India's Wars: A Military History, 1947–1971

Praise for India’s Wars

‘Arjun Subramaniam is a remarkable soldier-scholar who combines an avid interest in history with keen strategic insights. He writes with great clarity and balance on India’s modern conflicts. His sound history fills a major lacuna in the field of contemporary Indian history and could contribute to a more informed formulation of policy and strategy in the future.’

– Sugata Bose, Member of Parliament and Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs at Harvard University

‘Military history is a seriously under-researched field in India. This outstanding book on India’s military conflicts since Independence is, therefore, very welcome. As a scholar-practitioner, Air Vice Marshal Arjun Subramaniam is uniquely qualified, and both aspects of his background are revealed to good effect in his book. The close attention to the technical and organizational aspects of the armed forces, combined with a rich and nuanced analysis of the conflicts themselves, makes for compelling as well as instructive reading.’

– Ramachandra Guha, historian and author

‘Deftly telescoping six decades of India’s conflicts in a single volume, Arjun Subramaniam presents an objective and compelling tri-service narrative which I found hard to put down. He joins a select band of service officers who have, in the tradition of Thucydides, shown the intellectual acumen as well as courage and perseverance to put pen to paper while still in uniform.’

– Admiral Arun Prakash (retd), former Chief of Naval Staff and Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee

‘Air Vice Marshal Arjun Subramaniam’s deep insights into the first twenty-five years of independent India’s military history fill a big gap in our understanding of modern India’s political evolution. As Delhi rises to be one of the world’s leading economic and military powers, Subramaniam’s narrative contributes to the construction of a more productive discourse on India’s strategic future.’

– C. Raja Mohan, foreign affairs columnist and director, Carnegie India

‘Considering the scope and nature of conflicts that the Indian armed forces have engaged in since Independence, presenting a narrative within a tri-service perspective is a daunting task by any measure. Air Vice Marshal Arjun Subramaniam has rendered yeoman service to the profession of arms and to the idea of ‘jointmanship’ that will need to be the bedrock of military operations in the future. Very well researched and authenticated with exhaustive interviews, striking photographs and detailed maps, the narrative meets the rigour of academic discourse. It certainly has the potential to form part of the curriculum for study of contemporary Indian military history at war colleges and universities. It is what many of us would call a labour of love, by a person who has enjoyed being in the profession of arms, and has therefore tried to place its achievements, and, I dare say, inadequacies, in the public domain for the greater benefit of society in general, and the Indian armed forces in particular.’

– Lieutenant General Satish Nambiar (retd)

‘A well-researched, well-written, very readable account of the development of the Indian armed forces over the last 300-plus years and, particularly, their performance during the wars fought in independent India up to 1971. The book is a saga of the spirit and commitment of the Indian armed forces in spite of being consistently surprised by our adversaries and forever low on resources. The author has often trodden virgin ground and produced what can only be termed as a special work, peppered with his personal views, that will intrigue and interest the lay reader and the professional. Any such work has to rely on books and interviews, and history is a many-sided study. Some disagreements on details are likely, but that does not detract from the quality of the essential narrative. The author deserves kudos and accolades.’

– Air Marshal Vinod Patney (retd)

‘For too long, the military contribution to India’s post-Independence development has been underplayed in standard histories. Arjun Subramaniam provides a detailed, thoughtful and compelling view of this missing factor in understanding the turbulent years after 1947. A valuable and innovative work of history.’

– Rana Mitter, professor and director of the China Centre at Oxford University

‘Arjun Subramaniam deserves praise for diligence and resolve in delivering his maiden opus in the midst of a busy military career.’

– Asian Age

‘The author has maintained a detached, scholarly approach, devoid of service and regimental loyalties or even patriotic emotions. To that extent, the book is a benchmark.’

– Indian Express

‘This latest book on the military history of post-Independence Indian Armed Forces is special because of the passion with which the author has woven a well-researched and factual account of the wars with what he calls the DNA of each wing of the armed forces.’

– Hindu

‘The book communicates well as it is written in a style that makes the complex subject of India’s wars easy to read and understand and hence accessible to the common man even as it draws a delicate line between the popular narrative and academic research.’

– Tribune

Naval Institute Press

291 Wood Road

Annapolis, MD 21402

© 2016 by Arjun Subramaniam

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

First Naval Institute Press edition published in 2017.

ISBN: 978-1-68247-242-2 (eBook)

First published in India in 2016 by HarperCollins Publishers India.

Arjun Subramaniam asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

The views and opinions expressed in this book are the author’s own and the facts are as reported by him, and the publishers are not in any way liable for the same.

Other than the official Indian boundaries depicted on the maps, few boundaries are as per the author’s own findings and study. The author and the publisher do not claim them to be official/legal boundaries of India. The maps are neither accurate nor drawn to exact scale and the international boundaries as shown neither purport to be correct nor authentic as per the directives of the Survey of India.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Subramaniam, Arjun, author.

Title: India’s wars: a military history, 1947–1971 / Arjun Subramaniam.

Description: First Naval Institute Press edition. | Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2017. | First published in India in 2016 by HarperCollins Publishers. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017005159 (print) | LCCN 2017024845 (ebook) | ISBN 9781682472422 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: India—History, Military—20th century.

Classification: LCC DS442.6 (ebook) | LCC DS442.6 .S83 2017 (print) | DDC 355.00954/09045—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017005159

Print editions meet the requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.48-1992

(Permanence of Paper).

252423222120191817987654321

First printing

Dedicated to India’s Soldiers, Sailors and Air Warriors

Khudadad Khan | Indra Lal Roy Prem Bhagat | N. Krishnan D. Shanker | Jumbo Majumdar Arjan Singh | P.C. Lal | Moolgavkar Sam Manekshaw | Thimayya Inder Gill | Somnath Sharma Mohd Usman | Mehar Singh Hari Chand | Joginder Singh Shaitan Singh | Harbaksh Singh

Tarapore | Abdul Hamid Devayya | Johnny Greene Ranjit Singh Dayal | Sartaj Singh Sagat Singh | Nirmaljit Sekhon Chandan Singh | Arun Khetarpal Albert Ekka | Bharat Kavina Mahendra Nath Mulla Hoshiar Singh | Vinod Patney Arun Prakash | W.A.G. Pinto and many more...

CONTENTS

PART I: OPENING PERSPECTIVES

1.Sighter Burst

2.A Personal Quest

3.Whither Military History and Understanding the Military

PART II: THE DNA OF INDIA’S ARMED FORCES

4.The Indian Army: Indian or Colonial?

5.The Indian Army: Coming of Age

6.The Indian Navy

7.The Indian Air Force

PART III: TEETHING YEARS

The First India–Pakistan War 1947–48

8.Holding on to Kashmir

9.Surprise and Riposte

10.The War Drags On

11.Guns Fall Silent

12.Liberating Hyderabad

13.Seizing Goa

PART IV: ACROSS BORDERS

India–China War of 1962

14.Unravelling the Frontier with China

15.Sparring and Probing

16.Ominous Signs

17.Defeat

The Second Round: India–Pakistan Conflict of 1965

18.Opening Moves: Kutch to Kashmir in 1965

19.Operations Gibraltar and Grand Slam

20.Operational Stalemate

21.Strategic Revival

The Liberation of Bangladesh, 1971

22.South Asia in Turmoil

23.Shaping the Eastern Front

24.Destination Dacca

25.Opening the Western Front

26.Attrition Battles

27.What 1971 Means to India and Pakistan

PART V: CONCLUSION

28.Remembering Kautilya

29.Postscript

30.Further Reading

Notes

Index

Acknowledgements

Photo Credits

PART I

OPENING PERSPECTIVES

The four Param Vir Chakra winners from the 1971 war

Major Hoshiar Singh

Flying Officer Nirmaljit Singh Sekhon (posthumous)

Lance Naik Albert Ekka (posthumous)

Second Lieutenant Arun Khetarpal (posthumous)

1

SIGHTER BURST

In the old days when fighter pilots had the luxury of making multiple passes over the target areas during ground attack missions, they let loose what was called a sighter burst in their first pass to check whether their guns were firing properly or not. This burst also allowed them to size up the enemy, assess ranges and impose themselves psychologically on the enemy. As the first chapter in Part I (‘Opening Perspectives’) of the book, ‘Sighter Burst’ aims at none of the above. Instead, it attempts to give you, the reader, an overview of what to expect in the pages ahead. Old habits die hard, they say, and I could not but help looking at this project as a mission with four primary objectives.

The first is to showcase the legacy of modern India’s military pioneers along with the exploits and sacrifices of its armed forces in protecting India’s sovereignty and democracy to both an international readership and a bulging youthful segment of the country’s population. My second objective is to chronicle the largely fragmented contemporary military history of India in the form of an easily readable joint narrative devoid of too many statistics, tables, graphs, or emphasis on casualties, claims and counter-claims. My third objective is to convince policymakers at all levels of the need to adopt a progressive approach towards declassifying material about national security and learning from the mistakes of previous wars, campaigns and conflicts, both external and internal. This would then, I sincerely hope, create a missing link between the study of military history and its impact on contemporary Indian strategic culture. My last objective is to urge not only India’s men and women in uniform but also the growing number of informed and literate youth to read more about war and conflict in the subcontinent after Independence as part of India’s overall historical discourse and draw inspiration from some of the brilliant military commanders of independent India.

Along the way, I hope to bring out some of the central themes of the book. Among these are the strong historical legacies, ethos and professionalism of the Indian armed forces; their slowness in shaking off colonial attitudes and legacies; their sustained contribution and sacrifice to maintain India’s chaotic democracy; how they have coped with the changing contours of modern conflict; and why India’s armed forces have emerged as a critical element of nation building – one which the nation at large can ill afford to ignore.

‘A Personal Quest’ is an honest attempt to share my personal experiences of soldiering over thirty-three years, and why I feel that not enough has been done to chronicle India’s conflicts after Independence from a joint war-fighting perspective. The chapter is a tribute to my fellow warriors in olive green, white and blue. Their sacrifices on the battlefield so that their fellow countrymen may live in peace have no parallel in human endeavour. ‘Whither Military History’ briefly examines the multiple reasons for the absence of modern Indian military history from the larger historical discourse in the country.

Part II of the book looks at the ‘DNA of India’s Armed Forces’. It sets the pace for an introductory and evolutionary overview of the growth of the armed forces, and attempts to provide the reader with a snapshot of the Indian Army, Indian Air Force and Indian Navy from the early years of the modern era till India gained Independence from the British in 1947. Rather than attribute the entire DNA to a colonial legacy, an attempt has also been made to highlight the influence of late-medieval Indian military thought on military ethos.

Part III of the book comprises ‘Teething Years’. It covers three principal conflicts during the early years after Independence – the first India–Pakistan war of 1947–48; the liberation of Hyderabad and Junagadh; and the short campaign to evict the Portuguese from Goa in December 1961. India’s baptism as a nation state was by waging war against state-sponsored tribals and regular Pakistani forces, which attempted to exploit the rather precarious political situation in the state of Jammu and Kashmir and sever it from the Indian Union. Thousands of tribals from the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), complemented by regulars of the newly formed Pakistan Army, united under the flag of Islam and raided Kashmir in October 1947. In a three-pronged attack aimed at capturing the whole of Kashmir and forcing the Maharaja of Kashmir to cede to Pakistan, the raiders surprised both the maharaja and the Indian government with the timing and audacity of their attack. In response to an SOS from the Maharaja of Kashmir to the Government of India, the conflict, which began as a rearguard action by the Indian Army and the Royal Indian Air Force to save the state capital, Srinagar, expanded into a full-blown conflict between India and Pakistan across three distinct geographical sectors that lasted over a year. The conflict only ended when a UN-brokered agreement was signed by India and Pakistan in late 1948 to peacefully resolve the Kashmir issue.

While the war was raging in Kashmir, the government had to launch a small but coercive military action against the princely state of Junagadh to force it to abandon its secessionist aspirations and join the Union of India. In September 1948 a larger military action involving an army division backed by air power was launched against the Nizam of Hyderabad to compel him to abandon his grandiose plans of ruling over an independent state that was surrounded by the Union of India. While the Hyderabad military campaign was later termed a ‘police action’, from a strategic perspective it merits attention as India’s first successful attempt at coercion orchestrated by an assertive home minister, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

After almost thirteen years of relative peace and failed attempts by India to reach a negotiated settlement with the Portuguese over the colonies of Goa, Daman and Diu, a multi-pronged, tri-service operation code-named Operation Vijay was launched in December 1961 to evict the Portuguese from India and bring an end to centuries of colonial rule in India. Though the operation was a success and resulted in some chest-thumping by the Indian military, it deflected some amount of national attention from a more pressing security problem that was brewing on India’s northern and eastern frontiers with China.

Part IV of the book is titled ‘Across Borders’ and deals with India’s experiences with full-blown conventional conflict in diverse terrain along borders with hostile neighbours. It begins with the India–China war of 1962, which was fought over vast expanses of mountainous and jungle terrain. The narrative then shifts focus to the two large-scale wars with Pakistan in 1965 and 1971, which were fought over mountainous terrain in Jammu and Kashmir; across the plains of Punjab; in the riverine areas of East Pakistan; and, finally, southwards across the deserts of Rajasthan and swamps of Kutch.

India’s inability to gauge China’s grand strategy in the 1950s and understand its key determinants of securing historically unsettled frontiers, resolving border disputes from a position of strength, and building capabilities for pan-Asian hegemony resulted in the ill-fated conflict of 1962. An objective analysis of the entire conflict from a politico-intelligence and military viewpoint with key input from diverse stakeholders could put the conflict in the right perspective and offer some lessons for the future.

Still smarting from the inability to force the secession of Kashmir in 1947–48, Pakistan’s aggressive politico-military leadership led by their young and aggressive foreign minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, and a fading military dictator, Ayub Khan, took the opportunity to surprise India in the western swamps of Kutch and the state of Jammu and Kashmir during April and August 1965. The September 1965 conflict with Pakistan across three battlefronts was actually ‘a baptism by fire’ for India’s almost non-existent joint war-fighting capability. Though many tactical and operational assessments over the years pointed at a stalemate, the inability of Pakistan to achieve any of its strategic objectives may well be considered a ‘victory’ for India and helped it regain much of its confidence in terms of the battleworthiness of its armed forces.

The 1970s began with a decisive strategic and military success for India in the two-front 1971 war against Pakistan. The Indian armed forces not only resoundingly defeated the Pakistani armed forces in the eastern sector with a clinical display of joint war-fighting prowess and paved the way for the formation of Bangladesh, they also notched up limited successes in the western sector with armoured thrusts, effective employment of air power and telling maritime attacks against critical infrastructure in West Pakistan. The 1971 conflict is also India’s best documented conflict, which only re-emphasizes a stark reality that India’s strategic and military establishment is largely comfortable with recording military victories and strategic game plans that have worked.

The narrative then attempts to look at how Kautilya, ancient India’s foremost strategist, would have assessed India’s modern conflicts till 1971. Revered in India much as Sun Tzu is in China, or Machiavelli and Clausewitz are in Europe, bringing Kautilya into the discourse is a tribute to his foresight and strategic acumen.

This book is not a definitive compilation of individual service, regimental, fleet or squadron histories and accomplishments; nor is it an attempt to highlight the achievements of a select set of regiments or individuals. I have the greatest respect for the regimental, fleet and squadron ethos of the Indian Army, the Indian Navy and the Indian Air Force. If any regiment or squadron has been highlighted more than the others, it is without any motive or malice. I take full responsibility for all omissions as the challenge was to put together a concise volume. While there are a reasonable number of primary sources, the book is drawn mostly from secondary sources, and I have used them to create a new synthesis of India’s military history during the early years after Independence. I have offered enough references and suggested further reading for those who wish to dig deeper for I have just scratched the surface of what has actually been a fascinating period of evolving military history. I claim no new revelations based on archival or documentary research, or access to any classified information; and rather than sources, I believe that the core of the book revolves around the innovative nature of my argument and a conviction that as a scholar, I have the freedom to dissect and analyse issues of diplomacy and higher strategy and challenge status quo when it comes to sticking to academic rigidity that often limits a practitioner-scholar’s horizons. Weaving in myriad issues of statecraft into military history is essential if one is to get a holistic perspective of wars and conflict. Writing in his latest book on broad-spectrum strategy titled Strategy: A History, Sir Lawrence Freedman argues:

Research for this book has taken me into unfamiliar territory. Part of the enjoyment of writing this book has come from my exposure to some wonderful scholarship in social science and fields supposedly distant from my own. Despite the best efforts of colleagues I have undoubtedly over-reached in a number of areas. Nonetheless, the exercise has reinforced my conviction that academics worry too much about making a good impression within their own disciplinary boundaries while not paying enough attention to what is going on beyond them.¹

I can take heart from Sir Freedman’s thoughts on crossing ‘domain boundaries’.

The thrust, throughout the book, has been to discuss in a layered manner, much like peeling an orange, numerous facets of higher strategy, operational art and tactical joint operations through the lens of the major participants. The flavour of the book revolves around people and not just events. As these stories unfold, they will, I hope, reinvigorate the spirit of soldiering and ‘Jointmanship’. For a first-time reader of modern Indian military history, ‘Jointmanship’ is a term exclusively used within the Indian armed forces to highlight synergy and interoperability between the three services. It is said to have been clearly articulated some time in 2001 at the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington, in the salubrious Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu – the first truly joint Staff College in the world – as ‘Integrated planning and application of military power at the strategic, operational and tactical levels, with proper sequencing of combat power of the three services in time and space.’² Finally, I wish I could loiter over the target area for longer, but that would be inviting danger. I guess it is time for the ‘first pass’ after leaving you to ponder in an age of multi-skilling and multitasking over one of Vivekananda’s³ quotes that inspired me throughout the period I was researching and writing this volume: ‘Take up one idea. Make that idea your life – think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of the body be full of that idea, and leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.’

2

A PERSONAL QUEST

Igrew up on a staple diet of the great Indian epic Mahabharata, the Iliad, and Readers Digest Illustrated Story of World War II . Arjuna, the principal protagonist warrior of the Mahabharata, Achilles, Alexander, Shivaji – the defiant Maratha king of the seventeenth century – Napoleon, Rommel, Patton, Montgomery, Subhas Chandra Bose, Wingate and Douglas Bader were my heroes. The small and highly popular Commando comic series allowed me to wade through the Battles of Britain, Monte Casino (where an Indian division performed admirably), Alamein, Normandy, Coral Sea, Guadalcanal, Imphal and Kohima. I was a ten-year-old when India fought the 1971 war with Pakistan and Major Hoshiar Singh, Second Lieutenant Arun Khetarpal, Flying Officer Nirmaljit Singh Sekhon and Captain Mahendra Nath Mulla, India’s heroes in that war, caught the attention of a grateful nation after their exploits in battle.

As a teenager at the Rashtriya Indian Military College (RIMC), a highly pedigreed military school with illustrious alumni that not only included four army chiefs and one air chief from independent India, but also two air chiefs from the Pakistan Air Force (PAF), history and geography were my favourite subjects. Even today when I read a military history campaign, I like having a map around; it gives you a sense of proportionality. Toynbee, Churchill and Nehru were my favourite historians, though I found them a little hard to digest. I found Romila Thapar, the noted Indian historian, easier to digest. I was dismayed, however, that she hardly referred to the exploits of independent India’s military in her chapters on contemporary Indian history. However, I read all of them mainly because my father insisted I do so in his many long letters to me. He argued that if I really wanted to study the military dimension of history, I must arm myself well. Our history teacher introduced me to John Keegan when I complained to him that I could not lay my hands on any worthwhile book on Indian military history. Though he hardly wrote on Indian military history, I tracked the growth of John Keegan as a military historian of international repute and marvelled at his passion for the profession of arms despite not being in uniform. I would rediscover Keegan a few years before he passed away in 2012.

In a preface to one of his last books, he emotionally shared the various reasons that motivated him to devote a lifetime of endeavour to the study of modern British military history. As he narrates in the ‘Introduction’ to his superb book, A History of Warfare: ‘I was not fated to be a warrior. A childhood illness had left me lame for life in 1948 and I have limped now for forty-five years.’ He goes on to add: ‘Fate nevertheless cast my life among warriors … It aroused an interest in military affairs that took root, so that when I went up to Oxford in 1953 I chose military history as my special subject.’ The end to his introduction makes for riveting reading and it is this paragraph that got me deeply thinking about our attitudes to warriors and warfare in the modern era. He writes: ‘Soldiers are not as other men – that is the lesson I have learned from a life cast among warriors … War undoubtedly connects, as the theorists demonstrate with economics and diplomacy and politics. Connection does not amount to identity or even similarity. War is wholly unlike diplomacy or politics because it must be fought by men whose values and skills are not those of politicians and diplomats …’ Though these views, expressed by him during an era of large conventional conflicts, are at variance with the Clausewitzian school of warfare, they nevertheless merit serious attention. The only difference I could detect now was that modern warfare demands that warriors acquire multiple skill sets including the ability to engage in diplomacy and provide governance when called on to do so, particularly in stability operations. The bottom line with John Keegan, of course, was a fascination and a deep respect for the profession of arms.

Despite the many wars and constant skirmishes and face-offs along its troubled northern and western borders, it was quite clear to me that the overwhelmingly dominant narrative of contemporary India’s history since 1947 is of a country that operated internationally and domestically through deft diplomacy and peaceful democratic politics. Military history has mainly been a sideshow to the main political and diplomatic narrative.¹ This, to me, was a half-baked narrative even in school, and for years I have felt that the issue demanded closer scrutiny by India’s historical community.

My personal tryst with India’s recent military history began as a pilot officer in a MiG-21 training squadron in Tezpur in 1982; not as a participant, but as a distant observer. The 4 Corps headquarters was located in Tezpur and I not only had the opportunity to interact with officers who were involved in the ongoing counter-insurgency operations in the north-east, but also with a few civilians who had fled from Tawang and Bomdila and settled down in Tezpur following the 1962 conflict with China. The archives at Tezpur University had a small collection of memoirs and recollections of prominent citizens, which were collected after the 1962 war. I did manage to visit the university when I commanded a squadron at the same base in the late 1990s and browsed through some of the translations.

I was next posted at Adampur airbase near Jalandhar in the heart of Punjab during Operation Blue Star in 1984, the operation against Sant Bhindranwale, the separatist Sikh preacher, and his fierce militia. Many of my army course mates from the corps at Jalandhar were involved in operations which culminated in the storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the holy shrine of the Sikhs where Bhindranwale had sought sanctuary, unmindful of the collateral danger he was subjecting thousands of innocent devotees to. The year 1985 saw me moving to another MiG-21 squadron, which participated in Operation Brass Tacks, the massive joint exercise on the western front with Pakistan and the brainchild of the mercurial chief of the army staff (COAS), General Sundarji. My squadron was at the time the only electronic warfare squadron in the IAF. We escorted Jaguar strike aircraft on simulated strikes along the international border (IB) with Pakistan and I will never forget the rush of adrenalin whenever our radar warning receivers (RWR) picked up F-16 radar signals, or when an excited fighter controller would give us a call ‘Rapier formation to turn around, bogey at 12’o clock and closing in fast’. I still remember the sheer audacity of the whole exercise, orchestrated as a show of force by General Sundarji, arguably one of the most visionary and brilliant soldiers of our time, though many whom I spoke to over the course of writing this book would not agree as they felt that he failed to understand or anticipate the changing nature of warfare.

Four of my fighter pilot contemporaries were selected in the mid-1980s to switch to the newly inducted Mi-25 attack helicopters. Little did they realize that they would hone their skills in the cauldron of Sri Lanka with the Indian Peacekeeping Force (IPKF). Fighting the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) in the jungles of Jaffna, Vavuniya and Trincomalee changed their perspectives on modern warfare. Their experiences formed part of my PhD thesis on fourth-generation warfare. The 1990s were grim years for the Indian Army, particularly in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). As part of a Mirage-2000 squadron we used to conduct patrols in the extreme northern portions of J&K whenever the proxy war with Pakistan escalated, attempting to draw out Pakistan F-16s from Chaklala, the closest Pakistani airbase in the area. As the political establishment sporadically debated ‘hot pursuit’ as a strategy to deter the proxy war strategy of Pakistan, we happily honed our operational procedures. One clear day, I remember being able to see Skardu from almost 30,000 feet as we approached the northernmost limit of our patrols, and wondered how we let go of it in 1948. I can also clearly recall in the early 1990s that while most Indian military commanders supported the idea of ‘hot pursuit’ as a strategy to counter Pakistan’s proxy war in J&K and debated the issue extensively, very little was done on ground to operationally support such a strategy in terms of realigning joint force employment strategies with respect to rapid response; particularly in terms of exploiting the various Indian Air Force capabilities. This, arguably, made the political and strategic leadership uncomfortable about articulating ‘hot pursuit’ as a state policy of coercing Pakistan and making the price of supporting a proxy war in India too high to sustain.

When I moved on as the flight commander of a MiG-21 squadron in the mid 1990s, we often moved to the Kashmir Valley on summer detachments for valley-flying practice to the Avantipur airbase situated in the beautiful but troubled Pulwama district of the Kashmir Valley (it was earlier in the Anantnag district), which at the time was the epicentre of Pak-sponsored terrorism in the southern areas of the Valley. The airbase was located close to the headquarters of an Indian Army formation, which was engaged in counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations. I spent many free evenings at the army officers’ mess, listening to friends talk about their numerous fierce encounters with foreign terrorists of Afghan and Pashtun stock in the Kashmir Valley, and along the Pir Panjal and Kishtwar ranges. Many of these foreign terrorist had operational experience in Afghanistan against the Russians in the 1980s; the officers grudgingly said that the foreign terrorists fought like tigers. I even sat as an observer during an interrogation session with one of them, chilled to the bone hearing his rationale for waging jihad against India. It was also during one of these detachments that I lost a course mate from the National Defence Academy (NDA) and a dear friend, Lieutenant Colonel Ajit Bhandarkar, in one of the fierce encounters that often raged in the Valley between army patrols and terrorists.

I will also never forget one crisp September morning when one of our young pilots sauntered across to me and literally demanded that I allow him to fly a sortie that I was slated to fly. Impressed with the lad’s enthusiasm, I said, ‘Go ahead, take my aircraft and have a ball!’ The lad ejected in terrorist-infested terrain after his aircraft experienced severe technical glitches while recovering after a routine valley-flying mission. The speed with which the Indian Army launched the recovery operation with their best team set me deeply thinking about terrorism and the proxy war. I closely followed India’s war on terror thereafter. I would do my dissertation entitled ‘Protecting India against Terrorism’ at the National Defence College twenty years later and publish a version of it in an international journal soon after.

My experiences with the Indian Navy were pretty exhilarating too. For many years in the 1990s, Western Naval Command used to play host to Mirage-2000s from Gwalior during annual fleet exercises off the Mumbai coast. I was posted to 1 Squadron flying Mirages and we used to operate from Goa, escorting Jaguars from Pune as they attempted to penetrate the solid air defence and electronic cordon around the aircraft carrier INS Viraat. While the Jaguars from 6 Squadron were comfortable flying at 100 feet above the sea, it took us a while to get used to the idea of having the salt spray spot your windshield from time to time. Skimming the waves was exhilarating, but the moment our radar warning receivers (RWRs) would start flashing and beeping, the good times over the sea would end and the business end of the mission would commence. While the cat-and-mouse game between us and the ring of screen ships protecting the carrier was always a challenge, the experience for me was more about getting to know the navy, its ethos and work ethics. The icing on the cake of course was a sortie I got to fly from the carrier on a Sea Harrier. Even though it was in the trainer and I hardly got to touch controls on the approach for landing on a bobbing and swaying deck in swirly conditions, I realized that flight deck operations from a carrier is probably the most exciting and hazardous experience in military aviation.

Like most active-duty fighter pilots who did not see action during the Kargil conflict with Pakistan, I was deeply disappointed. I envied my fellow ‘Mirage boys’, Nambi, Tiwi and the others who dropped laser-guided bombs (LGBs) on Tiger Hill and decimated a large logistics hub, Muntho Dalo, with unguided or ‘iron bombs’; marvelled at the bravery of some of the Mi-17 aircrew who flew in hostile air space without much self-protection; and admired the doggedness of 17 Squadron, a MiG-21 reconnaissance squadron that took great risks in photographing the occupied heights around Kargil, Dras and Mushkoh, and then went on to fly risky bombing missions. I followed the Kargil air–land campaign closely – as an aviator during the conflict, and later as a military historian. A moderately critical piece on air–land operations was refreshingly published by a well-respected army journal without any cuts,² indicating changing mindsets within India’s army-dominated military culture about air power’s ability to influence warfare across the spectrum of conflict.

I must mention here that my renewed interest in chronicling India’s modern wars was also influenced by the seriousness and solidity with which a Western air power historian, Dr Benjamin Lambeth, went about researching the Kargil war from an air power perspective. His monograph on the Kargil air war is by far the most authoritative and objective writing so far on the use of air power and joint operations in Kargil.³

After the barrage of criticism that followed the Kargil war regarding suboptimal inter-service cooperation, I discerned only superficial improvements in synergy. There were very few proactive and innovative approaches to joint war fighting in varied terrain. However, a limited offensive aerial action in mid-2002 by IAF Mirage fighter-bombers during Operation Parakram, the year-long face-off between India and Pakistan following the terrorist attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001, demonstrated some synergistic coercive capabilities, albeit against an intrusion into Indian territory. The fact that there is still not enough debate in India’s institutions of professional education on whether the Kargil war could have been fought differently is worrisome, to say the least. By now questions should have been asked: Was it right to commit such a large force upfront without softening the targets adequately with artillery and aerial bombardment? Or, were our troops adequately prepared for a frontal assault? Or, why did the IAF need to evolve high-altitude bombing tactics only when confronted with a Kargil-like situation when they had operational high-altitude ranges available in Ladakh from 1986 onwards? I was a squadron commander in the north-east from 1999 to 2001 and I remember being tasked after the Kargil conflict to explore the operational feasibility of opening a high-altitude air-to-ground weapons range in Arunachal Pradesh. My flight commander and I flew sorties over that area in MiG-21s and found it fit for firing during the winter months when the range was snowbound. There was only one problem – the proximity to Tibet made it an uncomfortable geopolitical proposition even though it was a perfectly legitimate training requirement for the IAF.

As we entered the twenty-first century, classical definitions of war as it was experienced in the previous century started blurring across the world; so was it in India. I was commanding a large station in 2008 when the IAF got involved in the fight against left-wing extremism in a purely supporting and non-kinetic role despite some of its helicopters being shot at and damaged. This only reiterated India’s restraint and willingness to look at minimal and calibrated force application against its own citizens. The debate on the use of air power in full-spectrum operations has reached new levels, as has the discourse on the declining role of force in statecraft.

By conventional yardsticks, the years 2012 to 2014 were intellectually productive for me and I benefitted from a period of glasnost which gave me the freedom to expand my intellectual and academic horizons. Apart from my responsibilities at Air Headquarters (HQ), New Delhi, as the assistant chief of air staff looking after space, concepts, doctrine, media and public relations amongst other things, I also started writing extensively in the open media on larger issues of military history, statecraft, diplomacy and the need to build intellectual capital within India’s armed forces. In mid-2012 I moved to Pune as air officer commanding, Advance Headquarters, an Indian Air Force interface with the Southern Army Command as I had all the QRs that were required for this assignment, and I was told that there was a fresh impetus being given to strengthening joint service structures. It was in Pune that I started reading, researching and writing furiously on India’s modern wars. When my elder daughter left for boarding school in mid-2013, followed soon after by my wife and younger daughter, who returned to Delhi for the latter’s schooling, I had enough time at my disposal. After finishing off routine office work, I would read, write and interview veterans with combat experience. So in a way, I have to thank the IAF for unwittingly enabling me to have an intense period of intellectual awakening. Though I was a fairly conspicuous social recluse, my time in Pune opened new academic and publishing horizons, which till then had seemed a distant dream.

This book attempts to showcase the exploits of the Indian armed forces from a ‘joint perspective’ as objectively and analytically as is possible by someone who has served in the same organization for over thirty-three years. The book is not meant to be a critique or a detailed analysis of India’s modern conflicts; it does not claim to be an ‘official history’; nor is it a PR effort to glorify the exploits of India’s armed forces. It has to be merely seen as an honest and ‘hybrid’ piece of work, which seeks to amalgamate a simple and easy-flowing ‘people-centric’ historical narrative with operational and strategic overtones, and a fair element of academic rigour.

3

WHITHER MILITARY HISTORY AND UNDERSTANDING THE MILITARY

Military history from a political context is the structured study of force application in furtherance of statecraft and state policy.¹

OPENING SALVO

India’s armed forces occupy a unique position in modern Indian society, and yet there is an uneven and lopsided perception and acknowledgement of their contribution to the growth, development and stability of the Indian nation state. In February 2013, I wrote a mail to Ramachandra Guha, arguably India’s most accomplished contemporary historian, complimenting him for his collection of liberal essays on politics, religion and other issues in Patriots and Partisans which he felt were important to chronicle as part of the diminishing liberal discourse in India. However, I expressed my anguish that in this large collection of essays, he did not find it fit to include even one essay on anything even remotely connected with the Indian armed forces. I argued that one of the reasons for the survival of modern Indian democracy was the politically detached countenance of all elements of the armed forces – in particular its leadership. He very graciously accepted the omission by writing: ‘You are completely right about the unacknowledged role of the armed forces in sustaining a secular and democratic India, especially given the importance of the army of the political systems of Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, etc. It is striking that no war hero has stood for elections in India.’ Ram Guha was close enough as one of the few decorated war heroes who attempted to make a mark in politics as a parliamentarian was Major General Rajinder Singh ‘Sparrow’, a two-time winner of the Maha Vir Chakra, India’s second highest gallantry award. However, apart from him there have been a number of officers and men who have entered the hurly-burly world of Indian politics, the most recent ones being General V.K. Singh, a former chief of army staff, and Lieutenant Colonel Rajyvardhan Singh Rathore, an accomplished soldier sportsman, joining active politics after winning parliamentary seats in India’s 2014 general elections. Others like Major General Khanduri and Jaswant Singh, both of whom were ministers of great distinction in Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government, have contributed greatly to nation building. Another remarkable transition that reflects the egalitarian nature of India’s military has been that it has not only been the officer cadre that has contributed to politics, but in recent times, there have been non-commissioned officers like Naik Surender Singh, a decorated soldier from the Kargil conflict and an NSG (National Security Guards) commando who took part in the anti-terrorist operation following the Mumbai attacks of 2008, who have successfully contested elections at the state level. ²

At the National Defence Academy (NDA) at Khadakvasla near Pune, our head of the department in the faculty of military history and international relations, Prof. Rajan, urged us to look closely at military history, not as an isolated discipline, but always as an adjunct of political strategy and diplomacy. This contextual relationship, he said, was imperative for a clearer understanding of military history, failing which the study of military history would remain only a description of battles and campaigns. I have never forgotten that advice. Since then I have always looked at military campaigns through multiple processes of statecraft, but always remained in touch with the ‘heat of battle’ as the brilliant American military historian, Russell Weigley, emphatically argued in one of his most widely read books on WW II, Eisenhower’s Lieutenants.

NEGLECT OF MILITARY HISTORY

I have always wondered why the discipline of military history, particularly in the post-Independence era, was a laggard in India’s contemporary historical discourse. I also wondered whether it had anything to do with the ‘pacifist’ tag which was attached to modern Indian strategic thinking and the reluctance to showcase the exploits of a military that still carried a perceived colonial legacy. My gut feeling was that the numerous social, political and intellectual historians who have dominated the modern Indian historical discourse were more comfortable in writing and teaching history that was socially relevant, politically engaging, and showcased India’s rich civilizational heritage and multiculturally vibrant democracy. Making matters difficult for a minuscule number of military historians has been the archival carelessness and opaqueness when it came to periodic declassification of matters military. Many Western universities look at military history as a clear subset of history that focuses on strategy, operational art, campaign studies and tactical battles. I guess it just did not make sense for Indian universities to devote time to this genre of history when other topics were attracting attention.

While India’s military and wars since Independence have been well chronicled within the country and abroad as part of a larger strategic landscape by scholars like Sumit Ganguly, Stephen Cohen, Steven Wilkinson, Jaswant Singh, Srinath Raghavan and Neville Maxwell, it is only a handful of civilian writers like Ravi Rikhye, Samir Chopra and P.V.S. Jagan Mohan who have written extensively about specific campaigns and battles. However, conflicts of all genres have only been covered in totality as part of India’s current historical landscape, albeit briefly, in the most critically acclaimed book on contemporary Indian history, India after Gandhi, by Ramachandra Guha. I must also acknowledge the seminal contribution by a number of soldier scholars like Air Chief Marshal P.C. Lal, Major General D.K. Palit, Major K.C. Praval, Air Commodore Jasjit Singh, Air Marshal Bharat Kumar, Vice Admiral Mihir Roy and Rear Admiral Satyendra Singh to name but a few, who have taken pains to chronicle various wars, battles and campaigns.

Having taught extensively at two of India’s flagship institutions of professional military education, I remain unhappy at the manner in which India’s military history after Independence from colonial rule is being holistically studied at our military academies, war colleges and universities. None of our universities have a dedicated department of military history. Why blame the universities when the armed forces themselves have not seen value in scaling up dedicated departments of military history at the Indian Military Academy (1932), National Defence Academy (1954) and Defence Services Staff College (1948)?

What about writing dedicated military history? Because the study of military history stagnated after Independence, only a handful of modern historians like S.N. Prasad, U.P. Thapliyal and P.N. Khera have written exhaustive operational narratives on India’s recent conflicts with research assistance from a few soldier scholars. These are laudable efforts no doubt, but are seen as works that have remained mainly as research references and not books that are easy-reading. Another worrying thought is that despite all the talk of inter-service cooperation and bonhomie, no scholar after Air Chief Marshal P.C. Lal has concurrently attempted to understand the three services to the extent required to chronicle and narrate an academically acceptable work on post-Independence military history of India.

With that as a backdrop, I have often wondered how we are going to sensitize India’s huge youth bulge in the years ahead on the exploits of India’s armed forces and the role they have played in nurturing and protecting its vibrant, secular, multi-ethnic and multicultural democracy. I have also wondered whether the absence of a focused military history discourse in our university and education system would lead to a decline in the attractiveness of the armed forces as a career option. Military matters in a large and inclusive democracy like India are not the exclusive preserve of a handful of generals, bureaucrats, politicians and strategists. War is serious business and when the citizenry is largely ignorant about the circumstances under which a nation goes to war, the chances that a nation pays heavily for the mistakes made by a few decision makers looms large on the horizon. The widespread study of military history is one way to avoid such aberrations.

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

The use of force as a tool of statecraft is as old as civilization itself and after the evolution of monarchies and nation states it has primarily been exercised as an instrument of policy by the sovereign or the state through the military. Military history from a political context therefore is the structured study of application of force in furtherance of statecraft and state policy – and that is how I suppose Clausewitz or for that matter Kautilya would have liked it to be known as.

Western democracies have emerged and reinvented themselves around armed conflict and wars. Monarchies and autocratic forms of rule have been replaced with myriad forms of democracy by waging war. Modern theories of international relations, which look at balance of power and national interest, or universalism and collective security as a final objective of state policy, invariably have had war as a tool to achieve it, although it was always articulated as a least preferred option. The West has for long considered the study of war as being vital for survival of the state in the face of periodic threats from totalitarian forms of invasive and disruptive political philosophies. Nations like the US, Great Britain, France – all flourishing democracies – have government-backed institutions that take great pride in chronicling wars and saving the lessons for posterity. Writers and scholars like William Dalrymple and Christopher Bayly have wonderfully chronicled the military exploits of the British Raj even when it was in its death throes. Academics like Sir Michael Howard, John Keegan, Russell Weigley and Williamson Murray have made a name for themselves as military historians of rare pedigree, while journalist scholars like Rick Atkinson continue to tell the story of the exploits of American soldiers in World War II through masterfully written narratives.

THE WAY AHEAD

Unfortunately, India has no such system in place where scholars who aspire to showcase the operational exploits of free India’s military campaigns in easily digestible narratives are encouraged by mainstream academia. In 2012, I was exploring opportunities to take a sabbatical and write a comprehensive joint narrative of India’s modern conflicts, but, to my horror, not one Indian university or think tank was willing to take me under their umbrella without my own funding. One distinguished professor even told me, ‘We are not really interested in the past – we want to look ahead and prognosticate about the future!’

War in the current century will be waged not only to meet political objectives but also to express cultural, ethnic and civilizational aspirations. The military history of the twenty-first century may be distinctly different from previous centuries; politically motivated wars in the twenty-first century may be better calibrated and controlled, and may result in fewer casualties as compared to the horrific wars of the previous centuries; the savagery of war may not be as widespread as it was earlier, but ethnic and religious bigotry will continue to throw up horrific acts of barbarism and brutality reminiscent of medieval times.

The objectives of structured interstate wars and insurgencies, however, will be the same if one were to look at them as Clausewitz did – as merely an extension of politics and a means of forcing your adversary to do what you want him to do, should diplomacy or other benign forms of negotiating tools fail. Ethnic, religious and civilizational wars would continue to be driven as they were in the past by emotions like hatred and fear. However, the bottom line would remain that wars would continue to be significant markers in geopolitics as long as greed, fear, honour and interest continue to drive relationships between countries and people.

It is understandable that India does not want to abandon its overarching principles of non-violence and peaceful coexistence as key determinants of its political philosophy. However, considering the realities of modern geostrategic compulsions and expanding national interests, it is high time that it institutes radical changes in the way it records, analyses and disseminates its military history and record of wars that it has fought after Independence. I have disliked the tags of ‘pacifist’ and ‘soft state’ being attached to modern India whenever India’s internal and external wars are discussed in international seminars and academic circles. Honest chronicling of India’s recent wars and conflicts by a soldier scholar with both operational and academic competencies in the form of a flowing narrative, will, I hope, not only contribute to showcasing the country’s military exploits as an intrinsic part of its modern history, but also help in the wider mission of helping the new generation understand the perils of going to war. Reinforcing my mission is a wonderfully researched book by a Yale academic, Prof. Steven Wilkinson, titled Army and Democracy: The Military and Indian Democracy. Published in early 2015, he writes:

New data I have collected for this book show that immediately after independence in 1947 around three quarters of India’s officers and men were from a small number of provinces and ‘classes’… Half of all India’s most senior officers came from one single province, Punjab, with only 5 per cent of the new state’s population. This kind of narrowly recruited and cohesive army is dangerous … Yet despite these challenges India has managed to keep the army out of politics and preserving its democracy unlike its neighbor Pakistan, which has had three long periods of military rule and a lot of indirect army control and interference besides.³

Reading Prof. Wilkinson’s book, which largely attributes the apolitical nature of independent India’s armed forces to structural and deft manoeuvring in the form of coup-proofing by its political masters,⁴ only steeled my resolve to tell the story of modern India’s soldiers, sailors and airmen who have not only ‘stayed clear of politicizing the armed forces but, more importantly, have protected India’s democracy for almost seven decades.

At the purely academic level, I cannot but help share a few perspectives from a paper written recently by Dr Tami Davis Biddle, a faculty member in the Department of National Security and Strategy at the US Army War College. Co-authored with Robert M. Citino from the University of North Texas and titled ‘The Role of Military History in the Contemporary Academy’, the paper is a powerful plea for the widespread examination and analysis of why societies go to war and its various consequences.⁵ The authors go on to argue that military history not only enriches traditional historical discourse, but also influences work in political science, sociology and public policy and plays an important role in developing thoughtful and informed citizens.⁶ Hence, its importance transcends traditional academic boundaries. My understanding of military history blends perfectly with what the two learned academics pitch for when they write:

Several decades ago the phrase ‘new military history’ arose to highlight a shift away from traditional narratives that focused on generalship and troop movements on the battlefield. The ‘new military history’ is simply what military history is today: broad based, inclusive and written from a wide range of perspectives.⁷

The duo emphatically argue that ‘to avoid the study of war is to undermine our opportunity to fully comprehend ourselves – and our evolution over time – in social, political, psychological, scientific and technological realms.’⁸

It is only right that I commence my narrative in Part II by highlighting the DNA and ethos of India’s 1.5-million-strong armed forces as its military exploits over the last five decades are not only largely unknown in most parts of the world, but in many parts of India too. Large portions of southern India are still untouched by the influence of the armed forces; fast-developing Gujarat has amongst the lowest intake into the armed forces despite sharing a long desert and swamp border with Pakistan. The eastern states of Odisha and West Bengal, and portions of the large central state of Madhya Pradesh fare no better. It was time, I felt, that profiling the DNA of one of the finest and most professional armed forces in the world was the first step to ensure that the country at large consistently acknowledged its contribution, both in peace and war.

Another reason to reiterate the importance of studying India’s armed forces and their performance in wars is that if prescriptive theories of modern warfare turn out to be right, and if conventional wars are largely going to be consigned to the pages of history, it is highly possible that the rich ethos, war-fighting traditions and exploits of India’s soldiers, sailors and airmen could fade away into oblivion in the midst of spectacular economic growth, development and prosperity. However, that said, the retention of large volunteer armed forces in the years ahead will remain an inescapable necessity. While this large force may not engage in widespread military action, continued regional instability across multiple fronts and internal fissures and cracks will make it impossible for India to downsize its armed forces.

Indian tales of courage, valour and bravery in the face of insurmountable odds are not an exclusive preserve of the warrior princes of ancient and medieval India, or those of a colonial force in the dust and grime of WW I and WW II, but also of soldiers, sailors and airmen of a secular, democratic and modern India. One of the ways of upholding the pride of India’s armed forces in a largely peaceful world and understanding their role in maintaining peace and stability is by telling its story to people at large in a manner that is neither celebratory or