https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/nukes-and-thermo-nukes-in-a-two-front   

Nukes and Thermo-Nukes in a Two Front Conflict

MAY 9, 2023

Bharat Karnad recently updated his blog, Security Wise, putting up his article, ‘Getting Serious About Thermonuclear Security: Need for New Tests, Augmented Capability and First Use Doctrine & Posture’, written for the last winter’s issue of the flagship journal of the Army’s think tank, Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS).

He argues that India’s nuclear capability must be upgraded, principally by introduction of thermonuclear weapons (thermo-nukes). Alongside, the nuclear doctrine must be made realistic and nuclear soft-infrastructure be toned up.

He has long been votary of renewing nuclear testing for reassurance on the workability of the thermonuclear capability; the test of which he has long since pointed out as a ‘fizzle’.

On doctrine, he outlines a ‘differentiated’ doctrine: a different nuclear doctrine and corresponding posture for each front, against China and Pakistan (and, if Karnad had his way, the third against the United States (US)!).

For strategic forces, he urges the military to get nuclear war-savvy officers into place rather than, as presently, have conventional war experts rotate through assignments at the Strategic Forces Command (SFC) and at the ‘Strategic Programs Staff’.

Nukes and thermo-nukes

There is no gainsaying that nuclear weapons - being of a different order altogether – render nuclear war as warfare of its very own kind. The longevity of the nuclear taboo and the world’s non-proliferation exertions provide evidence of nuclear level being a distinct and forbidding – if not quite forbidden – territory.

Even votaries of usability of nuclear weapons rely on the unthinkability of such use – for purposes of deterrence. For them, while resulting doctrine has nuclear first use, the purpose is to allay such requirement.

Therefore, if nuclear weapons are not quite usable, the more terrifying of these – thermo-nukes – appear even less so.

Is it that nuclear deterrence only works with such weapons in the arsenal? Does only thermonuclear weapons capability deter thermonuclear weapons use?

An Indian nuclear expert, Manpreet Sethi, examining whether India needs a thermonuclear capability arrived at an answer to the contrary: these are not essential for deterrence.

Those more mindful of with the difference nuclear weapons make, such as Rajesh Basrur, have it that existential deterrence is good enough: their very possession has a deterring effect, thermo-nukes making no further difference.

Common sense says that in the Cold War mentality more – either in numbers or in yield - can never satisfy those hankering after it. Even if thermo-nukes are on hand, their numbers will be then next grouse. Their delivery modes will also consume attention and resources. Mere possession incentivises arms races.

Even so, the nuclear capability continues to remain under review, depending on geopolitical developments. The US puts out a Nuclear Posture Review at every presidential term, contemporising their role by mostly reaffirming much and changing little.

For India, the altered national security circumstance in India-China relations and the materialisation of the adversarial context of a Two Front conflict is a good juncture as any to see if nukes and thermo-nukes are answers to India’s resulting strategic predicament.

A Two Front conflict

The professorial former Army Chief, General MM Naravane, outlined how the military intended to address a Two Front conflict situation. While one front would be designated the Primary front, the other would be the Secondary one. He elaborated: ““Most of our aggression will be concentrated on the primary front and we will adopt more deterrent posturing on secondary front.”

The Primary front could be taken as one in which a political decision is sought in a particular phase of the conflict, privileging it for the nation’s ‘all of government’ attention and resources, even as a holding action proceeds on the other, Secondary, front.

Two interpretations are possible.

One is that the designations – Primary and Secondary - hold through the conflict; and, second, is that these could switch between the two fronts, depending on the political aims, strategic design and operational circumstance.

In World War I, the Western front was the primary front for the Germans, while for Hitler in World War II, the Eastern front was the primary front. Hitler’s eye on Russia led to the neutralisation of the threat towards the Secondary front to the West, prior to his turning to the Primary front, Russia.

Alternatively, in the second interpretation, in World War II, for the Germans the Primary front was to the West and once that was disposed-off in 1940, the Primary front was to the East where Operation Barbarossa unfolded in 1941.

The second interpretation could be applied to the US in World War II. For them, the Pacific was the Primary front. However, the Pacific temporarily played second fiddle for the duration between the Normandy invasion and the fall of Germany, which for the duration was the Primary front. 

Between the two interpretations, a designation holding true for the duration of the Two Front conflict appears to be more likely for India.

Caught in a Two Front conflict situation, the Primary front could be the one against China or Pakistan, depending on political aims sought. While a decision is obtained on the Primary front, a holding action proceeds on the other.

A shift in strategic weight and effort from one front to the other - say, to either force a decision or gain strategic advantage or to prevent the other side from similar dividend - is possible.

An overstretched India is unlikely to be able to take out either foe. Pakistan, that can be expected to be kept afloat by co-belligerent, China – quite like the US has thrown Ukraine a lifeline in the war there – will also cock a snook at the Indian military.

Therefore, India could designate a front across either foe – flowing from political aims – as Primary front - for the first call on its resources - while keeping the second foe at bay across the Secondary front.

An example can be drawn from the 1971 War.

The Eastern front was the designated Primary front, with General KP Candeth, commanding on the Western theatre tasked to mark time initially, which he proceeded to do with the adoption of an offensive defence posture. Similar action was on part of his counterpart, General GG Bewoor, in the southern sector.

Once the conditions were set for unconditional surrender on the Eastern front, the Army proceeded with switching its strategic reserves. (One infantry unit was airlifted out of the Eastern theatre for the Western front. In the bargain, unit members received both the Poorvi Star and Paschimi Star!)

Implications for nuclear use

Given the designation - Primary or Secondary - it can be reasonably surmised that the premium on any role for nuclear weapons is less on the Secondary front than on the Primary front, though nuclear deterrence would be operational on both fronts.

Whereas India reckons nuclear weapons are for deterrence only, it may require leaning on these for compensating its conventional over-stretch. Nuclear posturing might result – through for instance signalling by their movement, manipulating the alert status and tweaking doctrine (for example by public rescinding of No First Use (NFU)) or through heightened rhetoric.

However, India shouldn’t be digging itself out of a conventional hole by nuclear resort. Nuclear asymmetry being enhanced in favour of the collusive foes, they may – taken together – command escalation dominance.

While the capability is doubled when twinned, it is unlikely the two - China and Pakistan - would collude on nuclear use. Instead, each will be wary of the other’s nuclear moves, tending each towards restraining the other.

Each is in any case capable of individually giving it back in the same coin, so does not need a leg up from the other. The independent deterrent of each is credible. While China’s is self-evidently so, the one of Pakistan has vertical proliferation, missile diversity and a better unity of command (than India’s) making for credibility.

It is with reason that the drafters of India’s draft nuclear doctrine inserted the line on necessity to keep the conventional capability honed, so that there is no compulsion to go nuclear. They of course had in mind NFU.

Even Pakistan might not require to reach for nuclear weapons by default to negate India’s conventional advantage. After India’s recent ‘rebalancing’ to the north, it might have the self-confidence to remain at the conventional level to neutralise Indian operations. It no longer needs an escalate-to-deescalate asymmetric strategy.

As for China - by all accounts - conventional asymmetry exists. It’s escalation dominance at the conventional level – Tibetan topography allowing it inner lines and a better infrastructure – prevented India from escalating the border incident into a localised, border war. China has little reason for reaching for nuclear weapons, allowing it to hold true to its No First Use (NFU) pledge.

In a Two Front situation, China would also not like Pakistan reaching for nuclear weapons either, given that their introduction into the conflict would complicate the conflict for itself immeasurably. To that extent, it might exercise influence over Pakistani military moves in favour of nuclear restraint.

Thus, while India’s two foes appear not to have any incentive for proceeding to the nuclear level, it is India that might instead be leveraging the threat of use or use of nuclear weapons – nuclear weapons being the proverbial ‘great leveller’.

How might India work nukes?

Besides advocacy for pursuing a thermonuclear capability by rekindling efficacy of warheads and delivery vectors – such as  through acquisition of strategic bombers - Karnad pitches for ditching NFU in respect of China and a shift to a ‘flexible’ doctrine. Further, he wants emplacing of atomic demolition munitions on avenues of ingress, easily identified mountain passes that tend to channelise invaders.

For the Pakistan front, Karnad has always been more sanguine, holding that a war of annihilation is not likely between ethnic cousins sharing the subcontinent. All he requires is a distancing from the imbecile massive retaliation formulation in the nuclear doctrine in favour of ‘flexible response’. The ‘response’ is since the NFU could be retained to disincentivise Pakistan from going nuclear.

By all means, Karnad’s measures for nuclear modernisation must be apace.

One such could be streamlined command and control by removal of the SFC from under a civilian adviser, the National Security Adviser (NSA). (Karnad informs of an eminent scientist sneering at the nuclear comprehension levels of an NSA. Since yet another intelligence czar has followed in the footsteps of that predecessor, arguably little has changed.) 

On the Pakistan front

Karnad’s posture in respect of Pakistan has much to commend it. Massive retaliation is indeed incredible. There are also environmental reasons to keep clear of such genocidal thinking.

However, the phrase ‘massive retaliation’ is in itself expressive of what Indian security planners seek. It reflects the ‘visceral hatred’ that General Prakash Menon, once Military Adviser in the National Security Council Secretariat - a nuclear expert to boot – informs on that exists between the national security establishments of the two States.

Contra Karnad, wars of annihilation aren’t unknown in South Asia. Take for instance the fratricidal one at Kurukshetra or the genocidal one in Kalinga.

This accentuates calls for greater circumspection in nuclear use thinking, which lends itself to a posture informed by a flexible response doctrine – as Karnad advocates but with different reasoning.  

In a Two Front circumstance in which Pakistan is across the designated Secondary front, nuclear exchanges are, firstly, avoidable, and if it does come to it, measures need to be in place prior for an early termination of these - if not of the conflict itself.

The Army’s foremost nuclear expert, General K Sundarji, had advised as much some thirty years ago. With Pakistan matching India nuke for nuke, he appears even more prescient. (Unfortunately, his sage view got eclipsed since he lay medically indisposed even as the draft nuclear doctrine was being written up.)

Thankfully, the preliminaries in the direction of his thinking are already in hand. Though relations between the two states have been estranged for long, they have had channels going even at the worst of times. This time round, their engagement has witnessed mutual friends act as midwife.

Thus, when and if nuclear clouds do get to dot the Indus-Ganga basin, there is no longer the earlier fear of implacable escalation. Just as a succession of crises have been managed, so is a nuclear crisis also amenable to a de-escalation impulse.

The rush to de-escalate will be equally ascendant in the circumstance, as much as the feared calls to hit back harder. Pre-existing channels of engagement facilitate de-escalation.

Third parties – as the traditional one, US, and new found ones, the Gulf States - are in any case available, counter-intuitively including even in a Two Front situation, China.

On the China front

Karnad believes more needs doing for deterrence credibility. That might be so if the threat from China is existential. There are no indicators of such threat.

Geopolitically, China minimally wants India to stay out of the US orbit. Maximally, it might wish for a subordinate India.

The dictum ‘intentions can change, its capabilities that matter’ is usually trotted out to show China may exercise military muscle to intimidate India. Its growing nuclear complex – seen from newly discovered tunnelled sites – is taken as evidence.

Firstly, the additional nuclear forces are not India-specific.

Secondly, it is not self-evident how going nuclear helps India ward off salami slicing or, worse, a 1962 redux.

Salami slicing is reportedly ongoing in any case, though India is a nuclear power. As for bigger territorial bites - such as of Depsang or Tawang - these will set off a conventional war. Such a war could go nuclear.

Will either side trade mainland cities for either dispute? Does face-saving – that might get enmeshed and provoke escalation - require slicing off one’s nose?

The Indian military is categorical that it can hold its own, even if more needs doing on the infrastructure and logistics front. They have comparative advantages in human resources, training and experience (though the Agniveer scheme will not inconsiderably whittle).

Critics, as Praveen Sawhney, have it that the military is prepared for the last war. Assuming Sawhney is proved right, would Indian military setbacks incentivise it going nuclear and does doing so extricate it any?

Going the Karnad route has the advantage of telling off China not to go beyond a point. Karnad’s maximalism negates escalation dominance by China, that might otherwise embolden it to be expansive in its conflict aims – take South Tibet or assist Pakistan in helping itself to the Valley.

Assuming China has ambitious aims – unseen in any previous Chinese conflict indulgence be it in Korea, in 1962, at Ussuri or against Vietnam - this is expected to deter China from, say, heading for the Chickens’ Neck or opening up the much-feared Half Front in North East. (The Manipur happenings today show how delicate that front really is.)

In other words, it is an insurance policy against the worst – but most unlikely - case.

Besides, the opportunity cost of creating such capability – that can only detract from conventional musclebuilding - the cost of leveraging such capability at a crunch is prohibitive. Self-deterrence must and should – and, very likely, shall - kick in at the juncture.

It’s difficult to countenance trade-off between the periphery and the heartland. While nationalist sentiment will be aroused, it would only be willing to suffer pain at the periphery, not in its very midst.

To be fair to Karnad, he takes care to suggest neutralisation of the Chinese advantage of proximity to Indian heartland by shifting Indian nuclear-tipped missile deployments accordingly.

However, instructive on this might be the reaction in Calcutta in World War II, and, later in 1971 in Madras, when the USS Enterprise sailed into the Indian Ocean – which General Vijay Oberoi just reminded of.

It’s better to keep the exposed Indian heartland from being tested for resilience of its nationalism. It’s been rather inflated lately, a survey registering some two-thirds believing India can whip China.

While air and missile strikes have been known to steel the nationalist instinct, much is conjectured on what nuclear strikes do to social cohesion. The migration at the onset of the Covid lockdown might have some clues.

What is certain is that the Half Front might willy-nilly become an all-consuming Primary front.

Nuclear maximalism has the advantage of being difficult to disprove. In respect of the Cold War, the argument goes that it such extreme precautions are what kept it cold. However, revisionist Cold War history has it that the Soviets did not require being deterred, since they never quite had any intention of going down that route to begin with.

China should not be built up as the villain in the Soviet mould, that then requires Cold War levels of arming to deter.

The days of colonisation long gone, there is no existential threat that requires nukes to counter. Instead, its nukes that generate an existential threat.

The border problem, amenable to a negotiated settlement, is being kept alive by both in their geopolitical face off.

A recent article in Foreign Affairs by noted India watcher – a nuclear expert himself - Ashley Tellis should gladden Chinese hearts. He says India not getting to be a US stooge anytime soon, though it will tug its coattails for any benefits, milking their mutual concerns on China.

If Ashley Tellis is right, India has no intention of joining the supposedly impending wars of global hegemony. China, even if victor would be duly whittled in such a war, making it easier to manage by an intact India.

The Indian policy for the interim is very clear in maintaining status quo on the border zone. Notwithstanding Dr. S Jaishankar’s Jai-speak and Jai-isms on YouTube, India is long reconciled that status quo ante of May 2020 is ruled out.

Consequently, there is no reason to up the nuclear ante, other than moving to flexible doctrine (in keeping with Karnad), with the NFU kept under scrutiny for revision (a step short of Karnad).

Rescinding the NFU would in itself be potent messaging. If it comes to it, First Use would per force have to steer clear of strategic use, kept restricted to preventing operational setbacks. Cities must be kept hostage.

There are absolutely no issues – including the improbable one of being reduced to a tributary by the Middle Kingdom – that require India to run the risk to its cities.

China is of itself not going down the route of city exchange(s). To hold that only thermo-nukes will deter it from doing so is to be negate deterrence value of non-thermo-nuke nukes.

China has no reason to get to that level – knowing that receiving such a strike from India would set it back in its race with the US. Vicarious learning from Russian experience for it is that should prevent India from serving as proxy for the US.

For its part, India has no reason to provoke China to such levels of anger, fear or opprobrium.

To be sure, thermo-nukes have their uses: more bang for the buck and best use of delivery vehicles getting through to the Chinese heartland of megalopolises.

The alternative of multiple warhead-carrying missiles is however available for an inventory that does not have thermo-nukes. The same number of missiles require getting through and the damage is arguably more wide spread.

Even so, no harm in testing the capability yet again to bring it up to speed, if and when opportunity as resumed testing by any of the Permanent Five presents itself.

Karnad presents no pressing reason to jump the gun for now. The moratorium on testing being unilateral is liable for a unilateral jettison.

Deterrence by punishment of the levels Karnad wishes can wait.

Not the last word

Karnad might be right and ahead of his times, but for clinching his argument he needs taking nuclear deterrence theory further.

Deterrence theory has it that nuclear weapons deter nuclear weapons. For some of the nuclear first use school, nuclear weapons deter war itself.

There is no line in deterrence theology books that reads: Only thermo-nukes deter thermo-nukes.

For now, this requires proving.

 https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/has-the-military-anything-to-do-with

Has the military anything to do in forestalling an end to India’s Democracy?

Analysing the latest shenanigan from the Hindutva stable, political philosopher Pratap Bhanu Mehta prognosticates that the Modi regime, “will not, under any circumstances, even contemplate or allow a smooth transition of power.”

He reasons: “Can you now imagine Prime Minister Narendra Modi or Amit Shah or their minions calmly contemplating the prospect that they could ever be in the Opposition, after the hubris they have deployed against opponents and critics?”

The ‘hubris’ is visible in the dismissal of a pan-India politician, Rahul Gandhi, as a representative in the lower house. This, to Mehta, is evidence inter-alia that India is under tyranny.

Given that, “(T)he hallmark of tyrants is impunity in power and therefore an existential fear of losing it,” he reckons, it is unlikely that Narendra Modi will hand over power equably, even if voted out democratically.

Modi being voted out is currently in the hypothetical realm and, therefore, a consideration of what position the military should adopt in the circumstance can only also be similarly semi-fictional.

Nevertheless, it must be done since – as Rahul Gandhi put it – Indian democracy is a ‘global public good.’ The military is meant not only to safeguard territorial integrity and political sovereignty, but preserve Constitutional values – that includes Democracy.

While the democratic system of checks and balances in the political system is normally sufficient towards this end – enabling the military to keep out of politics – Mehta is not alone in apprehending that India is not quite normal anymore.

This implies the military must give a passing thought to trends and what to do about these, beginning with double checking if Mehta is indeed on to something and what that means for the military.

Foreign Policy raises a similar question of Türkiye’s Recep Erdogan, asking, “What Happens When a Turkish President Loses an Election?” Its befuddlement shows up in its answer: “No One Knows.”

Therefore, scenario-writing - an indulgence of analysts - is valid. Not wholly vanity impelled (to be able to later say, “I told you so”), it is in keeping with the social mandate of analysts: to provide society with the possible visions of the future so that the worst ahead is avoided and the desirable, lit up.

Assessing if democracy’s demise is deterrable and what might yet preserve it, against those busy with their darndest, is a legitimate exercise in public service.

The trigger events

Mehta’s dark musings follow Rahul Gandhi’s foreign sojourn on the concluding of his promising padyatra, Bharat Jodo Yatra. In the meantime, the ruling party pulled the rug from under Gandhi’s feet, not only having him displaced from the legislature but also his official residence.

Hindutva legitimised this for the public, arguing that Gandhi went over the top when abroad in seditiously claiming the end of democracy in India. Modi’s continuing popularity instead shows democratic good health. Majoritarianism does not mean less democracy, but is merely faithful implementation of the democratic mandate.

Machinations followed: maximum sentence was pronounced by a lower court in Gujarat against Gandhi, in a long-dead case duly resurrected for the purpose. On standby, the Lok Sabha Secretariat lost no time off-loading Rahul Gandhi.

The sessions judge in review agreed with the magistrate court – only, it turned out the judge had earlier represented Amit Shah in the Tulsiram Prajapati fake encounter case.

To recall, Prajapati was witness to the killing of Sohrabuddin and his wife. The latter case culminated in the death of the Central Bureau of Investigation judge, BH Loya. Good sense prevailing, the judge who stepped in, dismissed the case within a month.

Conveniently, the judge assigned to hear Gandhi’s appeal at High Court level recused herself. The judge now fielding the appeal is former lawyer of Maya Kodnani - a political acolyte of Modi.

Kodnani was just let off by Gujarat’s judicial system on the second count of mass killings in the 2002 pogrom – the Naroda Gam killings – having been let off in 2018 for the first, the much-worse killings at Naroda Patiya.

Even if the former Kodnani lawyer – now gracing the Gujarat High Court bench – delivers a judgment allowing Gandhi to return to the legislature, the message from the ruling party is stark.

It will not brook Constitutional morality and mundane factors as political ethics, or common-place decency, to stand in its way.

Democracy, stood on its head

The logic is Chanakyan: the true test of rulership is in gaining and retaining power. Since the first duty of a king is security of the realm, welfare of the praja can wait. Retention of the throne enables welfare of the praja.

By this logic, democracy – in its modern-day definition – is a Western import from colonial times. Decolonisation involves a revert to the Vedic interpretation of democracy – when India mothered democracy. Domestication of democratic theory thus is in order.

The Hindutva concept of democracy has it that with the majority vote behind it in a first past the post system, it can do without the Basic Structure doctrine holding it up. It is only going about implementing the mandate of its voters. Majoritarianism is an allegation of losers.

Since a fourth of the voters are of the committed sort – unapologetic bhakts – the rest is a matter of social engineering, through aggregation of support by caste-based incentives. If welfarism isn’t enough - as some apprehend – there is always the rabbit of polarisation to pull out of the hat.

Finally, of course, there is always a Pulwama redux to fall back on. Despite opportunities to fix relations with Pakistan, no effort has been made – citing it remains a fount of terror. This impasse provides the plausible backdrop for a well-timed black operation.

This option might not figure this time round, since Pakistan is not without support this time round. The status quo ante not having been restored in Ladakh so far, the attitude of China at another India-Pakistan crisis cannot be foreseen with any clarity. Even so, as Manekshaw famously put it, the time to take on Pakistan is when the passes to the north are snowed in.

Bhanu is therefore right in apprehending that the regime might not walk away into the sunset even if the electoral verdict is against it. Afterall, that 63 per cent Indians have not chosen it does not stop it from going about reprogramming India – Constitutional propriety be damned.

The regime’s not playing to lose

The regime has its usual strengths to fall back on, foremost being information warfare techniques marshalled for perception management, to manipulate the information to prevent the electorate from a reasoned choice.

The props to this end have already been set in motion – the brouhaha around the G20 and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summits in the year and the Ayodhya temple inauguration advanced to autumn.

Calling early elections is another card to ride the momentum – lest the opposition gets to capitalise on indicators from an economy long downhill or gains time for a modicum of unity.

Just shy of a centenary of the mothership, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Hindutva is not about to rest on its oars nor let go of the rudder.

That the Executive had hijacked the Legislature is clear from Rahul Gandhi’s eviction, as part of stage setting for the national elections next year.

That leaves the Judiciary for working the democratic system of checks and balances.

The Judiciary has been in an existential struggle over the collegium issue. It has not been above mutual back scratching, for instance, studiously keeping off the challenge to the regime’s diminution of Article 370.

In any case, just as one swallow does not a summer make. Having an enlightened Chief Justice may not prove enough. The likes of Sathasivam, Gogoi and Nazeer also grace that exalted bench.

The last line of defence is obviously, “We, The People”.

The Israelis have over recent months stumped their would-be dictator, Benjamin Netanyahu, forcing him to scuttle his ‘reform’ of the judiciary. Can this be mirrored in India?

Would Indians stand up against an illegitimate – if not illegal - appropriation of the vote, precursor for onset of a Hindu Rashtra?

An editorial in The Guardian warns, “Hindu nationalism in India is writing an epitaph for the country’s experiment with multi-ethnic secular democracy.” But, “Modi’s bet is that a single Hindu identity can transcend Indian society’s faultlines of religion, caste, region and language.”

Modi has sensibly postponed the delivery of his economic claims to 2047, promising in the interim of Hindutva as palliative. But does he have the buy-in of majority Indians on Hindutva?

Many believe ends justify the means, so, democratic niceties - such as respecting electoral results - must not be allowed to keep from wholesale ushering in of Hindutva. 

Deterrence can’t work

Modi reputedly cut his political teeth as participant in the agitation that occasioned Emergency and found his political feet in the agitating against it. Therefore, he also best knows how to deter, detract from and defuse such an agitation.

Hindutva has been mindful to penetrate into all corners of India prior to its final push. The RSS is hydra-like and has country-wide tentacles. It has the capacity to drum up support for, or, if necessary, obscure reality. The ruling party too has made inroads into areas hitherto thought immune, such as the North East.

The State itself has by now been sufficiently captured to do Hindutva’s bidding. Its agencies have set upon the opposition – both political and non-governmental – with an alacrity becoming in guard dogs.

Where there is potential of a staunch resistance to the Hindutva agenda – as in the Dravid South, Kerala, Punjab or in Bengal – dogs of war have been let loose.

The Kerala Files is out to undo Keralite solidarity, while Amritpal Singh was conjured up to Khalistan days. Tamil Nadu, being on the geographical periphery could be marginalised as a hotbed of dissent. As for Bengal, engineered ethnic violence could unsteady Mamta Banerjee’s hand.

The Ram Navmi and Hanuman Jayanti processions, cow vigilante vigil across the Gangetic belt and the anti-love jihad campaigns in Maharashtra have demonstrated Hindutva ability to drum up mobs, making genocidal calls by saffronite busybodies entirely believable.  

My middle-class neighbourhood of gated communities annually witnesses an unnerving walkabout by khaki knicker-walas on Vijaya Dashmi.

The one-sided violence in North East Delhi, and the turn to a Dozer Raaj across north India pre-emptively defuse backlash from by-now unlikely quarters – Muslim ghettos. The legal hounding of Muslim mobilisers serves to scare the rest.

The liberals are simply too few. Their periodic open letters to the prime minister have a dual purpose: helps them keep a clean conscience, while washing their hands clean. Writing for themselves at the crunch they are unlikely to want to endanger the economy for righting democracy. When confronted with the reality of Hindutva, they will step up to align the King with the dharma.

To discern potential of a peoples’ movement, there is only the farmer’s agitation to fall back on. It got Modi to step back, though Modi is unaccustomed to backtracking - evident from the head of a sporting federation hanging on despite the sit-in by wrestlers at Jantar Mantar and the Supreme Court’s adverse view on police inaction.

But the farmers were prompted by an existential threat to livelihoods. Can a threat to the Constitution loom similarly threatening for a similar demographic?

No class, caste or ethnic group or a combination readily comes to mind that could take up cudgels against Constitutional reengineering by Hindutva. Nor can a coalition from diverse backgrounds be forged against the deterring and proactive scuttling action of the Hindutva-run State and that of its ‘cultural’, covertly-political ally, the RSS.

In other words, there is little discernible prospect of an Indian Spring. After 10 years of Modi, to expect Indians taking to the streets, as the Middle Class did for self-interested reasons in the anti-corruption agitation towards the end of Manmohan Singh’s 10 years, is wishful.

Even if 2024 does not prove a bye, should Modi cheat or not go away, he will likely have a walkover.

The Scenario

Firstly, the outcome will be kept shrouded. The information management machinery of the regime will touch high gear to tout a clean chit given of the Election Commission, a “collapsed star” compared with Seshan’s Commission. The regime will credit itself with a win, making it impossible to prove otherwise.

Secondly, the majoritarian strain of democracy will be touted. The regime will swing into the next set of tamashas – the observance of the centenary of the RSS – ensuring that the palimpsest of national life does not register anything amiss.

Thirdly, the Courts will be ‘seized of the matter’, taking their usual time to come get to it. The matter ‘being sub judice’ will allow time to the regime to get on with an India reset - Chief Justice Chandrachud having retired by end 2024.

Fourthly, Modi could turn on his histrionic skills and fabled oratory - seen first at his asking for time to settle things down after demonetisation and when he called off the farm laws.

On the security front, the suppressive might of the State will fulfil the prediction of a wit on the Kashmirisation of rest of India. For sure, it won’t be required in the Gangetic belt.

A diversionary threat from Muslims will be trotted out. Clubbed with an external crisis with Pakistan, it will be easier sold.

India is past-master at black operations, so a crisis is on call. India also has considerable skill in managing crises, ensuring one does not boil over – witness Balakot and Ladakh.  

Even the China front is handy for a crisis, since a tough foe would compel greater coherence within and allowing for greater enforcement leeway. The Chinese – aware by now of Modi’s Pavlovian use of foreign and security policy for his domestic purposes – shall play along. A democratic India as foe is less preferable for China, standing as India would be for an alternative model to progress in an increasingly China-centric world.

What’s the military got to do with it?

The famously apolitical military will find itself in an unprecedented situation.

Staying apolitical under the circumstance will be political, since it would suit Hindutva purposes ideally.

The military leadership could rely on tradition to point out that there has been no military interference in politics for two millennia, when the last coup ended the Mauryan dynasty.

The regime however will have to run the risk from their glorification of Netaji Subhash Bose’s Indian National Army. Revisionist history has it that rather than the non-violent freedom struggle, it’s the Naval mutiny in Bombay and another at Jubbulpore that convinced the British to pack up and leave.

These instances show the military can take a political view, the circumstance justifying it.

In a circumstance of a pilfered national election, the military’s adoption of a political view is not infeasible, illegitimate or unimaginable.

What should a military do?

The experience of peer militaries is instructive. There is the precedent of Turkish military attempting to dissuade Erdogan from going down an Islamist and dictatorial path. There is the Egyptian military displacing Morsi and, earlier, of the Algerian military risking civil war to take down Islamists. Recently, a stir among Israeli reservists forced the defence minister there to demur, compelling Netanyahu to back off from twiddling with what remains of Israeli democracy. A study of what General Mark Milley coped with during the time of the Trump turnover at the White House might throw up some guidance.

While instructive, the Indian context cannot be elided.

While deterrence of such a denouement is best, it is not about to happen. Only recently, the deep-selected Chief of Defence Staff was discoursing on how well India’s economy is doing, though it escapes the mind how this is part of his mandate.

The military has been rendered sufficiently inert. In anticipation of an electoral heist, it has already been sent up to high altitude and, at the crunch, will have a crisis going to keep it busy.

Agnipath has been foisted on it to keep it inflexible to the chain of command. Agniveers, who have come of age in the Modi era, duly conditioned by a 100 Mann ki Baats, would be nonplussed if Modi is shown in poor light.

Sensibly, the Agnipath scheme has not extended to the paramilitary or central police under Amit Shah’s ministry. So, if the Army were to get it wrong, it can be stumped. A trooper stationed every 10 yards at 7, Lok Kalyan Marg, is not meant against a sneaky terror attack, but a frontal one that only a military could mount.

If the military is unable to deter, it is not the remedy either.

The example of General ‘Tappy’ Raina is useful. A Kashmiri Pandit he was positioned as Army Chief by ethnic fellow, Indira Gandhi, in anticipation of calls such as from Jaiprakash Narayan. In the event, he proved impervious to enticement from both quarters and Emergency met with a sorry end.

The military must plough a lonely furrow

Remaining true to the professional salt at the juncture, will ensure the political system – political parties, democracy’s four ‘pillars’, State institutions and societal - relies on its own resources to undo any damage to it.

The military will cauterise itself from any adverse fallout, besides being true to the dictum: ‘do no harm’.

If the system rights itself, it will get more resilient. If it does not, it will settle into the new normal – a Hindu Rashtra.

The military must ensure transit to either outcome without compromise in national security. Its not for a military to decide on the complexion of the State, but to remain at hand to defend it.

Democracy is a desirable virtue. India will eventually settle into an Indian version of it, post Modi. As for a dictatorial tendency, its longevity coterminous with Narendra Modi, it can be endured.

The military need only step up if Hindutva itself endangers national security any more than it is already, by steamrolling a reluctant nation along a path it is manifestly set against. That will be a truer cue for the military, not the preparatory phase in which Hindutva dips into its bag of dirty tricks.