The Indian Air Force (IAF) plans to take up the upgrading of Vijaynagar, an almost-inaccessible sliver of a plateau on the China border surrounded by forests on all sides. This advance landing ground (ALG), or a temporary airfield, was among the seven earmarked for modernisation eight years ago. Since then, six became functional but Vijaynagar became so in 2016. It is heartening that locals in this hinterland are lending a helping hand. The Arunachal Government did its bit by building 150 km of roads through dense forests to this ALG. This rare instance of civil-military synergy is a case for cheer in a theatre where infrastructure development has been perennially delayed, especially on the border with China.

These ALGs are purely for military use. While their strategic importance is indisputable, there are grounds to utilise the upgraded infrastructure for civilian use as well. Several airports in the country have become throbbing hubs of civilian travel such as Chandigarh, Goa or Pune that were once military bases. Now that the IAF has set its sights on making strips functional in places like Lahaul-Spiti and Ladakh that are tourism magnates but tough to access by road, there should be the possibility of dual use at some of them. The extension of civic infrastructure in areas where there has been none contributes to the cause of national security; a variation of the ‘hearts-and-minds’ programme undertaken by the security forces in similarly remote areas.

It may be worthwhile to take a leaf out of China’s Tibet book in this regard. China has modernised six civilian airfields in Tibet to handle military operations. New Delhi, too, needs to convert makeshift strips with tourist potential into all-weather dual-purpose facilities. India has broken out of the siege mentality with the forward deployment of its military assets while observing the spirit of the 1996 and 2005 Sino-India agreements. The excessive cost of building facilities in remote areas has hampered modernisation of the upper Himalayas at the desired pace. Wherever feasible, dual use will distribute the infrastructure costs among several stakeholders to meet the pressure on government funds by competing demands.

New Delhi, January 9

On a day when China said it had deployed nuclear-tipped missiles after a US warship “transgressed” into its territory, India Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba warned China’s rise was unparalleled.

Admiral Lanba, speaking at the ‘Raisina Dialogue’, said China had been in the Indian Ocean as part of anti-piracy patrol since 2008 and at any given time, their five-six warships were stationed there. “They have deployed submarines for anti-piracy, which is unusual. No navy has grown as big as China’s,” he said.

Admiral Philip Davidson, who heads US’ Indo-Pacific command, said, “Our strategy is not aimed at China containment.” Asked if the US was feeling the burden of maintaining presence in Asia, he said the US had been well supported by the UK, Japan, Australia and had jointly operated in South China Sea.

French Navy Chief Admiral Admiral Christophe Prazuck said if needed, France could back India in Indian Ocean.

Earlier, Indian Army Chief Gen Bipin Rawat said there should be negotiations with the Taliban, but without conditions. “Terrorism is here to stay as long as states continue to use it as a policy.” — TNS

Ajay Banerjee
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, January 10

Army chief General Bipin Rawat on Thursday said talks with various groups in Jammu and Kashmir could not be possible if there is violence.

He said the suggestion of talks with the Taliban did not fit into the J&K scenario.

Gen Rawat was addressing a press conference here ahead of the Army Day on January 15.

Talking about Kashmir, he said, “Come to the negotiating table, we can talk. But you have to shun the gun. Also, the number of conditions laid down make it difficult to hold talks.”

He was answering a question if talks in Kashmir should be held with Hurriyat since he (Gen Rawat) had suggested that India should look at the talks with the Taliban.On Wednesday, speaking at the Raisina Dialogue, Gen Rawat had suggested that India should be part of the talks with the Taliban.

He clarified that some nations were in favour of speaking to the Taliban. “If India thinks it has stake in Afghanistan then we must step in. I am not saying we should take the lead. But at least, go and listen to what is being discussed in Afghanistan.”

The same did not apply to J&K as it’s a bilateral issue with our western neighbor, he added.

On the situation in J&K, he said, “I am not saying it’s totally under control”, adding that there was no change in the situation at the LoC since Imran Khan had taken over.

“There is always the endeavour to bring peace. We are only facilitators of peace for the Valley. People say let’s tone down operations; can anyone give the guarantee that no convoy would be attacked in Kashmir.”

He said the situation is fine on the western and northern fronts and there was no cause for concern.

Answering a question on changes in tackling China after the Wuhan summit, Gen Rawat said, “We are maintaining peace and tranquillity of the kind that we wish.”

On the proposed restructuring of the Army, he said that in mid-2019 the restructuring of the Army headquarters would begin. The setting up of the Integrated Battle Group (IBG) would be tested on ground in May then the Army would move to implement it; The IBG would not be a ‘Mini Strike Corps’, he said.

On being asked if the recent Supreme Court verdict on decriminalisation of extra-marital affairs and homosexual relations, Gen Rawat was categorical, “We will continue to charge people under the Army Act for both. Sorry, the Army is conservative and intends not to change on these issues.”

“Some of the rights and privileges do not exist for us,” he said.

On his tenure, he said the time had come to consolidate on issues now under progress. “In the third year (of his tenure) I will strive to bring the issues to conclusion.”

He said he had involved Army commanders in discussion on restructuring. “There can never be 100 per cent consensus. We cannot take a decision on 100 per cent consensus, it’s about leadership. There are some issues which go beyond consensus, yes a majority view has to be taken,” he said.

On the soldiers who are genuinely disabled, Gen Rawat said, “To address disparity in disability pensions is top of my agenda.”

Answering a question, he said, “We are coming up with a plan. We have address disabilities. The Army will observe this year for the next of kin of the disabled or killed soldiers. We will identify those who need help.”

On the misuse of social media, he said those flouting the guidelines would invite action.

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, January 6

An award-winning innovator from the remote Ladakh region has found the answer to the Army’s winter worry by preparing a prototype hut which taps solar energy and increases the room temperature by nearly 40°C.

Sonam Wangchuk, the Ramon Magsaysay Award winner and a celebrated innovator and engineer, solved the Army’s struggle with the arctic climatic conditions of Ladakh by going back to the “ancient method” of using straw and clay for the construction of bunkers and residential quarters.

“We only attuned the ratio of clay and straw to make it more insulated for better heating and light weight for easy transportation,” Wangchuk told The Tribune over the phone from Ladakh.

He said the Army had shown “more than just interest” in his prototype solar-heated huts which would “not require any other energy” and also ease the pressure on the environment by cutting on pollution-causing methods of heating.

The Ladakh region, where an Army Corps is stationed on two frontiers with Pakistan and China, is one of the coldest places of the world and also home to the second-coldest inhabited town, Drass, where the lowest recorded temperature was -60°C on January 9, 1995.

The solar-heated hut will allow sunlight inside and use straw-clay walls to tap it, having the potential to create a temperature gap of up to 40°C.

“If the outside temperature will be -20°C, inside the hut it will be 20°C,” Wangchuk said.

The celebrated innovator, whose life story inspired Bollywood blockbuster ‘3 Idiots’, said the idea of building huts of pre-fabricated bricks of clay and straw — which he described as fibre-reinforced clay for housing purposes, was initially used to solve the problems of people in Ladakh who faced rigid climatic conditions which shortened the work period to a few months and also made it labour cheap.

The Army, Wangchuk said, had approved the prototypes to solve its trouble with the freezing weather in Ladakh, where soldiers guarded a mountainous frontier throughout the year, even when the temperatures routinely dropped 20°C to 30°C below the freezing point in the winter. “They want us to build more…we hope to be ready with low production this summer and may be fully by the next summer,” Wangchuk said.

Use of straw to curb pollution in Punjab

• Sonam Wangchuk said once the huts were in the production stage, they would also solve the pollution problem in Punjab and New Delhi as they would procure straw, which is otherwise burnt, for the construction purpose. “We hope to get the straw from Punjab where it is burnt, solving the environmental problem there,” he said. “So we will be reducing the pollution in Punjab and Delhi and also in Ladakh, where people and the Army use coal and kerosene for heating,” he said.

Army okays prototype

• Sonam Wangchuk has solved the Army’s struggle with the arctic climatic conditions of Ladakh by building the prototype of a solar-heated hut. Wangchuk said the Army had approved the prototypes to solve its trouble with the freezing weather in Ladakh.

Whether it was the raid inside Myanmar, the Doklam standoff or the surgical strikes, the Army high command should have informed the political leadership about hyping such operations. Since then, demonetisation and Yogi Adityanath’s insertion have attracted the sobriquet of surgical strikes, both with negative consequences.

Maj Gen Ashok Mehta (Retd)
Former GoC, IPKF, Sri Lanka

Two and a half years after its execution, the key architect of the military operation, former Northern Army Commander, Lt Gen DS Hooda finally said this month at a military literature festival that surgical strikes were hyped and politicised: ‘If you start having political resonance in military operations, it is not good’.

The common malady among senior military commanders and service chiefs has been their failure to provide prudent advice to the political leadership on military operations. Instead of waiting for 30 months, Lt General Hooda and other commanders in the loop should have warned Prime Minister Modi against turning military strikes into a political football as he and his party have done by keeping operations under wraps. Lt General Hooda said: ‘In hindsight, it would have been better had we done surgical strikes secretly’.

Rewind to September 2016. Modi’s decision to go public was contingent upon two factors: no casualties and no escalation. Surgical strikes were kept below this threshold by targeting terrorist launch pads, not army posts. When the two conditions were met, it was Modi, not Army Chief Gen Dalbir Singh or Lt General Hooda who decided on announcing the successful launch and recovery of Special Forces. It was a calculated risk that Modi used to his political advantage. Left to it, the Army would have preferred to maintain secrecy as it has done in the last 60 years astride the LoC.

Instead of dissuading the government from, in Lt General Hooda’s words, ‘employing the constant hype’ of surgical strikes (politically flogged for two and a half years) the military leadership went along with the politicisation of operations (and the Army) to the detriment of established military norms and values. After Lt General Hooda set the cat among the pigeons, Army Chief Gen Rawat was the first to intervene: dismissing his observations as ‘individual perceptions’ and ‘personal views’. Almost synchronised were comments lauding the operations by two other military commanders — Vice-Chief of the Army Staff, Lt Gen Anbu, and Northern Army Commander Lt Gen Ranbir Singh, who was the pivot to the surgical strikes as then DGMO.

Never before has a single modest operation been politically milked as much as to make the government order the Army to commemorate the second anniversary countrywide without celebrating its first anniversary. The Army should have resisted that. When Lt Gen Hooda was asked what about the need to hype the operation, he said: ‘This should be asked of the politicians.’ A similar but more spectacular raid inside Myanmar against NSCN-K rebels who had ambushed a Dogra Battalion patrol was also needlessly hyped and politicised. If the military was not so subservient to the political and bureaucratic class, the Army high command should have emphatically informed the political leadership  of the present  and real danger of hyping surgical strikes which instead of retarding infiltration and curbing terrorism as claimed, have only given a leg up to both.

In October 2016, Uttar Pradesh was warming up to the Assembly elections. Posters and banners began appearing in Lucknow glorifying the surgical strikes. Emblazoned on them were three pictures: Lt Gen Ranbir Singh flanked by Modi and Amit Shah. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar was supervising preparations of election rallies. He had been taking credit publicly for preparing the Army for more than one year for operations, invoking in soldiers the ‘Hanuman’ spirit.

A few days later, Modi was hailed in Lucknow as the ‘conqueror in chief’ and awarded the war mace. In the ceremonies that followed, surgical strikes were billed as the BJP’s single biggest achievement with Modi its tallest leader. The Army did not demand the recall of the offending posters and banners.

The BJP chief, Amit Shah, also made no bones about using the surgical strikes to further his party’s political fortunes. Rarely did an election rally addressed by Modi or Shah not seen prominent mention of surgical strikes. While praise for the jawans was in the passing, the party leadership’s deification was supreme. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat also does not shy away from comparing Swayamsevaks with a regular Army.

Modi has secured political dividends from the Doklam standoff too. On October 4, 2017, while addressing the Institute of Company Secretaries of India, he indulged in subtle self-praise over India’s capability of standing up to China, drawing a leaf from the Mahabharata. Doklam was invoked at political rallies but did not find the resonance of surgical strikes. Since then, demonetisation and Yogi Adityanath’s insertion in recent state elections have attracted the sobriquet of surgical strikes, both with negative consequences.

Senior IAF officers were asked to publicly justify at a seminar the Rafale contract, the pricing and choice of offset partners. During Defence Minister Sitharaman’s regurgitation of these issues, the Chief or Vice-Chief of Air Staff was deployed beside her. The former has even endorsed the Supreme Court judgment when he should have avoided entering the political domain.

Former Deputy NSA Arvind Gupta who now heads the BJP’s Vivekanand Foundation had the courage to write in his recent book How India Manages its National Security, that political parties (read BJP) freely used the Army’s name in UP state elections which is dangerous politicisation of the Army’s surgical strikes.  For the political leadership Lt General Hooda’s afterthoughts on surgical strikes (and military operations)   carry a statutory warning: Do Not Politicise. Equally, senior military commanders have a constitutional duty to deter political leaders from crossing military red lines. The use-by date of surgical strikes was long over.

Jammu, December 31

Lt Gen SK Sharma was appointed as the Chief of Staff, Northern Command, in Udhampur, on Tuesday.

He relieved Lieutenant General JS Nain, who will be taking over a Corps shortly.

Lieutenant General Sharma was commissioned in the Rajputana Rifles on December 17, 1983, and has commanded the 11th Battalion of the Rajputana Rifles, an Infantry Brigade along the Line of Control in Kashmir and an Infantry Division in Jammu.

He has also held staff and instructional appointments, including a military-observer tenure at the United Nations Mission in Liberia. He also served as an instructor at the Indian Military Academy, Dehradun, and has had tenures in military operations and intelligence branches at the Army headquarters. — TNS