GURDASPUR: The Armed Forces Flag Day was observed by the district administration at the District Security Services Welfare Office Complex on Wednesday in which, cheques and financial assistance were given to the ex-servicemen and their dependents. Besides, shawls and blankets were given to the widows of ex-servicemen and aged ex-servicemen to honour them. On the occasion, additional deputy commissioner (general) Sri Nivasan said that on this day, sacrifices made by our soldiers are remembered and funds are donated for the welfare of the ex-servicemen and their families. District security services welfare officer Lt Col Satbir Singh (retd.), Lt Gen Kanwaljit Singh (retd) were also present.

HT PHOTODistrict security services welfare officer Lt Col (retd) Satbir Singh presenting a shawal to a widow of an ex-serviceman in Gurdaspur on Wednesday.

Indian Air Force’s fighter aircraft Sukhoi 30 fires a missile during an exercise. — PTI file photo

Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 5

Expanding its outreach in China’s backyard, India will train Sukhoi-30 pilots of Vietnam.(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)The two sides today agreed to train the pilots. This is the second major training programme after Vietnamese Navy was trained by Indian Navy in operating Russian-origin kilo-class submarines.The agreement was signed at a meeting between Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and his Vietnamese counterpart Gen Ngo Xuan Lich on Monday in New Delhi.Vietnam operates Sukhoi-30 MK2 while India operates the Sukhoi-30 MKI. 

NEW DELHI: Defence minister Manohar Parrikar said on Friday the surgical strike against militants in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir injected “uncertainty” into the neighbour’s mind, brushing aside criticism that ceasefire violations had gone up at the border after the September 29 operation.

At least 20 soldiers and 12 civilians have died in Pakistani shelling after the surgical strike, raising questions about the efficacy of the much-publicised operation.

“The surgical strikes have introduced a degree of uncertainty… obviously, uncertainty itself creates decision-making bottlenecks. You will never know them,” the defence minister said.

The strike came 11 days after 19 Indian soldiers were killed by suspected Pakistani militants at an army base in Kashmir’s Uri.

“Earlier, one thing was sure that India won’t cross (the LoC). Now there is one thing that’s missing. In strategy and such kind of issues, you need to put uncertainty in their minds. That has been achieved,” Parrikar said. The nation was satisfied with the targeted operation. “It was continuous insult to be treated like this… Someone comes, hits us and we can’t do anything,” he said.

Asked if India could carry out more such strikes, Parrikar said the “principle of uncertainty” should be allowed to operate. “It will be beneficial to all of us.”

On Tuesday’s attack on Nagrota camp in Jammu and Kashmir that left seven soldiers dead, Parrikar said it was obvious that “some sort of lethargy” had set in and it was “painful to see soldiers die”.

He talked about the need to use smart technologies for perimeter protection but said infrastructure could not be created overnight. Lengthy procedures, he said, were coming in the way. He had asked the army to experiment with three-four types of fences but “they have massive procedures”.

The Defence Research and Development Organisation was looking for smart solutions to secure military bases. “The DRDO has been asked to try fences of different kinds — microwave, laser, smart fence that can pick vibration and CCTV cameras that can pick movement at 1km.”

India and Pakistan fought a war that led to the birth of Bangladesh 45 years ago. An evaluation, as The Tribune National Security Forum today discusses “Defence at 70

On the offensive: Indian armour in action during the 1971 War photo: AFP

Harish Khare

India had not sought the 1971 War. It was a conflict that was imposed on India by Pakistan and its bumbling generals. In the end, it became — and, remains — the perfect example of  statecraft, with a national leadership displaying the requisite  competence and self-assurance, optimally mobilising the nation’s intellectual, bureaucratic, diplomatic and defence resources, to accomplish the intended goals.

The 1971 War constitutes the only example in our recent history when our armed forces not only inflicted a crushing defeat on the adversary but also forced the vanquished enemy to sign an instrument of surrender.

There can be little doubt that the clinical victory over Pakistan was Indira Gandhi’s finest moment. She had just led her party to a decisive victory in the March 1971 Lok Sabha elections and was all set to reorient her government’s policies, personnel  and priorities; but, all those best-laid plans soon got quagmired  in the crisis in the then East Pakistan.

The Yahya Khan-ZA Bhutto duo stood committed to strategic stupidities and insisted on taking a suicidal route; India became involved in the game, much against its wishes.

The Arthashastra teaches us a simple lesson: the task of leadership is to safeguard the national interests. Indira Gandhi had the prescience to understand that there was no way India could absorb on a permanent basis all those thousands and thousands of refugees who were daily pouring into India after the brutal crackdown on the Bengalis, Hindus and Muslims alike, in East Pakistan.

Indira Gandhi and her advisers read the geopolitical scene astutely and cunningly concluded that except for offering lip sympathy, the global powers would do little to alleviate India’s growing and groaning burden. The Pakistani dictators’ bloody suppression of its own people was no longer Islamabad’s internal affair; the baneful consequences for India were all too evident. India would have to do something to sort out the generals.

Once the objective got defined and identified, all instruments and resources of the Indian state got mobilised. The armed forces and its leadership were empowered to finesse the strategic approach and tactical by-plays. The Prime Minister had formidable political colleagues in Jagjivan Ram, Y. B. Chavan and Sardar Swaran Singh; she had already enlisted the best of the bureaucratic talent — PN Haksar, DP Dhar, PN Dhar, TN Kaul, LK Jha. And, she had the practical common sense to encourage a perfect — and, as it turned out, a match-winning — synergy between the political/civilian leadership and the armed forces. On their part, the armed forces displayed an unprecedented intra-services convergence of temperaments, missions and egos.

But there was no bombast, no bragging. No xenophobia. No shouting nationalism. There was calm in the air, and there was a competence at work. The citizen was mobilised as the nation defied the United States and its implacably vengeful leaders like Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger. As those cold practitioners of realpolitik sent in — as an exercise in intimidation and coercion — a naval flotilla towards the Bay of Bengal, Indira Gandhi was addressing a massive public rally in Delhi. The citizens were very much a part of the war effort.

The outcome of the 1971 was entirely satisfactory to the Indian psyche and to the Indian strategic interests. However, the world does not take kindly to such clinical overpowering of one nation by another. The USA-China-Pakistan axis got steeled up. At home, the economic consequences of the war began spelling hardships. The taste of victory in our mouths gave way to the bitterness of economic cost. We learnt a new lesson: all wars, even those won decisively, bring in their wake economic dislocation and dissatisfaction. Very soon we were introducing new fault lines in our national life.

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How the war unfolded

May 15: Indian Army starts aiding Mukti Bahini.

August 16: Operation Jackpot, the commando operation that sabotaged Pakistan Navy and its assets in Chittagong, Chandpur, Mongla and Naryanganj.

August 30: Pakistan Army cracks down on Dhaka (then Dacca) guerrillas.

October 13: Dhaka guerrillas kill Abdul Monem Khan, governor of East Pakistan.

October 31 to November 3: Battle of Dhalai: Indian attack from Tripura into East Pakistan to stop Pakistani cross-border shelling.

November 20 to November 21: Battle of Garibpur, the Indian attack in Boyra in East Pakistan.

November 22 to December 13: Sporadic fighting followed by Battle of Hilli, the Indian attack on Bogra in East Pakistan.

December 3: Pakistani air attacks on India result in India declaring war on Pakistan.

December 4: Battle of Longewala, where India routs a large Pakistani armour attack in Jaisalmer.

December 5: Battle of Basantar: India attacks and captures Pakistani territory opposite Jammu. Navy launches Op Trident to bomb Karachi.

December 6: Bhutan becomes the first country to recognise Bangladesh after India.

December 7: Liberation of Jessore, Sylhet and Moulovi Bazaar.

December 8: Operation Python: Indian naval attack on Karachi in West Pakistan.

December 9: Battle of Kushtia: The Indian attack from West Bengal into East Pakistan, liberating Chandpur and Daudkandi.

December 10: Liberation of Laksham.

December 11: Liberation of Hilli, Mymenshingh, Kushtia and Noakhalx.

December 14: Selective genocide of Bengali nationalist intellectuals. Liberation of Bogra.

 

December 16: End of the Bangladesh Liberation War. Indian Army enters Dhaka and East Pakistan Army surrenders.

Simran Sodhi

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 30

India today put the ball back in Pakistan’s court on the resumption of a bilateral dialogue and said it had so far received no request from Pakistan for such a meeting on the sidelines of the Heart of Asia (HOA) Conference.“Pakistan has not requested for any bilateral meeting so far,” Gopal Baglay, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs, said. In the build-up to the HOA Conference at Amritsar on December 3-4, Pakistan has been signalling that it is ready to resume bilateral talks. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)Sartaj Aziz, Pakistan’s de facto foreign minister, will be in Amritsar on Sunday, while Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will lead the Indian delegation as External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj is unwell.Aziz’s visit is significant since it is the first high-level visit from Pakistan ever since the January Pathankot airbase attack. Sushma Swaraj travelled to Islamabad to attend the HOA Conference in December last year. Her meeting with Aziz and Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif marked resumption of a formal dialogue.Pathankot, Uri and now Nagrota terror attacks have made domestic opinion very anti-Pakistan, making it difficult for the government to engage in dialogue with a nation “using terror as an instrument of state policy”.

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Prime Minister Modi’s bhoomipujan of a Shivaji memorial in Mumbai has once again raised the same old question of how judiciously our leaders spend the taxpayers’ money.  Shivaji’s place in national history and Maratha society is secure and adequately recognised. If Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis is splurging Rs 3,600 crore on a memorial and the Prime Minister happily becomes a party to it instead of advising him to be more careful in handling people’s money, it is not to enhance the stature of the country’s famous warrior but to buy public goodwill for their own political benefit. This has happened in a state that has earned nationwide notoriety for leading in farmer suicides.Modi himself set an unhealthy example of extracting political gain from dead heroes when he decided to build a Sardar Patel statue at a cost of Rs 3,000 crore. The statue will be complete close to the next Lok Sabha elections. Earlier, as UP Chief Minister, Mayawati built 130 huge statues of elephant, her party’s symbol, and installed them in Noida and Lucknow. Closer home, Punjab Chief Minister Badal has dug up history for forgotten Sikh heroes for building memorials or celebrating their anniversaries. To avoid criticism of being communal in government spending, he has played memorial politics to appease non-Sikh communities too. One of the latest additions to his list of freebies is free pilgrimage at the state expense. Not to be left behind, Haryana’s Manohar Lal Khattar reportedly spent Rs 100 crore on a Gita festival in Kurukshetra earlier this month. Communities know how to respect and remember their heroes. Political leaders display crass insensitivity in using public money. In power, they are required to take decisions and some can go wrong, and can be forgiven if taken in good faith. But a deliberate, politically motivated diversion involving such huge amounts in a country so starved of resources is nothing but a criminal waste.  Political parties need to mention in their manifestos that they would divert the state’s limited resources from health, education and infrastructure to religious causes and personal projection and thereafter seek the public mandate.

The choice of service chiefs is a matter of political judgment. It involves multiple trade­offs and considerations

WHAT ABOUT HIS RELATIVE LACK OF EXPERIENCE, SAY, WITH MECHANISED FORMATIONS IN THE PLAINS? THE ARMY CHIEF IS THE ‘CHIEF OF THE ARMY STAFF’: HIS PRIMARILY ROLE OUGHT TO BE AS CHIEF OF THE STAFF RATHER THAN OPERATIONAL COMMANDER

The choice of Lieutenant General Bipin Rawat as the next army chief has created a flutter in the military establishment. The passing over of two senior army commanders is a rare occurrence. As several commentators have pointed out, the last time it happened was in 1983 when Indira Gandhi elevated General Arun Vaidya over Lieutenant General SK Sinha (who promptly resigned). But this was not the only instance. In 1957, Jawaharlal Nehru chose General KS Thimayya superseding two senior lieutenant generals, Sant Singh and Kalwant Singh (the latter stayed on, while the former resigned).

NITIN KANOTRA/HTThe Line of Control may be hot right now, but why do we have the corps commanders and the Northern Army commander if the chief’s personal experience is supposed to count for so much?

This time around, there is apparently the possibility that Lieutenant General Praveen Bakshi may yet be appointed as the first chief of defence staff (CDS) or some equivalent designation: The single-point military adviser to the defence minister. While this outcome may be comforting to the Indian Army, it will entail passing over the current navy chief — the senior-most of the chiefs — for the post.

Whatever the outcome, this episode has triggered a much-needed discussion on the selection of service chiefs. The seniority principle’s downsides are evident. Between two officers from the same course, for instance, seniority is determined based on their ranking in the military academy decades ago. Few will dispute the fact that this has any relevance to their performance at the apex of the military system, but the principle remains in place. The case for adhering to seniority has been made on three grounds.

First, seniority is held to be best guarantee against politicisation of top appointments. Do we want the military to go the way of the police where promotions and postings routinely depend on political favour? This is a rhetorically strong argument, but the comparison is flawed and misleading. It overlooks the fact that the police’s nature and function in politics is very different from that of the army.

The concern about politicisation also overlooks the important issue of effectiveness. The institutional design of civil-military relations always entails a trade-off between democratic control and effectiveness. In privileging the former by emphasising seniority, we have long overlooked the demands of military efficacy. Even the staunchest advocates of the seniority principle would be hard pressed to deny that it periodically gives us mediocrity at the top. In fact, their case would be strengthened if they conceded the importance of efficacy, but pointed out that overlooking seniority does not guarantee better outcomes either. The choice of Thimayya resulted in the most serious standoff between an army chief and the government, when the former publicly resigned only to retract soon after. Under Vaidya the army undertook the most controversial military operation since Independence: Operation Blue Star.

The second argument in the case for seniority is the absence of any objective criterion of “merit” in choosing service chiefs. While superficially correct, this too elides over deeper problems. The promotion of military officers at lower levels is not “objective” just because it is decided by service boards. Every officer knows that the annual confidential reports that play such an important role in their careers are highly subjective assessments. No amount of quantification of these reports can take away from their inherent subjectivity. The idea that there can be clearly laid benchmarks of “merit” in appointing chiefs beggars belief. Thoughtful retired officers have suggested something akin to a collegium system for the selection of chiefs. While such a system may ensure broader consensus, it will also impinge on the prerogative of the executive.

The third, and strongest, case for seniority is the fact that our political leadership does not interact enough with senior military commanders to be able to make an informed call. This stems from the longstanding practice of the political leadership steering clear of operational matters. Obviously, the flip side is also true: Few of our senior officers have any exposure to policy-making. Unless this problem is remedied from both ends, top military appointments — especially if a CDS is instituted — will remain a case of the blind choosing the blind.

The current episode also raises the question of what kind of operational experience is relevant to service chiefs. The Line of Control with Pakistan may be hot right now, but why do we have the corps commanders and the Northern Army commander if the chief’s personal experience is supposed to count for so much? What about his relative lack of experience, say, with mechanised formations in the plains? The army chief is the “chief of the army staff”: His primarily role ought to be as chief of the staff rather than operational commander. The point will acquire greater salience as we move towards a CDS structure.

The privileging of particular kinds of operational experience is problematic for two further reasons. It may give us service chiefs who are equipped to fight the last war rather than the next one. It also vitiates the idea of a “general cadre” in senior ranks. Already the post of army chief is effectively closed off to officers who are not from the fighting arms. Introducing an infantry versus armoured corps dimension would be unfortunate — especially in the context of recent litigation about vacancies for officers from various branches.

The choice of service chiefs is a matter of political judgment. It involves multiple trade-offs and considerations that cannot be wished away by sticking to seniority or hankering after criteria of “merit”. But as with all political judgments it will be open to public scrutiny.

Superseded, Lt Gen Bakshi may resign

Lt Gen Praveen Bakshi

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 21

Lt General Praveen Bakshi, who was superseded along with another senior officer in selection of the new Army Chief, today met Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and Army Chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag in Delhi amid speculation that he may resign.Eastern Army Commander Lt Gen Bakshi had flown in from Kolkata for the post-lunch meetings. On December 17, the government appointed Lt Gen Bipin Rawat as the Army Chief, superseding Lt Gen Bakshi and Lt Gen PM Hariz, the Southern Army Commander.In the past, Lt Gen SK Sinha had resigned when his junior General AS Vaidya was appointed as the Army Chief in 1983. In April 2014, Vice Admiral Sekhar Sinha resigned when his junior Admiral Robin Dhowan was appointed as the Navy Chief. In the forces, there is no concept of a senior working under his junior. Lt Gen Bakshi is senior by two batches to Lt Gen Rawat when he passed out of the Indian Military Academy, Dehradun.But former military officers say even if Lt Gen Bakshi resigns, he will do that at the end of this month when Lt Gen Rawat takes over as the Chief. Also, there is possibility that he can continue for a few days in January and wait for the government to “rehabilitate” him and then opt to quit.Defence Ministry officials confirmed that the two meetings did take place and the one with Parrikar was a “courtesy call”. There is speculation that Lt Gen Bakshi could be appointed as India’s first Chief of Defence Staff, but that looks unlikely for now. To meet Lt Gen Bakshi, Parrikar had flown back from Goa today, where he was campaigning for the assembly elections.The decision to supersede Lt Gen Bakshi has not gone down well with senior officers who have questioned the logic of “ignoring” seniority, especially when Lt Gen Bakshi has held several top positions.

India’s political executive under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has established its own mechanisms of nomination and selection. It is well within its right to appoint officials as long as the process is within the court-mandated norms of collegiality of decision-making and responsibility. Some eyebrows will naturally be raised over the appointment of Bipin Rawat as the new Army Chief because it was after a long time that the Government did not opt for the chain of seniority. Some have attributed the appointment to the General’s proximity to the centre of power in his current posting or continuation of the infantry’s grip over top positions in the Army. In defence, Gen Rawat is reported to score in hands-on experience of insurgency over his two overlooked seniors.Regardless of the calculations that went into the decision, the appointment of a service chief is completely the Prime Minister’s privilege. And supersession in the services the world over is not out of ordinary although it has happened at the top level after a long time in India. Moreover, Modi did observe the seniority principle in appointing the new chiefs of IB, RAW and Air Force. What rankled was the departure from the practice of making the announcements a month in advance to allow the incumbent to settle in. Was it a coincidence that Gen Rawat’s appointment was made public a day after Parliament ended its sitting?With the new appointments out of the way, the Government should now undertake the long-overdue restructuring of the higher management in the armed forces. Even though the Kargil War exposed the infirmities in the present setup, previous governments could not complete the political consultations on appointing a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS). India requires tri-service cohesion to tackle the emerging security challenges, especially in the space and cyber dimensions. But the Government must try for an all-party consensus on the changes to manage the tremendous pain it inflicts on superseded officers. Although the Government has been short on candidness, whether it is the new CBI chief or demonetisation, national security is one area it cannot afford to come up short.

Rawat transformed UN mission

New army chief reworked strategy in Congo and peacekeepers became a symbol of hope for the locals

NEW DELHI: When Bipin Rawat took charge of the UN North Kivu Brigade in the Democratic Republic of Congo eight years ago, things weren’t going too well for the world’s costliest peacekeeping mission, known by its French acronym MONUC.

HT FILE/RAHUL SINGHIndian peacekeepers in the Congo in 2008.

The locals were contemptuous of UN peacekeepers, questioning what difference they had made in their lives and accusing the mission of doing little to protect them. Angry crowds would often hurl stones at UN vehicles on the streets of Goma, the capital of North Kivu and where the Indian brigade is based.

Lieutenant General Rawat, who will take over as army chief on December 31, was a brigadier when he was sent to the Congo in August 2008 to command the Indian Army’s, then as now, largest deployment on foreign soil. He hit the ground running and quickly grasped the reason the peacekeepers were struggling to contain the crisis in the Congo, formerly known as Zaire.

“We were not fighting with our equipment, despite Chapter VII of the UN Charter, authorising the use of force in some scenarios. We have decided to fight with our equipment,” Rawat told this correspondent who was then covering the conflict in eastern Congo.

Rawat reworked the velvet-glove strategy to an iron fist within a month of his arrival, frequently authorising the use of attack helicopters to strafe positions held by rebel groups responsible for civilian deaths, recruiting child soldiers and displacing millions of people.

As the Congo’s internal conflict raged, he ordered the deployment of infantry combat vehicles rigged with machineguns and cannons to crush rebels and enforce peace in flashpoints such as Tonga, Kanyabayonga, Rutshuru and Bunagana.

In a remarkable turnaround, peacekeepers facing public anger soon became a symbol of hope for the local communities.

The change in attitude was clearly visible when thousands of locals, caught in the crossfire between the Congolese forces and rebel fighters, took refuge in an army base at Masisi located 80 km from Goma.

The crowd clapped and cheered for the peacekeepers as Indian helicopter gunships swooped down and sprayed rockets on rebel positions, allowing the Congolese army to push them back.