65 WAR WITH PAK WAS A DRAW: CAPT

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SIKH BATTALION SUBEDAR’S ADVICE SAVED VALLEY IN ’47

BRIG WALKED ACROSS TO WARN CHINESE AT DOKLAM: BAKSHI EX-GOC-IN-C: DIDN’T MOVE INCH THEREAFTER

WARFARE NOT ALL ABOUT FIGHTING: BADNORE

MILITARY LITERATURE FESTIVAL KARGIL TOOK MILITARY BY SURPRISE: RETD OFFICERS RECALL HOW ARMY CHIEF WAS TOLD NOT TO SET TIMELINE

he region’s military literature traces its roots to ancient times. It presents a rich treasure trove of experiences and opinions

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Vijay Mohan

North India has remained a battleground since times immemorial. The land that has been the birthplace of countless soldiers has also produced voluminous military thought and literature over the past several thousand years. The mythological epics like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata or ancient scriptures contained in the Vedas to medieval works like Kautilya’s Arthashashtra, all point towards a structured military culture that once existed and the detail and importance that was given to the art and science of war.

After that there were several centuries during which evolution of indigenous military thought was overshadowed by foreign rule and socio-political leanings of some of the mass leaders. It was only towards the later part of the 20th century that Indian military writing saw a revival. Also the demand for greater public debate on matters of national security became more pronounced.

An army of writers

This, coupled with a greater access to information, personal literary interests and the notion of contributing towards the national cause, has led to an ever-increasing number of retired armed forces officers, senior bureaucrats, political leaders and even civilians penning down their opinions and experiences or simply putting together informative books and fictional volumes. Over the past decades, there have been thousands of books on military-related issues by Indian authors, but there is a feeling in some quarters that strategic culture in India is still in a nascent stage and needs a greater impetus.

The region, a witness to the most decisive wars, has produced a fair share of military writers of all hues, be it strategic issues, civil-military relations, historical narratives, service and legal matters, humour, individual feats and gallantry, picture books, regimental affairs, fiction and even comic strips.

When we talk of military history, a prominent name that crops up is that of Punjab Chief Minister, Capt Amarinder Singh. Among his notable works is The Monsoon War: Young Officers Reminisce — 1965 India-Pakistan War, an eyewitness account of the war when, as a young officer, he served as the Aide-de-Camp to the Lt Gen Harbaksh Singh, India’s top commander on the western front.

A Ridge too Far, detailing the Kargil conflict of 1999, Lest We Forget, the post-Independence military history of India, Saragarhi and the Defence of the Samana Forts, that delves upon a campaign listed among the 10 greatest battles of all time and Honour and Fidelity: India’s Military Contribution to the Great War 1914-18 are among his other literary contributions.

A service Chief is among those most qualified to write on matters military and the interface between the civilian leadership and military hierarchy. Towards this end, former Chief of the Army Staff, Gen VP Malik came up with From Surprise To Victory, a book that discusses the Kargil conflict that was fought during his watch. India’s Military Diplomacy: An Inside View of Decision Making and Defence Planning: Problems and Prospects and India’s Military Conflicts and Diplomacy are other books by him that delve into the realm of higher defence management in India.

A detailed review of the 1965 operations, including the main battles, air, logistics, Pakistani tactical concepts and lessons learnt from the war have been put forth by the then General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Command, Lt Gen Harbaksh Singh in War Dispatches: Indo-Pak Conflict 1965. Another of his works, In the Line of Duty: A Solider Remembers, talks about the courage of conviction, setting high standards and inspiring others.

Missed Opportunities: Indo Pak War 1965 by Maj Gen Lachhman Singh Lehal, as the name suggests, is the author’s perspective on what could have been done differently for better gains. Top Brass, Operation Windfall: Emergence of Bangladesh and Significant Battle Since Independence by Brig HS Sodhi are important books in the series.

Veteran accounts

Many war veterans have written accounts of battles and operations that they have been closely involved with. Leap Across Meghna: Blitzkrieg of IV Corps 1971 is Brig OS Goraya’s narrative of operations in the eastern sector. He has also given his eyewitness account in Operation Bluestar And After. Combat Diary by Brig Jasbir Singh is an illustrated history of operations by 4 Kumaon, while Brig BS Mehta’s The Burning Chaffees is about the role of 45 Cavalry in 1971 and its troop composition. Indian Gunners at War is Maj Gen Jagjit Singh’s account of Indian Artillery’s war experience in 1971. In Battleground Chhamb — The Indo-Pakistan War of 1971, Maj Gen AJS Sandhu raises several strategic and tactical questions pertaining to the weak spot in India’s defence. An Infantry Battalion in Combat is Lt Col SS Ahlawat’s view on battle situations. Behind The Scene: An Analysis of India’s Military Operations 1947-1971 is a critical review by Maj Gen Jogindar Singh. With Honour and Glory: Wars Fought by India 1947-1999 is Maj Gen Jagjit Singh’s analysis of the country’s strengths and weaknesses affecting its security, a study he undertook when the Kargil conflict was underway.

Counter-insurgency narratives

A lot has also been written about Operation Meghdoot in Siachen, Operation Pawan in Sri Lanka and issues involing the armed forces in counter-insurgency operations.

Several books have emerged as a result of proceedings and discussions during seminars or academic events. Two such examples are Indian Army Aviation 2025 and Army 2020, both edited by Lt Gen Vijay Oberoi which explore contemporary challenges and propose a future road map. China Threat or Challenge, edited by Lt Gen JS Bajwa is a collection of 27 essays, which deal with almost all aspects of China as a nation state and its behaviour.

Military leaders have also been profiled by those who have had a chance to serve with them or have access to material that details their life and career. Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw: Soldiering With Dignity is Lt Gen Depinder Singh’s story about India’s most iconic commander. Leadership in the Indian Army: Biographies of Twelve Soldiers by Maj Gen VK Singh concentrates on personal accounts, anecdotes and reminiscences in order to highlight these leaders’personalities, and show the human face behind the military facade.

Some authors have touched upon the personal lives, feats accomplished and difficulties faced by military personnel in the line of duty. Rachna Bisht Rawat has put together 21 stories about how India’s highest gallantry award was won in The Brave: Param Vir Chakra Stories and also recounted the battles fought by five different regiments in Chhamb in her book, 1965: Stories from the Second Indo-Pakistan War. Another of her publications is Shoot, Dive, Fly: Stories of Grit and Adventure from the Indian Army that revolves around the perils, rigours, challenges, perks, thrill and adventure of a career in uniform.

Param Vir Vikram Batra: The Sher Shah of Kargil — A Father Remembers is a tribute by GL Batra to his warrior son martyred on the Kargil battlefield. Similarly in A Tale of Two Victoria Crosses, Lt Gen Baljit Singh tells the true story of the Victoria Cross moments of two subalterns, a British and an Indian, 30 years apart but ultimate in the scales of valour in pitched combat. He has also penned his memoirs in From My Memory Vault.

A law unto itself

As far as service matters and litigation is concerned, Maimed by the System by Maj Navdeep Singh, a practicing lawyer, is a collection of real life accounts of defence personnel, military veterans, disabled soldiers and their kin who were wronged by the system but fought successfully to claim their service and financial rights and dues. Pension in The Defence Forces deals with rules and regulations on the subject and Soldiers, Know Your Rights are among his other books, along with a collection of anecdotes, Fauj Hai Mauj.

A number of books on military law, litigation and service matters, such as Human Rights and the Armed Forces in Low Intensity Conflict by KS Sheoran, are available. International Encyclopedia of Terrorism Laws and Encyclopedia of Missile Defence and Non-Proliferation by Maj Gen RS Mehta are examples techno-legal works.

Then there are authors who have chosen to dig deep into history. A Military History of Medieval India by Maj Gen GS Sandhu is a study of warfare in India from the 11th to the 18th century of the Christian era. It traces the evolution of strategy, tactics and weapons employed by indigenous as well as invading armies during this period. Going further back in time, Air Marshal RK Nehra’s Hinduism and its Military Ethos relates to study of the Hindu military value system from the earliest times of mythology to the present times. Infantry In India by Lt Gen VR Raghavan, covers the evolution of the Indian Infantry from the Middle Ages to the modern times, including its performance in the present era, while Brig Kuldip Singh has written on Indian Military Thought: Kurukshetra to Kargil and Future Perspectives.

Attempts have also been made to move beyond the national borders such as Musharraf’s War and Flashpoints in South Asia by Maj Gen Rajendra Nath, Brig Jasbir Singh’s Escape from Singapore and A War Nobody Won: The Sino-Vietnam War 1979 by Col Harjeet Singh. He has also written India’s Contribution to the Great War as well as A War of Intervention The Russio-Georgia War, 2008.

Govt cuts holidays to half in 2018, Akalis seek rollback

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 28

The state government has decided to reduce the number of gazetted holidays for calendar year 2018 to enable better public service to the citizens and also to ensure more teaching days in educational institutions.“With this reform, state government offices will remain open for 21 more days in 2018 compared to 2017. At the same time, government employees will be able to avail more restricted holidays than previously — in keeping with their preferences,” said a spokesman.The state government has declared 18 gazetted holidays and 39 restricted holidays for 2018. Government employees will now be eligible to avail five restricted holidays compared to two restricted holidays earlier.The spokesman said the state government has tried to strike a balance between its commitment to bettering public service and more teaching days in educational institutions on the one hand and the requirements of its employees to avail holidays on the other.“Now, the number of gazetted holidays in Punjab (only 18) are comparable to the number of holidays by the Government of India which has declared 17 gazetted holidays for 2018,” he said.For 2017, the state government had declared 37 gazetted and 20 restricted holidays. Employees were allowed two restricted holidays.The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), meanwhile, termed the Congress government’s decision to slash the list of holidays as a “totally dictatorial, irrational and insensitive” step taken without taking the other stakeholders into confidence. The party demanded its immediate rollback.In a statement here, SAD spokesman Daljit Singh Cheema said deleting occasions from the list like birth and martyrdom day of Bhagat Singh, Baisakhi, Mahashivratri, Parshuram Jayanti, May Day, martyrdom day of Udham Singh, Eid-Ul Zuha, martyrdom day of Guru Teg Bahadur and installation day of Guru Granth Sahib was wrong.Rejecting the state government’s “lame excuse” of providing better governance by slashing government holidays, the SAD leader said that the Amarinder government hasn’t even found time to complete its Cabinet strength by executing the much-needed expansion in the past nine months.

SGPC, akal Takht decry moveAmritsar: The SGPC and Akal Takht flayed the Capt Amarinder Singh government for scrapping holiday on Khalsa Sirjana Diwas. SGPC chief Gobind Singh Longowal said the occasion should again be brought on the list of gazetted holidays instead of the reserved list. He said the occasion carried utmost importance for the Sikh community. He, however, welcomed the gesture of Parliament of paying tributes to Guru’s Sahibzade. He said: “It was for the first time that Parliament paid homage to Baba Zorawar Singh and Baba Fateh Singh along with their grandmother Mata Gujri.” tns

File photo for representational purpose only.

Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 27

The Indian Army has changed its promotion policy allowing Generals to serve longer tenures and officers to get promoted at a younger age to the ranks of Major General and Lieutenant General.The Army has also changed the rather stringent requirement of two-year residual service for selection as Army Commander. There are just seven such posts, including Vice Chief.(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)The new policy announced on December 23 indicates that the Army has changed the sluggish promotion formula that dodges senior ranks. This in turn shortens the tenures to just 12 months at the level of the Divisional Commander, who is a Major General and has some 15,000-18,000 troops under his command. The same is the issue with the rank of Corps Commander, who is a Lieutenant General and gets only a 12-month tenure. This means too many changes.With the change of policy, the annual number of vacancies of promotion from Brigadier to Major General will be curtailed to 33, instead of the existing 44. In case of promotion from Major General to Lieutenant General, the vacancies will be curtailed from 12 to nine per annum. This will mean officers will have longer tenures of some 18 months and also that relatively younger people will be promoted while others get sidelined.In the Army, the rank of Major General is achieved by the age of 53 or 54, while the rank of Lieutenant General is on an average achieved by the age of 56. The target is to reduce this age profile by at least one year, ensuring longer tenures in top posts and continuity in policy-making.The policy of having a minimum of three years of residual service to become a Corps Commander shall remain unchanged.

A Chinese soldier and an Indian soldier at the Nathu La border crossing. File photo

Beijing, December 28

Highlighting the Doklam standoff as its major achievement of international cooperation this year, the Chinese military on Thursday said India should “strictly control” its troops and implement border agreements to maintain peace and stability along the border.(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)Chinese Defence Spokesman Col Ren Guoqiang said the highlights of his country’s international military cooperation in 2017 included handling ‘hotspot issues’ like Doklam.This year, under the unified deployment, the military has “resolutely” safeguarded China’s sovereignty and security interests, Col Ren told media here.The Chinese military has “played its due role in the handling of the hotspot issues such as the Sino-Indian confrontation in the Donglang (Doklam) area and safeguarded the China’s rights and interests in the South China Sea,” he said in response to a question.The Doklam standoff began on June 16 after the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) began building a road in area claimed by Bhutan. The Indian troops intervened to stop the road as it posed a security risk to Chicken Neck, the narrow corridor connecting India with its north-eastern states.The standoff ended on August 28 following a mutual agreement under which China stopped the construction of the road and India withdrew its troops.The 3,488-km-long Line of Actual Control between India and China covers from Jammu and Kashmir to Arunachal Pradesh.When asked how Chinese military view its relations with its Indian counterpart in 2018 in the backdrop of the Doklam standoff, Col Ren said India should implement the border agreements and control its troops.”We hope the Indian side can earnestly implement the relevant agreements reached between the two sides on the border issue and strictly control its border defence troops and do more for the positive development of China-India military-to-military relationship,” he said.During the border talks, the first since the 73-day-long military standoff in Doklam, in Delhi on December 22 between National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Chinese State Councillor Yang Jiechi, both sides stressed the importance of maintaining peace and stability along the border, Ren said.”As far as we know both sides have agreed that it is important to maintain peace stability along India-China border and create favourable conditions for further development of bilateral relationship, which has provided a good environment and good momentum for the continued enhancement of China and India relationship,” he said.In terms of China and India military-to-military relationship, it is important to have strategic communication and push forward healthy development of ties between the two militaries, Col Ren said.”We hope Indian side walk towards the same direction as the Chinese side and both sides can push forward the development of the relationship and jointly maintain the peace and stability along the China-India border which is in the interest of both sides,” he said.About a recent incident in which an Indian drone crashed on the Chinese side in the Sikkim sector, Col Ren declined to reveal details and whether the parts of the drone recovered by Chinese troops have been handed back to India.”It is our position that India should have learnt lesson from the incident,” he said.On December 7, China had lodged a diplomatic protest with India claiming that an Indian drone has “intruded” into its airspace and crashed in the Sikkim section of the border which included Doklam.India has clarified that the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle had developed a technical snag and asked China to return it. — PTI 

Recent ceasefire violation in the Keri sector in Jammu seems to be a deliberate attempt to escalate tension at a time when the focus is on the meeting between alleged Indian ‘spy’ Kulbhushan Jadhav and his mother and wife.

There is a common saying in the Indian Army that the LoC is one place where a sub-tactical situation can become strategic in less than five minutes. That’s because alongside that state, a host of other situations interplay to give it hype. The context here is about the Pakistani trans-LoC strike, which killed an officer and three jawans of one of India’s finest Infantry units – the 2nd (Royal) Sikh in the Keri sector of Rajouri on 22 December 2017.

A response by the Indian Army on Christmas at Rakh Chikri area of Poonch sector laid low three Pakistan Army personnel, and critically injured some more. Ordinarily, this news would have disappeared from media tickers within hours. However, currently it’s a different situation. How different is it really?

Bhupinder Singh

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, December 22

While selling tea near construction sites in and around his nondescript Fattu Bhila village, 30 km from the city, during his childhood, Bhupinder Singh had nothing to dream about in his life.Now, while receiving training as a general duty soldier in the Sikh Light Infantry unit of the Army, Bhupinder (20), son of a labourer, wonders how the destiny had something else in store for him.With the recently earned badge of honour and the olive green on his back, Bhupinder returned triumphant to his village, bringing pride and joy to his family and the villagers.He recalls how he dropped out of Class V from a government school to support his family. The life took a turn in 2011 for this hardworking lad when he was serving tea to labourers at the construction site of Satya Bharti Adarsh School’s expansion project. He caught the attention of schoolteachers, who got him enrolled where he used to serve tea in Class VI to continue his studies.Initially, Bhupinder’s father was worried over the financial burden of studies, but he was soon brought to ease when he learnt that his son would get free education, uniform, textbooks, stationery and mid-day meal.Displaying a keen interest in science, he brought home several accolades for his academic progress, projects and models. Before he could complete his higher secondary, he cleared the entrance test for the Army.“From pouring tea to figuring out hydraulics, Satya Bharti School has brought wonderful surprises and the happiest of memories for me,” he said.Ravinder Vohra, Principal, Satya Bharti Adarsh Senior Secondary School, said, “Bhupinder had developed good work ethics during his school and with sheer perseverance and grit he overcame all the hurdles to accomplish his goals.”