https://www.dropbox.com/s/34phetyszz4itia/Kashmir%20Times%20Op%20Eds%20Ali.pdf?dl=0

Kashmir: Strategic Sense and Nonsense

Kashmir Times Op-eds 2010s

By Ali Ahmed

Ali Ahmed is a former UN official and military officer. Currently, he is an academic affiliated with a central university in New Delhi. Views are personal and have no relevance to any organization the author has been associated with.

For the people of Kashmir

Preface and acknowledgement

The title needs explaining. I believe a nonsensical strategy has attended India’s Kashmir problem over the past decade. In the United Progressive Alliance government period, the government was afraid of its own shadow. It missed a splendid opportunity to address the Kashmir issue meaningfully. No doubt, it had the shadow of the right wing looming across it staying its hand. As for the right wing, when it came to power, it has willfully messed up the situation further. As the right wing has another lease of life in power, there can only more nonsense up ahead. The assumption is that Kashmiris will bear the brunt and, therefore, it is not of consequence for the rest of us in South Asia. This is untenable. The right wing is perfectly capable of worse and this shall surely come to pass too over the coming five years.

This volume of my opinion pieces in the Kashmir Times over the 2010s are proof of India hurtling down hill as a country, taking Kashmir down with it and looking to drag down the rest of South Asia with it too. This understanding is reverse of the popular notion that it is Pakistan as a failing state that is out to drag India down with it. I believe the democratic take over of India by the right wing is an existential danger to the subcontinent. Its conjoined Kashmir and Pakistan policies are not merely potentially explosive, but are an explosion in slow motion. The answer is not to be found in Kashmir. It is to be looked for in the rest of India, where the electorate needs to rethink its self-interest. The apprehension is that this will not happen till the calamity impending is not over and done with.

In the main, the commentaries here deal with Kashmir and India’s Pakistan policy as relevant to Kashmir. There are several largely critical pieces covering the counter insurgency campaign. Since a significant proportion of the army is deployed in Jammu and Kashmir, the op-eds covered the meaing of the 'strategy' in Kashmir - of which the army was a major instrument - for the army as an institution. The commentaries link India's Pakistan and Kashmir strategies to internal politics in India, in which the ascendance of the right wing meant preclusion of any peace headway. The constant call is for the passing opportunities to be seized. The needs of the strategy of Othering that brought the right wing to power in India account for the advocacy being ignored.

The nonsense in the Kashmir strategy owes to contamination of strategy by ideology. It is no secret that the strategic establishment owes right wing allegiance. The strategic community has had its share of right wingers, who were in the closet till early this decade. Since a major plank of such cultural nationalist thinking is anti-Muslim, any strategy geared to addressing South Asian Muslim issues cannot but be contaminated by ideological baggage. To expect a rational strategy – even one based on realism – is to be wishful. The Pakistan strategy needs no edification. Needless to add, that the strategies will fall flat in good time. The issue is how to survive the deneument.

Plainspeaking is the need of the hour. The compilation is to focus minds. Nothing can be done to avert the catastrophe, but seeing off the right wing back to the margins would require to be done once the dust – hopefully not radioactive - has settled. This would require the shoulder of all institutions. In alerting the nation, the collection of op-eds would have served a purpose. 

The compilation would be of interest to students, academics, practitioners in uniform, policy makers and the attentive public. The issues dealt with are at the interstices of strategic. security and peace studies. It has insights for the military engaged in countering insurgency, for their political masters and the bureaucratic intermediary layer both in Srinagar and the national security establishment in Delhi. The book is dedicated to the people of Kashmir, both within and outside of the Valley. 

I thank Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal for her unstinting support. Her liberality shines through. Her paper Kashmir Times has ploughed a lonely furrow and done a national service in keeping the liberal torch aloft in trying times. I thank the editorial staff for the support over the past decade of my writing for the paper, the writings put together between these covers: some 100 op-eds comprising 1.25 lakh words. Needless to add, all shortcomings in the language, style and facts are mine. I thank my family for its usual forebearance. Hope their optimism that the essays shall prove useful is proven true.

Contents

1.         Kashmir: Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, 6 July 2019                            1

2.         At The Doorstep Of Indian Military Politicization, 6 June 2019                               2

3.         Kashmir: As The Army Surveys The Next Five Years, 12 June 2019                      4 

4.         Event management is no substitute for strategy, 3 June 2019                                   6

5.         Gratis advice for the next National Security Adviser, 21 May 2019                         8

6.         Kashmir: Radicalisation and what to do about it, 10 May 2019                             10

7.         The Doval And Hooda Prescriptions Examined, 5 April 2019                               12

8.         Balakot: Divining India’s strategy from its messaging, 9 March 2019                    14

9.         Reminding The Political Class Of Clausewitz's First Injunction, 18 Feb 2019        16

10.       The Army's land warfare doctrine, 9 Feb 2019                                                      18

11.       Operation Kabaddi Revealed But Only Partially, 26 January 2019                        20

12.       Kashmir: Towards peace with dignity, 17 Dec 2018                                              23

13.       Contextualising the army chief’s news making, 6 Dec 2018                                  25

14.       Governor, 'root causes' matter, 6 Nov 2018                                                           27

15.       Divide and kill, 30 Oct 2018                                                                                  28

16.       Ajit Doval's platter: Centralisation with a purpose, 16 Oct 2018                            30

17.       India on the brink, 24 Sep 2018                                                                             32

18.       India's spooks: Getting too big for their boots?, 4 Sep 2018                                   34

19.       Noting the spokesperson-minister’s remarks, 19 Jul 2018                                      36

20.       Human Rights: All so unfortunately ho-hum, 3 Jul 2018                                       37

21.       The army chief as regime spokeman?, 16 May 2018                                             39

22.       The 'incident': Nothing but political, 2 April 2018                                                  41

23.       Is there an Indian 'deep state'?, 23 March 2018                                                      42

24.       A political army or an apolitical one?, 6 March 2018                                             44

25.       The Army: Introspection is warranted, 10 Feb 2018                                              46

26.       War in 2018?,  25 Jan 2018                                                                                   48

27.       Spiking possibilities: What is the army chief up to?, 4 Jan 2018                            50

28.       When Ideology corrupts Strategy, 10 Oct 2017                                                      52

29.       Pakistan: Not down for the count, yet, 23 Sep 2017                                              54

30.       Kashmir: From conflict management to a conflict resolution?, 14 Sep 2017          56

31.       In defence of Hamid Ansari, 16 Aug 2017                                                            58

32.       Debating the 'harder military approach', 4 Aug 2017                                             61

33.       An Army to fear: The Army's future?, 12 Jun 2017                                               63

34.       Reading the Army Chief's words,  8 June 2017                                                     64

35.       Ummer Fayaz: Another Kashmiri icon, 16 May 2017                                            66

36.       Kashmir's scenery makes its way to the 'hinterland',  9 May 2017                         68

37.       The hovering nuclear clouds, 25 Apr 2017                                                            70

38.       To the army: Any gentlemen left please?, 22 Apr 2017                                         72

39.       Terror: More serious than most know, 11 March 2017                                           74 

40.       Stolen gold: A ghost from the past that scares none, 24 Feb 2017                          76

41.       COAS selection and the doctrine of ‘relative ease of working’ with, 25 Dec 2016 77

42.       Saluting Bipin Rawat but with a caveat, 20 Dec 2016                                            80

43.       The nuclear doctrinal implications of 'surgical strikes', 15 Nov 2016                     82

44.       The myth of ‘strategic restraint’, 16 Oct 2016                                                        84

45.       How much of a departure since Uri?, 4 Oct 2016                                                  86

46.       India-Pakistan: In a dialogue of sorts,  23 Sep 2016                                               88

47.       A problem wider than Kashmir, 24 Aug 2016                                                        90

48.       A War at Hand, 15 May 2016                                                                                92

49.       Handwara: Going Beyond SOPs, 19 Apr 2016                                                       94

50.       Book Review – Op ed, 21 Feb 2016                                                                      95

51.       Gen Rao’s place in the history of Kashmir, 5 Feb 2016                                         98

52.       The conspiracy angle to the Pathankot episode, 7 Jan 2016                                 100

53.       India-Pak bonhomie: Can it last?, 15 Dec 2015                                                   102

54.       Is Mani Shankar Aiyar right?, 19 Nov 2015                                                         104

55.       What the next war spells for Kashmir, 4 Nov 2015                                              106

56.       Getting practical over an important report, 15 Sep 2015                                      107

57.       A cautionary word for the NSA, 11 Sep 2015                                                      110

58.       India-Pakistan: Silver linings and band aids are not enough, 7 Sep 2015             112

59.       Kashmir: Not the moment for a tryst, 1 August 2015                                           113

60.       Kashmir and India’s Muslims, 10 Jun 2015                                                         115

61.       Kashmiri Pandits: Undoing injustice, 25 April 2015                                             117

62.       Kashmir: Fifty years since 1965 War, 28 Feb 2015                                             119

63.       Looking Back a Quarter Century On, 20 Jan 2015                                               121

64.       India-Pakistan with Kashmir in between, 11 Dec 2014                                        123

65.       Hooda Walks The Talk, 10 Nov 14                                                                      126

66.       Politicisation of security and its consequences, 15 Oct 2014                               127

67.       What is Mr. Modi's Kashmir strategy?, 8 Sep 2014                                              129

68.       Modi forges a commitment trap, 19 Aug 2014                                                     131

69.       The echo of Gaza closer home, 1 Aug 2014                                                        133

70.       What the PM did not say out loud at Badami Bagh, 16 Jul 2014                          135

71.       The coming threat of politicization, 26 May 2014                                                137

72.       India's brass: What the controversy misses, 9 May 2014                                      139

73.       Second Guessing Modi's Kashmir Policy, 11 Apr 2014                                       141

74.       Kashmir and the bomb, 29 Apr 2014                                                                   142

75.       Pathribal: Back in the news, 29 Jan 2014                                                             145

76.       The debate between the generals, 13 Dec 2013                                                    147

77.       Ideologues as 'strategists', 28 Nov 2013                                                               149

78.       The expansionist agenda , 31 Oct 2013                                                                151 

79.       Vanzara gets it right: The meaning for J&K, 16 Sep 2013                                    152

80.       The LoC incident calls for self-regulation by the army, 13 Aug 2013                  154

81.       Distancing from Cloak and Dagger, 18 Jul 2013                                                  156 

82.       Implications of a NaMo foreign policy, 11 June 2013                                         157

83.       Daulat Beg Oldi: More than a storm in a tea cup, 13 May 2013                           159 

84.       Countering insurgency and sexual violence, 8 May 2013                                    161 

85.       India’s security under Modi, 11 Apr 2013                                                          163

86.       Lessons from Bandipore, 8 Sep 12                                                                      165

87.       Kashmir: More of the same, 3 Jul 12                                                                   166

88.       The agenda this winter, 6 Nov 2011                                                                     168

89.       Fixing responsibility CI decisions and consequences, 29 Aug 2011                     170

90.       Solving Kashmir: Feasible?, 9 Oct 2011                                                               171

91.       Acknowledging the blind spot on Kashmir, 27 Jan 2012                                     173

92.       Kashmir: Declaring premature victory, 2 April 2012                                            175

93.       AFSPA: A Question of Justice, 13 Feb 2012                                                        176

94.       An agenda point for the foreign secretaries, 16 June 2011                                   178

95.       Kashmir: Its now or never, 9 Dec 11                                                                    180

           

               

https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/india/politics-un-likely-to-continue-its-focus-on-indias-kashmir-policy-4188511.html

UN likely to continue its focus on India’s Kashmir policy

Using almost the same languageas last time, external affairs ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar in yet another opportunity refuted the allegations of excessive use of force by Indian security forces in Kashmir. This time he was responding to an update report covering the period since May 2018 put out on July 8 by the Geneva-based UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The earlier report released in June 2018 was of the period since about the time of the killing of Burhan Wani in July 2016. While last time India had personally arraigned the then high commissioner Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein for being biased, his replacement Michelle Bachelet has been equally scathing in her report.

This was not unexpected. Last September India objected to Bechelet’s raising the issue of the situation in Kashmir in her opening statement to the UN’s Human Rights Council, when she had observed no improvement in the situation after the UN’s calling out of India’s record in its report.

In March, the special rapporteurs on extrajudicial executions, torture, and right to health — Agnes Callamard, Dainius Puras and Nils Melzer respectively —requested for an action-taken update. Replying on April 23, India said, “India... does not intend to engage further with these mandate-holders or any other mandate-holders on the issue.”

In its refutation of the allegations in the latest report, India makes two points.

The first is that the report is unmindful of the terrorism India is facing in Jammu and Kashmir, leading to the report willy-nilly legitimising externally-sponsored terrorism, while neglecting to record India’s multi-faceted counter-terrorism actions that include ‘comprehensive socio-economic developmental efforts’ etc. India has undertaken there.

Second, India questions the OHCHR’s ‘alignment with the larger approach of the United Nations’, set by the Security Council (UNSC) that took an adverse view of the terrorism besetting Kashmir in its condemnation of the Pulwama terror attack and subsequent proscribing of Masood Azhar, the terror mastermind.

On both scores, India is batting on a weak wicket. This owes to India’s questionable choice of operationalising the hardline in Kashmir over the past four years. From the recent visit of home minister Amit Shah to Kashmir, it appears that the policy line is likely to persist with till the assembly elections are held.

As regards the first, that India is facing terrorism, the body count from Kashmir has it that some two-thirds of militants killed are Kashmiri. This indicates localisation, rather than external sponsorship.

Also, though terror incidents occur — such as killings of civilians considered ‘informers’ by terrorists — these are subsumed within and are a smaller proportion of incidents that can, not unreasonably, be attributed to an ongoing insurgency.

Irrespective of the label put on the situation, there are international humanitarian law and human rights strictures that continue to be applicable, not least those reflected in national law. For instance, even though India has not ratified the international anti-torture convention, there is a blanket stipulation against torture — jus cogens rule — in international law. To the extent torture is incident in Kashmir and figures in the report undermines India’s case.

India turned a blind-eye to the report released in May on torture compiled by two non-governmental organisations. Their earlier salvo prior to the Burhan Wani’s killing was similarly ignored. That torture continues is evident from an indiscreet boast of a retired general speaking at a Panoon Kashmir event that stone-pelting youth are given a hiding that makes them scream for their mothers.

The second is India’s sense of UN’s priorities, implying human rights is superseded by the priority to the fight against terror. India cites the UNSC‘s engagement with the Pulwama terror attack. It bears recall that the UNSC’s observation on the Pulwama suicide bombing was in a press statement, not a resolution. Also, its listing of Masood Azhar in the gallery of sanctioned rogues carried no mention of the Pulwama incident.

More significantly, the ongoing UN reform initiative —Action for Peace (A4P) —has human rights as one of the three central pillars of the UN system; the others being peace and security, and development. Therefore, India can expect to see continuing UN engagement with the consequences of its hardline policy in Kashmir.

Since this policy is to continue, the OHCHR can be expected to accumulate another set of similar data to ambush India down the line.  In the spat last year, not only had Zeid defended his methodology but Secretary General Antonio Guterres had backed him.

Unable to duck the UN’s calls for accountability and apart for the ammunition such calls provide Pakistan with, New Delhi needs factoring the implications of the hardline for India’s image and aspirations, particularly now that the ambition of becoming a world leader has been added to its quest to be a UNSC permanent member.

http://kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=92436

KASHMIR TIMES Op-ed 6 July 2019

Kashmir: Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory[1]

While complimenting the governor and the representative of the Union for sticking their necks out prior to the visit of the home minister to the Valley, it must be recorded how irrelevant their positioning on talks turned out to be. In the event, the home minister, having the next national elections in his sights when he gets elevated to prime ministership, has left behind a potentially worse mess. That neither the governor nor the interlocutor resigned thereafter brings them back to square one in esteem, especially since they are busy implementing anti-democratic orders as privileging the Yatra over state assembly elections and concomitant guidelines as traffic stoppages on arteries favouring yatris over citizens.

To be fair to the home minister, he has cannot be credited with any clue on next steps, if indeed he is the one calling the shots. In his earlier avatar in the home ministry in his province, he is infamous for his calls to gunmen in khakhi out killing hitman Sohrabuddin, even while they did despicable things to the brave wife of the hitman. It is quite clear that the khakis were not out on an autonomous errand. Instead, it is possible – whatever the cabinet system that India conferred on itself seventy some years back might have it - that the Kashmir policy is in the hands of Ajit Doval in his capacity as super defence- foreign-internal-security minister as his step up to cabinet rank implies.

Strategic sense has been kept a state secret all through Modi’s first term. It is no wonder then that by the end of it India was facing the threat of nuclear war as it contemplated retaliating to the Pakistani counter to Balakot launched in broad daylight at Naushera-Rajauri. Not all of the gallant air chief’s sweeping-under-the-carpet act in denying any such attacks took place on behalf of his political bosses can rewrite history on this score. In the event, the Modi-Doval duo chickened out of missile strikes – using the peacemaking intervention of the United States timely released from its obsession with Kim Jong Un - as cover.

Politicians – notable for being in election mode over the past five years - cannot be expected to look past the next upcoming election, set for autumn in Kashmir. This accounts for a Hindu pilgrimage taking front seat as against the priority to revert the state to democratic rule. The disingenuous reason is that the nomads out in high altitude pastures would be disadvantaged by elections any time sooner. It gives the ruling party more time to attain Mission 44, that it missed out on last time. The last time they put the international border sector on fire using Khakis (once again) of the border guarding force to extend the Line of Control’s active scenario on to that sector. This time round an outcome of the Shah visit was to appease the communities inconvenienced by the brunt of the Pakistani Rangers’ backlash with reservations through a parliamentary intervention on his return to Delhi.

The statistic put out of 733 killed over the past four years was to condition the home minister that India is in a position of strength from which it can launch a peace initiative. Sources had it that recruitment had come down, as had stone throwing. The governor, for his part, went out of his way to put the spot-light on peace possibilities, highlighting the softening of separatists. Notably, this followed a visit by Dineshwar Sharma to him, implying that the credit for creating the possibility is a shared one. The intent was to depict this as the ‘ripe moment’, which was certainly a ‘hurting’ strait for the insurgent side, even if not a ‘hurting stalemate’ for India since the problem is seen as confined to three and half districts out of India’s 700 plus districts.

The onus needs to be borne by Delhi. Doval has a military adviser, but his input can be anticipated in light of his view (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loDM_ub6ELE) that the demonetization dealt a body blow to terrorism, with terrorists reduced to robbing teller machines to get by. Clearly, the establishment in Delhi and Srinagar is not on the same page. While Srinagar having followed the script over the past four years thought it was time for a politically predominant exit strategy, Delhi did not think so.

Delhi is perhaps cognizant that Shah, as an aspiring prime minister – now that the bench mark for toughness has been set by the current prime minister – cannot be expected to on his very first visit go namby-pamby. So even if there was strategic level sense for a shift of gears in Kashmir, the political level has different verities informing its consideration. Delhi’s national security establishment errs in putting on political blinkers, borrowed from Nagpur (incidentally, the military advisor is from close by Indore), to its supervisory and advisory role on Kashmir. 

This author in an opinion piece ‘War in 2018?’ (18 Jan 2018, http://www.kashmirtimes.in/newsdet.aspx?q=75607) in this publication had dwelt on the portents of war that year, keeping in mind the national elections slated for the following year. The lesson is that Kashmir has potential to take the two sides to war in short order. Considering that the Pakistani side got the better of India over the last crisis – the information war notwithstanding – there would be a push to get even at the next opportunity. So, if this side the India’s backed off from shooting off their missiles, the next time that may well be their start point. Both surgical strikes and the aerial strike were brushed off by the Pakistanis. Indian bravado requires more proof than what mere information war can furnish. All of the air force’s bluster cannot show up an F-16 carcass. Pakistanis, warned off by the air chief that Rafales would be in place by early next year, would also prefer the missile exchange option. It would draw in the international community fairly quickly.

Pakistanis could get uppity. Projecting an indigenous face to the insurgency over the proxy war Indians prefer (the proportion of Kashmiris dead went up from 40 per cent to two thirds), they have been quiescent over the past four years. India’s diplomatic offensive is set to peak in October with the financial action task force taking a review then. This explains Pakistan’s arraigning of Hafeez Sayeed for canvassing money for the jihad. There is enough of an overlap between the Islamic block – that took a dim view of Indian (in)action in Kashmir only early this year - and the task force to bail out Pakistan. No amount of deliberation by Indian diplomats in the shadow of the Sardar Patel’s statue may help out, particularly since India itself does not walk the talk on terrorism – having let off its ‘good terrorists’ in cases such as the Samjhauta express and ensconced the Malegaon accused into parliament.

Pakistanis are also well placed in Afghanistan, having weathered Trump’s worst. Though it put them in an economic bind, leading to the army settling for less in this budget, it has delivered Taliban to the all-Afghan jirga this month. Therefore, it can afford to reengage with mischief in Kashmir, perhaps as early as next year. The 300 or so militants are enough to see off the summer campaign. India’s rebuff of its outstretched hand over the past year could come at a price.

As the ruling party makes gains in Rajya Sabha, it would draw closer to Shah’s promise of rescinding Articles 370 and 35A as part of New India by 2022. This is when Pakistan would likely pitch in, if the 1965 War is any guide. Then, India had rid Kashmir of the titles its governor and chief minister, seemingly drawing Kashmir in closer embrace. A renewed push along such lines would unlikely see Pakistan stand idly by. Also, as in 1965 when India was recovering from its drubbing in 1962, it would be preempting Indian power getting too big to deflate later.

India has good reasons to believe it can withstand anything Pakistan throws at it. However, it must reckon with poor defence budgets over the past four years. It must factor in that its self-image as a power far outstrips reality, if the recent crisis outcome is any guide. It bears warning that a draw with Pakistan – a limited war can only end in a draw - would leave Modi as much out of hot air as was Nehru after 1962.

If the political level is unmindful, the strategic and operational level must push back. Shah has to be reminded that in his new capacity he does not have the likes of DG Vanzara at the other end, lest he carry over habits so formed into his upcoming prime ministership at the cost of India and national security.  

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[1] The title adapts Radha Kumar’s phrase.

http://www.kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=92061

AT THE DOORSTEP OF INDIAN MILITARY POLITICIZATION

It would appear that the air chief, who is to retire this September, is auditioning for a job. While angling for a post retirement job is not unusual for those in uniform, khakis or safari suits, the air chief is likely lining up for a kick upstairs, as no less than India's first Chief of Defence Staff equivalent. This can be made out from his claim that the Pakistani air force did not cross the Line of Control (LC) at Rajauri-Naushera on 27 February, the day after India delivered its reprisal at Balakot for the Pulwama terror attack. 
Media reports on his statement at a function at Gwalior air base commemorating the Kargil War's twentieth anniversary draw attention alongside to the Indian statement on Pakistani aggression and air intrusion into Indian air space that day. Explaining this away later, sources in the air force reportedly suggested that intrusion was not by Pakistani air planes but by ordnance used by the Pakistani air force in its stand-off attack on Indian military installations along the LC, which, in the event, missed their intended targets. 
Perhaps the air chief - being himself a hero of the Kargil War - got carried away at his motivational talk to airmen at Gwalior air base. He was pointing out that while Indian pilots hit their target a Balakot - a controversial claim - the Pakistanis did not. For their part, the Pakistanis claim to have deliberately missed their Indian military targets, quite like the Indians - according to the Pakistani military spokesperson - missed theirs. 
Only a couple of weeks back, the army let on that its two senior commanders in the sector, the army and corps commander, had escaped targeting at the tactical level headquarters that was targeted in an air raid by the Pakistanis. Media reports that the army is in the midst of shifting air defence units to the LC. For its part, the air force, staking a claim to shooting down an F-16 had provided evidence in the form of missile parts that had been recovered from the Indian side of the LC. It is apparent that till the air chief rewrote history, the version on which both sides agreed was that the Pakistanis did come across, even if they exited equally speedily chased away by intrepid airmen led by redoubtable, bewhiskered, Abhinandan Varthaman. 
Admittedly, contemporary versions of events are an information war battleground and military history is collateral damage in conflict. However, for the air chief to go overboard in the manner he has must have something more to it. Of the two possible explanations above - the air chief wanting an extension and playing to the gallery at an air base - the former unfortunately may hold more water, and there lies the trouble.
Rumours are rife of an impending defence structural reform. Many commentators are making a pitch for these, arguing that the renewed mandate with an enhanced majority allows the government to do more for defence, in particular implement the reforms left over from the post Kargil era when these were first put down in the recommendations of successive review panels. The chief of defence staff equivalent appointment is a holdover from the period. The intervening governments did not have the political heft. 
The current government set up a defence planning committee (DPC) under its national security adviser (NSA) early last year. It is amply clear that two of its four sub-committees, namely, on policy and strategy and plans and capability development, cannot but have a chair higher than the three chiefs. Neither can the chairman chiefs of staff rule against the other two, nor, without a conflict of interest, rule favourably on his service position sent up by him as its chief. No civilian can substitute since the defence secretary is of an inferior rank to the three chiefs. The NSA, though a man-for-all-seasons, being head of the DPC, cannot also head the two subcommittees, howsoever much he may like to play the role of the chief of defence staff. While he displaced the cabinet secretary from the strategic policy group headship, he cannot also displace a military man from heading the two sub-committees. So the government is likely to be considering elevating a military man at long last to the post of chief of defence staff equivalent.
Since the government has the option of deep selection, having set a precedent in doing so with the selection of the army chief last time, who it will appoint - if it does - is a matter of speculation. The Americans once reached down some thirty slots to elevate Colin Powell to head the joint chiefs panel there. Even so, there are two lead contenders: the air chief who hangs up his wings in September and the army chief who hangs up his boots in December. 
It is no secret for readers of this publication and in this part of India, that the army chief has endeared himself to the government in his leading the army. The army chief has constantly piped up on the government's Kashmir policy. The personal interest is in his justifying to himself - as much as to others - his controversial elevation to the job based on his counter insurgency expertise, and also the government's line through its first term resulting in over 600 youth dead. The army latest play of music for the ears of its political master has been the rejection of any notion that surgical strikes were also carried out by the opposition when in government. These - to the northern army commander and its operations branch - were patented by the Modi-Doval combine. This appears to be a bit of dual positioning - the northern army commander for the army chief's baton while the army chief has the chief of defence staff chair in his sights. 
The maneuverings have acquired competition. The air force has gone out of its way to bolster the ruling party head's questionable claim that some 300 terrorists perished in its aerial surgical strike. The claim turned the tables on the opposition that had till then seemingly clawed its way back based on the traditional issues as unemployment, farmers' suicides, rural distress, economic mismanagement etc. With Pulwama and its riposte at Balakot, the narrative changed. 
If only the fight had stayed at the political level. Engineering a false flag operation - such as at Pulwama - cannot be put beyond the intelligence agencies. It is already clear that they were the first converts to the cultural nationalist ideology of their political minders. However, for a service to pitch-in unmindful of the traditional stipulation on being apolitical is concerning. True, the tradition has taken a beating of late. The last air chief while demitting the appointment trashed the narrative of 'strategic restraint' - the strategic doctrine of the predecessor government he had once served - in line with the then newly minted Modi government's redefining of India. Such revisionism is of a piece with the writing of a military history of South Asia's wars by a former air marshal, which at the very outset reveal cultural nationalist inspiration in his take - shared with Hindutva ideologues - that Moghuls who once ruled and lived in India were foreigners. 
In the instant case, the air force - presumably miffed by the opposition's calling out the government's grandstanding - jumped into the fray. Not only did the air force serve up ammunition in support for the government's position on the curious Rafale deal, but also pushed inordinately for taking the government's word on Balakot. It lent its professionally authoritative status and credibility for political use of its political masters. 
If the air chief does not have an axe to grind - and he is by all accounts an honourable man - then can it be inferred instead that the air force was put to it? This possibility is the worse one, with implications for civil-military relations in terms of politicization of the military. It bespeaks of a military brass that is politically deaf, lacking spine, ideologically persuaded or all three combined. 
This is the outcome of the precedent set by this government in the army chief's appointment. The brass was served notice to speak what the government wishes to hear. This has set up the scramble. Whispers have it that a current frontrunner for next army chief has links with the new ruling party working head, dating to their juvenile friendship. The selection of a chief is a visible manifestation of potential politicization, politicization itself is what could follow: swallowing of the cultural nationalist bait by the military.
Over the coming term, the government may interpret its mandate expansively, believing that enhanced voting in its favour allows it to finally get down to the Hindutva project. This may entail constitutional changes 2022 onwards when it has control of the Rajya Sabha. If de jure changes are arrived at in a legally valid procedure - and do not fall afoul of the Supreme Court's jealous guarding of the doctrine of basic structure of the Constitution - the army has absolutely no role or say. Therefore, the government would be well-advised to sensibly keep the military at professional distance. It can do without overkill in trying - in the interim - to shape the military's political understanding in line with its thinking by an unnecessary bear-hug in its civil-military relations.