Commandos from 4 Para (SF) dropping from a helicopter to hunt for terrorists. This is the last photo of them alive

The Indian Army suffered a huge setback on April 5, when a five-man squad from the elite 4 Parachute (Special Forces) battalion, or 4 Para (SF) as it is more commonly known, were wiped out during an encounter in the mountains of Kupwara, north Kashmir, with terrorists who had crossed over from Pakistan Occupied Kashmir on April 1.

The terrorists, believed to be five in number, taking advantage of inclement weather and heavy snowfall, infiltrated into the mountainous area of Kupwara through the Line of Control (LoC). However, they were spotted by an infantry unit deployed close by and challenged. However, the terrorists managed to escape deeper into the mountains.

This necessitated the deployment of the army’s best-trained and most motivated soldiers, the commandos from special forces units, who are relied upon to do the most difficult and dangerous operations, which are beyond the scope of regular infantry.

Usually, the special forces do their homework meticulously before they carry out any operation. Proper reconnaissance of the target is carried out, capabilities of the opposing forces are assessed and then only they move in for the kill.

The 2016 surgical strike, which was carried out by 9 Para (SF) and 4 Para (SF), was a classic example of what specially trained soldiers with proper intelligence and meticulous planning can achieve.

In Kupwara, the two squads of commandos that were deployed didn’t have that luxury. The only input they had was that there were five terrorists who had infiltrated into Indian territory and they had to be captured/killed before they could make it to the Kashmir Valley and disappear among the local population, making it very difficult if not impossible to track them.

So, the commandos were not up only against terrorists, who were well-trained which became evident later, but also against the elements and time, as the local army commanders wanted quick results.

Such operations are dangerous even for tough-as-nails commandos. In a similar operation in Hafruda forest of Kupwara on March 21, 2009, 1 Para (SF) lost 8 soldiers, including Major Mohit Sharma, who was posthumously awarded Ashoka Chakra, nation’s highest peace time gallantry award, after they were heli-dropped on a search and destroy mission against militants hiding in the forest but they were caught in a well-planned ambush.

In the afternoon of April 4, the commandos got the go ahead to deploy. Two squads were flown into an area where the terrorists were believed to be hiding. The commandos got out of the helicopters and started their mission in chest-high snow.

Surely, the terrorists who were hiding nearby had heard the helicopter and they knew that when a helicopter is pressed into service it can mean only one thing: special forces have been deployed.

The five commandos who made the supreme sacrifice

Early on April 5, one squad of the commandos picked up footsteps in the snow and started following them. What happened after that is hazy. The army version is that the ice cornice on which the commandos were standing gave way and some of them fell into a stream near the spot where the militants were hiding, who opened fire immediately on the commandos.

The commandos who didn’t fall, also slithered down and joined in the close-quarter hand-to-hand battle which resulted in everyone including the four or five terrorists and the five commandos dying.

But there are other theories going around which say that the commandos were caught unawares and were in fact ambushed and eliminated and the terrorists were then killed by the second squad of the commandos who were nearby and had rushed to the spot after hearing gunfire.

It is very likely that the spin doctors in the army turned an embarrassing ambush into a heroic action by putting out the narrative that the five commandos eliminated the terrorists while perishing in the process.

And why will they not? Losing an entire squad of supposed elite soldiers, the cream of the army, to terrorists is a defeat and the army would never accept it. It would hit morale of the forces and point fingers at everything, including poor intelligence and selection and training standards of special forces.

The terrorists who died were no ordinary terrorists. They were highly trained and motivated. To take out a whole squad of commandos is no easy task and there is no doubt the terrorists were trained by Pakistan Army’s special forces, the Special Service Group (SSG). In the past too, SSG-trained terrorists have proven to be tough fighters who have given Indian Army a hard time.

Even a senior army officer, who asked to remain anonymous, has said that the commandos walked into an ambush and the army is trying to hide this fact.

This incident has several similarities to what the Indian Air Force did with the downing of the MiG-21 Bison in the aerial battle with Pakistan Air Force fighter planes over PoK on Februry 27, 2019. The MiGs were launched to counter enemy planes. Likewise, the commandos were heli-dropped to take down militants who infiltrated. In both actions, our forces came off worse, though in Kupwara an entire squad of supposed elite soldiers, the cream of the army, were wiped out while on February 27, the MiG was downed by a superior fighter plane.

In my opinion, Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, the MiG-21 pilot, didn’t fire a missile seconds before he was hit and therefore no PAF plane went down.

This is all propaganda. I guess the BJP-led government at the Centre wants to hide embarrassing defeats and instead wants to put out a narrative which paints our armed forces as heroes in every action, even when they have been overwhelmed by the enemy.

On February 27, we were surprised by PAF’s daylight raid and this led to confusion which resulted in downing of an Mi-17 chopper and deaths of six IAF personnel onboard and the shooting down of the MiG. The Sukhois and Mirage 2000s were also not able to fire their missiles, which again highlights the inadequacies which have marred our armed forces.

In Kupwara, the army was unable to track and finish off infiltrating militants for three days hence there was pressure from local commanders to find and eliminate them fast.

I think this hurriedness caused the surprise element to be lost and when the commando squads were helicoptered in, the mililtants knew what they were up against and they were prepared.

By now the militants in Kashmir know the standing operating procedure of Special Forces teams. If they hear a helicopter, they know the SF teams are coming and about to be dropped and this gives them ample time to prepare an ambush.

If militants can take out a SF squad, what can they do to a group of regular soldiers? The army has to take a long, hard look at what happened in Kupwara and change its standing operating procedure so that it stays one step ahead of the opposing forces.

An AN-32 transport aircraft of Indian Air Force is being loaded with medical equipment which will be flown from Tambaram (Tamil Nadu) to Bhubaneshwar (Odisha) for the setting up of medical lab & facilities

As the number of coronavirus cases increase with each passing day in India, we are immensely grateful to doctors, nurses, para-medical staff, police, fire brigade, sanitary workers and others who are untiringly working day and night to keep us protected.

But aren’t we forgetting that a force of more than 14 lakh strong is also silently playing its part in battling the pandemic? Yes, the Indian armed forces which include the army, navy and the air force aren’t on everybody’s radar but they are fulfilling a vital duty of reaching out to the masses and delivering essential goods.

Like us, many in the armed forces are working from home but the rest are lending a hand ensuring that people in need around the country have enough stocks of essential supplies.

Working selflessly, soldiers, sailors and airmen are not only supplying essentials on the ground but are also transporting critically important things like personal protection equipment (PPE), medical equipment and medicines to parts of the country where they are in short supply.

They stay away from their family members, fearing their loved ones might get infected but they take this painful separation in their stride and carry on fulfilling their duty stoically.

As armed forces personnel are posted all across our vast country, they are best placed to feed workers, labourers and others who have been left jobless and away from their homes. In such places the armed forces are sharing the administration’s burden of looking after people who can’t look after themselves.

The armed forces are always training and preparing for war and this pandemic is nothing short of a full-blown war. They are not only collecting and distributing essentials but also setting up and managing quarantine facilities, which will help us in overcoming coronavirus.

So, as civilians it is our duty to help the men in uniform, who are sacrificing so much for us, by staying at home.

With HAL pushing for its inclusion in the programme, the Navy, which is desperate for utility helicopters, fears the project will be delayed.

New Delhi: The nearly $3 billion deal for Naval Utility Helicopter (NUH) could become the first challenge for the Narendra Modi government under the new ‘atmanirbhar’ initiative in the defence sector.

This is because the state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) is pushing for its inclusion in the programme. The initiative is being pursued under a strategic partnership model focused on the Indian private industry meeting manufacturing needs through tie-ups with foreign vendors.

The Indian Navy, though, is worried that the whole programme will be delayed if HAL is brought in, which the Bengaluru-based firm denies. The Navy has been desperate to replace its Chetak of 1960s vintage with NUH.

The NUHs are to be utilised for multiple roles, including search and rescue, casualty evacuation and low-intensity maritime operations, besides torpedo drops.

The Navy had received eight responses to the Expression of Interest (EOI) issued in February last year as part of its plan to purchase 111 helicopters for Rs 21,738 crore.

HAL had submitted two bids at the time, one by itself and another through its joint venture with Russian Helicopters to produce the Kamov chopper, a Russian utility chopper.

Apart from the Navy, other private players have also objected to HAL’s inclusion.

The Ministry of Defence is yet to clear the file for issuance of Request for Proposal (RFP) for selected vendors and may take a fresh look at the proposal to include HAL.

Defence sources said that the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) had already considered the participation of HAL when it decided on pursuing the project through the strategic partnership (SP) model.

“Discussion in 2018 DAC for AoN (Acceptance of Necessity) regarding inclusion of HAL and then DAC directive to progress through SP model indicates that HAL is not to be included,” a source said.

Also read: HAL ties up with Larsen & Toubro, others as Modi govt taps private talent for Tejas Mark 1A

HAL says it has the tech but Navy needs to be clear

Speaking to ThePrint, Wing Commander Unni Pillai (Retd), executive director (CTP-RW) at HAL said, “The essence of SP Model is to bring in technology into the country that we don’t possess.”

He added that the transfer of technology (ToT) in the heavier weight lift class makes sense because HAL is still trying to design one.

“But getting something, which is in the same weight class as ALH (Advanced Light Helicopter), it does not make sense. Whatever they (Navy) are trying to get in is 1970 design,” he added.

He argued that the foreign chopper “the same configuration as the ALH” will be nearly Rs 10-15 crore more.

“And then what happens is that the actual expenditure comes in every 5-7 years when the aircraft requires upgrades, including when new systems have to be put. And that is when the foreigners start bleeding us … we will keep paying money to people,” he said.

The senior HAL official said “Atmanirbarta will never happen” if we depend on imports.

“If we have a design and needs to be done up to somebody’s requirement, the two parties need to sit together. The Navy has never engaged HAL in what exactly they want. Initially, in the 1990s, they wanted a replacement for Seaking (helicopter) which is a 10-tonne class. They wanted all the equipment to be fitted on an ALH, which is a 5-and-half-tonne class. This is not possible.

“So now, what they want is a smaller utility class helicopter which is a five tonne class. We have something in that class. Whatever adaptation needs to be done will be done,” he said.

Pillai underlined that the HAL’s chopper meets the Navy’s requirement. On the issue of folding blades, a requirement for Naval operations, he said HAL has segmented the blade.

“There are two bolts there. You remove one and it can be folded. It takes about six minutes to fold on the LUH (Light Utility Helicopter). On the ALH, we are planning to incorporate the same which we would be able to do at the same time,” he said.

Asked about fears that HAL will not be able to deliver on time even if it is able to meet all requirements, he points to its performance in the last five years to say the state-run firm has delivered ahead of time.

“In ALH for example, the Army had placed an order and we delivered one year in advance. We are capable of delivering in advance,” he said.

Also read: HAL needs new orders to prevent complete halt of production after 2021-22

Navy’s HAL problem

Defence sources told ThePrint that if HAL is included, it will erode the level playing field for private players since it already has government-funded infrastructure, which cross subsidises Transfer of Technology and indigenous content.

According to provisions in the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP), HAL cannot be included at this stage since the process has already begun.

“If HAL has to be included, then DPP has to be modified and ratified by DAC followed by issuance of fresh Request for EOIs to OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) and SPs,” the source explained.

As of today, the private companies have got a miniscule percentage of the overall orders to Indian companies placed by the Navy.

According to official statistics, since 2014, almost 95 per cent of the orders to Indian companies have gone to Defence Public Sector Undertakings and Public Sector Undertakings. HAL has an order book of approximately Rs 1 lakh crore, including that of Light Combat Aircraft.

Navy sources said that HAL was provided naval requirements from as early as 1990 to make a helicopter, but till date, the helicopter cannot meet requirements of the Navy.

“HAL will take another two years to meet blade folding capability. If at this stage HAL is included, the process will come to a halt as the Empowered Project Committee cannot clear ALH as a platform since it does not meet the quality requirements,” another source explained.

The source added that a higher body like DAC will have to accord this dispensation.

“However, if this is accorded, then other helicopters will also be added in the fray. The whole process would need to be recommenced, delaying the project further while diluting the operational functionality of the NUH,” the source said.

Air Vice Marshal Manmohan Bahadur (Retd) said all platforms have to meet the Navy’s requirement for it to be considered. Automatic blade folding is an essential necessity which naval helicopters require since they operate from decks of ships.

“Also, HAL order books are loaded. The whole idea of strategic partnership is to allow Indian private industry to come forward and provide the services with an alternative R&D (research and development) and manufacturing line. This would help bring in real indigenisation that every government has been wanting to usher in,” he added.

Also read: INS Arihant, Chinook, P-8I — game-changing Indian military inductions in the last decade

The fresh Chinese construction activity is happening around Finger 4 in Pangong lake area. China also blocked the route of Indian patrol teams in the disputed region.

Sources told ThePrint the fresh Chinese construction activity has been happening around Finger 4, a disputed territory. Blacktopping is the final stage of building a motorable road.

The 134 km of Pangong lake’s northern bank juts out like a palm, and the various protrusions are identified as “fingers” to demarcate territory. While India asserts that the LAC (Line of Actual Control) starts at Finger 8, China claims it starts at Finger 2, which India dominates.

In 1999, during the Kargil War when Indian forces were diverted, the Chinese had stepped in and built a track up to Finger 5, but this was not completely blacktopped.

As reported earlier, Chinese troops have stepped into the disputed ‘Finger’ area, which witnessed fist fights and stone-pelting on the evening of 5 May.

Also read: India waits for China’s diplomatic words to ‘translate into action on ground’ at LAC in Ladakh

New bunker, bulldozers to block Indian patrols

Sources said the Chinese have dug up a moat-kind of structure and also blocked the route of Indian patrols with two bulldozers.

They said the Chinese are working at a fast pace blacktopping the route. This has always been the Chinese strategy and construction happens at super-fast speed, sources added.

Even though the area is disputed, Indian patrols used to move up to Finger 5, but if the Chinese don’t move, patrolling teams won’t be able to go much beyond Finger 3.

The construction is happening at a time when the Chinese have spoken about “resolving differences”.

On Friday, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh told his US counterpart Dr Mark T. Esper that it would use “existing bilateral mechanism” to ease tensions with China along the LAC in Ladakh, after US President Donald Trump offered to play mediator for the two Asian giants.

Also read: China believes India wants Aksai Chin back. PLA has likely secured 40-60 sq km in Ladakh

India should’ve anticipated the Chinese appearance in Ladakh, even the timing of it, when the status of Jammu & Kashmir was changed.

Among his finest pieces is his ‘A Brief History of Man’. You can find it in his collection Republican Party Reptile. In less than a thousand brilliant words, it spans the entire human history. He takes all the great civilisations and reigns that rose and fell or survived in that sweep.

What’s relevant to us today is one short sentence in which he dismissed China: “Meanwhile, in China, there were the Chinese.”

You can interpret that any which way you wish. My guess is that he’s conveying that sense of resignation you find about the “inscrutable” Chinese. A familiar thought in the West.

But we don’t live in the West. We’ve lived next door to China for as long as first civilisations grew.

If we study our own post-Independence interactions with the Chinese, what is it that we might describe as inscrutable? Their military assault across two fronts in 1962 may have been a surprise to our leaders, but that is only because they were delusional.

Every Chinese action with respect to India since, from their ultimatum to India to “return their stolen yaks and sheep” in 1965 when the 22-day war with Pakistan raged, to their supposedly ‘surprise’ appearance along the Ladakh frontier this year, in fact, shows that the Chinese are far from inscrutable. They are predictable.

The push at Nathu La (Sikkim) in 1967 was probably to check out the resolve from India. Which they saw at its weakest — having fought two recent wars (1962 and 1965), famines, ship-to-mouth existence, political instability and a diminished Indira Gandhi. Remember, China had already joined the nuclear club in 1964.

The Indian response was a lesson they quickly learnt. A lot of detail on that short, sharp, local but historic engagement has recently been published in a full-length book Watershed 1967: India’s Forgotten Victory over China by Probal Das Gupta, which I was honoured to write a blurb for. What did the Chinese do after that? They have kept the peace for 53 years.

Will you call that response evidence of Chinese inscrutability? They probed us, got a rude push-back, and decided to wait and stir the pot in different ways, at different times.

Also read:Modi’s India isn’t Mao’s China. Silly forecasts assume we’ll let corona kill millions of us

Over six decades, since about 1960, the Chinese have been able to dictate the evolution of their ties with India, with the pace and landmarks of their choosing. Whatever blunders we might fashionably blame Nehru for today, he ceased to matter in 1962. The Chinese retained what they really wanted in 1962. The truth is, they had it in their possession almost fully, barring small, tactically important slivers in Ladakh. They asserted their ownership and let their larger claim, Arunachal Pradesh, fully in Indian control, go militarily uncontested.

They never gave up claim on it. Their view rose and ebbed as power equations evolved, in the region and the world. They checked us out again in 1986-87 at Wangdung-Sumdorong Chu (Arunachal), when they saw Rajiv Gandhi take India’s defence budget to a never-before-or-after 4 per cent-plus of GDP, especially when the India-Pakistan situation was on the edge during Exercise Brasstacks.

Once again, the response (Gen. Sundarji’s Exercise Chequerboard) was firm and the Chinese backed off. Lesson again, the Chinese won’t open fire for the heck of it. Or when they are absolutely sure of an easy victory so they could be seen like ‘teaching an upstart a lesson’ as they did in 1962. Predictable.

So much else — Mao Zedong reportedly flashing that enigmatic Mona Lisa smile at young Brajesh Mishra, then heading the Indian embassy in Beijing as a mere Charge d’Affaires in 1970; an attack on Vietnam to the embarrassment of Atal Bihari Vajpayee visiting Beijing as the Janata Party’s foreign minister; a nuclear test when President Venkataraman was visiting China in 1992; sabre-rattling over Dalai Lama’s visits to Tawang — fits that pattern. Everything, from 1962 to Doklam fits a pattern: Deliver a message, add leverage, and return.

All the stand-offs after that, including recent ones such as Chumar, Depsang Plains and Doklam, have ended the same way. The message is, see, who’s the boss out here? In Chumar, it was to India as it was feting Xi Jinping. In Doklam, to Bhutan.

Also read:How India and China resolved three major stand-offs in the Modi era

Whatever our pretence, we journalists are not experts at most things. Least of all on China. But journalists also have the privilege of learning from people who know better. We have learnt over the decades from our finest minds over two generations, from late Dr K. Subrahmanyam, the greatest strategic scholar of independent India, and General Krishnaswamy Sundarji to C. Raja Mohan now, and many others. But two conversations stand out in today’s context.

Dr Manmohan Singh, as prime minister, met a group of editors and gave us a masterful tutorial. He said China was coolly using Pakistan as an instrument to keep India perpetually off-balance. Our future, therefore, lay in breaking out of this ‘triangulation’.

His choice, obviously, was to reach out and seek peace with Pakistan. A much bigger and powerful China, he thought, would see less of an incentive for peace with India than Pakistan. In any case, for China, it is a low-cost strategy to keep India preoccupied with its client-state Pakistan.

That was his idea of breaking out of this triangulation. Today, that option is not so available, as hostility with Pakistan is central to the Modi-BJP politics. They’d rather make peace with China than Pakistan.

That is why the lavish welcomes and frequent meetings with the Chinese leaders. The objective, still, is escaping that triangle.

The second was Vajpayee explaining the Chinese negotiating style. “Dekhiye, aap aur hum baithe hain aur vaarta kar rahe hain (see, you and I are sitting and negotiating),” he said. Both of us want something. I will ask you, let go of a little, you will say no. I’d say OK, a little less then. You will again say no. But ultimately you will relent and let go of some. The Chinese would never do that.

Both these leaders underlined the same point, that the Chinese are consistent, and predictable. Which is why we should not be surprised by what they have unveiled across Ladakh. We should have anticipated it on 5 August last year when we made the big changes in Jammu & Kashmir.

We were not oblivious of the fact that there is indeed a third party in the territorial jumble there, and that is China. Home Minister Amit Shah left nothing to chance when he said in Parliament that “we will bring back Aksai Chin even at the cost of our lives”. Then, there were the new maps, objections to CPEC going through Indian territory, the weather reports. A broad territorial status quo had existed in Ladakh-Aksai Chin since 1962. India made its intention to change this status quo public.

Don’t ask me what is exactly happening on the ground in Ladakh. Are the Chinese on this side of the LAC or that? Because I don’t know. I can’t read satellite pictures. There is nothing like a LAC marked there, not even a distinct geographical watershed. All I can say is, I see no brigade-sized formations spread out there. How others read them depends on which side of the political divide they are on. At a time so polarised that even a 65-year-old, half-cent-per-pill drug like HCQ becomes politicised, you hardly expect much honesty being extended to satellite images of barren, naked mountains.

What I can say is, this should have been anticipated and gamed before the die was cast on 5 August 2019. This Chinese move, like all others in 60 years, was fully predictable. Even the timing. It was only a matter of the snows melting.

This article has been updated to accurately reflect that China attacked Vietnam when Vajpayee was visiting Beijing and conducted a nuclear test when President Venkataraman was in China in 1992. The error is regretted.

Also read:China believes India wants Aksai Chin back. PLA has likely secured 40-60 sq km in Ladakh

Once it was decided that Modi government would get a free pass on the question of a probable Chinese incursion, every Congress leader – from Nehru to Manmohan – was blamed for seceding territory.

he year 2020 is upending a political cliché – that the conservative Right is the best guarantor of national security. The ideologically awkward but artful dodging Indian conservatives are engaging in on the issue of India-China stand-offs in the Ladakh area shows they have allowed not only partisanship but also wooly-headedness to override any national security concerns.

In the parallel universe of Twitter, India’s Right-leaning handles gave up their long-held ideological convictions, and, in the last 72 hours, have also suspended their common sense. Once it was decided to give the Narendra Modi government a free pass on the question of a probable Chinese incursion across the Line of Actual Control (LAC), now every Congress leader – from Nehru to Manmohan Singh – would be blamed for seceding territory to China.

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11:41 AM – May 29, 2020

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Also read: Amid tensions at LAC, Amit Shah brings up China role in Covid outbreak

Are you really a conservative?

As reports emerged about China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) having allegedly parked its troops on Indian territory in Ladakh, many in the Indian Right chose to completely deny it.

And in a couple of days, as the Indian establishment began to signal that everything was not okay along the border some, such as Nitin Gokhale, cited an ambiguous statement by the spokesperson of China’s foreign affairs ministry to argue that now our northern neighbours were “de-escalating”.Others were confused by this stance:

Meanwhile, Indian defence officials were still warning against reading “too much” into the statements made by the Chinese foreign ministry.

If this wasn’t enough, soon began the game of satellite imagery. While gathering intelligence via open-source satellite images requires a whole set of skills, the Indian Right had managed to produce experts overnight.

Although there were some with the actual know-how to read satellite imagery, and said that it was possible that the Chinese had not crossed on to the Indian side. Moreover, there were other experts who pointed out the discrepancy between reports and the conclusions being drawn from satellite imagery.

But who cares about caveats and minor discrepancies? A large section of the conservatives chose to just jump on the bandwagon that no incursion had happened. 

The issue here isn’t whether the Chinese have crossed on to the Indian side or not. The question is how do conservatives not go berserk at even the remotest mention of India losing its territory? The idea runs against every grain of national security-nuclear weapons loving conservatives.

Territorial integrity is sacred for every nationalist. After all, isn’t the love for territory that is supposed to drive our policies in Kashmir?

Also read: Chinese troops blacktopping track in disputed ‘finger’ area in Ladakh amid border tensions

Fait accompli or a figment of imagination? 

Since the reports of Chinese incursion started to pour in, scholars of security studies have hotly debated the possibility of India having undergone a “fait accompli”, a concept of territorial conquest developed by Georgia State University scholar Dan Altman. During a fait accompli, a country conducts territorial conquest by targeting a small territory of the adversary, which usually has a “low population” and the absence of a “defending military garrison”. The aim is to capture territory in a way that reduces the risk of war, according to Altman.

So, on the one hand, we had scholars debating the possible Indian response in case it had undergone a fait accompli and on the other hand, a large section of India’s Right-wing claiming that there is no way Chinese troops have pitched tents on India territory.

One would expect that people who adore the idea of destroying Pakistan would at least engage with such strategising regarding a probable Indian military response. For them, even the possibility of territorial loss is unacceptable. It is ironic that the same group that supports the government’s quest to take back Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, would stay silent during a possible territorial incursion by the other neighbour. Much like everything in foreign policy, the answer to how the Indian Right got here lies in domestic politics.

Also read: The Chinese are so predictable, Modi & Shah should’ve seen them coming on 5 August 2019

Pakistan on your mind 

For the past few years, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government have projected the idea of a self-sufficient or ‘atmanirbhar’ India, especially when it comes to national security. “India is strongest under the leadership of PM Modi,” said Home Minister Amit Shah in October 2019. 

The overarching claim by the Modi-government is that not only can India manage its own security, but no other power would dare to harm us in a serious way. After the Pulwama and Uri attacks, Modi’s India did not turn to the United States but launched strikes as a deterrent.

The problem is the Right-wing’s Pakistan fixation. Several scholars who study Pakistan have pointed to how the country’s political and strategic elite spends a disproportionate amount of time talking about India. This has spoilt the Indian Right, made it lazy, and eroded its ability to analyse an adversary.

When US President Donald Trump proposed to mediate between India and China, a flurry of Right-leaning journalists such as Smita Prakash talked about how the “middle kingdom” being equated to India would not go down well with Beijing.

The obsession with Pakistan is such that news anchor Navika Kumar called PLA — the Pakistan Liberation Army.

The Indian conservatives have begun to see China exactly how they see Pakistan – a country obsessed only with India. And it couldn’t be any further from the truth. While India might matter for China, it’s hard to miss that Beijing is currently also embroiled in conflict with superpower US, in the South China Sea, and with its estranged cousins Taiwan and Hong Kong.

In foreign policymaking, a lot depends on how a country analyses its operational environment. Unfortunately for India, our conservatives – who are supposed to prioritise national security at all costs – are not only choosing to ignore the size and complexity of Chinese strategic thinking, but also deciding to ignore a possible territorial bite by them.

Views are personal.

Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Saturday warned China against any attempt to intrude into Indian territory, saying India will not back off in the face of Beijing’s intimidation.

“While we do not want war, we will not tolerate any bullying by Beijing,” said the CM, warning the neighbouring country against taking India lightly. “This is not 1962,” he said, making it clear that if China did not stop indulging in intimidating behaviour, it would have to pay the price.

“The Indian Army is ready to give a befitting reply and China should not take any chances,” he warned, in response to a Kolkata resident’s question, during his live session on a social media platform. “We don’t want war with any nation and want the situation to improve, but if they keep behaving like this we won’t have any other option left,” he said, urging China to mend its ways and talk to India to resolve the issue. Amarinder said China cannot stop India from building any infrastructure on its side of the border.

General Rawat’s impromptu strategic guidance on the diminished role for the armed forces has factored the impact of the pandemic on public spending. India’s plans to fight a two-and-half front war will need to be re-evaluated and its self-assigned role as a net regional security provider will also need a fresh look.

Maj-Gen Ashok K Mehta (retd)

Military commentator

To be self-reliant, the government’s announcement on May 16 virtually banning defence imports — a boost for Make in India — and allowing 74 per cent FDI in JV through the automatic route, are near revolutionary steps, but requiring the defence procurement procedure (DPP) to be revised for the nth time. These radical policy changes will not be easy to implement and will undermine defence capabilities in the short and medium term.

Therefore, CDS General Bipin Rawat’s extraordinary statement earlier this month, charging the armed forces with “misrepresenting their operational requirements to indulge in large weapon import” was embarrassing for the armed fraternity, though pointedly in sync with the government which has been advocating Make in India, a grandiose project for indigenising weapons production that is bereft of any home-grown technology and adequate production base.

General Rawat said the armed forces should accept weapons from the domestic industry even if they meet just 70 per cent of the desired technology. The admission includes curtailing operational missions and objectives: “We are not expeditionary forces that have to deploy around the globe. We have to guard and fight only along our borders and, of course, dominate the Indian Ocean.” He added: “Covid-19 has affected everybody. We need to be realistic, start adjusting and have a major relook at our operational priorities and what we actually need.” This was a painful overview of the existing defence planning, weapon acquisition and their prioritisation procedures for which he too, as former Army Chief, is accountable.

It is understood that veterans and serving officers were perturbed with General Rawat’s accusation that the services have been exaggerating

military threats and that they should fight with weapons with less than the stipulated General Staff Qualitative Requirement.

General Rawat’s self-flagellation was also prompted by a defence

official disclosing that the defence budget was likely to be slashed between 20 and 40 per cent. As salaries and pensions cannot be cut, defence modernisation will take the hit. This will put a freeze on any new deals and even funds earmarked for paying instalments in the existing contracts could be deferred.

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) could also be partly to blame for the ‘noise’ as it has been rating India for the last five years as the world’s second biggest arms importer after Saudi Arabia, accounting for 9.2 per cent of total global arms imports. Even so, India spends on an average on defence, just 1.6% of GDP, minus pensions and salaries, which is one of the lowest among the developing countries, given its two unsettled borders and attendant challenges.

What General Rawat said amounts to a critique of how the country arrives at its defence and security threats, challenges and opportunities. No overarching review coupling defence, diplomacy, technology and economics in the shape of a comprehensive strategic defence and security review has ever been carried out. Nor has any white paper been produced. The Defence Minister’s operational directive which is originally drafted by the tri-services gets updated and issued after every five to ten years.

The last time one was refined was during the late Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar’s term, but one is not sure whether he finally signed the directive.

The strategic sweep of each service of the armed forces is varied. For the Navy, it is from the east coast of Africa to the Malacca Straits. For the IAF, airspace over territorial India and the Indian Ocean region; and for the continental Army, it is land borders with China, Pakistan, Myanmar and Bangladesh, along with out-of-area contingency plans for the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Nepal. The Indian Army has a manpower ceiling of one million. For the Navy, the ceiling is 60,000 and a target of 200 warships by 2027. The IAF has sought 42 combat squadrons, a figure born in the 1960s, not revised since and never achieved.

General Rawat’s impromptu strategic guidance on the diminished role for the armed forces has factored the impact of the pandemic on public spending. India’s ambitious plans to fight a two-and-half front war will need to be re-evaluated and its self-assigned role as a net regional security provider will also need a re-examination. The Indian Navy’s proposed role in the Indo-Pacific and any militarisation of the Quad will need to be shelved, with focus on the domination of the Indian Ocean region.

Further, General Rawat’s remarks, budgetary cuts and import ban will disrupt the 15-year long term integrated perspective plan and require a drastic resetting. The ground reality is this — the LoC has hotted up and infiltration in Kashmir is on the rise. Insurgency will increase exponentially as passes open. Similarly, the LAC has been activated in Ladakh and Sikkim and tension is escalating. Sikkim has a settled border and China accepted it as part of India in 2005. Although the Army Chief, General MM Naravane, has downplayed the two face-offs and rejected any linkage between them, the armed forces must be prepared for a pincer movement by all-weather friends Pakistan and China as well as another Doklam.

Hard power is needed to assert national interest by use of force. Evidently, in view of General Rawat’s pronouncements and the government’s new defence acquisition policy, full spectrum of capabilities and defence modernisation will be constrained by affordability of programmes in a post-Covid normal.

Instead of considering and announcing piecemeal reforms, like extension of colour service for soldiers, national voluntary service, integrated battle groups and so on, an integrated defence and security review is urgently required on achieving specific joint and individual force capabilities — something that the Defence Planning Staff, of which I was a member, modestly attempted in the mid-80s.

General Rawat’s challenge in a post-pandemic environment is daunting, but as the first CDS, he enjoys confidence of the government and knows his stuff.

Arun Joshi

Tribune News Service

Jammu, May 29

India has been constructing strategically crucial roads and repairing the airstrips close to Aksai Chin since 2008 and the aggressive objection to these constructions now is to redefine the boundaries as per its own misplaced perceptions.

For easy access to troops

Two roads leading to Fukche and Daulat Beg Olde — the two airfields which were activated in April 2008, then after a gap of 41 years in the eastern and western parts of Ladakh.

The construction of the roads cutting the mountains and negotiating the sand dunes was to enable the troops to have an easy access to the front lines. It was also to deny China to take advantage of Indian troops’ absence in the strategically important areas in Ladakh.

“These are strategically important areas for the Indian Army for defence purposes,” sources in the Army told The Tribune.

“There can be no compromises on strategic assets,” the sources said.

The roads were being constructed from the eastern and western flanks of the Aksai Chin area.

India had lost Aksai Chin because of its almost negligible presence in the area. The presence is required to strengthen the Indian defences strategically and enhance the visibility there.

The roads are important for there cannot be an all-time dependence on air presence because of vagaries of weather. In 2008, AN-32 and medium-sized IL-76 aircraft had landed and later these were upgraded for landing of bigger planes as well.

An Indian Air Force (IAF) fixed-wing aircraft (AN-32) landed at Daulat Beg Oldie (DBO) in the Ladakh region close to the Chinese border on May 31, 2008, and Fukche was activated in October 2007.

The Advanced Landing Ground, where the aircraft landed at DBO, is located at the height of 16,200 feet (4,960) metres near the strategic Karakoram pass and close to the Line of Actual Control with China in the Aksai Chin area.

Daulat Beg Oldie is an important Army forward area post which links the ancient silk route to China. This base was built during the Indo-China conflict in 1962. Packet aircraft of the IAF operated from DBO between 1962 and 1965. In 1996, an earthquake caused some loosening of the surface soil making the base unfit for further fixed-wing aircraft operations. But since 2008, things started changing and that’s what has made China to go in for area denial strategy by its aggressive and weaponised strategy.

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, May 30

A core group meeting of top security officials in Kashmir on Saturday pointed out that Pakistan had intensified its efforts at increasing infiltration and ceasefire violations and there was also an effort to calibrate increase in terrorist actions in the hinterland.

The General Officer Commanding, Chinar Corps, Lt-Gen BS Raju, and Director-General of Police, Jammu & Kashmir, Dilbag Singh, co-chaired a meeting of the core group consisting of top officials of the civil administration, intelligence agencies and security forces in Srinagar.

The meeting was to review the security situation and ensure readiness to meet the anticipated security challenges, an Army statement said. “The core group focused on the need for high level of synergy amongst all agencies in addressing the security concerns of Kashmir. Intelligence inputs indicated that Pakistan had intensified its efforts at increasing infiltration and ceasefire violations across the Line of Control (LoC). There is also an effort to calibrate increase in terrorist actions in the hinterland. Pakistan and its proxies are also active on social media to launch disinformation campaign in J&K,” the statement said.

The group discussed plans to ensure a robust counter infiltration grid along the LoC, counter-terrorist grid in the hinterland and recent successes in anti-terror operations.

“The intelligence inputs indicate efforts by anti-nationals and Pakistan proxies to calibrate increase in violence in J&K,” the statement read. The group discussed the need for continued intelligence-based anti-terror operations with a humane touch.

“In order to address the complete eco-system of terror organisations in J&K, the anti-terror operations are being supported by efforts to identify and arrest over ground workers who sustain the terror organisations,” it added.