Saturday, 29 August 2020

Why India Did Not Go to War with China


India had the military ability to evict the intrusions in Ladakh or carry out a quick grab action of its own in the early stages of the crisis. Yet, it did not exercise the offensive military options. The explanation for such strategic reticence lies at the political level. 

The Prime Minister speaking at an all-party meeting on 19 June said, “Neither have they [China] intruded into our border, nor has any post been taken over by them”? (Wire 2020). Following from this claim, a flippant answer to the question implicit in the title could be that India did not go for a military option in Ladakh because there were no intrusions. Similarly, a superficial answer to the question is that the army was caught unawares by the intrusions and could neither evict the Chinese from the Indian side of the line of actual control (LAC) or make a counter grab across it.

Evidently, the army, taking COVID-19 precautions rather seriously, had de­­ferred the usual spring manoeuvres in Ladakh. However, privileging the threat from the novel coronavirus over the Chinese propensity for periodic transgressions was owed in part to a dis­counting of the China threat at the strategic level. After all, not only had the Prime Minister, in early December last year, hosted the second informal summit in Mamallapuram with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, but the two special representatives, Ajit Doval and Wang Yi, had met at the 22nd meeting of special representatives later in the month. Therefore, for the army to have let down its guard is explicable, but subsequent relative inaction calls for an explanation.

Not having registered any strategic warning, operational-level early warning indicators were not given due significance. An extensive Chinese troop exercise reported in late May in Korla in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, close to Aksai Chin, failed to trigger an alarm. Besides, the pattern of Chinese transgressions over the past decade, such as at Depsang in April 2013 and Chumar in September 2014, has seen an eventual falling back by them. At last, 73-day long crisis, at Doklam, India had shown its resolve, leading to a belief that this would deter China.

In the present crisis, India preferred not to follow the Kargil model of evicting intrusions. India maintains force levels in Ladakh sufficient to react to contingencies such as small-scale intrusions if launched timely, before the Chinese fir­med in or built up reserves. If the opportune time is lost for early eviction or a counter grab (taking over a sliver of territory elsewhere), then additional troops would be required and as would the time for acclimatisation and familiarisation. By then, it would be too late as the Chinese, taking advantage of their better lines of communication and having seized the initiative, would have firmed in. Thus, India lamely settled for mirror deployment, or a troop build-up intended to deter further intrusions. Even as the developments in Ladakh were playing out, China had prudently taken care to beef up other sectors, evidenced by the 9 May face-off at Naku La in north Sikkim, to deter the option of horizontal expansion of the crisis by India.

It is apparent that the Chinese accurately assessed a timid Indian military response and were prepared to handle it militarily. Even so, they must have been surprised at India’s resort to military and diplomatic talks, with an expansive aim to restore status quo ante, a reversion to their side of the LAC. Five rounds of talks between corps commanders and three days of talks at divisional commander level at the military level, interspersed with four rounds of the Working Mechanism for Consultation & Coordination on India–China Border Affairs, buttressed by telephone conversations between the two foreign ministers on 17 June and the two special representatives on 5 July, have not unseated the Chinese from the areas of intrusion at Pangong Tso, Gogra and at Depsang. The three locations found mention in the report that was pulled down without explanation from the website of the Ministry of Defence (Hindu 2020). Despite diminishing returns, India is readying to keep troops deployed for the long haul over the winter.

Explaining the Riddle

India’s operational formations have their primary operational task cut out—of defending national territory—and have the requisite resources either under com­mand or on call. In Ladakh, not only have armoured elements been pre-positioned but air force capabilities have been enhanced by advance landing grounds. Forward basing of squadrons with advanced jet fighters, as the Su-30, has been done in the North East. Two divisions were raised over a decade back for boosting defences in Arunachal Pradesh. A mountain strike corps was partially raised for counter offensives (Economic Times 2020). Therefore, not only did India have the in-theatre resources to take on the Chinese, but also the capability to deter escalation.

Doctrinally, India has been long prepared. India’s “pivot” towards China preceded the American one under Barack Obama. Over the 2000s, having catered for the Western front by drawing lessons from the Operation Parakram in a changed doctrine, colloquially called ‘‘cold start,’’ the Indian army came up with the ‘‘transformation’’ study that built up the China threat (Gokhale 2011). This eventuated into a new army doctrine that played up a collusive ‘‘two front’’ threat (Hindustan Times 2017). Extensive preparation followed the doctrinal turn, including being among the top importers of arms worldwide, for most of these years, with much of the equipment, such as howitzers from the United States (US), headed for the China front (Economic Times 2019).

The answer for a lack of robust military response, despite the preparedness, can be looked for using the levels of war framework that includes five levels, namely political, grand strategic, strategic, operational and tactical. At the tactical level, the sacrifice of Colonel Santosh Babu and his men on 15 June in a fierce hand-to-hand encounter with the Chinese, equipped with improvised but lethal weapons, has shown that the rank and file were game for the battle. At the operational-level, the military has a measure of the Chinese and feasible operational-level options have found discussion during the crisis (Panag 2020). The culmination of India’s preparedness was witnessed in autumn last year when integrated battle groups (IBGs) of the reformed mountain strike corps were put through their paces (Business Standard 2020).

At the strategic level, it cannot be that India was awaiting the five Rafale fighters that landed in Ambala amidst much fanfare to even the balance in the power asymmetry with China. As a former military adviser in the national Security Council secretariat writes, “Power is a relational variable and therefore the context in which power is compared is certainly closer to the truth than absolute power calculations” (Menon 2018). India has a chief of defence staff, which, though a nascent appointment, could have orchestrated a joint response. Counter grab possibilities in other theatres went a-begging for want of strategic resilience. Strategic inaction can partially be attributed to not receiving a nod at the grand strategic level.

A seemingly plausible rationale for this inaction exists at the grand strategic level. The economic rationale is most compelling since India has had an economic downturn that preceded the COVID-19 outbreak. The defence budget had been attenuated over the past few years to compensate. Over the short term, the crisis has led to fast-forwarding of arms acquisitions, with attendant opportunity costs for economic recovery (Shukla 2020). Over the long term, an increasingly closer resemblance in terms of deployment density may be envisaged along the LAC, which will prove costly in terms of infrastructure costs and number of troops to be maintained. The ongoing preparation for keeping some 30,000 troops in Ladakh through the winter is a curtain raiser (Bedi 2020). Next, the efficacy of other instruments to take on China is questionable. It is a truism that diplomacy without military backing lacks credibility. Economic retaliation against China can only have
an economic backlash in light of the asymmetric interdependence.

At the political level, there are reputational costs for a rising power such as India for not using the military instrument at a juncture at which states normally resort to it; for territorial defence. Emboldened by India’s discomfiture, Nepal and Pakistan have respectively taken out new political maps claiming Indian territory. While the opportunity has been used to deepen the quadrilateral of democracies, an irresolute India can hardly be apprised as a reliable partner. In any case, the phrase deployed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, atmanirbharta (self-reliance) to generate economic self-sufficiency, if interpreted broadly as strategic autonomy, can be expected to take a blow.

Limited War Option

The preceding consideration suggests that a war may not necessarily have proven prohibitive in comparison with the costs of military reticence. Given this, did the fear of escalation stay India’s hand? Escalation is a possibility, but being known, it can be catered for. A prominent concept in strategic studies, limited war, provides some reassurance.

Limited war is the only form of war that two nuclear weapons–possessing adversaries can reasonably indulge in. The concept has been around since the Korean War (Osgood 1957). It is one in which aims are kept limited and consequently so are resources for its prosecution. Limitation can manifest in the scope of geographical spread, choice of targets, use of weapons, etc. “Deliberate hobbling” (Brodie 1959: 311) of power is resorted to by nuclear adversaries. Thus, there is nothing inevitable about escalation, particularly where military doctrine is informed by the limited war concept.

Perhaps India, going by comprehensive power indices, was deterred by the power asymmetry. The fear of escalation dominance—the capability to prevail at the next higher level of the escalation ladder—being with China may have proved dissuasive. Keeping with limited war tenets would have helped stave off the possibility of chancing up the ladder, thus neutering any escalation dominance capability with China. In a limited conflict, only usable power at the point of decision matters, which for China is at the end of a long line of communications over the Tibetan plateau in the inhospitable terrain of distant Ladakh (Menonc2018).

Even so, by this yardstick, in the similarly skewed India–Pakistan dyad, Pakistan should not have countered the Balakot aerial surgical strike with its daylight air raid on the line of control (LoC). Likewise, early this year, the Iranians should have been deterred from launching missile strikes on two US military targets in Iraq in retaliation to the US targeting an Iranian general, Qasem Soleimani. Consequently, there is no compelling case for strategic prudence for a weaker side.

Political Rationale

At the political level, the Clausewitzian logic that the “war is nothing but the continuation of policy with other means,” is the most significant (Clausewitz 2008: 34). That no military option has been exercised by India suggests that there were other superseding political-level considerations. The recent observance on 5 August, the first anniversary of the reduction of Jammu and Kashmir to the union territory status, provides a clue. The consecration of the Ram temple at Ayodhya was supervised by the Prime Minister on this very day. Had military options been exercised against China, the more significant political preoccupation of the Modi regime—that of transitioning the secular Indian state into a majoritarian Hindu republic—would have been interrupted and its timeline disrupted. The outcome of military conflict being unpredictable, Modi could not have chanced reputational damage since it would have set back the wider political agenda. If Modi’s image and power became collateral damage from a war with China, it could potentially unravel the advance of Hindutva across the national polity and social spaces.

At the political level, there is also a non-trivial, less remarked consideration. The march of majoritarianism has been such that, arguably, most institutions have been felled by it. The military has been relatively unscathed so far. From a civil–military relations perspective, a regime with an expansive domestic agenda, which some fear includes reshaping the Constitution in its own image at some point in an indeterminate future, can be expected to exert to neutralise the military. The crisis provides an opportunity for this in some measure. Being caught off guard and subsequent inaction detracts from the military’s image of professionalism. Also, the military’s staying put indefinitely, which amounts to an LoC-isation of the LAC, will keep it to the professional till.

Thus, the answer to the question of why India did not exercise a military option is easier seen at the political level. Internal political compulsions stemming from the present government’s need to stay in power and give it a rightist orientation takes precedence. Whereas, limited surgical strikes against a weaker neighbour, have utility in terms of societal polarisation for the right-wing political enterprise, and taking on a stronger and well-prepared foe—China—can upset their political project. That is the more plausible reason why India held off from exercising the military option in the face of a compelling casus belli.

References

Bedi, Rahul (2020): “LAC Tension Means Indian Army’s Advanced Winter Stocking for Ladakh Needs Major Rejigging,” Wire, 6 July, viewed on 9 August, https://thewire.in/security/lac­-
tension-means-indian-armys-advanced-win­ter-stocking-for-ladakh-needs-major-rejigging
.

Brodie, Bernard (1959): Strategy in the Missile Age, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Business Standard (2020): “Exercise Him Vijay’ was Very Successful; Mountain Strike Corps Ready: Army Chief,” 31 December, viewed on 1 August, https://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ani/exercise-him-vijay-was-very-successful-mountain-strike-corps-ready-army-chief­­­­-119123101204_1.html.

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

Economic Times (2019): “India to Deploy Latest American Weapon Systems for Ex-HimVijay along China border,” 13 September, https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/india-to-deploy-latest-american-weapon-systems-for-ex-himvijay-along-china-border/articleshow/71108992.cms?from=mdr.

— (2020): “How India Defends Its Border with China,” 19 June, viewed on 20 August, https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/de­­fen­­ce/how-india-defends-its-border-with-china/articleshow/76465059.cms?utm_sou­r­ce=con­tent­ofinterest&utm_medium­=text­&­utm_cam­pai­gn=cppst.

Gokhale, Nitin (2011): “India’s Doctrinal Shift?” The Diplomat, 25 January 2011, viewed on 10 August, https://thediplomat.com/2011/01/in­­­di­­­­as-doctrinal-shift/.

Hindu (2020): “Defence Ministry Takes Down Report on Chinese Transgressions Beginning Early May,” 6 August, viewed on 10 August, https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/mod-ta­kes-down-report-on-chinese-transgressio­ns-into-indian-territory/article32284188.ece.

Hindustan Times (2017): “Army Chief Says China Taking Over Territory Gradually, Warns of Two-front War,” 6 September, viewed on 11 August, https://www.hindustantimes.com/in­­dia-news/china-taking-over-territory-gradually-testing-india-s-threshold-army-chief/story-31zaiTY0X0l7PgAe4Kb24H.html.

Menon, Prakash (2018): “Stand Up against China,” Pragati, 20 April, viewed on 1 August, https://www.thinkpragati.com/opinion/4291/stand-up-against-china/.

Osgood, Robert (1957): Limited War: The Challenge to American Strategy, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Panag, Harcharanjit Singh. (2020): “India Has Two Options with Stubborn China. The Better One Involves Taking the Battle to Them,” The Print, 23 July, viewed on 30 July, https://theprint.in/opinion/india-has-two-options-with-stubborn-china-the-better-one-involves-taking-the-battle-to-them/466239/.

Shukla, Ajai (2020): “Urgent Arms Requirement in Ladakh Puts ‘Make in India’ on Back Seat,” Business Standard, 16 July, viewed on 7 August, http://ajaishukla.blogspot.com/2020/07/urgent-arms-requirement-in-ladakh-puts.html.

Wire (2020): “Galwan Clash: After All-party Meeting, Modi Says China Has Not Intruded into Indian Territory,” 19 June, viewed on 15 August, https://thewire.in/politics/galwan-clash-india-china-all-party-meeting-modi-sonia.

Monday, 17 August 2020

 

Why the déjà vu over the Shopian killings

http://www.kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=104450

Unedited version

Three men were killed in an encounter in Shopian last month by the army and passed off as unidentified terrorists. This version of events has been challenged by families in Rajauri claiming that the three were possibly their relatives who had gone to Shopian in search of work and went missing. The army has said that it will inquire into the matter. The police will undertake DNA testing to verify the claims of the families.

It is strange that the army requires a furore for it to inquire into the matter. If it was sure of the facts – and it must know more than it lets on – then it need not launch an inquiry into the matter. Afterall, if there is an encounter in which people are killed, it gets reported up the army’s channel. Therefore, it already has the facts. If these facts were questionable, then it did not wait into the following month to launch an inquiry. If it was sure of the facts, then there is no necessity of an internal inquiry as it now promises, but only an openness to outside investigation, in this case, to the one promised by the police.

Now, we have two investigations, an internal army one and one by the police, or perhaps just one, the army one being assisted through DNA testing by the police. If this be the case, the army needs faulting for dispensing with due diligence in its monitoring and reporting on the encounter. Surely, if the encounter was instead a ‘fake encounter’ then it has no place in the army’s repertoire. The penalty should have been instantaneously exacted last month. Since this has evidently not been done, the army chain of command was either complicit in the killings by creating and sustaining a command climate permissive of such killings, or, worse, ordering the killings.

Let us take the second, seemingly implausible, possibility first. This author as a  company commander once was privy to a corps commander dropping in at the battalion headquarters and – over lunch – suggesting to the assembled orders group of the battalion, that included this author as a young major, that the battalion needed something to ‘show’ for its presence in that hostile infested area of the north east. The corps commander explained that having been flown in for counter insurgency operations after the area was declared disturbed, the army needed to project that it was effectively tackling the insurgents. He thought it would be a good idea if the company commanders would rely on a couple of tough lads and take out a couple of civilians and depict them as militants. He said this would take the pressure of him to show results. The ever polite battalion officers saw off the corps commander that afternoon.

Since this episode was a quarter century back, there was no action taken on his suggestion, though the times were such – some seven years into the militancy in Kashmir where the corps commander had gained his spurs in command of a division – that the suggestion was made without flinching, even if received with some disbelief. With much water having flown down the Jhelum since then, it can be hazarded that not only can such demands be made, but there may well be enough volunteers in the ranks to carry them out. The demands in themselves would no doubt be cloaked as an operational necessity – such as unmistakable messaging to the militants to lay off an area of responsibility since the troops would through such killings demonstrate that they are alert. Such orders could well be obeyed since by now Kashmiris – who also are to top it all Muslims – are fair game, if the national – read majoritarian - interest is better served by some of them better dead. Recall a young aspirant politician's rueful statement recently that the only good Kashmiri politician is a dead one.  

Ten years back in a similar incident, three labourers were enticed to the line of control with the promise of work and done to death. Their dead bodies were passed off as those of infiltrators. The public tumult this occasioned did not allow the army to sweep the incident under the carpet. Instead, there was an inquiry leading up to a court martial which was endorsed by the then army commander, DS Hooda. Even so, the armed forces tribunal, with no less than a former army vice chief on it, let off the perpetrators. Sly potshots were taken by veterans, answering to the label ‘nationalist’, on Hooda’s stand and on his subsequent arraigning of trigger happy soldiers at a road barrier who shot up two Kashmiri teenagers in a passing car, calling the latter decision ‘politically motivated’. What this recount suggests is that within the military there is a counter culture – which is now the dominant culture –at gross variance with the purported ethics of the military.

Where the dominant institutional culture is this counter culture (with values aligned with the what passes for nationalism in politics today) a permissive attitude to killings such as this is extant. Not only does such an attitude allow for such killings but valourises perpetrators. Need one remind readers of Major Leetul Gogoi. When accountability calls, the counter culture facilitates cover up – such as at the infamous case of Pathribal when not only was no action taken against perpetrators, but even when called for by no less than the Supreme Court, the Court was fobbed off by the army’s inaction. It is easy to discern that the inaction owed to the accountability for the decision to kill the five unfortunate Kashmiris was at the highest door, with an operational rationale written all over it. After all, the American president was then on a visit to India and the Pakistanis needed to be painted in black. That the divisional commander was rehabilitated in another command billet and, post retirement, in a governmental sinecure, indicates illegal orders were passed on and obeyed. Therefore, the perpetrators had to be left off, lest all up the food chain would have to buy it too.

Now for the second possibility, that the command culture is so vitiated that long discredited ‘kills’ continue to be the yardstick of performance. This author had warned back when the army put out its doctrine in the public domain of ‘iron fist in a velvet glove’ that it would not last the test of the next uptick in insurgency. What needed to be done was introspection over its record till then in Kashmir and an extensive education imbuing it with a democratic ethic valuing human rights and a duty to citizens caught up in such situations. The recurrence of incidents such as Machil soon thereafter and this case now does not mean that the army has failed as much as that it did not try, or, rather, did not want to try.  The public doctrine was merely public relations suited to the political circumstance of the time – of quietude in Kashmir and a ceasefire along the line of control. The army has also since been subject to the onslaught – through trojan horses within - of cultural nationalism. It can be inferred from this incident that the Othering that accompanies the Hindutva discourse has infected the army too; else how can one account for the perverse killing of three young men, the coverup and now the charade of an inquiry. The usual excuse that some army men were after awards is for the gullible and hides a systemic malady.

Command responsibility in this case must lie with the corps commander since the army commander is presumably distracted by the Ladakh front. It behooves on the corps commander to set the moral compass. If such incidents occur with accompanying inaction, whether Chinar Corps has lost its ethical moorings is a valid question. That the commanding general in Badami Bagh was last seen, with the divisional commander in tow, accompanying a bureaucrat, if a lieutenant governor, to the opening prayers at the Amarnath shrine bespeaks of priorities and levels of self-regard. If the level the army has been reduced to is one in which there are no whistle blowers and none preferring to resign rather than carry out illegal orders, then operational level leadership must face the music.

It is important that the dust not be allowed to settle on this case the way it has over other such instances. The army has to be alerted to a grim future ahead if it succumbs to yet another eyewash of an inquiry. There are far too many such episodes and corresponding inquiries going back to Kunan Poshpora that do its record in Kashmir no credit. It should not end up as yet another force indulging in fake encounters, little different from its khaki clad counterparts. It must preserve its professional backbone, lest it end up as yet another institution fallen by the wayside in the majoritarian march through this land.




Sunday, 16 August 2020

Monday, 13 July 2020


The Book Review https://thebookreviewindia.org/
July edition

TP Sreenivasan, Modiplomacy: Through a Shakespearean Prism, New Delhi: Konark Publishers, 2020; pp. 242; Rs. 800; ISBN 978-8193555446.

The book’s title intrigues. The author early on in the book explains it, thus, “I began to see the pattern of a Shakespearean play, consisting of early successes, some complications, a climax, the emergence of a major event or character which changes the course of events, leaving the hero to disentangle the situation and emerge victorious as in this case , or fall victim to forces at work (p. xviii).” At the end of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first term, the author – an English postgraduate – neatly organized his foreign policy into five acts of a play, on which is based the layout of book.

The book enjoyed a good reception, with diplomats of the author’s generation cheering it not only in advance praise of the book carried on its dust jacket but also in reviews elsewhere. They noted that while the author is appreciative of the prime minister’s foreign policy pitch, it is not over enthusiastic – as have been many similar works that the cottage industry of publications on the net and in print brought out by the self-confessed troll brigade and closet Hindutva keyboard warriors.

As with most Indians and voters, the author believes that Modi is in “the mould of a Shakespearean hero, who overcomes his problems by sheer dint of his wisdom and courage and emerges victorious in the end (p. xviii).” Since the book closes at the start of Modi 2.0, it is not an unreasonable conclusion in light of Modi’s election victory. Even so, the author notices ‘tragic flaws’ (p. xviii) in the first term that potentially bring suspense into how the rest of Modi’s tenure at the foreign policy helm turns out. The book does not explicate what Modi’s Achilles heel is, but inadvertently the author does provide a clue.

To the author, Modi’s air dashing around the globe in his initial years “had the flavour of the ‘Aswasmedha Yagna’ of yore (p. xvii).” While the author credits Modi with “being his own playwright, choreographer, scriptwriter, director and actor (p. 3),” instead, this is indeed how the choreographers of the prime minister’s projections on the national media might have visualized it. The information management exercise that accompanies the prime minister’s activity is by now self-evident. The extensive perception manipulation surrounding Modi, amounting to an intelligence-led information warfare operation, obscures both reality and intention. In effect, be it foreign or security policy, the reins are with the quintessential intelligence man, Ajit Doval, in his capacity as national security adviser, overseeing the domains of foreign, external and internal national security policies. That Doval does not figure in the book at all is the fatal drawback of the book.

The backseat foreign policy has taken in the Hindu nationalist defined national security agenda is the principle facet of the Modi government and has not been captured by the author in his book. The author prefers to skim the surface rather than diving deep into the wellsprings of Modi’s foreign policy. The book therefore covers the usual ground, without breaking the crust for the core. A diplomat of 37 years standing, he expectedly dwells on moves on the foreign policy front. It covers the visits and the about turns, characterized elsewhere more forthrightly by a fellow traveler on the diplomatic circuit as foreign policy ‘pirouettes’ by the Modi regime. The author is rather careful in his analysis, drawing back from calling a spade a spade. This is unexceptionable since there has been a noticeable degree of self-censorship in India’s intellectual circles in the Modi era.

The author fails to record the body blow dealt by the centralizing tendencies in the Modi government to institutional health. The tenure of late Sushma Swaraj during Modi’s first term, who was sick for most part through it, was eminently forgettable. As with the rest of the cabinet system, a one-time prime ministerial contender against Modi, she was reduced to acting in response to tweets by Indians stranded across the globe. The foreign secretary, who presumably had the prime minister’s ear then, is now foreign minister. Usurpation of foreign policy by the prime minister’s office, a significant feature of Modiplomacy, does not figure in the book. An old foreign policy hand could have been expected to throw light on this and lament it, but the author passes up the opportunity in favour of merely an insubstantial recording the happenings in the years.  

The book has been put together in part from opinion pieces of the author at various places in print and on the web. It is a catalogue of the times, with little depth. It carries summaries prepared by an intern from the publishing house of analytical pieces published in the mainstream media in the period by several intellectual lights, who also appear to have been too careful to spill the beans on the manner foreign policy was being stewarded. It appears that the book is yet another one to hit the stands in anticipation last elections, in this instance at the publisher’s behest who the author informs was putting out a four-book series on the Modi’s showing in his first term. This is another clue of the manipulation of the discourse, obscuring what should otherwise stare the strategic community in the face.

The author restricts himself to the theatrics onstage, rather than digging for the roots of Modiplomacy. Take for instance Modi’s blitz across some fifty capitals in his initial years. It was to make the new turn to India, of authoritarian majoritarianism, acceptable. With India’s market serving as incentive to buy the silence of other nations, Modi could launch India down a new path. The driver of India’s foreign policy is therefore not out there in the constellation of external factors reviewed by the author but is internal. The myth in international politics is that there is such a thing as international politics. All politics is internally driven. India’s case it is the creation of a Hindu India. Foreign policy in Modi’s first term has been to shroud this in a curtain. He has eminently succeeded in this, with pundits unable and unwilling to call it out.


Wednesday, 8 July 2020


Inside India’s Army

 For comrades in olive green

Foreword

I have put together my commentaries and articles that dwell on aspects covered by the field of military sociology. Military sociology is not unfamiliar to India’s national security community, with the famous Krishna Menon-Thimayya episode being a case to point. Yet, it’s a subject with a rather low profile, no doubt because of the Indian military’s quest to stay out of, if not above, politics and at a distance from society, best illustrated by its cantonments. However, its visibility is much less than should be the case in a democratic society.

Taken collectively, the 99 commentaries here argue that this inattention to the military’s place in a democratic society – owing to its willing subordination to the civilian sphere – has led to overlooking perhaps one of the most significant changes within the military – a tendency towards the right wing ideology that has over the past three decades permeated society. This is understandable, since with society taking a marked turn to the Right, it is not unlikely that a democratic military can but be a step behind.

Even so, this is an anti-democratic development with constitutional  implications. We have witnessed over the past six years of the right wing regime’s sway over power, a dramatic fall of democratic and state institutions. The military has proven an exception in that it is only – at the time of writing – in the process of succumbing. These articles, written over the past fifteen years, trace the manner the military has been suborned by the right wing. The culmination has been over the last year, evidenced in its marginalization as merely a militant killing machine in Kashmir and but a border guarding force in Ladakh. 

The articles in the main discuss civil-military relations, the troubling aspect of which is in the military susceptible to subscribing to the ‘nationalist’ ideology of those in power. The major take-away is that this puts it at odds with the democratic system of alternation in power. This was mildly visible in the earlier period of the United Progressive Alliance in which the military was forever foot-dragging, be it in allowing peace initiatives in Kashmir to culminate or over demilitarizing Siachen.

Another major theme is the lack of representativeness of the military in that the articles capture the phenomenon of the military keeping India’s largest minority out. This has to be boldly said up front since playing footsie with the compelling statistics that underlie this claim is no longer possible. In short, with a dramatic right wing turn combined with the Muslim minority missing from its ranks, the military is only secular in name. In short, we are almost there, where the Hindutva ideologues, under-gridding the strategic establishment of this regime, want India to be.

On this count, this book is important. The compilation of articles that have appeared at various web-portals when put together between two covers, as here, make clear that the penultimate bastion of the state – the judiciary being the last (but one which has already bitten the dust) - is falling. As to whether the situation is retrievable, I leave it for readers in their capacity as voters to answer. The book compilation is an effort towards reversing the trend towards a Hindu army of a Hindu India.

Contents
1.    Right Wing Ascendance In India And The Politicisation Of India’s Military
2.    Army’s Robustness in Aid of Civil Authority Lessons from the Gujarat Carnage
3.    Corrosive Impact of Army’s Commitment in Kashmir
4.    Dilating on a ‘Half-front War’
5.    The Missing Muslim Army Officers
6.    Whose army is it anyway?
7.    Questioning afresh Indian military’s social representativeness
8.    An Army Day resolution for the new chief
9.    The land warfare doctrine: The army's or that of its Chief?
10.  The army's two impulses in Kashmir: Human rights Doctrine and departures
11.  Human Rights: All so unfortunately ho-hum
12.  A police wallah as proto Chief of Defence Staff
13.  Spiking possibilities: What is the army chief up to?
14.  Contextualising the army chief’s news making
15.  Selectivity in military justice
16.  Command responsibility in relation to good faith
17.  Opening up the cantonments: Army in the cross hairs of the right
18.  The army chief as regime spokeman?
19.  The Hindutva project and India's military
20.  Budget let down further strains army-government relations
21.  A revolt of the generals?
22.  A political army or an apolitical one?
23.  Dissension in the top brass?
24.  The General is at it again
25.  Debating the ‘harder military approach’
26.  An Army to fear: The Army’s future?
27.  The Gogoi award puts General Rawat on test
28.  To the army: Any gentlemen left please?
29.  Dark side of Army’s social media groups
30.  Internal security duties in their impact on the army
31.  Saluting Bipin Rawat but with a caveat
32.  The army officer corps: Missing Muslims
33.  Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha Ventures Further Than he Should
34.  Yoga as prelude to politicization of the military
35.  Look who’s doing yoga now
36.  Handwara: Going Beyond SOPs
37.  What a short, swift war means for the Infantry
38.  The military musical chairs
39.  Challenges of the brass in a political minefield
40.  Doctrine in Civil-Military Relations
41.  Where veterans refuse to give up
42.  Is the army court’s verdict on the Machhil killings enough?
43.  Kashmir: Hooda walks the talk
44.  Kashmir : Politicisation of security and its consequences
45.  Modi and the Military
46.  Wearing Religion on their Uniform Sleeves
47.  The Army: Missing Muslim India
48.  Why are Muslims Missing From Army?
49.  Fixing Responsibility CI Decisions and Consequences
50.  AFSPA: A Question of Justice
51.  Do We Need a Chief Warlord?
52.  The Sub-Unit Cries for Army Attention
53.  Civil-Military Relations: Questioning the VK Singh Thesis
54.  Readings for Officers
55.  A General’s Unforgettable Legacy
56.  Army ‘Transformation’: A ‘Radical’ One?
57.  The Third Front: Military Ethics
58.  Civil-Military Relations: Under Scan
59.  The Army’s Decade in Review
60.  The Central Debate in India’s Civil Military Relations
61.  Politicisation: In the Context of the Indian Military
62.  The Coming Threat of Politicisation
63.  India’s Brass: What the Controversy Misses
64.  The Military at the High Table?
65.  Modi and the Military: Not Quite an Innocent
66.  The LoC Incident Calls for Self-Regulation by the Army
67.  Countering Insurgency and Sexual Violence
68.  Dear General, Please Stay Out of Politics
69.  Interrogating Security Expansionism in India
70.  The Indian Army: Organizational Changes in the Offing
71.  An Issue in Civil-Military Relations
72.  Soldiers, not servants
73.  Expanding too fast?
74.  Uncivil war in South Block
75.  An age-old lesson
76.  The ‘Age’ of misjudgement
77.  Defence reforms: The next phase
78.  The Army’s right to its opinion
79.  Initiatives to Transform the Army Officer Corps
80.  The New Chief and Transformation
81.  The Military in Kashmir The Debate Between the Generals
82.  An Unacknowledged Vested Interest in a
83.  The Army’s Subculture in the Coming Decade
84.  The government versus the military
85.  Rethinking Civilian Control
86.  How deep is the rot?
87.  The Indian Army: crisis within
88.  Politicisation and the Indian military
89.  Hail to the new chief
90.  Security agenda: 2006 and beyond
91.  Menu for the New Chief
92.  Chief of Defense : Implications
93.  Elevate Human Rights As the Core Organising
94.  Extract from India’s Doctrine Puzzle: The Organisational Factor
95.  Extract from India’s Doctrine Puzzle: Service Subcultures
96.  Extract from article: ‘Borders and other such lines’, Journal of Peace Studies
97.  Review: Vivek Chadha, Indian Army’s Approach to Counter Insurgency Operations: A Perspective on Human Rights, Strategic Analysis, 35:3 May 2011
98.  Review: K.S. Sheoran, Human Rights and Armed Forces in Low Intensity Conflict
99.  Countering Insurgency In J&K: Debates in The Indian Army