of the people in the area from these disruptive elements. You are not to fight the people in the area but to protect them.

General Rawat has upturned this. He has pronounced that ‘Adversaries must be afraid of you and at the same time your people must be afraid of you. We are a friendly army, but when we are called to restore law and order, people have to be afraid of us.’ He argues that the proxy war the army is coping with is a ‘dirty war’. He cannot have people throwing ‘petrol bombs and stones’ while his soldiers ‘wait and die’. He needs to keep their morale up by allowing them to fight innovatively, including through use – in the incident that prompted his defence of himself – of human shields.

Happily, he was quick to clarify that, ‘It (human shield) is not a general norm. As a practice it is not supported.’ What he misses is that tactics is to be guided both by norms and the humanitarian legal code, be it in war or internal conflict. Situations cannot guide tactics. Tactics are responses to situations that have to be ethically and legally compliant. By shifting the goal posts the army chief is arbitrarily changing the accepted doctrinal principles of Indian army in subconventional operations. 

This could possibly be on his initiative. His extensive experience in counter insurgency that got him his job, perhaps persuades him that the doctrinal principle of ‘one hand tied behind the back’ is superfluous. It was never quite popular within the army, with its counter insurgency trope largely bewailing the imposition. This is what prompted the army’s somewhat tough approach and action in the nineties in Kashmir, such as through use of proxy groups as Ikhwan, disappearances, firing on LC without concern for collateral damage etc. The new fangled technique - perception management - was to manage the fallout. The army’s flagship publication on subconventional operations - ‘iron fist in velvet glove’ - coincided with the start of the decade long hiatus of peace in Kashmir. It is apparent that the tenets on the use of force in the document are liable to be liberally interpreted by those who have cut their teeth in counter insurgency operations, such as the army chief.

In other words, has the army dropped its veneer? Though veterans with equal claim to operational experience are aghast at the brazen shift, that its slip is showing does not appear to embarrass the army any.

This brings one to the second possibility. The shift away from the central doctrinal pillar of people-friendly operations is perhaps an imposition by its political masters. They have chosen well in choosing an army chief with like sentiment. The government is explicit that talks are not the way out, even if its home minister promises a solution to the troubles in Kashmir. The army will therefore be held to the till. A tough line to go with the image of its national security minder – the national security adviser - and his boss - the prime minister - is politically useful. In any other dispensation, even if it was not knocked on its knuckles privately, the army could not have been this willful.

The problem with doggedness is that it can be in the wrong direction. The army in Kashmir is on such path. It mistakenly insists that it is confronted with a proxy war. There is surely Pakistani chicanery, but a decade long talks process with several false starts cannot but have let Pakistan continue as an  interested party and ill motivated player. The equally long and coextensive engagement with a political solution in Kashmir has been abandoned, leaving the people – even girls - with little choice than to take to stones. Whether this is a product of information war on social media - as the army chief suggests – is up for debate.

Instead, a self-fulfilling prophesy will likely develop, with a jihadists supposedly in search of Khorasan overrunning the indigenous dimension – yet another throwback to the mid nineties when the JKLF was eclipsed by the Hizb and the late nineties  when the Hizb was outshone by the Lashkar. This would be welcome in New Delhi. Turning the army into one feared by people would be small price to pay and it would exactly what is needed by an authoritarian regime. Hopefully, this is not a future the army envisages.   

http://thebookreviewindia.org/a-historical-sweep/

Book Review 

Armed Forces and Insurgents in Modern Asia, Kaushik Roy and Sourish Saha

The book is a product of collaboration between an unlikely duo: a history professor at Jadavpur University and a bio-statistical consultant for pharmaceutical companies based in the US. It began in a conversation over coffee at Kolkata’s Park Street in which the two discussed governance, poverty and armed rebellions in India, with the discussion expanding to include comparisons and contrasts with the experience of insurgency and counter-insurgency across the globe. In the event, the two restricted the scope of the book that emerged to Asia. They intended the book as a ‘sort of reference book for researchers’ (p. vii). The bibliography at its end covering 19 pages makes this claim plausible.

Professor Kaushik Roy’s academic contribution to Indian military history has included many works of considerable length and depth over the past decade. While the division of labour between the two authors is not known, the book’s introduction bears an academic’s stamp in its synthesis of thinking on insurgencies and their counter. Thoughts on rebellion ranging from Clausewitz to Mao and counter-insurgency thinking from Kitson to Kilcullen are touched upon. It is a sound background chapter on which to base the rest of the book, backed as it is by 82 footnotes citing the well regarded sources on the subject.

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There are eight chapters covering sequentially the insurgencies and counter-insurgencies in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaya, Vietnam, North East India, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Iraq. The authors acknowledge that this is not an exhaustive coverage of Asian internal conflicts since some significant ones such as the Maoist insurgency against the Kuomintang and the Japanese; the several sites of insurgency in South Asia such as Punjab, Kashmir and Balochistan; Turkey’s engagement with the Kurdish question; the Palestinians against the Israeli occupation, do not find mention. In a way, it is a subjective selection on studies included, but these suffice to give a taste of various aspects of rebellions, how militaries have coped and statecraft. This is therefore a useful introductory volume for students not only of internal conflict as a phenomenon but specific insurgencies covered such as that of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in northern and eastern Sri Lanka.

The volume succeeds in bringing out the scope of insurgencies—its multiple forms and variants ranging from nationalist inspired such as in Vietnam to current day religious inspiration of the Islamic state in the Levant. Alongside, there are several models of state counter action such as imperial policing with militaries exhibiting a constabulary ethic to an annihilationist model persued by the Sri Lankan army against Prabhakaran’s beleaguered Tigers in 2009. The authors are agnostic on how success obtains to an insurgent and a counter-insurgent, but lay out the factors that influence the balance. For instance, the situation had turned decisively against the terrorist tactics adopted with the 9/11 attacks. This enabled the Sri Lankans to turn the screw without anyone, including India stepping up to bail out the Tigers. However, an annihilationist model has not succeeded elsewhere, howsoever much the ordnance delivered has been upped, for instance in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The book’s historical sweep covers a century from early last century to the current day. For instance, the chapter on India’s North East contrasts the British approach to pacifying the North East with Independent India’s approach. Since there is a lot of ground to be covered, there is a tendency to compress the material, with the time span of India’s military involvement in the North East from the mid-fifties to today being covered in a mere three pages. Sometimes this ends up as a staccato barrage of facts and figures, which is difficult to systematically put together analytically.

The readers can engage selectively with the book, dividing it into chapters of individual interests. Some are topical in that the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan continue unabated. The chapters therefore are a useful backgrounder, covering as they do the historical background to how the current day imbroglio came about and the current status of the insurgency itself. This is a rather ambitious project, but the authors make no claim to comprehensive treatment, but to bring to the fore the salient features and some nuances in the light of space constraints. For instance, in their chapter on Iraq they discuss the efficacy of the ‘surge’ that is credited with ending the earlier Sunni rebellion contrasting the two theories on its end, whether it can be attributed to American upping of their numbers under Petraeus leadership or of Sunni tribes themselves rolling back the Baathists and Al Qaeda elements within them.

The concluding chapter carries a view on the future of insurgencies and their counter. They highlight the dangers of urban insurgency, with the location being along seaboards in the light of global littoralization. Then there are the problems of weak, dysfunctional and failed states tackling population growth, slow economic development, social divisions, inadequate governmental penetration of areas and weak polity. The headlines-making Islamist terror also figures as a threat that will persist into the future. What is certain is that Kilkullen’s concept of ‘war among the people’, forged late last century in the face of the fissiparous wars in the Balkans, shall remain relevant into the future.

The book would be of interest to students of strategic and peace studies. Practitioners in uniform might like to broaden their understanding of their own experience by taking a look at examples from outside. Policy makers will find comparisons possible between the sites of insurgency useful, as also any best practices that can be gleaned from the case studies. By this yardstick, the book could find a place on bookshelves on internal armed conflict.

The book is also a contribution to Asian studies and development of an Asian perspective. This is all for the better since Asia is the least integrated continent in the world. It being the most populous and spread over multiple subcontinents, it is also the most militarized and has raging across it the most significant of today’s conflicts. For instance, Islamism—that is prophesized to figure in future conflicts—has a presence ranging from its Mediterranean shore to the Pacific. It is therefore important to begin seeing Asia as one, so as to emulate Africans who urge ‘African solutions to African problems’. On this count, the book appears a step in the right direction.

http://www.epw.in/journal/2017/21/strategic-affairs/disjointed-doctrine.html

Reviewing the Military’s Joint Doctrine

The second edition of the joint doctrine of the Indian armed forces was released in April 2017. Admiral Sunil Lanba, current Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee (Ch COSC), states in its foreword that it is intended as a reference document for the academia and citizens, among others. Therefore, unlike its earlier edition in 2006, this is thankfully not a confidential document. Nevertheless, it has not been put up on the Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff (HQ IDS) website. For the sake of discussion here, the doctrine has instead had to be downloaded from a website run by a journalist known to be the cheerleader of the former defence minister.1

This is in keeping with the past practice of doctrinal reticence on part of the HQ IDS. Though its webpage2 has a cache of links to Western military doctrines, it carries links to the only two Indian army doctrines in the open domain: its flagship doctrine and another one on sub-conventional operations. It has not placed its own non-confidential Joint Doctrine for Sub Conventional Operations (HQ IDS 2012) on the webpage.

This suggests that the services are somewhat conflicted in their approach to transparency. There is a degree of openness, illustrated by the navy placing all editions of the naval doctrine and maritime strategy in the open domain, available on the official website of the headquarters for ease of access. Taking a page out of the naval book, the air force went public with the third edition of the air force doctrine and also made it readily available on their headquarters’ website. The army, for its part, has been more circumspect. The respective second editions of the two open domain army doctrines were not only kept confidential, but no press release was initiated on their promulgation, as is usually the case even with confidential doctrines (Ahmed 2015). It is apparent that the army has learnt the wrong lessons from the considerable criticism the first editions of the two doctrines faced (Navlakha 2007; Ladwig 2008).

The dissonance suggests that the more liberal approach to transparency of the other two services has been trumped by the army. The other baleful aspect of army influence on this doctrine is the quality of the product. The naval and air force doctrines are a pleasant contrast in terms of quality of writing and production values. From its resemblance to the army doctrines in terms of laconic language and pedestrian production values, the joint doctrine appears to have an army pedigree. This makes apparent an underside of “jointness,” the holy grail sought by the three services through the joint doctrine.

The army chief recently let on that the draft national security strategy and national military strategy are soon to be given to the government (PTI 2017). First, this appropriation by the army of the lead role in doctrine-making does not bode well for jointness. There is, within the HQ IDS, the Directorate of Doctrine (DoD)—that took ownership of the joint doctrine—which should logically be in the lead role on the two projects the army has appropriated. Even so, the DoD can at best address military strategy, not national security strategy, which is presumably the domain of the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS).

Non-traditional security approaches—such as human security—that arguably can best be captured by civilian input, presumably subsumed in the NSCS, would likely be eclipsed. While conceding that the army’s stepping up appears to be a case of its volunteering to bell the cat—knowing that bureaucrats and politicians are not up to it—it can only lead to a militarisation of national security thinking. Interestingly, the joint doctrine mistakenly includes the deputy chair of the NITI Aayog (formerly the Planning Commission) in the National Security Council (NSC) (p 33). This was true over a decade and half ago, when Jaswant Singh and K C Pant, known for their interest in national security, were deputy chairs of the Planning Commission in their turn.

Flaws and Failures

That said, the joint doctrine has some substance. The joint doctrine makes clear that, India’s aim being “comprehensive national development,” national security entails creation and sustenance of an enabling environment. For the military, this primarily implies prevention of war through deterrence and other supportive roles for the military, such as aid to civil authorities, and humanitarian and disaster relief. Military force application, when necessary, is to bring about outcomes desired by the political leadership. Conflict prevention is preferred through deterrence and coercion. It rightly points to preconditions for use of military power, namely, in the national interest; with necessary force levels; with clear objectives, capable of reassessment; with support of people; and as a last resort.

Nevertheless, there is a conceptual flaw. The joint doctrine spells out three “states” of being: peace; conflict or war; and a combination of the two. It sees the difference between peace and conflict as the absence of threat in peace, and in conflict the presence of threat necessitating military measures. However, threats also exist in peace and military measures are taken to deter and mitigate these, without transitioning to conflict. Since this is easy to point to, the conceptual clutter might just be a case of lazy editing and can be left at that. However, the concept of peace is defined as absence of “real or perceived threat” not only to the country’s national interests, but also to that of its “strategic partners,” the latter a patently unnecessary inclusion.

Some problematic phrases also give one pause for thought. One such phrase is “decisive victory,” occurring thrice in the document. When obtaining politically desirable outcomes is sufficient as a military aim, going for decisive victory can be overkill and is unnecessarily escalatory. The armed forces intend to “shock, dislocate and overwhelm” the enemy. After mobilising “swiftly” and with an “early launch” of operations, they are to “rapidly achieve tangible gains” (p 19). This appears to be a hangover of the Cold Start doctrine, as the 2004 army doctrine was colloquially referred to. The Cold Start doctrine was taken out of cold storage by the new army chief on taking over (Shukla 2017).

With much water having flown down the Indus since then, particularly Pakistan’s induction of tactical nuclear weapons systems, Cold Start will bring the nuclear overhang down on the conflict. Another beehive stirred by conventional operations simultaneously will be the hybrid war—asymmetric war waged by irregulars—which the doctrine prognosticates as the future form of war. Together, these will put paid to the fond expectation in military writings, and echoed in the document, of a “short” war (p 10). By not dwelling on how these twin menaces will be tackled, the doctrine packages war as a usable option.

This is important to point out since, according to the doyen of military thinkers, Carl von Clausewitz (2008: 30), the first consideration for the political decision-maker is to understand the kind of war contemplated. Since the document does not have a section on nuclear war—plausible between nuclear powers—it does not provide the necessary grist to thinking intelligently on how a war can turn out. The absence of discussion on escalation avoidance, control and de-escalation suggests that the armed forces are living in denial of the nuclear reality, the Achilles’ heel of the joint doctrine.

This gap is attributable to a structural flaw. While the HQ IDS serves the Ch COSC—the “first among equals” among the chiefs—it does not have a dedicated section of the staff dealing with nuclear conflict. The Ch COSC is in the reporting line of the Strategic Forces Command (SFC). Since the SFC is the custodian of India’s nuclear deterrent and executor of nuclear operations, it quite rightly is not the locus for nuclear decision-making input. Further, the Ch COSC is double hatted in also being the operational head of his service. Thus, the Ch COSC—the focal point for professional military advice—is hobbled.

According to the doctrine, the second channel of reporting of the SFC is the National Security Advisor (NSA). The NSA is a civilian appointed by executive order, unlike in the United States where appropriate legislation and procedures of appointment and on roles exist. A mere press release serves to inform of the appointment being made (PIB 2014). There has been no effort to legalise this anomaly by situating the appointment in the constitutional scheme of democratic accountability.

Though in its diagrammatical description of the higher defence organisation (p 38), the doctrine misses out on the link between the NSCS with the SFC—within the NSCS is nestled a Strategic and Defence Division, which deals with strategic planning. This division also comprises military staff who serve the non-uniformed NSA. The comparative lack of military heft in nuclear decision-making leaves a void in institutional checks and balances for the inordinately high-powered and unaccountable NSA. This explains the persisting status quo in the face of multiple reports recommending the creation of a chief of defence staff or permanent Ch COSC (Mukherjee 2015). The doctrine, in its chapter-long discussion on civil–military relations, sensibly recommends inclusivity in the national security structures so that military input is not only a statutory requirement, but is expected, sought and given.

Below the conventional level is the sub-conventional one, which in hybrid war can be expected to be coextensive with conventional operations. Nevertheless, the doctrine’s discussion on Low Intensity Conflict Operation (LICO) is only in response to proxy wars waged; as the doctrine has it, by an “inimical adversary, engineered through hybrid elements” (p 20). Also, “surgical strikes” in response to terrorist provocations, though finding mention (p 14), are not discussed. Surgical strikes could well obliterate the distinction between the sub-conventional and conventional levels. Pakistan’s good sense in pretending that no surgical strikes took place in September 2016 may have made the option appear reusable. The constant, media-generated hysteria for more-of-the-same, such as in the aftermath in May 2017 of the beheadings of the two soldiers by a Pakistani border action team along the Line of Control and the murder of young Kashmiri military officer, Ummer Fayaz, while on leave, obfuscates escalatory dangers.

Further, the doctrine’s merging of counter-infiltration and counterterrorism operations within the LICO came at a price. It misses the indigenous dimension and the aspects of militancy and insurgency altogether that were better captured earlier by the two doctrines on sub-conventional operations, that of the army and the joint doctrine. Though it locates LICO at the sub-conventional level, the shift to the use of LICO in relation to sub-conventional operations and absence of “sub-conventional operations” in the terminology at the end of the book appears to be an arbitrary shift. Indeed, this reveals a problem with the wider military approach in Kashmir. The doctrine’s characterisation of the internal conflict in Jammu and Kashmir as a proxy war calling out for the LICO makes for a very limited approach to conflict management and resolution in Kashmir. No wonder the internal conflict continues with renewed gusto, with teenage girls joining the ranks of stone throwers this season.

Hope, Yet

Finally, to note the doctrine’s signal contribution, it rightly alights on, among others, democracy, secularism, inclusive socio-economic development, respect for diversity, peaceful coexistence, pluralism, and tolerance as national values (p 1). Its reiteration of these is interesting in the light of the military’s political bosses supervising a transition away from these values. Since doctrines serve as a form of messaging, can this be taken as a subtle pushback by the military?

Nevertheless, so as not to go overboard in its temerity, the doctrine echoes the popular, and erroneous, strategic discourse, deeming the threat to these as an “eastward spread of [Islamic] fundamentalist and radical [Islamist] ideologies” and an “engineered radicalized tilt towards such ideology amongst India’s [Muslim] youth” (parentheses added; p 10). Evidently, the doctrine is oblivious to the principal threat to national values emanating from majoritarian extremism. It cannot be faulted overly.

Vice President Hamid Ansari has pointed to the principal failing in the national security discourse in his delivery of the fifth K Subrahmanyam lecture in New Delhi in February 2017. In a veiled reference to what cultural nationalism has wrought, he said,

The operative principle for this [national identity] is ‘national-civic’ rather than ‘national-ethnic,’ though a segment of opinion today would want to modulate or amend it and espouse instead an Indian version of ‘cultural nationalism’ premised on ‘religious majoritarianism’. (Ansari 2017)

The military would do well to revise its threat template accordingly.

Combined with the military’s thrust for inclusivity in national security policy and decision-making, it would appear that not much would change in terms of variegation in input, particularly if subjective penetration of the military by cultural nationalism is so thorough already. On the contrary, more direct exposure of the military brass to the political class, unleavened by the bureaucratic layer as is the military’s desire, would imperil military professionalism and its apolitical position with irreversible finality. The selection late last year of the army chief set a precedent whereby politically aligned or pliable military leaders might be easier to spot by the political ruling class. This could bring about a change to subjective civilian control of the military—in which there is a convergence in ideology between the civilian and military—from the present-day objective military control based on the apolitical character and professional distance of the military.

The military is virtually the last institution standing. With the publication of this joint doctrine, it has staked out its professional space, but would need to engage with the concerns raised here. Of greater significance, however, in the present context, is its brave hark back to constitutional values as national values, knowing that these sit at odds with the definition of national values held by its political masters. This presents the military as an island on which can yet rest hope for the soul and idea of India.

Notes

1 http://bharatshakti.in/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Joint_Doctrine_Indian_....

2 http://ids.nic.in/doctrine.htm.

References

Ahmed, A (2015): “Opening Up the Doctrinal Space,” Center for Land Warfare Studies, Article 1375, 29 April, viewed on 15 April 2017, http://www.claws.in/1375/opening-up-the-doctrinal-space-ali-ahmed.html.

Ansari, H (2017): “Some Thoughts on the Domestic Dimensions of Security,” fifth K Subarhmanyam lecture, New Delhi, 14 February, viewed on 10 May 2017, http://vicepresidentofindia.nic.in/speechesinterviews/remarks-shri-m-hamid-ansari-honourable-vice-president-india-5th-k-subarhmanyam.

Clausewitz, Carl von (2008): On War, Trans Michael Howard and Peter Paret, Beatrice Heuser (ed), Oxford: Oxford World’s Classics.

HQ IDS (2012): Joint Doctrine for Sub Conventional Operations, New Delhi: Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff.

Ladwig, W (2008): “A Cold Start for Hot Wars?” International Security, Vol 32, No 3, pp 158–90.

Mukherjee, A (2015): “Closing the Military Loop,” Indian Express, 1 April, viewed on 3 May 2017, http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/closing-the-military-loop/.

Navlakha, G (2007): “Doctrine for Sub-conventional Operations: A Critique,” Economic & Political Weekly, Vol 42, No 14, pp 1242–46, viewed on 20 April 2017, http://www.epw.in/journal/2007/ 14/commentary/doctrine-sub-conventional-operations-critique.html.

PIB (2014): “Shri Ajit Doval Appointed as National Security Adviser,” Press Information Bureau, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, 30 May, viewed on 5 May 2017, http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=105318.

PTI (2017): “Strengthen Military, Look for New Allies to Tackle Pakistan, China: Army Chief Bipin Rawat,” NDTV, Press Trust of India, 5 May, viewed on 10 May 2017, http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/strengthen-military-look-for-new-allies-to-tackle-pakistan-china-army-chief-bipin-rawat-1689725.

Shukla, A (2017): “Why General Bipin Rawat Acknowledged the Cold Start Doctrine,” Wire, 20 January, viewed on 30 April, https://thewire.in/101586/cold-start-pakistan-doctrine/.

- See more at: http://www.epw.in/journal/2017/21/strategic-affairs/disjointed-doctrine.html#sthash.4u42zoKd.dpuf

http://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/NewsDetail/index/1/10769/The-Gogoi-Award-puts-General-Rawat-On-Test

 The Gogoi award puts General Rawat on test

That Major N.L. Gogoi has earned the Army Chief’s commendation is not in doubt. He has received it for consistent display of grit in line of duty. As a Rashtriya Rifles company commander he can be expected to have led patrols, sat in night long ambushes, kept roads open through rain and fog, reacted to spot intelligence on terrorist movement and participated in events organized by his unit to bring the army close to the people. 

He has evidently done all this at a time when the going has been getting tougher in the Kashmir Valley and the people are more hostile. There can be no envying him his recognition. But for the likes of junior leaders like him the Valley would have been lost to India a long time back. If the award was for his work preceding the incident that brought him fame – infamy to some – he can enjoy full credit for it. 

Placing him in front of an array of microphones to tell his side of the story bespeaks of the army’s confidence that his act of tying the Kashmiri young man to the jeep in early April was an act in good faith. Gogoi for his part thought that was the best way to save lives which would have been the case had he shot his way out of trouble. It is possible that the court of inquiry that investigated the incident has found him credible. 

Let us leave Major Gogoi at that without begrudging him his award. One can imagine him over at his company operating base or out on some patrol on election day. With the SOS coming in from the ITBP, the adjutant of his unit might have scrambled him to the location, not necessarily because he was closest but because of his hard earned reputation as a man of action. He proved as much in thinking on his feet, in his own widely telecast description of the event. The rest is beyond that of the fighting man. 

The significant aspect of this story instead is the timing of the award. While usually awards await the Army Day, Republic Day and Independence Day, in this case, Gogoi got his out of turn. This is not unknown as commendations are a great way for the brass to exercise their morale building function. A good deed timely recognized by an award has a wider effect than merely pepping up an individual but of energizing a whole outfit. The Military Cross was pinned to Sam Manekshaw’s chest while many thought he might die of wounds without knowing of the acclaim of his peers. 

By likewise handing the award bearing his stamp to Major Gogoi out-of-turn, the Army Chief has been bold to open himself to scrutiny. It has not been long in coming. The usual suspects have gone to town over the implications for human rights and humanitarian law and possible disrespect for Kashmiris. The liberal brigade has alighted on the side of the Farooq Dar’s story, the ‘human shield’ in this incident. 

Allowing that the crowd of 1200 – in Gogoi’s numbers – was one kilometer deep, along his exit route, they wonder why Dar needed to be strapped down for the rest of his 25 kilometer long journey through three-four other villages. Also, what accounts for his beating that even now reportedly gives him the shivers at night? 

If the inquiry did not address these questions, it does not hold water. To them, it is one of a piece of inquiries that litter the Kashmir record of security forces: beginning from the controversial Kunan Poshpora incident; not forgetting infamous Pathribal; and, to clinch these, the finding of yet another as ‘death by drowning’ of two able bodied women in Shopian, all in two feet of flowing water. They would surely have died from drowning if their heads had been held under water long enough. The inquiry did not pursue who might have wanted to do that and why. 

All this brouhaha could easily have been anticipated. This Army has remained unfazed and it’s chief, rather brazen. It well knows that the ‘national’ media – as against the Lutyens’ media – would have lapped up the Gogoi press appearance. With fire assaults simultaneously on Pakistani pickets along the Line of Control broadcast in virtual real time, it is playing to the gallery in India’s heartland and hinterland. 

Perhaps it thinks that this display helps prove its responsiveness to civil authority, doing what its acting minister set it to do in wake of the beheadings of its soldiers early this month. There is little else the Army could do on the Line of Control, in light of precedence dating to the late nineties. But surely it has gone beyond the necessary in the Gogoi case. It must know this is unnecessary additional wind in the political sails of its civilian masters that the Army did not really need to provide. 

The problem is that it is not the Army’s mandate to be providing political ballast. The apex level must not only know that it has to keep the Army out of politics but also know how to keep it so. Even if the Army is not interested in politics, in India today, politics – right wing politics – is interested in the Army. Recall, in its earlier avatar, the BJP led NDA government had the Army organize Sindhu darshan for its homesick ideologue, LK Advani. This time round the right wing’s embrace of the Army has been more than just on election posters. 

The Army brass has a representational function that entails ensuring the Army stays apolitical. The more it lends itself to providing egregious political comfort to its civilian masters, the more it opens itself to manipulation. The more it is manipulated, the less it is apolitical. A Chief who cannot understand this - leave alone one who is complicit in this - is not worth his salt. 

Where does this leave the Army chief? He has two years to go, long enough to help line up his political masters for an extended tenure at the political helm. Or conversely, it gives him enough time to retest his ability to say ‘thus far and no further’, if not ‘no’ itself.