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Book Review

Vijay Singh, POW 1971: A Soldier’s account of the Heroic Battle of Daruchhian, New Delhi: Speaking Tiger Books, 2021, Page 236, Rs. 699/-, ISBN 978-93-5447-011-0

There are three special things about this book, the last two of which are interconnected. To begin with the first: its description of a battle for Daruchhian between its well-entrenched Pakistani defenders and an Indian infantry battalion of the Grenadier Regiment. Daruchhian is a hill feature across from Poonch on the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir side of the Ceasefire Line – as the Line of Control (LC) was termed then. Since Daruchhian, by virtue of its location posed a threat for the defences at Poonch, the Indian army decided to take it over to secure Poonch better. The Pakistanis, equally convinced of the importance of Daruchhian to their plans, were determined to put up a fight for the hill. This led to one of the fierce battles of the 1971 War.

Whereas the 1971 War is known more for what happened on the eastern front, arguably the more fierce encounters between the two sides were fought on the western front. The Pakistanis, defending their mainland as against their colony, East Pakistan, gave a better account of themselves on the western front. They had also promised the East Pakistan defenders that the defence of East Pakistan lay in West Pakistan and therefore were more prepared on the western front. For its part, the Indian army had been directed to merely force the Pakistanis on the back foot on the western front, lest Pakistanis send in troop reinforcements to help their beleaguered uniformed brethren in East Pakistan. Therefore, in a way, the Pakistanis had the upper hand psychologically to begin with, with the Indians fighting with a limited purpose and the Pakistani putting up what to them may have appeared an existential fight. This partially accounts for the stalemate on the western front, which - of course - in no way detracts, from the blood and moral treasure that the frontline troops expended in gaining their objectives.

The battle of Daruchhian was one such battle in which fully motivated Pakistani soldiers expectantly awaited an Indian attack and when it did materialize, gave a fearsome reply. The Indian tactical level attack ended up a relative failure, though the Grenadiers compensated with gumption for the lapses in tactical planning and leadership that were revealed as the plan for capture of Daruchhian went awry. The book excels in its first part, dissecting what fell apart, with an unvarnished search for the truth. The details are of interest to men in uniform, especially the younger lot. No doubt, though 50 years since it was fought, lesson are being learnt from this particular battle since the author – son of the war hero Major Hamir Singh - currently heads the senior command faculty at the Army War College, Mhow, that trains the army’s prospective battalion commanders.

To the credit of the battalion commander who thought up the unconventional Indian attack plan, it seems the plan was ahead of its times. It was a precursor to the tactical innovation that dates to about the Kargil War some 20 years on: the multidirectional assault. It was therefore trifle premature, with the levels of training and resilience of junior leadership not being of the order as to operationalise it back then. But more so, as the book brings out, because the battalion commander was unable to step up to the leadership role compelled by his somewhat convoluted plan and the shameful ad-hocism by which the battalion was launched for an objective it had not previously practiced taking down. Conversely, the Pakistani commanding officer had either fortuitously or by design staged forward to the company position on Daruchhian, making at even more formidable nut to crack. As a result, the Pakistanis beat back the attack at severe cost to the Grenadiers, who nevertheless had raw courage to show for themselves in the casualties they suffered.

The book follows the hero of the battle, Hamir Singh, through his travails on that hill feature and beyond into Pakistani captivity. Hamir’s experience of captivity is evident from the extract from his son’e postscript, reproduced below:

It is also a fact that my father is alive today due to the honourable actions of some of the Pakistani officers and men and women who my father was fortunate to have encountered. Of special mention is the Pakistani major who prevented his colleagues from killing my grievously wounded father as well as Colonel Mehmood Hassan and other medical staff who treated him in various Pakistani medical establishments. Warfare is a nasty business but to show humanity during testing times is in accordance with the highest code of conduct of a soldier. On behalf of my family I convey our gratitude to those unknown soldiers.

Evidently, the best of Indian and Pakistani youth faced-off one dreary night on a remote hill side. Both were challenged by the other side to dig deep down and draw out the best within themselves. It’s to the credit of the two armies – from the same womb as it were – that gladiators of both sides emerged with their honour intact, each contributing another chapter to the glorious martial traditions of our shared subcontinent. Interestingly, the Grenadiers are known to number a proportion of Muslims in their ranks. Hamir Singh testifies to their wholesome contribution, singling out Major IH Khan, who received a Vir Chakra posthumously, and Subedar Taj Mohammad. 

Hamir Singh goes on from being wounded on the frontline to convalescing in Pakistani military facilities where he is treated with due courtesy to his rank and in line with the Geneva Conventions. This was perhaps in reciprocation to Indians meticulously observing the Geneva Conventions in treating their large-haul of some 90000 prisoners taken on the eastern front. It is another matter that the gentlemanly conduct in war and its aftermath did not end the antipathy. Hamir Singh, while being treated in Pakistani military hospitals, encounters common Pakistanis. He forges an affectionate bond with a female military nurse, who helps him lurch back to recovery. Later, being the senior prisoner of war (PoW), the book shows him leading the prisoners through their trials with their captors, a delicate role made familiar by World War II PoW movies, notably Bridge on the River Kwai.

This brings one to the third aspect: the ability to behave true to expectations in trying circumstances. It is product of upbringing in a household professing and practicing values, not all martial but sound family values. Hamir Singh’s two sons – their family’s fourth generation in the military - are both generals. The last three generations attained flag rank, while a fifth generation is under training at a military academy. Incidentally both brothers are at neighbouring faculties of the Army War College, Mhow, who amidst tactical training fare for the army’s tactical level commanders are conditioning them on human values and military leadership mores. This is in line with what a military eminence once rightly said: ‘the moral is to the material three is to one.’ (As an aside, given this example of how military men are honed, I wonder what it implies for the new fangled Tour of Duty or Agnipath concept – in which youth will be taken into the military for short duration stints. Has the military ethic ceased to matter in the post modern age or are we to believe that a dose of religious nationalism is all it takes to make a soldier?)

The book is a non-fiction page-turner. It has enough material for a Bollywood hit, including a pleasant interlude between a convalescent, dashing Hamir and an elegant Pakistani nurse; and the travails of his beautiful wife back home, getting to learn only after the war that he was alive and a prisoner. How the Major’s wife copes with bringing up two children while her husband’s fate is, first, unknown and, later, when he remains away till repatriation, is as much a story of fortitude as Hamir’s. Hamir was awarded the Vir Chakra after the interrogation formalities on return of PoWs were done with, another fraught period when all returnees are looked at with suspicion of having been turned by their captors.

Hopefully, when ties with Pakistan improve Hamir Singh will be able to meet up with the Pakistanis who people the book: his infantry opponents on Daruchhian; the medical staff at Rawalpindi and the Lyallpur PoW cage guard commanders. It will help him solve the mystery as to who was the ‘bade saab’ up the Pakistani hierarchy who took an interest in his well being when injured: was it General Tikka Khan, a colleague of his father, General Kalyan Singh; or was it the Pakistani brigadier, who Hamir had fortuitously encountered in his last posting before the war in Nigeria?

 

 

 

 

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Staking out space for India in the UN’s New Agenda for Peace

India is an emerging great power. The Narendra Modi government in decisively reshaping it as New India hopes to position so as to finally take up its ‘rightful’ place in the comity of nations. That India has always had a mind of its own is well-regarded. Even in the Cold War, when international maneuver space was rather limited for post-colonial nations, it had carved out a role for itself. Its continuing strategic autonomy was on show at the Security Council in its voting pattern on the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

The conflict is a potentially era-defining one, but what emerges cannot be allowed to become a ‘post-Charter’ era. The United Nations (UN) Charter has been the leitmotif since the UN’s formation in wake of the World War II. While historians can debate whether it was the concept of deterrence that kept the ‘long peace’ or if it was the embedding of Charter principles is moot. The Charter definitively came into its own with the ending of the Cold War. Though it has been buffeted since by international crises involving powers sidelining the UN as they went about asserting their power, be it at Kosovo, Iraq War II, Libya and Syria, the Charter provided a yardstick to judge matters by. That the Ukraine War has jolted the yardstick requires that it be steadied again by heavyweights as India to step up.

India can play a vital role, leveraging its fortuitous presence as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council. While strategic voting has its utility for defending national interest, it is Indian national interest that the UN stands strengthened as the primary custodian of the legitimacy of and as a leading shaper of the world order. As a rising power, India needs a degree of stability in the world order. If a new order is to shape up, the leading powers would be its authors. India, tagging along, would have its interests given a short shrift. Therefore, lending a hand to the UN to maintain its preeminence in what promises to be an uncertain world ahead, gripped by great power contestation, is in Indian national interest.

An area in which India can leverage its capacities is in forwarding the precepts of the UN’s ‘agenda for peace’. The Ukraine War demonstrates that the Security Council’s role of preserving peace and security has taken a hit. Thankfully, it has not been a fatal impact, but has revealed its inefficacy yet again when the Council is a divided house – which it promises to remain over the foreseeable future. India, having proved that it is of neither camp, can create space for itself by recreating the space lost by the UN in dispute settlement and conflict resolution.

Towards this end, India’s tenure in the Security Council must not merely be as a ‘presence’ but to count as a ‘heavyweight’. It will continue its tryst with power politics in the Security Council over the balance of its tenure and in General Assembly, now and later. Alongside, an area where India can make a positive difference is in a proactive showing on its forte: UN Peace Operations.

Thus far, India has been known for its peacekeeping contributions. It needs to up its financial contribution to the UN’s peacebuilding effort, besides taking a greater interest in and playing a supportive political role in the several peace-making initiatives of the UN. In light of its military’s prowess, it could go further in shouldering troop-intensive UN engagement in conflict zones in support of conflict diplomacy, both conflict prevention and peacemaking. The former might involve preventive deployment and the latter, peace enforcement. In making itself available for addressing all dimensions of the heuristic made famous by Boutros-Ghali’s, An Agenda for Peace - conflict prevention, peacemaking, peacebuilding (to Boutros-Ghali, post-conflict) and peace enforcement - India will be acting a great power in anticipation of recognition as one.

Peacebuilding and peacemaking

Its economy on the mend after Covid should see India’s response to the UN’s humanitarian calls go up, besides an increase in channeling finances through the UN’s agencies, funds and programs chasing Sustainable Development Goals. It must break out of its developing country syndrome and view itself as an economic power in its own right, its highest growth figures for bigger economies in a post-Covid world suggesting as much. For that it has to put its money where its mouth is. India should slowly begin to lay aside the yardstick of .7 per cent of gross domestic product for overseas’ development assistance. It has an extensive network of non-governmental organizations (NGO) and a trove of intellectual resources on non-violent conflict resolution. It can supplement governmental activity by supporting NGOs wanting to acquire an international footprint. It has conflict resolution programs in universities that can be usefully geared to turning out practitioners in the field, internationally.

Importantly, given its political heft in multiple groupings, practice of plurilateralism and support of multilateralism, India must weigh-in on UN peacemaking initiatives, joining groups of ‘friends’ of concerned peace processes. Having upped its political and economic engagement with Africa, it must be increasingly visible in assisting ‘African solutions for African wars’. It must exploit the exponential growth in diplomatic ties with South West Asia over the last eight years to engaging with the endless wars (Yemen, Syria) and conflicts (Israel-Palestine) there.

Though its diplomats are enviably proficient, they are too few. An increase in interest in borrowing talent from outside the government can help. It could also rely on Foreign Service veterans for Special Envoy duty, with academics as consultants. Special envoy activity is now a common adjunct to mediation and facilitation processes. Indians are mostly missing in action, ambassadors otherwise busy. Researchers with regional and thematic expertise gained in Indian universities, can work out of headquarters, embassies and consulates, enabling inform and build consistency in India’s engagements. The foreign ministry is already recruiting consultants; such activity only needs broadening. The International Council on World Affairs has acquired a pride of place among think tanks at the national capital can spearhead the uptick. It can lead thinking on non-military aspects in the numerous faculties of international relations and defence studies, and the fledgling departments offering peace studies. Graduates can form the workhorses for India’s expanded assistance on sustainable development, humanitarian relief, other complex emergencies and peacebuilding and reconciliation.

Peace enforcement

India has been consistently averse to peace enforcement, and with good reason. However, that it has a world-class military makes this a potential thrust line of renewed UN engagement. This complements the proposal for an increased Indian tryst with peacebuilding and peacemaking. The latter two cannot be done in isolation of a return of peace to a conflict zone. In instances, peace may have to be enforced on recalcitrant parties or spoilers. Insuring a peace process and that benefits of peacebuilding are not washed away may compel going beyond robust peacekeeping to peace enforcement. India’s military has the capability to mid-wife peace in such instances and can be at the call of the UN for the purpose. Increased peacemaking effort on part of India will keep it abreast of where the shoe pinches and where its military capability can make a mark. In fact, increasing its military footprint would necessitate peacemaking visibility.

India is making the changes in its higher defence structures. It has a chief of defence staff system in place and has expanded the military-foreign affairs interface, not only in terms of additional military officers in the foreign ministry, but also military officers as part of the relevant sections on defence cooperation in the defence ministry. The National Security Council system has come into its own, with close proximity to the prime minister’s office. This should lend confidence in spotting and using opportunities for upping military contribution abroad, jointly with diplomatic action.

The usual caveats must apply, such as use of force in the national interest; in line with UN principles and the ‘Do no harm’ criterion; and informed by just war principles as right authority, last resort, proportionality and probability of success. Since the aim-plus is strengthening of the UN, such excursions must be under UN Security Council authority, even if the command and control arrangements are of a coalition. Though Chapter VII would be the cover, consent of the host state is preferable, which heightened diplomacy should be able to deliver prior.

India is no stranger to the use of force under the UN flag. It contributed a para-field ambulance in the Korean War. An Indian brigade was instrumental in ensuring the territorial integrity of the Congo in the early sixties. In its region, it has exercised force, most significantly in 1971 with humanitarian concerns uppermost. At Sri Lankan request it undertook peace enforcement in the north and east of the island. Alongside, it assisted the Maldives repel a terrorist coup. Be it in Somalia, furthering humanitarian access, or stabilizing the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), it has not been shy of robust peacekeeping. It has taken on rebels in Sierra Leone during Operation Khukri. However, it has been chary of going down the peace enforcement route, particularly if there is peacekeeping going on alongside as has been the case both in Somali (the UN Task Force under the United States) and the DRC, where there is a Force Intervention Brigade operating alongside.

The lesson from the DRC however is that spoilers may require a tougher approach, political instruments falling short. India could consider also assaying enforcement roles in future. The Indian peacekeeper contingent in DRC has only recently had to discipline the M23 group with the use of force. If and since the security environment is not going to ease up, the Indian approach to peace operations should keep up with the challenges. It’s increased military capability and the UN’s ongoing-for-some-two-decades now professionalization of peacekeeping provides an enabling environment. The UN’s inclusion of the term ‘intelligence’ in its vocabulary and force protection-focus since 2017 show the difference in the UN’s approach. India could also provide force multipliers as surveillance and Special Forces capabilities, to join the club of member states that offers niche capabilities for UN use. India has numbered among the highest boots-on-ground provider, but that places it with others as Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh, a circle it could choose to break-out of.

Preventive deployment

The second area of expanding scope for a benign Indian intervention is conflict prevention. The UN has cried hoarse over the past two decades that this is a long-standing deficit in its peace repertoire. This has been ingloriously been brought to fore with the Ukraine War. It’s futile to hold that had UN’s conflict prevention faculties been up to speed, the War’s outbreak might have been stalled. However, notwithstanding the showing of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) in eastern Ukraine, there is no denying that had the Minsk Accords been taken forward with promptitude, there would have been little reason for war. With a political settlement forthcoming, the threat of the advance of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s to Russia’s frontier could have receded.

It is a truism in international diplomacy that peacemaking stands enhanced in case there is military backing to peace efforts. While true for an inter-State context, it is arguably also pertinent for international peacemaking. Two counter-factual illustrations are hazarded to make the point.

The first is a counter-factual from 2011. Gaddafi was at the gates of Benghazi and threatening to annihilate his foes, by then melted into the populace. This led to ‘Responsibility to Protect’ concerns, which - as it turned out - were appropriated by the West to advance their strategic goals. The rest, as they say, is history. However, consider if the UN had the benefit of a member state offering it military muscle for preventive deployment in Benghazi - with Gaddafi’s consent or otherwise - blue helmets could have occupied a buffer position between the two belligerents. Precluding Gaddafi’s attack and provocation by the rebels, the subsequent regime change would have been staved-off. Not only would the Arab Spring not have been derailed, but the Sahel would not have melted into instability as it is today.

A second hypothetical case for preventive deployment is the Ukraine War. One prospective juncture was prior to the outbreak of the Ukraine War. UN monitors and troops could have complemented the SMM, with the consent of Ukraine. Russia could have been brought on board by upping peacemaking for getting the Minsk processes back on track. It being a European conflict, for neutrality sake, the military muscle could have been provided at a short notice by parties outside the region, such as India and China.

Conflict prevention is not only about preventing violence outbreak but is also meant to stop conflict from escalating, spreading and re-erupting. The second juncture was after the initial phase of the war, when Russia paused, its coup-de-main operations stalling. A way-out could have been an offer by the international community of ceasefire monitoring around Kiev, in eastern Ukraine and along the Donbass frontline and the frontlines inland seas. This would have meant a larger force, more ‘blue helmet’ than ‘blue beret’. Ceasefire negotiations that began around then could have acquired traction.

Even now, when both sides are at the cusp of ending the conflict, they are unable to do so though the War is past its 100th day. Conflict prevention includes containing a conflict and its spillover effects. Given the amount of armaments inserted into Ukraine from the West, there is every possibility that, like in Libya and Syria whence armaments proliferated into the region, the ending of the Ukraine War will see a spike in contiguous conflicts. Containing this requires more proactive measures than theory currently envisages. While a peacekeeping force can be visualized on ceasefire coming into effect, there is no preexisting conceptual handle for quick-insertion preventive deployment that can help peacemaking to bring about such a ceasefire. The UN timelines for whistling up a peacekeeping force necessitate the force acting outside of the UN’s routine processes. Such a force could then metamorphose into a peacekeeping force once the ceasefire gets going.

India has the surplus standing military capacity to undertake such rapid deployment tasks. It need not undertake these alone, but in tandem with likeminded troop contributors. The idea is not new, going back as it does to the mid-nineties when the stand-by arrangements’ system was much discussed, as well as enforcement. Sovereignty sensitivities precluded the ideas getting any headway. These need to be dusted. India can provide the doctrinal ballast. Though a votary of traditional peacekeeping and a reluctant subscriber to robust peacekeeping, it must flexibly switch gears to lead the doctrinal thinking on operational challenges ahead.

India must seize the moment

The Ukraine War has shaken up the Charter order. What cannot be countenanced is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. India, as a founding member and an aspirant Permanent member of the Security Council, can use the opportunity of a Council in disarray to lend credibility to the Charter-based world order. Reinforcing stability and continuity, it can markedly strengthen its case for the high table. In strategic terms, since both sides in the geopolitical face-off want India alongside, or do not want India lining up on the other side, India has scope of increasing its footprint. For this it needs to expect more of itself and to ‘do more’. This is in line with the foreign minister’s articulation of the government’s priorities for a ‘confident, caring country’.

A beginning can be in substantive input into the UN’s under-preparation document, A New Agenda for Peace. Its military capacity has received a boost lately in better national security coordination stemming from higher defence reforms and personality factors. While no doubt there are national security threats closer home, these are not of an existential order, allowing India to project surplus military energy away from its shores. A combined civil-military approach - necessitated by civilian-heavy peacebuilding and peacemaking and military-led enforcement and preventive deployment - can boost India’s UN profile, while keeping the UN relevant to the new age.

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India-Pakistan: The Ukraine War through three lenses

In general, the four ways to look at strategic matters are through the perspectives: realist, liberal and the radical right and left. The first two are where conventional strategy can be located, while latter two are not so much strategic as political perspectives. In India, the first – realist - is the popular one in the strategic and attentive communities. The second – liberal – is adopted by the alternative strategic community.

The radical right is aligned with the fist, though realists are shy of admitting it. As a result, realist logic cloaks radical right wing stratgising, legitimizing it and helping with its propagation. Whereas the realist perspective was always the dominant strain in strategic culture, the radical right having taken over political culture, its perspective has thus permeated and interwoven with realist dominance of strategic culture. However, since this permeation of strategic culture is a work-in-progress, the alignment is latent for now. Realists don’t take the logic of radical right-inspired realism to its logical conclusion, since the hangover that theirs’ is a secular act remains intact. The radical right in India being Hindutva-inspired is less apologetic, riding on the coat tails of realism, keeping its radical intent veiled while profiting from popular realist ballast. The liberal and radical left strains are rendered dormant by the paradigm-dominance of the two perspectives in a quasi-covert alliance: realist and radical right. 

If India is taken as a ‘normal’ State, then the four lenses are justifiable. Whereas the realist and liberal perspectives as hitherto would contest the intellectual high-ground, the others would be marginal. Increasingly, that India is a ‘normal’ state is an untenable assumption. India is an ideological State and therefore its strategy has to be informed, not by the usual yardsticks of national security, but the factors applicable for an ideology-inspired State, the foremost of which is regime perpetuation for sustenance of the ideology. Self-perpetuation imperatives supersede national security factors. In India, consolidation of Hindutva is the core concern.

Any examination of Indian strategic matters must be informed accordingly. Mainstream strategic writings dither from taking this onboard and are remiss on this account. Consequently, here the gap is sought to be filled. The paper takes a view of the implications of the Ukraine War for India using three lenses, taking the conventional approach in the first two parts dealing respectively with the realist and liberal approaches and, in the third part, modulating the findings under the ideological lights of the regime. The radical left perspective is not applied, though it bubbles away below the surface waiting to overturn things once Hindutva upturns India.

Part I: The realist lens

Evidently, the Indian army has taken note of lessons from the ongoing Ukraine-Russia War. Its commanders have observed that war is not quite passé, as the national security adviser had seemed to suggest last year in a lecture to those following in his policeman footsteps. Ajit Doval’s suggestion was that hybrid and grey zone war had displaced war as an instrument of national policy. Also, with the war in Ukraine entering its fourth month, the fond notion that war, when it occurs, will be short and swift, and, therefore, sweet, appears to have been decisively dispelled.

Realisation that wars happen would lead to them preparing with renewed vigour. That war, if it comes to it, might not end quickly, can see them arm to the teeth, not only through the well-worn import route but through the new-found Atmanirbharta one too. In short, the Ukraine War has given national security and its military instrument, a shot in the arm. Missing from the lessons learnt is that the lessons are applicable for war in which one of the two contestants is not a nuclear power. Since both our neighbours are nuclear powers, lessons have to be circumscribed accordingly.

This the military has been doing for the past 20 years. The Army’s Cold Start doctrine was cognizant of nuclear thresholds. The realist case was that Pakistan was deterred by the promise of disproportionate nuclear retaliation, allowing for quick, shallow-thrust retribution in case of Pakistani subconventional provocations. The doctrine – nuclear and conventional - having be put together, it’s taken some 20 years to operationalise. The integrated battle groups (IBG) are being put in place.

The China threat having loomed large lately, some Pakistan-specific formations have been shifted as part of a rebalancing. Any deficit is being tidied over by a ceasefire in place with Pakistan on the Line of Control (LC), taking advantage of Pakistan’s preoccupation with its other front, Afghanistan. Alongside, optimising military power application through reorganization into joint theatre commands is contemplated. The military reform, drawing on the two recent wars - Azerbaijan-Armenia and Russo-Ukraine - also envisages a technological turn, compensating loss in numbers. Since Kashmir is in the midst of political resolution efforts of sorts – laden with an admixture of Hindutva – a turn to grey zone war to keep Pakistan sensitized to its underside is underway. Kashmir serves as a grey zone war theatre for both sides. 

India is enthused by surgical strikes, irrespective of their nullity in strategic value. They promise surgical strikes differently now. An IBG in its Yol Corps is perhaps waiting for launch. That Pakistan has the wherewithal for taking on IBGs implies more will have to follow in the initial footsteps by both, making for self-reinforcing escalation potentially nudging nuclear thresholds of both. While Pakistan has advertised a lowered threshold as part of its ‘full spectrum deterrence’, India’s increasing skin-in-the-game if on a downward cycle, can also unhinge its’ No First Use pledge (NFU). Realist strategic analysts are sanguine this deters, allowing for conventionally administered punishment.

Realists take care not to go into political-strategic analysis that should logically lead nuclear-use thinking. This self-censorship owes to political-strategic analysis consciously distancing from including Hindutva verities, eliding attention from the most critical transformation within India. Harshly said, strategic analysts are complicit, or, to give them benefit of the doubt, are uncomprehending of strategic cultural artifacts of Hindutva.

 Part II: The liberal lens

Wars happen and preparing helps deter is a truism. Therefore, conundrums that arise need managing. Arguably, arming in anticipation of a war results in a security dilemma, which provokes are response in the adversary. Its response then serves to inform the threat perception, reinforcing the case for militarization and militarism. In a nuclearised context, it is well-taken that nuclear weapons are for deterrence rather than for war fighting. However, another conundrum is that leveraging nuclear weapons for deterrence increases likelihood of war outbreak, liable to go nuclear by nuclear doctrinal precepts.  The doctrinal tussle over whether a war can go nuclear is between India’s retaliatory promise making it unthinkable and Pakistan’s nonchalant threat of embedding nuclear weapons into its conventional response. The outcome can only be decided at the crunch.

India’s arming through the eighties resulted - in part - in Pakistan’s strategy to undercut the growing conventional asymmetry by launch of and sustaining a proxy war against India. Alongside, for insurance, it also took care to covertly go nuclear. Realising by decade-end that its conventional deterrent had diluted, India changed doctrinal tack conventionally and went overtly nuclear. A decade on, Pakistan sought to checkmate Indian conventional doctrinal movement by a turn to tactical nuclear weapons. For its part, India reiterated - for the sake of nuclear deterrence credibility - that for it nuclear first use by Pakistan is a one-step escalation to its assured destruction. Pakistan’s nuclear buildup, particularly of its missiles and nuclear warhead numbers, tacitly warned that this would be mutual. Since neither state has taken the subsequent doctrinal steps that should logically follow, it is at this juncture of doctrinal inter-activity that the next war will be fought.

Logically, if a war is poised to go nuclear, then it should not be countenanced in first place. That has patently not happened. The LC ceasefire has not been taken forward, wherein it is upgraded from an agreement between the two militaries to one between the two States. The political resolution envisaged for Jammu and Kashmir, beginning with deflating it from statehood, is going rapidly in a reverse direction. Pepped up by security indices, India misses the ground is shifting beneath its feet. Consequently, the security situation shall remain instead one in which war, even if not inevitable, is not off the table. Even if not as rationally arrived at choice of one of the two sides, war can be thrust on the two by as commonplace an event as a terror attack.

The inference from the seeming inevitability of war needs to be taken further to ending a security situation where war remains an option. Instead, the strategic choice has been in favour of conduct of hybrid or grey zone war. This creates the security conditions for outbreak of war which justifies the preparedness for it – allowing, in turn, for conduct of grey zone war.

On the second lesson from the Ukraine War – on war duration – the inference is that since war is not ruled out, it needs prosecution. Since over three score IBGs are reportedly envisaged, there is either denial that the war could go nuclear or an acceptance that a nuclear war can be fought. Lately, the nuclear threat appears eclipsed somewhat. Pakistan does not need to reach for the nuclear weapons to redress any conventional asymmetry as earlier. This makes the nuclear dimension of a war recede, though making for a long-duration war.

Ukraine’s holding out creditably, if not with the distinction western commentators give it, shows that Pakistan could do as well. Just as Ukraine was thrown a lifeline, Chinese largesse for Pakistan could keep it afloat. Pakistan has enough irregular war potential to replicate for India the long war the Americans got into in Afghanistan. If Zelensky could whistle up a foreign legion, it would be an easier proposition for Pakistan to attract the floating would-be jihadists dispersed by the end of the Islamic State in Levant. A longer war gives India more time to prevail, but with time would be less surety of doing so. Indian inability to prevail will keep Pakistan’s nuclear weapons sheathed, while increasing India’s utility for these, NFU notwithstanding.

Had Ukraine remained a nuclear state, Russia would have laid off.  And, if war did nevertheless did get underway, nuclear weapons could well have figured in the conflict by now. Nuclear weapons have been bandied by Russia already to stay any adventurism on part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.  Besides, scenarios were conjured up in which Russia could credibly be seen to reaching for battlefield nukes, such as for instance to open up Azovstal steelworks at Mariupol in case it proved a hard nut to crack conventionally. Such thinking can be informed by the logic that led to the first use of nuclear weapons: to save Americans lives from invasion of Japan. The ongoing conflict has had the overall ill-effect of loosening the nuclear taboo. A nuclear state may well use nuclear weapons rather than lose a conflict, No First Use (NFU) protestations notwithstanding.

War termination strategy acquires immediacy. This is the most understudied part of conflict to begin with. The Ukraine War has shown it to be the most significant. There have been multiple junctures at which either of the two sides could have reached for the switching off the war by now, but neither has been able to. The ‘ripe moments’ have occurred, even if only about now is a ‘hurting stalemate’ building up. Both are aware that war is but the creating of conditions for negotiations over the war’s causes. Political will has been missing in grasping the nettle. Zelensky has been bought by promises of Western support in the rebuilding, predicated on his weakening Russia to a degree. Putin, for his part, is taking by force what he was unable to do with the preceding period of grey zone war since 2014. That it would be a rather moth-eaten Donbas does not lessen the satisfaction of playing war lord.

India would likewise be faced with similar war continuation temptations, adding to war termination challenges. On this score, its record from war making has been mixed. In 1947, it drew up at the ethno-linguistic line between Kashmir and Punjab, hoping with UN assistance to have the border settled along it. In 1965, it stopped short of forcing a defeat on Pakistan, persuaded that a draw might see a satiated Pakistan give up on Kashmir. (There are stories that mistaken fears of artillery ammunition running short prompted the ceasefire (liberally disseminated by a knowledgeable bureaucrat at the Army’s cost leading to his being considered persona non grata for some years back then.)) It tired to sweeten the deal at Tashkent by giving back territorial gains, but also firming in the ceasefire line thereby. In 1971, India did well not to carry the war into West Pakistan, once the East had surrendered, again hoping that a chastised Pakistan would be more amenable to recognize the changed strategic reality. In the event, India overplayed its hand with the Pokhran tests and conventional upgrades to its mechanized forces. Pakistan, with the fortuitous help from America, bounced back, launching proxy war under nuclear cover. At Kargil, India did not venture beyond retaking its side of the LC. Thus, besides keeping wars short in duration and short of going for the clincher, India has also been forthcoming in being accommodative on both the battlefield and on the negotiation table. Whether next time round, such a promising precedence would help is uncertain, prompting a consideration of domestic politics.  

Part III: The radical right lens

India is now New India. India’s Hindutva-inspired regime is out to settle old scores, mostly with Muslim ghosts of the past (other than of Nehru). In Kashmir, it’s rolled back all possibilities of negotiated political settlement. Its ideological support base is being fed with visions of Akhand Bharat, visualized as a South Asian map that includes Pakistan. To materialize Bharat, a Hindu Rashtra, it rides on the populism of Hindu Hriday Samrat, Narendra Modi, a leader reputedly strong-on-defence. Myth-making of India’s showing in the surgical strikes by land and air and a tactical-level unarmed skirmish in Ladakh sustain the image. A national security adviser - hyped as Chanakya reincarnate – reinforces it. With this self-image, it would be rather difficult for India to match up to its past strategic modesty, faced as it would be - like Putin - with inflated self-worth.

Even so, India is unlikely to shoot its way out of a war it is losing, since the image is mostly hype – best known to those that have invested much in building up it up and charged with such decisions. A brief digression to buttress the point that India’s self-image flatters to please is from the China front.

Some 50000 Indian soldiers are reputedly in eyeball confrontation. Apparently, equivalent levels of Chinese troops are held out as justification for Indian buildup to like levels. If true, the good part is that such numbers are reassuring for both sides, implying that they can indulge in a war without any immediate threat of it going nuclear. Being fought in mountains that ‘eat troops’, it is one that can also go on for long. The area rather remote, it would not threaten either NFU pledge, nuclear weapons only coming into the frame in case of an improbable operational level breakthrough in other theatres, such as at India’s Chicken’s Neck.

However, the projection of the China threat, intrinsic in the numbers China supposedly has up there, is questionable. China is unfazed by India’s troops’ buildup. India has not projected any offensive intent behind this buildup. Even Operation Snow Leopard was merely an occupation of features on own side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC). India tamely vacated these without a quid pro quo. India’s generals are talking of ‘strategic patience’, phrasing better heard from diplomats or national security officials rather than frontline generals.

When China, advantaged by its infrastructure, can bring up troops at will – as it demonstrated in April 2020 – there is little necessity to keep them ahead in response to India’s LCisation of the LAC. It has never claimed Ladakh, so does not need the capability in place. It has already got control up to its claim line, with India giving up buffer zones along it. Since it does not have offensive intent China does not need the troop numbers attributed to it. Besides, commentators have it that it intends to fight differently, and not be troop intensity reliant. Finally, to ward of the threat of Indian offensive, it does not need an equivalent number of troops, but just about a third the number of Indians if faces. In short, it is unlikely to have more than some 20000 troops, which is not quite the 50000 that the Indians say they do, requiring of India to keep such numbers up there.

It follows therefore that India’s inflation of the China threat, from the numbers China reportedly has on hand, is a ploy to justify India maintaining such numbers there instead. Such numbers shows India as facing-down a China threat; thereby building-up the Modi regime’s image as strong-on-defence. Commendable though the logistics of the moblisation are, it’s an alibi for Indian solo shadow boxing in Ladakh.

The implication for the Pakistan front is that New India cannot be diverted from the bedding-in of Hindutva to make India, Bharat. Consequently, whereas fences won’t be mended with Pakistan – the external-Other - these may be kept maintained. The relative equivalence of mechanized reserves between the two sides broadcasts that India has no offensive intent. The other significant factor that suggests a deliberate dilution of Indian threat signaling is in the hobbling of the army with the Tour of Duty terms of service for other ranks. There has also been a downward trend in India’s defence budget pre-Covid. Besides, India has not thought it befitting to put in place a Chief of Defence Staff, foregoing the attendant force multiplication the appointment carries. These indicate a tacit appeasement of Pakistan - and China. It is strategy for buying India time for not only finishing what it started in Kashmir, but also get Hindutva going without getting derailed.

This dilutes its deterrent intended to cover proxy war. If all this makes Pakistan venturesome, India can get back at Pakistan with grey zone war of its own, and its tactic, surgical strikes. If this eventuates in a war, relative parity will keep out the nuclear factor, allowing for the war to be used by the Indian regime for its internal political purposes of Hindutva consolidation. In other words, a war thrust on India is not unwelcome and nor will it be used to twist the knife. A long duration, low intensity war is not without its benefits for India. If Pakistan loses, it helps with Akhand Bharat and if Pakistan does not lose, it helps Hindutva in India.

What a dash of Hindutva to strategy does

A realist blind spot has been the eliding of domestic politics from strategic analyses. As seen here, when domestic politics is factored in, strategic analysis in the realist mode is shown up as vacant. In summary, India wishes to avoid war for domestic political reasons: the consolidation of Hindutva is the regime’s primary aim. To manage the external strategic environment, against Pakistan, it has instruments such as grey zone war, for deterrence. Should a war be forced on it, it has revitalized its conventional resources, even on the China front. However, its conventional deterrence has diluted on the Pakistan front due to the rebalancing underway. As a result, it would not be able to prevail. The good part of this is in marginalizing the utility of nuclear weapons for Pakistan. Nuclear weapons stashed away, a conventional long-duration war comes forth. Whereas when Indian deterrence of proxy war was based on a shortened conventional fuse, it was strategically reticent. Now, India’s willingness to chance war – through its grey zone turn - owes to war, even if of longer duration, being less likely to go nuclear.

The Ukraine War appears to have been a double whammy: not only has it buffeted the nuclear taboo but also brought war back into the reckoning. On the face of it, the two possibilities – war and a nuclear one at that - stand enhanced in South Asia. However, insight from domestic politics needs adding. Doing so gives rise to the propositions: grey zone war acts as a buffer to war; long-duration war buffers nuclear weapons’ use; and, with a shaky NFU to begin with, India is not disadvantaged by nuclear eddies. Such strategizing perhaps secures New India for Hindutva to deliver Hindu Rashtra.