Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 17

In what could signal major changes in the structure of the armed forces, the Department of Military Affairs has set a target of rolling out the first ‘theatre command’ in India by 2022, but before that, it’s immediately setting up two integrated commands — one each called the Air Defence and Peninsular command.

‘Theatre command’,  also called joint commands, will look to provide  all assets for war under a single commander. “There  could be as many as five theatre commands along the western and northern land borders,” said General Bipin Rawat, who heads the newly created  Department of Military Affairs.

Speaking to a group of journalists on Monday, the General, who is also the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), said, “A thorough study will be ordered on having theatre commands by the end of this year. It will tell how many theatre commands are needed. We hope to roll out the first one by 2022.”

The services are still examining if J&K will be a separate theatre command.

On the Air Defence command, he said a report was expected by March 31. It will integrate all air defence assets under the Air Force, that includes the Coastal Guns of the Navy and ground-based air-defence missile launchers of the Army. This could be in place by the end of this year.

The Peninsular command will look to merge the eastern and western naval commands. The Navy has been sounded out and a formal study is being ordered in a few weeks from now. “The security of Indian Ocean region has to  be done by a single commander. He will be given air assets and also Army troops (for doing amphibious operations),” the General said.

The  existing tri-services command at Andaman and Nicobar Islands would remain as it is, he said. There is a plan to upgrade the three runways available on the island-chain.

On having a third aircraft carrier, General Rawat said, “Let  the first indigenous one sail; we will take a call on the next one after that. For now the priority is submarines,” he said.

Also, the DMA is looking to have a common training command and a war doctrine. “We  have to have a common doctrine and cross-postings of middle-level officers.” Common logistics is being worked out for all command platforms. This will reduce maintenance.

Furthermore, the DMA has moved a proposal for casting the contours of the department created on December 31. This includes having the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) handle  joint operations and intelligence. The  CISC, who was handling joint operations, will go as Vice CDS and will also be secretary, transformation and  coordination.

The DMA wants that vigilance cases be handled by the joint secretary who would be from the IAS. Another joint secretary from the IAS would handle  the work of parliamentary affairs.

The joint secretaries for the Navy, IAF and Army will be from the forces.

The DMA has been allocated 12 director-level civilian officers, and 12 colonel-level officers are being sought to work with the joint secretaries.

Chief of Defense Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat. (AP/File)

Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat Monday said his office is working on a tentative timeline that will see the establishment of an air defence command by end of the year, a peninsula command by 2021-end, and the first of the theatre commands by the end of 2022.

He said he was in favour of staggered procurement of big-ticket capital acquisitions like 114 fighter jets for the IAF and submarines for the Navy. The submarines, he said, will get priority over a third aircraft carrier that the Navy has been pushing for.

Gen Rawat said the air defence command, the first joint command to be created, will be headed by the IAF. A study on the air defence command, being headed by the Vice Chief of the IAF, has already been initiated and a report is expected by April 10.

The peninsula command, headed by the Navy, will be created by merging the eastern and western commands. “We look at the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) as one entity,” Gen Rawat said. The Navy Chief, he said, “has to look at a bigger perspective, and has to look at maritime issues from a higher perspective”.

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The “security of the peninsula should be looked after by one entity,” he said. A study on the peninsula command will be ordered March 31, with the report expected in three to four months, and it “will take shape by the end of next year”.

He clarified that within these commands, which will be joint commands, “not all the assets of the Navy will go to the air defence command and not all assets of the Air Force will go to the peninsula command”.

The Andaman and Nicobar Command, the first tri-services command already in place, will not be tampered with, the CDS said, and will continue to report to the Integrated Defence Staff. While the archipelago has “surveillance” threat, “for the peninsula, the defence of territory” is the main threat.

By the end of the year, Gen Rawat said studies for theatre commands will be initiated. The first theatre command will be rolled out by the end of 2022. “Difficult to say how many theatres” will be created, he said. There could be two commands, for the eastern and the western borders, or up to five commands, with a single command looking after the entire Jammu and Kashmir border, while the rest of the western border could be handled by another command.

Apart from these, the CDS said that the idea of a joint training command is also under consideration. He said “we need a doctrine command so that all services have the same doctrine” and training of personnel will also happen as per the doctrine. For integration in logistics, Gen Rawat said “we are looking at logistics in a very big way,” and mentioned that it has already started in three places. In Mumbai and Andaman and Nicobar Islands, all three services are coming together logistically while in Guwahati, the logistics of the Army and IAF are being integrated.

Underlining synergy in acquisition of equipment as well, he said while the Department of Military Affairs, headed by him as Secretary, has exclusive rights on revenue acquisitions, “capital acquisitions is with the Defence Secretary but prioritisation is with us”. He said after prioritisation, the Department of Defence (DoD) will handle the contracts because “if you start getting bogged down by these issues, your main charter of jointness and integration will suffer”.

Expanding on his idea for big-ticket capital acquisitions, Gen Rawat said, “I feel you should never go in for large numbers in procurement at the same time… distribute over tranches”. He indicated that procurement of 114 fighter jets for the IAF will happen in a staggered manner and submarines could also be bought in similar manner. He said “when you look at equipment, also look at maintenance and scheduling”.

On the Navy’s demand for a third aircraft carrier, Gen Rawat said that the “second aircraft carrier will come next year” and the need for a third carrier can be assessed after looking at the indigenously-built second carrier’s performance.

He said he has proposed to “strengthen the capacity of our static platforms” in islands in Andaman and Nicobar and other such regions. Though they are “never as good as moving platforms,” he said aircraft carriers are also high-value targets and are sinkable. “I am not saying it is not needed,” but priority will be given to the depleting fleet of submarines over a third carrier, he said.

he knowledge of nuanced differences between the two Punjabs may support efforts towards conciliation. Apart from the unpredictable nature of the civil-military relationship in Pakistan, the existence of India-centric extremist groups in Pakistani Punjab and recent developments in India, such as the invocation of Pakistan for electoral dividends, are some of the macro-impediments to creating an amicable environment for dialogue.

Luv Puri

Journalist and author

Internationally, the opening of the Kartarpur shrine is seen through its potential to be a catalyst for Indo-Pak conciliation. This is signified by the forthcoming visit of United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres to the shrine during his visit to Pakistan beginning Sunday. Over 45,000 Indian pilgrims have travelled through the Kartarpur corridor to pay obeisance at the shrine since the opening of the route on November 9, 2019.

The opening of the Kartarpur corridor situated in Pakistani Punjab’s Narowal district is particularly important for the Punjabis. For the Punjabi Muslims, the opening of the shrine is an occasion to reclaim an important component of their identity. An exhibition of paintings done on Sikhism and its related themes curated by the Lahore-based Fakir Khana Museum at the shrine reflects that. Within the shrine, there is a presence of local Muslims, mostly agriculturists, hailing from the nearby villages of Pakistan’s Punjab.

In quantitative terms, Punjab on both sides was the prime recipient of refugees from either side in 1947-48. On either side, memories of trauma caused by forced migration have been passed on from one generation of Punjabis to another. That is why Punjab and Punjabis are seen to be at the heart of an Indo-Pak conciliation. However, the corridor’s potential for conciliation requires a nuanced understanding of the two Punjabs, both from a historical and contemporary perspective.

Pakistani Punjab with a population of around 110 million is nearly four times in terms of the population of the Indian Punjab. In cultural and linguistic terms, it is mainly the eastern and central parts of Pakistani Punjab which are akin to the Indian Punjab. There is also a greater diversity in terms of dialects of Punjabi on the Pakistani side. Areas like Rawalpindi and Islamabad are in the Pothwari-speaking northern belt of Punjab and they border the Hindko-speaking areas of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The Pothwari area of Punjab is linguistically akin to the Pakistan-controlled Jammu and Kashmir, which is the non-Kashmiri speaking area of the undivided Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). On the other hand, the Saraiki-speaking southern Punjab areas of Bahawalpur and Multan are distinct from the rest of Punjab in cultural and linguistic terms.

A large portion of the present-day urban and rural agricultural Pakistani Punjab is a byproduct of the canal system built of the rivers by the British in the late 19th century that resulted in claiming of the land for agricultural use and also setting up of urban settlements in the process. A 2018 paper —Constructing ‘Hydraulic’ Society-1 in Lower Chenab Colony: A case study of Toba Tek Singh (1900-47) — points out that in the 1891 Census, the total population of the Lower Chenab Colony was 0.1 million and in 1911, the population increased to 1.1 million, ‘including 5,48,207 immigrants, born outside the colony.’ ‘The Lower Chenab Colony comprised whole or parts of the tehsils of the three districts of Jhang, Lahore and Gujranwala.’ The paper mentioned that the ‘grantees for the project of Lower Chenab Colony were taken from seven districts: Ambala, Ludhiana, Jullundur, Hoshiarpur, Amritsar, Gurdaspur and Sialkot.’ Except Sialkot, which is in Pakistani Punjab, all other places are now in the Indian Punjab. The grantees were mainly Sikhs, who migrated to rural areas for agriculture, and Hindus going to newly developed urban centres. So, for many Sikhs and Hindus, the 1947 displacement was the second one, though it was involuntary the second time.

This is not to understate the human impact of the Partition. A 2008 paper — The demographic impact of Partition in the Punjab in 1947 — reveals that ‘over 5.2 million (in thousands — 2,199 in India, 3,084 in Pakistan) of these Partition-related migrants moved from one part of the divided Punjab to the other, another 2 million (in thousands — 175 in India and 1,825 in Pakistan) persons moved either from other parts of India into West Punjab or from other parts of West Pakistan into East Punjab, and a further 1.85 million (in thousands — 1,209 in India and 645 in Pakistan) persons moved from East or West Punjab to other parts of West Pakistan or India, respectively.’

In sharp contrast, by December 1947, as per an estimate, the Sindh province of Pakistan, including Pakistan’s first capital, Karachi, had settled only 0.24 million displaced person. The migrants from the Indian side of Punjab mostly settled in Pakistani Punjab. Sikh and Hindu migrants from Pakistani Punjab, many of whom were from urban areas, apart from the Indian Punjab, settled in larger numbers in places like Delhi. The loss of human life on both sides of Punjab was also colossal.

The post-1947 trends also need to be studied closely. In contrast to other provinces such as Sindh, Pakistani Punjab’s provincial politicians did not clamour for official recognition of the Punjabi, language, mainly on account of following the lead of Pakistan founders who wanted no other language to emerge parallel to Urdu. The Pakistani Punjab followed some of the colonial practices, namely giving lands, particularly agricultural, to retired soldiers and army officers.

Alongside the opening of the Kartarpur corridor, a lot more needs to done by the two countries to put into practice Guru Nanak’s universal and everlasting message of humanism.

In this context, knowledge of some of these nuanced differences between the two Punjabs may support efforts towards conciliation and infuse more realism. Apart from the unpredictable nature of the civil-military relationship in Pakistan, the existence of India-centric extremist groups in Pakistani Punjab and other recent realities in India, such as the constant invocation of Pakistan for electoral dividends are some of the macro-impediments to creating an amicable environment for dialogue.

n modern aerial warfare, perception is as important as the kills and destruction. There are lessons surely for the IAF and other military top leadership in the entire gamut of how a military operation is to be orchestrated. It is to be hoped that we would consider sharing, at least on a ‘need-to-know basis’, important lessons from this operation. We don’t have the luxury of time to learn from mistakes.

Group Captain Murli Menon (Retd)

Defence analyst

It is a year since two key bread-and-butter calls for the IAF — strike and air defence — were put on international display and appraisal after the Pulwama terror attack. The suicide bomber, Adil Dar, was like other new entrants into Kashmir militancy — educated, with a financially stable family background.

We need to address the social sanction given to violence and militancy in the Valley. Though stone-pelting incidents appear to have reduced, vulnerable youths need to be more closely monitored by the agencies and more efforts made to deradicalise and reorientate their impressionable minds. Local tactical intelligence-gathering, of course, needs to be revamped.

Read also:

• India crossed Rubicon with Balakot air strike

As for the military aspects of the Pulwama-Balakot aftermath, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) reprisals on our Army formations at Mendhar need to be re-assessed to see why no ground-based weapon systems could be brought to bear on them. More so, when they were in a heightened state of readiness. Were there, as reported elsewhere, any issues on the MiG-21 Bison as regards radio-jamming interference, affecting effective control of interceptors by our fighter controllers or was that just a bogey? Was the performance of the Phalcon AWACS (airborne warning and control systems) and Netra AEWCS (airborne early warning and control system) aircraft as expected? Were any of the new low-level tactical radars of the IACCS (Integrated Air Command and Control System) or any Aerostat radar involved in these operations? Why did such a large PAF attacking force (24 by one account) escape with just a single casualty?

Several such questions abound about the whys and wherefores of the IAF aerial engagements. Sans any authentic declassified historical data so far from Air Head Quarters, our analysis would, perforce, have to be based on plausible logical explanations. From the statement of IAF Chief RK Bhadauria himself, we know that the IAF has accepted its tactical folly in the Mi-17 ‘ blue-on-blue’ incident.

What is still in the realm of conjecture, however, are the nitty-gritty of Wing Commander Abhinandan’s aerial engagement (if the mechanics of his kill on the F-16 are indeed true, why no attempt was made to turn his MiG-21 Bison towards friendly territory as his No. 2 apparently did, what actually crippled his plane etc.) and the modalities of the Mirage strike at Balakot (how many Spice bombs were released, from what ranges were they launched in fully autonomous modes, could any other formation members vouch for the accuracy of the launches?).

We still don’t know if Abhinandan was indeed shot down by a PAF fighter, as alleged, or by an enemy SAM or yet whether he encountered other issues such as running out of fuel and flaming out over enemy territory. These are things that sometimes happen in the ‘fog of war’, but would qualify to be called poor airmanship. Whatever be the reason for his downing, the need for turning a stricken fighter towards friendly territory and the need for a viable Combat Search and Rescue capability need not be over-emphasised.

Abhinandan was fortunate to have returned unscathed, more thanks to the happenstance of international pressure triggered by social media videos. More so, knowing our adversary’s penchant for shoddy treatment of its PoWs. Now that the IAF has more advanced and capable attack helicopters in its inventory such as the AH-64-E Apaches (with some other light- and medium-armed versions being indigenously made), these need to be utilised in conjunction with other fighter platforms and even C130-J gunship versions for CSAR (Combat Search and Rescue).

As for the Mirage strikes, we need to look at other imponderables, such as possible weapon failures or pilot errors in targeting, if indeed the Spice-hit accuracies are suspect as they appear to be.

Expensive sensitive aerial weapons, such as the Spice bombs, call for very stringent storage conditions in terms of air-conditioned facilities and periodic servicing and checks. Were these adequately available in the heat and dust of the Gwalior air base (from where the Mirages supposedly took off for the mission)? Any shortfall here would tell on the efficient functioning of the weapon system. Accurate flying and launch parameters are, of course, a given for these kind of missions and can only be ascertained by the pilots themselves or the senior supervisors in the strike formation.

We need to establish exactly why the Crystal Maze missile apparently refused to leave the launcher, denying the mission important BDA (Battle Damage Assessment) input through its TV guidance facility: Possibly, on account of flaws in pre-launch drill?

Then again, why did the Spice bombs apparently miss the intended target (possibly launched out of range, causing problems for the guidance system to work accurately)? The weather picture over the target area was well known, so the planners ought to have built in redundancies in obtaining BDA.

In modern aerial warfare, perception is as important as the kills and destruction. There are lessons surely for the IAF and other military top leadership in the entire gamut of how a military operation is to be orchestrated. For instance, would the IAF be content to carry on with its doctrinal triple-level prosecution of an air war strategy or should we be looking at a more dynamic top-down Air HQ-led orchestration of the air war, especially for high-profile counter-terror air operations? (As, indeed, our adversaries do — the PAF Chief runs the air war himself from his Air HQ. We, on the other hand, have a traditional command-heavy orchestration).

Extraneous factors such as national elections or other political considerations cannot be allowed to interfere with the planning and conduct of aerial or other military operations. Also, what was the tearing hurry to call off operations? India has traditionally balked at the timely release of its war histories.

It is to be hoped that we would consider sharing, at least on a ‘need-to-know basis’, important lessons from this operation which came our way two decades after the Kargil War. We do not have the luxury of time to learn from mistakes. Like they say, we cannot be in danger of being prepared for yesterday’s war, but have to get set for tomorrow’s, including the inevitable drone warfare to come.

Pulwama-Balakot timeline

• Feb 14, 2019 Forty CRPF jawans killed in Pulwama terror attack as suicide bomber rams a car laden with explosives into a CRPF bus
• Feb 19 Jaish-e-Mohammed claims responsibility
• Feb 20 NIA takes over Pulwama case
• Feb 26 IAF bombs Jaish base in Balakot, Pakistan
• Feb 27 IAF jet shot, Pakistan captures the Indian pilot, Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman
• Feb 28 India gives proof of Pak aggression
• March 1 Wg Cdr Abhinandan returns home after being released from captivity by Pakistan
• June 26 No intelligence failure in the case of Pulwama attack, Centre tells Lok Sabha
• July 3 Four of five terrorists involved in Pulwama attack killed and one arrested, Centre tells Parliament