https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/the-learning-from-amshipora-military

The learning from Amshipora: Military leadership matters

Note: The story has moved on, though not covered in below post https://theprint.in/judiciary/amshipora-encounter-in-appeal-against-life-term-captain-says-he-obediently-followed-orders/1432276/

It is worth congratulating the army on its Court-martial consigning the perpetrator of the Amshipora killings to life imprisonment.

It is strange that the army needs to be complimented on following through on a be done-and-dusted case of an as egregious a human rights violation as it can ever get.

One would’ve thought that this oughtn’t to have happened to begin with in an ethically-imbued army. That it would do the right thing reflexively and a verdict as this would be routine.

Unfortunately, it is not quite this simple.

Firstly, the verdict took rather long to get to – short of three years - which is not in keeping with military mores on disciplinary action.

Secondly, it is uncertain that the vagaries of the justice will allow the verdict to playout to its logical conclusion. Recall how the army court-martial sabotaged the Pathribal case and how the armed forces tribunal - that had a former army vice chief on its rolls - let off the Machil killers.

In the Pathribal case, the army brazenly dismissed the case for lack of evidence, though consigned to their custody by no less than the Supreme Court on the army’s own choosing.

In the Machil case, the tribunal had it that those killed were dressed Pakistani-like and found near the Line of Control (LC), and – ergo - were terrorists. The former vice chief on its rolls evidently forgot that his presence was to ensure against such stupid inferences. Perhaps he interpreted his job to be to sweep the case under the carpet.

What is the honourable thing to do is now no longer cut-and-dried, even if it ever was.

In the Amshipora incident, the Rashtriya Rifles (RR) Sector Commander alighted on the incident with unseemly alacrity, claiming it to be a genuine encounter. It reveals that he was not quite in touch with his instruments. He may have been motivated by the confidential report syndrome that annually mid-year afflicts officers.

The chain of command was unamused when the police scratched the surface of the encounter story. Yet, the Victor Force Commander and the Chinar Corps Commander took a month to launch a formal inquiry.

Despite Amshipora on his watch, the Brigadier went on to earn a Yudh Seva Medal (YSM), implying his showing in overseeing other encounters had washed off the stain. His only loss was in missing out on the National Defence College course, that would have enabled him to get to three-star rank eventually. He may yet make it to two-star rank, his medal bailing him out.  

No evidence can ever be found of whether this largesse owed to his immediate superior also being from the same regiment.

Interestingly, since ‘Yudh’ translates as ‘War’, it is apparent that the insurgency in Kashmir was being viewed as late as Republic Day 2021 as a proxy war, presumably because in the encounters some Pakistani terrorists were also dispatched to Valhalla.

Once the LC ceasefire with Pakistan kicked in yet again, even awards for operations along the LC were in line with peace time awards, e.g. the Seva Medal series. Curiously, the Victor Force commander toting up the same statistics for his performance, received a peace time award; perhaps a bar to his YSM from his last command assignment fell short and an Uttam Yudh Seva Medal (UYSM) might have overshot. The same year, the UYSM received by the Corps Commander is easier to explain, given an active LC at the time.

That the lieutenant governor jumped into action, publicly condoling the victims’ families, shows the conspiracy was unbeknownst to the hierarchy. (It is another matter that the promises of jobs the politico made have not been kept three years on, though Hindu victims of killings by terrorists at a village nearby received such benefits the very next day. Even so, White Knight Corps, in whose area the village falls, should exert – if only as a public relations measure - with the administration to deliver on its promise.)

This means any suspicion that the false encounter had any hierarchical imprimatur can be laid to rest in this case, though vigilance on human rights protection is neither invalid nor illegitimate.  

To the Brigadier’s credit, when commanding an RR battalion earlier, he had earned a gallantry medal, with an accompanying purple heart testifying that this was not based on a well-written citation. It is not impossible that he was duped by the RR battalion under command.

It is a positive trait in a military leader that she invests trust in her command. On rare occasions, a junior might let down the faith reposed - as possibly was the case here - but that is no reason for not respecting  subordinates to do the right thing the right way. It allows juniors to rise to the occasion.

General JJ Singh in his autobiography recounts an incident in which as brigade commander in the Valley he faithfully transmitted operational information received from one of his battalions, only to find out later that he was misled, leading to an operational snafu. He then insisted that either he be removed, or the battalion commander replaced. 

It is easy to imagine that with the wrath of the hierarchy on him for the Amshipora murders, the RR unit commander’s career was likely sealed, though he too may have averred to be conned by Bhoopendra. Even if true, it is too proximate a level to have been taken for a ride by a subordinate.

Grapevine later had it that the offending battalion in the Amshipora case was later relocated into rigorous mountain terrain for reorienting itself on the ethical conduct of operations. That they merited collective action suggests that Bhoopendra might not have been acting in isolation.

Since the command hierarchy in Chinar Corps in position at the time had a reasonable professional reputation, the Amshipora false encounter was eminently preventable. Since it nevertheless did occur begs the question of what structural prevention should be in place hereon.

There is speculation aplenty on why the false encounter was engineered by Bhoopendra Singh, aka Major Basheer Khan, and his affiliates, a prominent one being that they were after the ‘goodies’: pelf in case of his Kashmiri informers and perhaps awards in case of Bhoopendra himself.

Be that as it may, the structural explanation here is that command tenures are so short that commanders are faced with a challenge in impressing their personalities and yardsticks on their commands.

In my last post, I highlighted the rather short command assignments owed to an elongated waiting list. Apparently, while a passable tenure at higher levels is taken as one and a half year, the duration these days of one-star to three-star command is just above a year long. By all accounts, this is too short.

Whereas the military tries pruning the list, dropping some names onto the ‘staff’ track and is contemplating collapsing the one and two-star command opportunities, with the onset of integrated battle groups, it is evidently a losing battle.

I proposed Specialism inform career paths. Spotting and collaring the Leadership and Operations Speciality must be done by the 16^th year of service.

The idea is with their battalion-equivalent command tenures done with by the 15^th year, those with demonstrated leadership abilities can be sifted for induction into the leadership track from across the army’s combat and combat support arms. Their staff assignments would be with operational content, billets proliferating lately from information operations to cyber.

Others not so selected could populate specialised streams to which they have self-selected – administrative or logistic - in the hierarchy of headquarters, while those from the services could continue down career paths geared to their expertise.

Assured progression on the leadership track must follow, so that the underside of military leaders simply not having time enough to grow into their ranks and measure up to the weight of epaulettes, is done away with.

Take for instance the Force Commander in question. He made one-star at about 2013 and in less than ten years demitted command of India’s show-window corps in Ladakh. In effect, he has transited three command tenures, interspersed with another three staff tenures, and -not to forget- the National Defence College course, implying he has not sat on any chair for more than a year and half. This would amount to ticket-punching in a circumstance the structure was not responsible for such musical chairs.

The Corps Commander in question went on to head the military operations branch, be Vice Chief and now made it to Army Commander level, all in a laughable time-span of less than two years.

On his part, the Brigadier was wounded as a battalion commander in 2010, and completed his one-star command in 2020, making for some 10 years in the rank of colonel. Whereas colonelcy is good preparation for higher ranks, a decade of it is long enough to turn even radical leaders into demure followers.

Though the military likes to deride bureaucrats, taking a leaf out of their book on cadre management is in order. They make joint secretary rank by the 15^th year and get to the top two rungs as a matter of course. This gives them policy making experience on-the-job, honing their core expertise.

Military leaders in contrast spend a quarter of their careers at the higher levels. Neither of the two courses they do in the duration can compensate for the interminable stay at the lower rungs.

If the idea is some form of perverse coup-proofing by the civilian side, then it is brilliant.

However, the responsibility for this is not at a civilian door, but the military’s own. It’s a self-inflicted career graph, in order the military is not led by Tigers but pedestrians in tiger stripes.

Its operational consequence was evident in the Amshipora.

The command hierarchy in Northern Command was unable to push back against the General Bipin Rawat-mediated Operation All Out. A brainchild of the Hindutva regime, it was a preliminary operation to remove into perpetuity any Kashmiri youth with the gumption to challenge what was impending: the evacuation of Article 370 of all meaning.

The pressures for ‘results’ in terms of ‘kills’ - comprehensively delegitimised by the body of evidence in the preceding Kashmir experience - upended ‘winning hearts and minds’, the cornerstone of the counter insurgency doctrine.

Kinetic means are to get a situation under control and are no substitute for political measures to end an insurgency. The violence indices simply didn’t justify the logic one Chinar Corps commander gave out: that all who take up the gun must be eliminated.

Not only did no general in the Northern Command have the gall and good sense to remind Bipin Rawat of the Army’s own doctrinal product, but bought into his 2018 Army Doctrine on hybrid war. The concept was borrowed from a United States’ training institution where Rawat underwent a course in the late 2000s, at a time when United States was in the midst of its twin Iraq and Afghanistan quagmires of its own making.

Instead, command tenures being short, commanders have to set off at the trot. Though at an operational cum strategic level, they have been conditioned through multiple tenures in the Valley to seeing only the operational level as their beat. The strategic level has been usurped by the Police, who may have at best heard bullets fired in panic.

There is no known input of the Army into Amit Shah’s Article 370 demolition act. It is possible it was not even asked; former military men appointed as advisers in national security corridors claiming to speak for it in support of the regime’s caper.

Another example is the stupefaction of the army in Ladakh. Covid cannot account for this. Take the case of the then commanding general in Leh. His colonelcy ended in April 2011 and he handed over the Ladakh command in September 2020, a timespan less than ten years.

Sure, Eisenhower had a lightning progress from colonel to four-star general. But that was war-time, warranting deep-selection, in his case by General George Marshall.

In the case closer home, the limited duration at the upper levels leads to an inability to be at home at the strategic level. No wonder the Chief of Defence Staff post was kept vacant for a year and there is no military adviser to Ajit Doval for now. This owes to a leadership development career profile that isn’t.

Merits of the proposal here for extended leadership opportunities over the last two score years is the only way. Career assurance will steel the backbone, while longer experience will ensure professional credibility at higher levels.

It would be easier to socialise a cohesive leadership. Yes, logically a cohesive apex cadre makes for a Prussian General Staff look-alike, with attendant subordination issues in a democratic polity.

But then a defanged officer corps – as now - makes for an easier civilian Constitutional coup, as can be seen unfolding in slo-mo and in plain sight.

 https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/specialism-getting-to-the-military

Specialism: Getting to the military’s future

The Indian Army’s Transformation, underway since late 2000s, is catching steam. Agnipath and Atmanirbharta are indicative. Rightsizing, retrieving from protracted deployment in Kashmir, the culmination of jointness in theaterisation and completion of pivot from the West to the North are impending. A measure to keep up the momentum is to induct Specialisation into officer corps repertoire.

Currently, a largely generalist profile prevails in the officer corps. Officers undergo a common, all-encompassing training enabling them to tenant staff appointments with divergent mandates. This has served the Army reasonably well, allowing exposure of officers to the whole gamut of functions – operations, administrative, logistics.

However, to complement the Transformation underway, such an officer profile cannot persist into the future. Specialisation is necessary for efficiency and mastering complex subsystems and processes, be these operations, intelligence, cyber, space, information operations, human resource and facility management, project management, procurement and acquisition, military international cooperation or supply chain management.

What might an upgraded career profile look like and how to get to it?

Specialism is key to the future. There are two aspects to this.

The first is creation of an army leadership. Second, is to have officers tenant appointments in specialised streams – operations, administrative, logistics.

Taking the latter first, officers while in regimental service can self-select to the specialisation they wish to identify with. A combination of vacancies available, self-selection and identification of aptitude, signed off on in confidential reports, can lead to placement in a staff vertical.

At the Junior Command (JC) course level of seniority, the JC tactical content needs being supplemented with an elective – operations (joint operations, intelligence, information operations, cyber, space), administrative (human resource or facility management) and logistics (supply chain and associated verticals) – that is either on site at War College or outsourced to a lead training institution.

The College of Defence Management, Army War College and the Military Intelligence School are already running short courses. The prototype needs firming in, with officers of a suitable talent being trained, with surety that each would be employed subsequently in appointments which the training prepares her for.

Now for the first Specialism.

After regiment command tenures, the higher command level is at which the army leadership of the future should be culled for preparation for the future. A meritocratic exercise, the catchment must include all combat arms and support arms. This does away with the controversial pro-rata aspect that attends promotions till two-star level.

The command appointments must be tenanted by those so selected and progressively trained at the Higher Command course for the operational and strategic levels and at the National Defence College for the strategic and grand strategic levels.

Progression in the command hierarchy should be assured to these officers. This will end any need to look-over-the-shoulder and lend them confidence to look beyond the next confidential report. Their staff appointments must mainly be in the operations vertical, with mandatory appointments in a joint headquarters necessary for career advancement to higher levels.

For a younger leadership, longer tenures in command of formations and a longer service at senior levels, the sifting must be in immediate aftermath of command tenures, followed straight away by the Higher Command course.

Induction into the leadership cum operations stream must be done by the 16th year of service, allowing for another 20 years service for making full and best use of such officers.

Other officers would be vertically mobile through respective arms and service command hierarchy, with alternation in the staff vertical originally placed in.

Theaterisation is expected to reduce numbers of command headquarters. The integrated battle group (IBG) roll out would see a delayering in formations, with divisions being axed in favour of corps controlled brigade sized bricks of IBGs. A delayering can be done with the Area, Sub Area and Station hierarchy of headquarters.

Officer numbers can accordingly be pruned by encouraging an up or out system, with surplus officers choosing to leave at pensionable years of service with due preparation for the civil street as of now.

Just as the Agnipath scheme has been affected for lower ranks, a reversion to the original intent of short service commission officer cadre should be done, with officers of this stream leaving at five years and ten years as chosen by them and only a limited proportion, duly vetted staying on.

As of now there is no discernible debate on the direction of the officer cadre, though it will not only be affected by the Transformation underway, but will be driving it.

Some hard truths necessitating change need to be faced squarely.

The officer corps is bloated. The argument in the reverse direction that the vacancies exist that need being filled is status quoist. Instead, ridding those vacancies is the need of the hour, such as by amalgamating and delayering headquarters in keeping with information technology increasing spans of control.

The hegemony of the bloated arms of higher ranks needs being broken. Rightly reckoned as Mandalisation, it is not sustainable as the earlier legitimising logic of counter-insurgency participation and deployments meriting higher pro rata apportioning for the advantaged arms is no longer valid.

Since large numbers of officers are inducted, quality control at the inception has been sacrificed. There is no way mentoring in regiments can polish the material taken in. The impending downsizing of the Army will help reduce numbers.

Let the Border Police substitute the military in border guarding. An over enthusiasm in the Northern Command and Eastern Command to have operational control over border guarding function and continuing army deployments needs revision.

Moving from a war readiness military with a deterrence by denial doctrine to being a war deterrent military with a deterrence by punishment doctrine facilitates the proposed measure.

Training and employment have to be synced. Adhocism in the Military Secretary’s branch will only then be reined in.

Tenures in some appointments such as the budget or acquisitions related could be extended to five years. End colonial era designations, viz. DAA&QMGXYZ, for the U series to designate verticals.

The higher ranks are depleting in credibility. The duration at colonel’s rank is currently a life sentence. The musical chairs in command assignments thereafter is almost comical. Take the four changeovers already in India’s most significant theatre, Fire and Fury Corps in Ladakh, since the crisis outbreak.

Due diligence must attend the officer corps reset for the twenty first century, even if already a quarter century late. Its not impossible that there is thought to such like measures already in the system, and will be foisted on the Army and country in due course, as yet another Modi masterstroke we can do without.

 https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/the-doval-score-card-at-its-fag-end?sd=pf

The Doval Scorecard at its fag end

Five years back, toting up National Security Adviser Ajit Doval’s score card as custodian of national security, I said that his principal contribution has been to shore up the electoral chances of Narendra Modi. I had no inkling that as the situation became grimmer in an economy unable to revive after Modi’s midnight brainwave, demonetization, Ajit Doval’s mastery of his craft would help pull Hindutva’s chestnuts out of the fire.

Pulwama happened timely, giving Modi a shy at Balakot. That the Air Force missed the target didn’t really matter. A military history tome now records a Mig shooting down an F16, to the chagrin of Americans music to the Russians.

Elections are coming up sometime early next year, unless, as Arundhati Roy reckons, these are preponed Modi made wary of his prospects by the back-to-back successes of the Bharat Jodo Yatra and Pathaan and the coincident triple-blow by the proverbial ‘foreign hand’: Straw, Hindenberg and Soros.

Taking cue, the pandits (as defined by Mohan Bhagwat) are out ratcheting up Ajit Doval’s national security score card. One strategic hand has it that he has institutionalized national security.  Wonder if firming in the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) spells national security coming to bail Modi out yet again?

Prior to the 2014 elections, communal polarization was initiated in Muzaffarnagar so as to wrest the western Gangetic belt for Hindutva. Whereas Hindutva has the vile resources to commit such crimes unbidden, the atmosphere of impunity it enjoyed owed to the preceding decade-long vilification of Muslims prior.

The hand of India’s Deep State is visible through that decade. As to Doval’s location in relation to the Deep State, contemporary history writing will no doubt throw more light on someday. However, that the Deep State’s instruments – its foot soldiers as Pragya, Purohit, Aseemanand, Vanzara and Kodnani - were let off in Modi’s first term holds a clue.

Come the 2019 elections, Modi rode the coat tails of the military, inflated by the information campaign accompanying the Balakot episode. How some 80 kg of explosive ended up with the Pulwama bomber has yet to be revealed.

So what does the upcoming year hold?

Now that the NSCS has the reins – or so we are told by its spin masters – to what extent it participates in furnishing Modi with an election hattrick - or forestalls it with institutionally mandated action - will be the ultimate test of whether Doval marches to a national security drumbeat or otherwise.

A direct participation by the national security apparatus in shoring up Modi’s chances in 2024 – as in 2019 - is not on the cards.

Whereas Pakistan is on the ropes, having China hold its back, it cannot serve as a punching bag. Alluding to the power asymmetry, Foreign Minister Jaishankar has made clear that it’s common sense not to rile China. No wonder India only very gingerly got on to Kailash Range and very sprightly vacated it at the first opportunity.

Instead, to ensure national security deficits do not trip-up Modi, India has gone out on a limb projecting its disinterestedness in the military, for instance, by disemboweling it with the Agnipath scheme.

Indeed, there is nary a mention of India’s nuclear capability in the assiduously covered alleged institutionalisation of national security structures that answer to Doval. This bespeaks of India’s ditching of deterrence in favour of appeasement.

The national security implications of this are debatable. While it buys India time for getting its missiles, aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines in place, it is questionable if those are the instruments India should at all use against China. 

What’s clear is the dividend for Hindutva’s next shot at the hustings. The idea is that national interest – by the government’s own admission China continues to sit on two parcels of Indian land - must take a back seat at least up until Hindutva’s Champion is back for the third term.

Modi’s lame duck year provides Doval an alibi. With India stewarding the G20 and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation this year, it can do without national security clutter. It is a separate matter that a routine rotation of presidency is being made much of, to project India’s arrival as Vishwaguru. India privileges multilateralism making Modi look a global statesman in election year, in the bargain fetching Jaishankar brownie points (though his regime-pleasing one liners on Youtube show him coming into his own).

Even so, Doval needs cautioning that even any indirect participation in influencing voter choice through acts of omission and commission would be laid at his door. Should Hindutva adopt other gambits – such as, say, a Muzaffarnagar elsewhere – he would be responsible.

Portents today from places as diverse as Nuh, Ajnala and from eviction sites in Assam are indicative. The supposed institutionalization of the NSCS should rightly result in nipping such excesses in the bud or tamping down on overzealous chief ministers.

The recent observance of the third anniversary of the North East Delhi pogrom threw up the lesson-learnt that the law-and-order machinery, including additional forces, not only turned up late, but were partisan when they did. While Nellie could be covered up forty years ago, that history cannot easily be rewritten these days is evident from Modi’s use of emergency powers to clamp down on an offending documentary on Gujarat.

Over the past nine years, Doval has acquiesced with Modi’s de-institutionalisation of the Republic, though knowing of national security implications of this. The intention of Hindutva progenitors is opening up India to a Constitutional reset. The under-fire Basic Structure doctrine should have had the national security apparatus tacitly shoring its defences. Doval’s inaction has made Constitutional rejig within reach.

Another mandate for Modi will be willfully read as a majoritarian blank cheque. The last time in the run up to elections, Doval had publicly pitched for Modi. Another iteration of such unwarranted advocacy must be taken as unconscionable.

Doval’s score card is being written-up, presumably because his age and limitations might not allow him to continue into the next Modi administration. With Jaishankar already breathing down his neck, Doval might be set to pasture. Therefore, interrogating his nine years at the national security helm is warranted.

On the touted institutionalization, the dismantling of India’s military strength is stark. Not only was the appointment of the second Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) held in abeyance for long, but the Military Adviser’s (MA) chair, left vacant with its last incumbent moving post-retirement as CDS, continues to be empty. This despite there being no shortage of brass hats shamelessly auditioning for it through their tweets and regime-endorsing writings.

The CDS – the MA at NSCS and current MA to the defence minister – has his predecessor MA at the NSCS having the ear of the defence minister as principal adviser to the defence minister. Ever wonder where that places the defence secretary’s advisory role, which in any case stands now extended past his time to hit the pasture?

As for institutionalization in the defence sector, the major signifier could have been jointness and theaterisation. That is not on the horizon owes to it being left to the military. The military - through its veterans - has long pushed back, pointing to the absence of a guiding national security doctrine. The doctrine has not been signed off on, though Doval heads the Defence Planning Committee mandated to churn out one.

Absent doctrinal advance at the national and joint levels, did the Air Force just preempt regime-favourite late General Rawat envisaged theaterisation with a unilateral decadal update to its own doctrine? Can an army bogged down with whether horse drawn buggies are a discard-worthy colonial legacy be really taken as seriously professional?

The only ‘happening’ sector is defence diplomacy and atmanirbharta. Both broadcast a postponing of any resort to military means for strategic ends. The up-front message is that strategic partnerships are being forged and military wherewithal being acquired in the interim before a reckoning with Chinese power and ambition.

Military diplomacy can alternatively be read as another information war track, since the Ukraine War shows no other military will step up at the crunch. As a strategic observer put it: When India won’t act in Ladakh, why would it over South China Sea or Taiwan?

As for military self-sufficiency, it’s yet another conduit for crony capitalism to play out, making Indian Chaebols out of Gujarati companies. However, remember Reliance Jr that sequestered offsets on Rafale and promptly went bankrupt. As for the Adani juggernaut - that per an opposition politician bid for two strategic projects - will yet be steadied by the Indian state, testifying to the depth of the Modi-Adani connect.

What of the traditional security preoccupations: Kashmir, Pakistan and China?

In Kashmir, Doval can be credited with selecting General Rawat to do the dirty job of wrapping up the youth who were the backbone of the insurgency. This set the stage for the vacation of Article 370 of meaning under an unprecedented dragnet. Though Jaishankar rightly credited fewer deaths to this strategy, its continuing application means the problem has been kicked down the road.

The anticipated explosion in the pent-up alienation of people on their unceasing humiliation by Hindutva - fearlessly tallied in Anuradha Bhasin's new book - will likely be faced by Doval’s successor. That’s the time Doval’s report card needs to be wrapped up, not now when the indices of violence are low enough to have the spin masters plant the idea that Kashmir can do without army deployment and Rashtriya Rifles can be mothballed.

As for Pakistan, advocacy is extant on Modi bailing it out of its dire circumstance, thereby, in some wishful illusions, preponing Akhanda Bharat. As to the extent some of Pakistan’s troubles are an intelligence handiwork is unknown, but the factor cannot be dismissed given Doval’s reputation as intelligence czar.

A new book by Doval a senior in the trade, AS Dulat, laments the hardline policy towards Pakistan, though he informs that Doval once also fancied himself as being able to usher in peace too if he so wanted. The hardline has bought some respite in Kashmir, such as a manageable Line of Control, allowing India leeway in Kashmir. Yet, neither the problem of and in Kashmir has gone away, which doesn’t say much for an old Pakistan and Kashmir hand, Doval.

The cost has been insertion of a third party into the conflict, the Gulf acting as handmaiden of the United States. Instead of a strategy, it appears yet another anti-Muslim Partition predating Hindutva approach. Doval created conditions for a strategic initiative to have meaningfully addressed Kashmir, but has instead lent his expertise to Hindutva. When concessions and promises made in the back channel are called in by the third parties and Pakistan-back-from-the-ashes is when Doval’s report needs to be in the ‘In’ tray.

India perhaps counts on its indispensability to the management of the challenge posed by China. That it has counted itself out is clear from trade booming amidst working level diplomatic and military talks grinding on. That Modi wishes to have Xi over to Delhi twice-over in the run-up year to elections is priority. The ostensible reason is that India will not be distracted by war talk as it transits Amrit Kaal to developed state by 2047.

That inaction is intended to give Hindutva the run of the place, even as it posits a strong on defence image, is left unsaid. Legitimate as strategy, only its compromised by its impulse and the regime not owning up to it. This perhaps explains the lack of a national security doctrine/strategy, since this elevation of Hindutva to being the national interest cannot legitimately be put into words till the Constitution is overturned. Doval’s strategic stupefaction allows speculation such as this to bite.

It is possible to be more sympathetic to Doval. He might have bitten off more than he could chew.

It is uncertain if he, as part of India’s Deep State of a hidden elite comprising corporate bigwigs, intelligence honchos and Hindutva gadflies, chose Narendra Modi as mascot, or whether it was the other way round: Hindutva picking Doval for its purposes. Even if the latter, Doval cannot be absolved, since he advertised his availability from his think tank perch in Chanakyapuri.

In either case, he has proved unable to tame the instincts of Hindutva working through, for instance, Amit Shah, whose only training in institutional control of the police, central armed police and paramilitary is in phone calls to DIG Vanzara when the latter busied disposing off mortal remains of Sohrabuddin and wife.

This presupposes any interest in playing to the straight and narrow, a delusional proposition, given what is known of the heightened budget of the NSCS and surmised workings of Pegasus, including its role in cornering a Chief Justice to hand Modi the card to clinch the elections: a glittering temple in Ayodhya just as India goes to polls.

Doval will be judged on what he has done for Hindutva: readied India for Hindutva by dismantling its institutional defences from within. Luckily for Doval and sadly for Accountability, whether that is a good thing or bad might not be known in his lifetime.

A whats app message from an ADC to Chinar Corps Commander of early 90s

Those days, opening arty fire was Army Commander powers. Every time Pakis opened fire on LC with their arty, GOC 15 Corps had to call GOC-in-C Northern Command to open retaliatory fire. Later, this got delegated to Company Commander in 1999-2000. 

On several occasions, Army Commander refused permission. So old man would call BGS Brig Sharma and ask him to take his orders in writing and order firing of arty. Next day, SitRep would show arty exchange and furious Army Commander would call to find out why his orders were countermanded. Old man would say something like, 'I am exercising my military judgement and if my decision is wrong in the eyes of Chief, I will be happy to tender my resignation.' Or things to that effect. 

The Army Commander fumed and fumed but could do nothing.