https://www.newsclick.in/Troubling-Long-term-Implications-India-Response-Ladakh
The long-term
implications of India’s do-nothing response in Ladakh
Late last
month and just prior to the two rounds of talks at ministerial level,
successively between the two defence ministers and the foreign ministers
respectively early this month, the Indian military occupied the heights along
the Line of Actual Control (LAC) to the south of Pangong Tso in Ladakh. Though
advertised then as a preemptive maneuver designed to prevent an additional
Chinese grab of territory on the Indian side of the LAC, the remarkable
military feat was meant to signal to the Chinese Indian resolve, thereby
strengthening the hands of the ministers when at the table with their Chinese
counterparts.
In the
event, the two rounds of talks fizzled out and the Indian military is left high
and dry on the heights. The talks at the foreign minister level merely froze
the status quo and set the stage for corps commander talks, which the foreign
ministry later clarified were to set the initial conditions for de-escalation. Notwithstanding
their marathon length, the corps commander level talks threw up an agreement
not to send in more forces to the frontlines in the interim, while further
talks would tackle disengagement and de-escalation.
Meanwhile
India is preparing to logistically sustain troops up on the heights through the
upcoming winter, in addition to the additional forces sent in over the summer.
While a gross burden on the national exchequer, otherwise reeling from the twin blows of a
laggard economy and COVID-19, and the defence budget that has seen a dip over
the past six years, this is also an enormous military logistical challenge.
Its social
and psychological impact on troops at those altitudes will only known in
retrospect. For now, the portents are in media reports of Chinese soldiers
being observed evacuating their comrades from frontlines on stretchers. However,
schadenfraude is no way to evaluate the good sense behind or success of a
military operation.
The
assumption behind the operation of occupying the heights south of Pangong Tso
appears to have been to fix the Chinese in place, in face of Indian numbers in
close proximity and overlooking their defences. This, it was perhaps assumed,
would force the Chinese into concessions on the table, either at the
ministerial level or at the follow on military talks, since the Chinese would
not measure up to a long haul.
The
assumption has it that Indian troops were no strangers to mountain warfare,
were long serving volunteers who have had a high altitude tenure behind them
and have had long experience in enduring on mountains in Siachen and in Kargil.
On the contrary, the Chinese were supposedly conscripts, for whom the rigour of
the mountains were unknown. Therefore, the Chinese would have to choose between
staying put or making concessions in terms of agreeing to disengage and
de-escalate, if not revert to status quo ante.
This explanation
for India’s action gains strength in light of the other competing explanation
for the operation of securing the heights, of preempting the Chinese from
another territory grab, being implausible. The Chinese would not have waited
four months if they had any interest in occupying those features. It is
possible that the features in themselves were of increasing interest to the
Chinese in face the steady build up of Indian troops in Ladakh, but precisely
because the Indians had built up, it is unlikely that the Chinese would have
made a late grab for those heights since Indians were at hand and fired up,
making escalation likely, if not inevitable, and thereby precluding Chinese
action.
Satiated
Chinese, with an upper hand in the northern end of the confrontation line, at
the Depsang plains where they posed a threat to the Indian outpost at Daulat
Beg Oldie and having pocketed the north bank of the Pangong Tso, were unlikely
to have been pondering the south of the Pangong Tso. Indian information operations
accompanying the military operations are therefore just that, a perception
management exercise to sell the military operation as an Indian fight back. No
wonder some in the (‘godi’) media described the action of securing the features
as their capture, little realizing there is a difference between the two
military operations.
Seemingly contrary
to Indian expectations, the Chinese appear to be firming in, digging in fiber
optic cables for communication with their frontline troops. By all accounts
their logistics chain is holding and does not appear stretched since they have
the advantage of an easier terrain configuration on their side of the LAC on
the Tibetan plateau.
Thus, the
burden is on the Indian side of logistically measuring up to the consequence of
their maneuver to being with and more importantly working out through talks a
way to get off the first step already taken in the ‘LCisation’ of the LAC, a
reference to the manner the LAC appears to be resembling the Line of Control
(LC) – the militarily active line India shares with Pakistan in Jammu and
Kashmir - in terms of troop deployment, alert and activity.
But for
firing across it and the laying of mines and perhaps the density of deployment,
since the LC also contends with militant infiltration from the Pakistani side,
there is a certain avoidable resemblance developing between the two lines.
Indian forces deployed have been allowed to fire in self-defence, a lesson
learnt from Colonel Santosh Babu’s patrol that went horribly wrong. That a
threat of mines exists in the only other casualty, other than Galwan, being the
Special Frontier Force Tibetan trooper who accidentally stepped on a 1962
vintage mine.
While the
deployment has advantages in projecting the army as doing something in face of
the loss of some 1000 square kilometers of territory to the Chinese grab
action, the continuing stand-off has long term adverse implications that ought
to have precluded India’s choice of mirror deployment, and the resulting
securing of heights, as the answer to Chinese military action since April.
India had
two choices. One was to take appropriate offensive action such as a counter
grab or localized eviction. The other was the choice made, that of seeing the
Chinese off through talks. The latter choice has by now been revealed for its
vacuity. As for the first choice, the lack of Indian offensive action suggests
a strategic deficit, an inability to take military action for fear of
escalation. This is not the first instance that the government, though voluble
on it being strong on defence, has been pusillanimous.
The surgical
strikes have only flattered to deceive, for in both cases India was quick off
the blocks, even when faced with a weaker opponent, Pakistan, to signal
de-escalation. In the second, aerial surgical strike, it satisfied itself with
the perception management exercise that it had shot down an F-16, even in face
of evidence to the contrary.
Therefore,
the Indian military, though eminently configured by mid-year for taking the
fight to the Chinese, were unable to do so and had to settle for a tactically
impressive, but operationally tame securing of features. Even this military
move alerted the Chinese to its soft underbelly to the south of Pangong Tso,
explaining the Chinese attempts to strengthen it, which the Indians presented
as evidence of Chinese ill intent in the sector that in turn prompted Indian’s
to dig in. In short, the India’s relatively mundane action was pumped up to
mean more than warranted for political reasons, to compensate for lack of
offensive Indian action in face of loss of territory.
Offensive
military options being non-starters has left India with little else than
persist with the deployment, justifying it as a means to soften and tire out
the Chinese. Since India has earlier demonstrated capacity at Siachen by
deploying a brigade and at Kargil where it firmed in with a division and in
Arunachal with the deployment of two additional divisions, that it will succeed
in Ladakh is moot. Questionable instead is whether this particular military
option, touted as mirror deployment, was at all necessary, given that China had
already digested what it had set out to.
Militarily,
the Indian army is thus beset with another manpower guzzling operational
engagement of indefinite duration. This will eat up any budget increases for
modernization, increasing the gap with the Chinese military. It will also lose
India the edge that it could bring to bear on the Pakistan front, diluting its
deterrence on that front. As for a two front capability under the circumstance
it is now but a good idea best pended. Already, ideas are being aired on
reconfiguration of Pakistan centric, unused and unusable armour heavy forces. Even
the army’s Kashmir engagement may see a progressively increased presence of the
police and paramilitary on the cutting edge of counter insurgency, thereby also
heightening the suppressive template there.
Politically,
the right wing regime is not averse to the situation since it staved off
scrutiny over its inaction on the loss of Indian territory. It has effectively
passed the buck to the military, which through its actions south of Pangong Tso
appears to have won the perception battle for it. In a way the relative
inaction, or lack of exercise of offensive options, has proven wise in that it
has avoided a possible military loss that would have put paid to its assiduously
cultivated muscular image. As it goes into the last stretch of the Bihar
election campaign and gains momentum for the election battle in Bengal
thereafter, the Ladakh episode is timely on a backburner.
More
importantly, since this is a long term engagement, the military is thus kept to
the professional till with border management responsibility. This must be seen
in relation to the manner the regime has approached other institutions,
hollowing these out to the point of their losing any efficacy in a democratic
system of checks and balances. The army will thus be out of the way, neutered
and marginalized with a border guarding mandate. This is only superficially unexceptionable.
While no doubt an apolitical military is best in a democracy, the question of
its role when democracy is itself being progressively dismantled is moot. Under
such a circumstance, its two front engagement will keep from any innovative
answer to this question.
