A national security doctrine in one word: ‘Revenge’

https://m.thewire.in/article/government/india-now-has-a-national-security-doctrine-revenge

https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/a-national-security-doctrine-in-one?r=i1fws

Speaking at a youth summit in Delhi, National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval called on his young listeners to nurse revenge as part of their mindset. His address was timed with his boss, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, turning up playing the damru at the millenary commemorative function of the raid on Somnath temple.

Another introductory dot that needs connecting is the hype around Vande Mataram, at the 150^th anniversary of its composition. That the song was later inserted into the Anandamath, that called for revenge against the then - Muslim - rulers in Bengal. That revenge is the flavor of the season is clear from the selfie-points at the book fair in Delhi with Modi’s cut-out handing out the book. Vande Mataram is also theme of this year’s Republic Day parade cultural flotillas.

That the NSA elevates revenge as guiding light for youth implies that he also holds the sentiment in tight embrace. Surely, it impacts his mandate of input to national security policy. Operation (Op) Sindoor has been described as a retaliatory or retributive action, showing the influence of revenge as an ideological lodestar on national security.

To be sure, retribution has a place in strategic repertoire. It is mainstay of the doctrine of ‘deterrence by punishment,’ which has it that any uncalled-for maneuver by an adversary will be met with a firm response, the surety of which is expected to deter. Op Sindoor instilled such confidence that deterrence by punishment is now explicitly India’s strategic doctrine – against Pakistan at any rate.

The caveat is that since the national security doctrine is a differentiated one – against a stronger and a weaker adversary – it is such only against the weaker one, Pakistan. Against China, it is deterrence by denial, with India presenting the certainty of a prickly response in case of Chinese incursions.

India now has a national security doctrine with ‘revenge’ as leitmotif. Does an instinct for revenge secure India? Here I probe three national security concerns – Pakistan, Kashmir and internal security - to see if this is indeed the case.

Against Pakistan

India disregards President Trump’s repeated boast that the United States’ good offices had anything to do with the pause in operations. To India, Pakistan’s chief of operations was brought to the phone by a combination of messages sent in Op Sindoor. While the air force through its last salvo indicated an ability to interdict any Pakistani upping of the ante, the army postured on land and the navy at sea in such a manner as to pose an unmanageable threat.

What was in the works for the last quarter-century has now been officially adopted in the Pakistan-specific strategic doctrine. Not only was a military doctrine – colloquially called cold start – in place, but earlier ‘surgical strikes’ had taken it a step further, from articulation to practice.

The danger is in learning cultural lessons from Op Sindoor: that revenge works. Now on, since India has owned up to a strategic doctrine, it would be held to it. Deterrence dissipates if there is no follow through on what’s promised. In such a case, it shouldn’t find itself instead hoisted by its own petard.

Revenge is not necessarily an unreasonable response for a prior wrong by the other side. However, in the case of India-Pakistan equations, the hand of intelligence actors and non-state actors on both sides stretches as far back as Partition. Consequently, what came first – the egg or the hen – can only remain uncertain. Such a doctrine can also set the stage for a covert black-flag operation to serve as trigger for a premeditated launch of war.

Getting even can also go quite wrong. In Op Sindoor 2, if the Pakistanis hold out for longer, India would require to unleash its coiled fist, referred to by the army chief in the traditional Army Day self-congratulatory press conference. It does not make much sense to rely on the good sense of someone like then-General Asim Munir.

Now it’s a field marshal we have to deal with. He as the newly-minted chief of defence force (CDF) heads the nuclear force, freshly combined and conveniently placed under him. Pakistan has also given itself a rocket force, while we are step behind. The CDF is an empowered chief of defence staff, a matter we have not come around to discussing as the slovenly debate on theaterisation is yet to get there. Op Sindoor has evidently provoked Pakistan down a route that can only prove more lethal.

If General Vij’s perspective (he is as close as it gets to the regime, having headed Doval’s think tank) in his latest book is to be taken at face value (p. 141), theaterisation may end up involving four levels of headquarters for tackling Pakistan – the CDS’, the services’, the integrated theater command and the respective service commands. In contrast, Pakistan will have Pindi with hardliner, if not quite jihadist, Munir, in charge.

India’s revenge doctrine will rely on Munir – till 2030 for now – to take the hint and back off. If Munir does not, then India expects to use its new-fangled Rudras and Bhairaavs. As next step, India would be constrained to up the ante, which means using more persuasive military force on hand. Such progression is inevitable if longer wars are ruled-in. Recall too, for once even PM Modi faced a backlash for calling off Op Sindoor, and that too from his own constituency.

The step up from deterrence by punishment to compellence might prove a short and swift one. Doval says the point of war is to get the other side to concur with our will i.e., compellence. This would bring up the nuclear factor unmistakably.

If General Vij’s book is anything to go by – and there are no other pointers since there is an across-the-board clamp-down on nuclear related articulation – the usual nuclear nonsense prevails that India can survive a nuclear exchange while Pakistan cannot. However, Vij – perhaps for the first time for an Indian - also admits that a situation of mutual assured destruction prevails in South Asia, admitting to Pakistan having a second-strike capability (p. 126). It is incomprehensible how acknowledging this does not lead to precluding massive retaliation the only option. The revenge doctrine – implicit in the nuclear doctrine of ‘massive’ retaliation - might kick in at absolutely the wrong moment.

The problem with Doval as NSA is that his proximity to the seat of power and an inflated reputation conspires towards reticence in interlocutors to speak truth to power. Therefore, the dangers of the new-found strategic doctrine will unlikely find resonance where it should.

In Kashmir

That revenge is at the heart of Indian security thinking is clearer in the regime’s Kashmir policy. Reputedly, Doval has been central to security thinking on Kashmir all through the troubles. Prior to their outbreak he was our intelligence hand within Pakistan, presumably seething to give it back to the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence.

Peace possibilities over the years were spiked by hawks on both sides, with Doval in retirement as the doyen on this side. Retrospect suggests that the outreach early in the Modi years was a cosmetic exercise to allow an alibi for the regime to switch to what it wished to all along: be tough with Pakistan and its internal proxies within Kashmir. This collapsing of the internal and external foes into one explains the dragnet continuing.

No measures are in place to assure a dignified return of displaced Kashmiri Pandits. Their displacement is a plausible reason – if perversely so - for vengeance; along with perhaps a constituency aligned with Pakistan. Kashmir continues to simmer despite the ministrations of Kashmir-cum-terrorism expert Doval. It also remains vulnerable sans a government of empowered indigenes. It is potentially open to further indignities. These by keep it simmering complete the circle by legitimating a heavy hand.

The results are already apparent. ‘White collar’ terror has made an advent. Of those neutralized in operations last year, over a third are locals. That India did not go to war on the latest terror instance in Delhi indicates India is sensitive to limitations of a default doctrine of revenge. Its preferred option a trifle unusable, dangers mount when an intelligence game continues across borders.

In internal security

Since Doval was goading on a civilian audience, he cannot but have been privy to effect of revenge already wrought across the land, be it against Muslims or, more recently, Christians. Doval twice-over mentions ‘our temples’ being demolished, while underlining ‘our’ contrasting peaceable instincts. Doval compounded his provocation by alluding to the Jewish intent to never allow succeeding generations to forget their ‘promised land.’ Does he need reminding that a recently-witnessed genocide is the result of such kind of myth-making? Or is this a cryptic reference to an akhand bharat?

Not taking cudgels on his historical understanding, but surely Doval knows the benefits of polarization resulting from such thinking for his political masters. If he speaks from conviction, it raises issues of conflict of interest: is he leveraging his political utility for longevity in office? He makes it easy to avoid a charge of ageism when calling him out as but another WhatsApp uncle.

Doval could have defined revenge as a dish eaten cold, as satisfaction from seeing adversaries look down, shamed by India outdistancing them in progress. But there is no reason to put words into Doval’s mouth. He knew what he was doing: to divert youth – who’ve may take the wrong cues from their neighbouring Gen ‘Z’ cohorts – from the twinned economic and democratic backslide at home. Doval – in competition with Amit Shah for the title of Chanakya – has the omnibus national security rationale to practice the fine art of displacement.

The key national security outcome of Doval’s speech is in the creation of an anarchical environment within, with the State liable to lose the monopoly of violence to right-wing hordes. Doval, the longest serving NSA in his legacy term, will not be around to right things. From the looks of things, nor indeed will be the last bastion, the army, if a recent unedifying scrummage by constitutional functionaries and their hangers-on - who will rule in a world without a Doval - is anything to go by.

At last, at least we have it

A rather condensed one, but India now has a national security doctrine: revenge. The problem with this doctrine is that it does not provide for resolution, but only band-aids with an ever-shortening expiry date. Indeed, it precludes search for common space and lost ground. Doval has delivered a perfect fit for a majoritarian philosophy.

But what it sets up is the potential for India to be waylaid by war. Deterrence by punishment has the underside of projecting a ‘bring it on’ posture. Being overly reliant on the good sense – a suspect commodity at the best of times – of the other side is not fail-safe. In a nuclearized space, it could fail-deadly.

https://m.thewire.in/article/film/ikkis-no-age-to-die

https://www.thecitizen.in/opinion/too-young-to-die-1238181

 https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/ikkis-no-age-to-die?r=i1fws

Ikkis: No age to die

Two very different army officers - a generation apart - performed acts of extreme courage for which each was recognized by a grateful nation with its highest gallantry award, Param Vir Chakra (PVC). A recent movie, Ikkis, recounts the life of one of the two, Second Lieutenant Arun Khetarpal, PVC (Posthumous). The other is Captain Manoj Kumar Pandey, PVC (Posthumous), with a story awaiting a screenplay. Both came up with the same answer to their respective combat predicaments – the ultimate in leadership.

While Manoj cleared enemy sangars off rocky heights of the Khalubar ridge in the Kargil sector; Arun joining battle in the Basantar bridgehead, knocked off enemy tanks wielding the still-functioning main gun of his tank, itself earlier disabled by a direct hit. The fierceness of the battles raging around them is clear from Kargil throwing up four PVC brave-hearts, including Vikram “Dil Mange More” Batra; and the Basantar sector, two - the other being the doughty grenadier, Hoshiar Singh.

The leadership puzzle

The intriguing part is though the two subalterns were superficially quite unlike each other, their courage suggests that deep down they were kindred souls. The dissimilarities in their background and personalities makes it difficult to catch what is the essence of such endeavour, something if captured could help the military inoculate all its junior leaders with.

Manoj, short and wiry, had his highpoint of his cadet days in striding up as team captain to collect the cross-country trophy – perhaps the most prestigious of academy trophies - at the National Defence Academy’s (NDA) famed glider dome. Not from a well-off family, he was likely irrepressibly unshod as a child. So, when the runners lined up for the start gun to go off, he would have his shoes on; but just after the start, he’d kick them off to run the rest of the rugged route - and win - barefoot.

Ikkis shows Arun similarly engaged in his last term. In the movie, he is depicted sounding a trumpet to gather his course-mates around him. He goes on to inspire them for a like collective effort, in his case, to move the squadron up from its long-held ranking at the bottom of the championship table. Over the term, they uncharacteristically top the table. He played a crucial role in the makeover, netting the drill competition – taken as the second most significant trophy since it has mass participation quite like cross-country - with the squadron marching to his word-of-command as squadron cadet captain (SCC).

Very alike in deed, yet the two were somewhat dissimilar in getup. While Manoj was the son of a small shopkeeper, Arun’s father was an army brigadier from the engineer corps. Manoj went to a sainik school, while Arun attended a public school. Arun was quite a swashbuckler – proficient at the saxophone and having a romantic interest at his elbow to boot. In contrast, Manoj was unassuming and - in a course-mate’s words - ‘happy-go-lucky, never hassled and always smiling.’ They were similar in one aspect: Arun was highly duty conscious and Manoj, focused.

Manoj had the advantage of having spent some time with his troops up at the highest battlefield, Siachen, prior to the outbreak of the Kargil War, allowing both – his Gorkhas and he - to get to understand each other deeply. In contrast, Arun, pitchforked into the 1971 War just six months out of the Indian Military Academy (IMA). He had to win the die-hard respect of his tank buddies doubly-quick.

Arun’s story

Ikkis shows Arun grow up the hard way, without the benefit of the combat-arm basic course. Finding the dates coincided with an upcoming war, tear-eyed Arun asked his reputed commanding officer Lieutenant Colonel Hanut Singh to be taken off it. Hanut placed Risaldar Sagat Singh Rathore as his instructor to in-house mould him and another just-commissioned officer. Rathore transformed the two into junior leaders befitting the over two-centuries old, “Fakhr-e-Hind” Poona Horse. Sadly, both fell to enemy action in separate engagements.

Ikkis traces Arun’s leadership journey, much of which amounted to learning after a fall. The most significant episode has Arun at attention in front of his squadron commander (squaddie) at NDA. Taking his duties as SCC rather to heart, he was there to report a course-mate for wrong-doing. He fails to take the squaddie’s offer of an off-ramp, when the major hints that complaining of a course-mate amounts to ratting on a colleague, afoul of the academy culture of course-spirit. Apparently, he had earlier warned the wrongdoer, but recurrence led up to this. Even so, the very act of standing up for the ‘harder right’ – as the NDA prayer goes – shows moral courage. The movie goes on to reveal his girl-friend goading him to do the right thing, pushing him to realise that he’d gone overboard, particularly since his friend ends up losing a term. His apology settling the matter shows Arun taking responsibility for his actions.

That he was inspired by a sense of duty is clear when at the IMA, he distances himself from his sweet-heart, reasoning that his taking french-leave to see her on discovery resulted in his being taken off the Sword of Honour shortlist. He argues that he would not like to be distracted from becoming worthy of his forthcoming pips. Towards the end of the film, when the war is drawing to a close, Arun is seen writing a forces’ letter to patch up with her. In the event, the girl in time became an army doctor, sending a cake to Arun’s parents on his birthday every year.

Ikkis does not romanticize Arun. The movie lightly touches on his distaste for boxing, with Arun reporting sick rather than getting into the ring in his weight category. If it was fright, it only humanizes Arun, reminding the viewer that he as a cadet on a learning curve was but a teenager.

In the regimental mess, Arun vows to bring home to the regiment a second PVC, the first having been notched up by its legendary commanding officer, Ardeshir Tarapore, in the 1965 War. Tarapore, commissioned in the Hyderabad Infantry unit (which incidentally was commanded by this writer’s grandfather) had been granted a transfer from infantry to cavalry after his showing physical bravery. On the firing range, he saved his detail from a grenade accident. His moral courage was evident from his taking on the British commanding officer of his next regiment to task for racist remarks. Such was the quality of officership in Poona Horse, which Arun was raring to measure up to. However, he was denied an opportunity of a skirmish almost right through the war, maturely held in reserve by his CO.

His last moments are epic, and there is no better narration of this than that of the Pakistani tank commander opposing him in battle. Though Pakistan surrendered in East Pakistan, the war went on a day longer on the western front. During those last hours, the regiment had firmed-up the bridgehead across Basantar river, but was being furiously contested in successive counter-attacks by the Pakistanis. A Pakistani regiment, 13 Lancers - ironically the pre-Partition ‘sister’ regiment of the Poona Horse - led the charge. Arun’s troop sprang to the fore as reinforcements. They overran the perimeter of the bridgehead in pursuit of the Pakistanis after one bout. Reforming, the Pakistanis returned for another go, with the squadron commander, Major Nissar, in the lead. The final scene has Arun fending off the Pakistanis in defiance of orders and standard procedures to abandon a burning - and disabled - tank. His last round puts the Pakistani commander’s Patton out of action. With Major Nissar surviving the exchange, history gets a live, unbiased witness.

The other part of Ikkis has interspersed scenes from a later time, when Arun’s father, Brigadier Khetarpal, visits Pakistan in a period of relative bonhomie between the two countries, when Track II dialogues seeking rapprochement were on. The brigadier had migrated from across during Partition and wished to visit his village. Major Nissar - who had since retired as a brigadier himself - volunteered to host the visiting Indian. Coincidentally, Khetarpal’s village was near the scene of Arun’s last battle. In a poignant scene, his host Nissar paints the tactical picture of his son’s first and last battle. Khetarpal absorbs the sad narration with sobriety and not a bit of rancor.

The message

The director does well to fire his anti-war message from the shoulders of one of India’s most senior and respected actors, late Dharmendra, who assayed his final celluloid role as Khetarpal just before his recent demise. The times required the dual message on the futility of war and of war between neighbours - if not brothers. On the face of it, a simply-told tale of valour hardly balances jingoistic films, especially one currently demolishing earlier records of audience attendance. Sensibly, that the movie does not attempt to match such movies in publicity, budgets, technical wizardy and noise is itself a resounding refutation of the narrative of eternal enmity sought by propaganda masquerading as film. Fearing the message will strike a chord, the regime’s minders have forced an insertion at the end, helpfully from its perspective, reminding film goers that the neighbor is not to be trusted.

For the military, the leadership puzzle is set to remain. That such human material obtains in every strata of society is altogether a good thing, and must be tapped. The military has traditional means to shape this putty for its moment. Arun would have been 75 today, and Manoj 50. Across time, both appear to caution against a leadership model new Bharat seems to be harking after: a loud-mouthed and rabble-rousing one that takes enemies as having mascara-filled or ‘small’ eyes. Ikkis’s story of a 21 years-old, makes clear that the warrior dharma has no place for hate.